Michael Robert Dyet's Blog, page 87

David Letterman: Beer, Wine and Other Cocktails

Hmmm, David Letterman jumped into the sack with some of the female staff on his TV show. Excuse me while I yawn. Am I the only one weary of these tempests in a teapot?

 

Sex scandals among Hollywood celebrities are about as common as house flies and equally annoying. (At least we can swat the flies and be rid of them.) As usual what interests me is the subtext behind the headlines.

 

Let's start with the media and their feeding frenzy when they catch wind of a scandal. The earthquake in...

Random Act Of Metaphor: Graveyard Stones

Hmmm, are we living simultaneously in the past, the present and the future?

 

On my morning commute I pass a small graveyard landlocked in the midst of a bustling industrial area. A living relic of the past. It would have been comparatively easy to relocate the gravestones and put the land to commercial use. Run roughshod over the memories and violate the sacred ground.

 

But someone chose not to. Someone chose to say no to the developers who are poised to snatch up every square inch of...

RANDOM ACT OF METAPHOR: White Noise

Hmmm, have we become addicted to noise? That ubiquitous din and clamor that punctuates every waking moment of our lives.

 

In the office where I work we have a "white noise" system. A quiet hum piped into the background to diffuse voices and other ambient sound. Once in a while it's turned off for a few minutes. When that happens heads pop up from cubicles like gophers out of their holes. We're startled, confused and a bit anxious. We know something has changed but we're not quite sure what...

THE NEW YELLOW BRICK ROAD

Hmmm, how is that we have become such an attention-deficit society? Always craving change, forever chasing the next big thing, convinced the greener pasture is just over the next pay grade. The signs are here, there and everywhere.

 

For ever and ever till death do us part… Well, not so much anymore. More than 1/3 of marriages will end in divorce before the 30th anniversary. Apparently the fourth year is the riskiest one. Seems we're too impatient to wait for the seven year itch.

 

A generation...

The 12 Moods of the Rebel Wind

Hmmm, is there anything in nature quite like it? Mysterious, shapeless, ghostly and yet with so many faces. We can't see it or touch it or smell it. So how do we know it is really there?

 

Most of nature is bound to form and substance. But the wind knows no such boundaries. It exists, it would seem, only in relation to the things it acts upon. But we miss much of the majesty of nature if we rely only on what our senses can interpret. The wind is the unseen spirit of nature.

 

A frame of reference is

HARRY POTTER AND THE CORPORATE BOOGEYMAN

Hmmm, how did a children's book character named Harry Potter become one of the cultural icons of our generation?

 

Before we attempt to unravel this latest mystery of life, let's examine the evidence.

 

Exhibit A: The Google test. Harry Potter: 154,000,000 hits. Jesus Christ: 50,700,000…Tiger Woods: 29,200,000… Tom Cruise: 28,900,000… Bill Gates: 28,100,000…  My calculator almost had a meltdown crunching these numbers but the sum total is this: Harry Potter is more popular than Jesus Christ, Tiger

THE BLACKBERRY: A PARADIGM SHIFT

 

Hmmm, did the delicate balance of man and machine shift off kilter when the Blackberry was born?

 

Seems to me it was more than just a leap forward in technology. It was a true paradigm shift.  What exactly is paradigm shift? It's something that causes a radical shift from one way of thinking to another. A metamorphosis from which we awaken to a new reality.

 

We really shouldn't be surprised when it happens. There have been a series of paradigm shifts in communications in the last two centuries. S

ELEGY FOR MICHAEL JACKSON

 

Hmmm, where were you when you heard that Michael Jackson had died?

 

There is perhaps no greater measure of the impact an individual has had than to be immortalized in that question. Michael Jackson is in that honoured company. The difference, some may argue, is that he makes the list as much for his eccentric behaviour as for his incredible accomplishments. But is he that different?

 

The truth is all superstars are flawed in one way or another. Often bigger than life in both the heights they reac

WINGED WISPS OF SUMMERTIME

It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. 

Vita Sackville-West, English author and poet

 

Hmmm, the butterfly of the moment. Now there's a bewitching metaphor. Have you ever tried to catch a butterfly? Oh sure, it looks easy. Just reach out and snag it, right? You might as well try to catch the wind.

 

I confess. I am fascinated

Running Against the Wind

Against the wind

I’m still running against the wind

Well I’m older now and still running

Against the wind

 

Hmmm, have you ever been caught in one of those bumper-to-bumper, no-way-out, what-idiot-caused-this, if-this-doesn’t-end-soon-I’m-going-to-go-postal… traffic jams?

 

I was in a killer one last night. An hour into the two and a half hour ordeal Bob Seger’s “Running Against the Wind” played on the car radio. As I was muttering under my breath at the irony – “Not funny, God. NOT FUNNY!” – it occ