My Muse ~ Movies, Music & Books
Journeys and words inspired by the arts...
I can remember the first time I heard this album, Zuma. I was all of 20 years old, ski bumming in Whistler, BC, and gathered with a bunch of friends after the bars had closed. I can’t remember her name. She was skinny and not very attractive in any traditional […]
Blade Runner is among my favourite films. In a veritable symphony of cinematic elements — cinematography, script, production design, soundtrack, direction, acting — it doesn’t miss a note. The film touches on all the major themes of the human condition: love, death, good and evil, redemption, justice, ethics, greed, passion. […]
April is my month of the extraordinary. In April 1991, I took the first job I was offered after having been unceremoniously fired by my previous employer. A year later, I’d had enough of the computing industry and was poised to quit that job…when Microsoft bought the company I was […]
I started a post about courage, featuring this song, a couple or three weeks ago. It’s still sitting in the drafts folder. The Tragically Hip are a favourite Canadian band from the late ’80s and early ’90s, a time when I, and many other Canadians, considered them the best rock […]
I’ve had a life-long fascination with progressive rock and the avante garde movement in music. Bands like Genesis, Pink Floyd, Talking Heads and Jethro Tull for sure, but also some more obscure folks you weren’t likely to hear on the radio. People like Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, John Cage and […]
Maybe it’s due to the thick layer of clouds busting down with rain overnight and today. Maybe it’s about getting caught up in a rearward look last night. Maybe it’s about the upbeat glee of a gift and a moment shared with a friend across the miles. I’m not sure […]
Tijuana Cartel plays with verve and an infectious rhythm that brings a crowd gleefully to their feet. Paul George’s virtuoso flamenco guitar challenges the dance club keys of Carey O’Sullivan and the whole marvellous fusion gets thrummed into a frenzy by latin percussionist Daniel Gonzales. Frequent guest player Shannon van […]
Bif Naked came into my life in an odd way, the leading edge of a wave of the odd, the uncanny, the revelatory. This song has a lot of meaning for me, coming as it did the fist time amidst upheaval, chaos and — ultimately — awakening. And she came […]
A trip across Australia with Midnight Oil and Yothu Yindi in a Holden Gemini leads to passionate encounters with love and the extraordinary passion and beauty of Ingrid Karklins' music.
Every now and again I’ll find myself humming a tune — I’m usually humming a tune, somewhere in my subconscious — just… suddenly, I’ll become aware that I am, and I’ll know just as suddenly I need to figure out why… Not that I can just right now but this […]
