Even where none of the parts of a good whole are bad, or a bad whole good, it often happens that the value of a complex whole cannot be measured by adding together the value of its parts; the whole is often better or worse than the sum of the value of its parts. In all aesthetic pleasures, for example, it is important that the object admired should really be beautiful: in the admiration of what is ugly there is something ridiculous, or even sometimes repulsive, although, apart from the object there may be no difference in the value of the emotion per se.

Continue reading »

Popularity: 28% [?]

Scott Pilgrim, written by Bryan Lee O’Malley, is pretty much Awesome Incarnate.

Scott Pilgrim was recently optioned by Universal, and will star Michael Cera,⁽¹⁾ who, upon re-reading book 1, should be damn-near perfect as Scott.

The film version of Scott Pilgrim Versus the World will hit theatres in 2010, but right now they’re shooting around my neighbourhood⁽²⁾ (which is what prompted me to reread the comics).⁽³⁾

I’m very excited to see how this film will turn out. In the meantime, a breakdown of the five books published thusfar: Continue reading »

Popularity: 100% [?]

Footnotes:

1. How does this kid not have his own website yet? [↩]
2. They began March 30th, according to ScottPilgrim.com. [↩]
3. It was kind of weird to see snow machines all over the place with large puffy blankets of white over at Casa Loma and elsewhere in the neighbourhood. Had they come a months earlier they could’ve had the real stuff. [↩]

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance – Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
Quirk Classics 978-1-59474-344-4, 319 pp. (incl. Reader’s Discussion guide), 2009

Jane Austen’s works have recently come out of copyright, allowing anyone to republish the texts. Some have been a little more innovative. There’s a new film, Pride and Predator, expected to come out in 2010, and, of course, the mash-up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Austen’s original classic interspersed with martial arts and zombie mayhem by Seth Grahame-Smith.

While I’ve read some Jane Austen before, I hadn’t read Pride and Prejudice.⁽¹⁾ I corrected this, then proceeded to read one of the silliest books I’ve ever read. Continue reading »

Popularity: 19% [?]

Footnotes:

1. Or seen the film(s?), for that matter. [↩]

The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, by Sam Harris

W. W. Norton, 978-0-393-32765-6, 348 pp. (incl. notes, bibliography and index), 2004

I picked up Sam Harris’ The End of Faith after watching The Four Horsemen, a two hour atheist roundtable he appeared in with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett. I found many of Harris’ comments on spirituality intriguing, though I found myself repulsed by bigoted comments regarding Islam.

The End of Faith deals with several themes surrounding religion and why it’s no good (to put it mildly). Harris rightly states that “most religions offer no valid mechanism by which their core beliefs can be tested and revised, each new generation of believers is condemned to inherit the superstitions and tribal hatreds of its predecessors”.⁽¹⁾ Worse, religions tend to decry critical examination of any kind.

The bulk of  Harris’s criticism of religion is is focused on Christianity and vitriol towards Islam. While the underlying sentiment is sound – that religion induces people who might otherwise make good friends and neighbours to kill and maim one another at the behest of grotesquely cruel imaginary beings – the conclusions Harris draws regarding what is to be done about these irrationally harmful beliefs is disquieting, to say the least. Continue reading »

Popularity: 7% [?]

Footnotes:

1. p. 31 [↩]

New Tree

I dislike gardening, so it’s fortunate that I only have a small front garden, and a tiny vegetable patch in the back yard.

Today I planted a little tree in the front garden, which annoyed my neighbour, who proceeded to advised me that he intends to prune any branches which cross the property line. After saying he was fine with the tree.

He’s concerned that it will hang over his non-existent car in his non-existent driveway. Which he will pave. One day. And the tree’s ok. Except he’ll prune it if it crosses the little fence to his property line. But it’s fine.

Right. I think I have  a few years. Continue reading »

Popularity: 2% [?]