Archives for June 2005

Michael Geist has posted

June 21, 2005 by Michael Boyle

Michael Geist has posted

a preliminary analysis and summary of Canada’s proposed copyright bill, aka Bill C-60. Geist writes, “There is simply no denying that the lobbying efforts of the copyright owners, particularly the music industry, have paid off as they are the big winners in this bill. The bill focuses almost exclusively on creating new rights for this select group…” This is definitely a file to follow in the weeks and months ahead.

Later…Geist has followed up with a Bill C-60 Users Guide that goes through it point by point. Good reading.

There was a lot happening

June 20, 2005 by Michael Boyle

There was a lot happening

in the sporting world over the weekend, but I can’t remember anything as bizarre as what happened at the US Grand Prix on Sunday: F1 begins to count the cost of its darkest hour. In short, there are two tire suppliers to the ten teams (Bridgestone and Michelin), and one of them – Michelin – determined that the tires it had supplied for the race wouldn’t be safe on the circuit. So they had all of the teams running on their product pull out of the race. The race ran, but with only 6 competitiors! Blame has being freely apportioned ever since.

The Book thing going around:

June 18, 2005 by Michael Boyle

The Book thing going around:

Number of books I own:
About 2000 or so, all tolled. Packed for moving, between the two of us we have about 20 boxes. That includes cookbooks!
Last books bought:
The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World, John Ralston Saul
Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf
Last Book Read:
London: the Biography, Peter Ackroyd (non-fiction)
The System of the World, Neal Stephenson (fiction)
Five Books that Mean a Lot to Me:
The Famished Road, Ben Okri
Digital Delirium, Arthur and Marilouise Kroker, eds. (I devoted a great deal of time working on it with the editors)
Selections from the Prison Notebooks, Antonio Gramsci
In the Skin of a Lion, Michael Ondaatje
The Deptford Trilogy (Fifth Business, The Manticore, and World of Wonders), Robertson Davies
Best UnAsked Meme Question:
What is the breakdown of fiction and non-fiction in your reading habits? How do you account for this?
Tag Five People with this Meme:
AJ (West of the Expressway)
Ed (Blork blog)
Kevin (Mobtown Blues)
Patrick (i.never.nu)
Heather (Lectio.ca)

We’re in the midst of packing

June 17, 2005 by Michael Boyle

We’re in the midst of packing

for the move here, so we went out for an early dinner and came home and happened upon a wonderful documentary on TV: Pie in the Sky: The Brigid Berlin Story.

Brigid Berlin was a key member of Andy Warhol’s entourage for many years, and it would be tempting, and easy, to just look at her like any of the other tragic cases that surrounded Warhol – as in fact the “user reviewer” on the IMDB listing for the film did.

Unlike most of the others that we’ve seen in film after film over the years, Berlin, although clearly suffering from an obsessive-compulsive disorder, was also a legitimate artist, as avant-garde or more than anyone else around Warhol and arguably pushing Warhol himself, not following in the wake of the mad environment he nurtured. And as such it was fascinating – a film not about a hanger-on, but about someone who was clearly a trusted confidante and equal of Andy Warhol himself. Troubled like everyone else in that world, but definitely not a “user” or anything like that. Highly recommended for anyone who has any interest in that time in New York.

There have been a lot of positive reviews

June 16, 2005 by Michael Boyle

There have been a lot of positive reviews

for the new Batman movie, “Batman Begins“, most of them lamenting what the previous series of movies sunk to by the time Batman & Robin came out. The trouble is these reviews tend to lump all of those together, which does a great disservice to the Burton/Keaton Batman. The new Batman is supposed to be edgy and dark and feature Wayne/Batman’s psychological problems prominently? Well so did Burton’s film, and I would be very surprised if Christian Bale can pull it off any better than the surprising Michael Keaton did 16 years earlier.