Dive into the archives.

  • Excerpt: An age of austerity for the arts

    A side-effect of my recent love affair with Adrian Searle’s Private Views has been an expanded interest in the other cultural podcasts offered by The Guardian’s website. While the critical heft doesn’t quite compete with CBC’s Ideas (a long-standing favourite of mine), the series of recordings from the 2009 Cambridge Festival of Ideas have been […]

  • Writing in the snow

    Despite this blog’s title, neither of the two links I’m about to throw out here have anything to do with writing your name in the snow by urinating, so if you’re looking for that, you’ll have to try somewhere else.
    But if you’re any sort of writer, and especially the sort of writer toiling away north […]

  • Is that the apocalypse I hear?

    It must be, because surely that isn’t Stephen Harper - Canada’s Prime Minister and he who disdains the arts with their posh red-carpet galas - showing off his musical chops at, dare I say it, a posh red-carpet gala?
    Except that it is. In a move that I’m not sure whether to judge as blatant hypocrisy […]

  • Three Reasons Why Power Brokers are Bad for Art

    Having just fallen under a sudden avalanche of task-mastering, today’s post has been outsourced to the wider wisdom of the internet: yes, it’s a links post. Let’s just pretend this is an episode of Connections, and hope the whirl of to-do’s settles in time for something profound come Friday.
    From CultureGrrl - “United We Serve”: Should […]

  • Albert Alexanian appointed to OAC’s Board of Directors

    I have to admit that there is something quite sweet about receiving blog-fodder via a medium that isn’t the internet, so naturally my little analogue heart was set a-flutter by receiving word that Albert Alexanian - Hamilton-based, carpet-and-flooring-mongering Albert Alexanian - has been appointed to the Board of the Ontario Arts Council via good old […]