Karmic Wisdom

Real quick: This week’s episode of Big Love has the family taking a road trip (and reminding me why I refuse to take road trips). One scene is supposed to take place on the Mississippi, but it was apparently shot in Sacramento. See our familiar Old Sac (with weird faux-southern flags) and golden bridge in [...]

Last night I went to the opera.  Figaro was my first.  When I was in theatre, we would make fun of opera–too much singing, too little acting, but I had to go, especially when the chance presented itself.
I enjoyed it, but I have to say that sometimes the art of the singing did get in [...]

The matchflick column is here:  http://www.matchflick.com/column/1882
I reported a little while ago on Atwood not attending a conference in Dubai because the conference censored an author whose book had a gay muslim character.  Atwood (and the rest of us) have since learned that the conference says they didn’t censor the book or author, but that they [...]

First, the bad:
Steven Page is leaving Barenaked Ladies. Perhaps it has finally occurred to him that he is a bloke who is often dressed? Will miss his voice.  Am trepidacious about his upcoming “solo” career, even though he’s incredibly talented.
And now the good news: Stillman (aka Chaz) had one of his songs featured at isound. [...]

So I tried crumpets for the first time day–Trader Joe’s rarely does me wrong.  Are they supposed to taste like doughy english muffins and sit heavily in the stomach?
I’ve been watching The Simpsons all week (from the beginning), making notes, and checking the wikipedia entries for things I may have missed (this has led to [...]

A little ways into The History of Love by Nicole Krauss, it occurred to me that the book had a lot in common with Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.  I read Foer’s book with my book group, but I wasn’t that fond of it.  Krauss seems to be doing what Foer [...]

These days, the only people who are commenting on the blog are people from .ru. At first, I was getting a bunch of messages that said “yoooo, dr-karma is the best name ever!” They were accompanied by links to other pages, which basically made them ads. Today I have five comments all pending for “A [...]

Atwood has pulled out of an appearance at the International Festival in Dubai after a British author was banned from the conference due to homosexual content in her work. Dubai is supposed to be the Vegas of the Arab world, but as many countries’ leaders have told us (I’m looking at you, Iran), there are [...]

Just a quick note. Eddie has won “best solo performance” at the British theatre awards. Yea, Eddie!

So, I don’t have to celebrate this holiday, right?  I mean, I’m not Catholic, so I don’t have to do Saints’ days.  However, Jeopardy! just taught me that some believe this holiday was actually based on a Roman fertility festival.  So if I’m feeling pagan . . .
I’ve never been that into this holiday.  It’s [...]