I have pet peeves, though why I keep them as pets I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps we all need bits of special grit that irritate us usefully about unimportant things, opening small vents for some the pressure that builds up thanks to civilization so that our lids don’t blow right off — rather in the way that humour might be seen as a relatively safe form of aggression. I think of this as the snuff theory of peevishness: carry your irritants in a pouch with you at all times; administer a dose when tension rises too high; release the stress . . . [more]

I’m a Dr. Who fan. I make this admission (probably an admission against interest) freely and with some pleasure, because “science fiction” — whatever that term might mean — was my introduction to books, libraries and the ecstasy of reading and reading and reading. Of course, when I grew up I “put away childish things” — Mrs. Hill, my grade ten English teacher, said I had to — but not until I’d taken Theodore Sturgeon, Arthur Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Walter Miller, etc. etc. thoroughly on board. So no one was more pleased than I when the Beeb took . . . [more]

Back in the day some important numbers in music were 78, 33 1/3, and 45. Now, of course, numbers just don’t enter into it — the “it” being the speed at which data is lifted off a medium: “faster” (cousin to “more”) is the only watchword, as numbers exponent (should be a real verb) beyond our understanding.

(An interesting sidelight: I always thought these numbers represented technological progress or something akin to that. Turns out that, like so much else, they were simply fabrications born of capitalist competition, designed to dupe the rubes. And for a forehead-slapping “Doh!” incident, I . . . [more]

Right up there with breathing, drinking, eating and that other thing, there’s a basic human need to make sense — and to name it after yourself. I mean, the world’s a confusing place in which the occasional region of regularity can give you the break you need to recover your equanimity. And what better name to give to this “happy place” of order than your own? Yes, it’s definitely a win-win, as they say when you break the tape-tape.

Which explains why it’s been done a whole lot for all fields in which “law” is a useful descriptor. Order, regularity, . . . [more]

I had my first cullen skink the other day.

I felt a little as dear M. Jourdain must have felt when he learned he’d been speaking prose all his life, for I’ve had many a chowder in my time that’s come within a ace of skink, had I but known it. Finnan haddie, potatoes, onions, milk or cream. But the name! A delicious mouthful all on its own. Cullen’s a town pretty much in the top right-hand corner of Scotland, and skink, well that’s a Scottish word originally for a shin of beef but later generalized to mean a . . . [more]

Naming has been problematic ever since Adam got the job of dubbing a billion or more different creatures. For one thing, you run out of options, or your imagination fails. For another, you want the name to be distinctive, perhaps, but not abstruse or downright daft. Brains get cudgelled and books get consulted. What shall we call the baby?

I started thinking about this . . . [more]

Things are more complicated than you imagine — at least I find that to be so.

I mean: there are more than 250 species of bumble bees alone; bees are more genetically related to ants than they are to wasps; and some bees are blue.

Hell, complexity is itself complex: it’s there whether you take the short or the long view. Drop back and not only are there 258 species of bumble bee, but thirteen whole families of bees, of which apidae, the family to which bumbles belong, is only one — and one shared by a host of . . . [more]

You sidle up to the bar and ask what beers they’ve got. Suppressing your disappointment that it’s all in bottles, you quickly run by the alcowater from down south that passes for so much beer nowadays and seize upon the only import available. “I’ll have a — ” Now, how will you say it? If you happen to know German, as I do, you’ve got a bit of a problem. If you say Löwenbräu — pronounced something like lerven-broy, you’re likely to get a glassful of incomprehension; but if you say Lowenbrau — low-en-brow — not only might a . . . [more]

I cannot resist employing useless things. One reason, I guess, is that I’ve been taught and brought up since the year dot to be useful. Naturally, this leads to a hankering after the useless, that which is instrumental to no purpose and the disappearance of which would not materially change the world. Music is one such. (Note, I said materially.) As is poetry and, indeed, most art. There is no point to any of it — and that is the lovely point, of course.

But poetry, painting, music . . . these are the heavies, when it comes to uselessness. . . . [more]

It started with a pen — a uni-ball Jetstream, as it happens, an instrument that a panel of experts on The Wirecutter has ruled “the best affordable pen.” So, of course I promptly went out and acquired a uni-ball Jetstream pen, which, I’m happy to say, works a right proper treat.

Sometimes a pen is just a pen, as someone might once have said.

But not in this case, because I began wondering about what good a pen is nowadays. It’s useful for signing things, I suppose, but if John Gregory and other sensible modernizers have their way that archaism . . . [more]

This is one of those fillips where I let someone else do all the work. And in this case it’s a young man named Tim Blais who’ll do the heavy lifting. But that’s okay because the force is with him. The unified force, it seems.

Tim’s a recent graduate of the Master of Science program at McGill University whose thesis goes by the catchy title of “A new quantization condition for parity-violating three-dimensional gravity.” Excellent, right?

But Tim’s a little different. Oh sure, he’s prepared to violate parity, but he does it in the coolest way — at least when . . . [more]

To acknowledge the fact that it’s Toronto International Film Festival time in Toronto, I thought we’d have a look at some of the weird and wonderful film work from a NY auteur, Casey Neistat. What got my attention was his offbeat commercial for Mercedes Benz:

The catchy tune is “It’s You” by Duck Sauce. (This is now in my Road Trip playlist.)

And like the canny self-promoter that he is, Neistat has released videos on YouTube about the making of the commercial: 1, 2, 3.

To get a sense of his full range, go to . . . [more]