Other writing (Page 2)

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On Christmas Eve, Lynne and I watched the Alastair Sim version of A Christmas Carol. It’s something we try to do every year. It is based on a novel Charles Dickens wrote in 1843 and has a lot to do with poverty. Early in the story, a pair of bleeding-heart liberals come to Ebenezer Scrooge’s office raising money for poverty relief. Are there no prisons? Scrooge asks. Are there no workhouses? He sends them away empty-handed. Later, the Ghost of Christmas Present shows him two starving children. The boy is Ignorance, the ghost tells Scrooge, and the girl is Want. Society should beware them both,Read More →

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In: Book Reviews, Other writing, Words

I must admit it. I liked the Netflix adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House. I watched it twice, then borrowed Shirley Jackson’s novel from the library. I was, at first, sixth in line for the only copy they have, but all things come to those who wait. Especially library books. There were five other people waiting in line when I brought it back. Then I found a copy of the 1963 Robert Wise movie The Haunting in The Beat Goes On, one of Guelph’s used stuff shops. It was a much more faithful and straightforward adaptation of the novel than Netflix provided. I wasRead More →

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In: GWSA Photography Club, Images, Other writing, Words

A lot of people say that downtown Guelph looks very different in the daytime and after dark. I can attest it’s true. There are a lot more lights on at night.  The Guelph-Wellington Seniors’ Association (GWSA) Into Focus Photography Club‘s December field trip was a walkabout in the downtown on Monday December 3. We wandered about in the middle of the day and I wondered about the night. About a week later the Guelph Photographers’ Guild had its monthly meeting in the downtown, at the Penny Whistle Pub. Both before and after the meeting I grabbed some views as lit up by lights in and onRead More →

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Culture shifts. Sometimes in a good direction. The pressure to change builds slowly until it is suddenly so apparent that we wonder why it wasn’t always that way. The current poster child for cultural awareness is a 74-year old song Baby It’s Cold Outside. A few years after it was written it made it into a long-forgotten screwball comedy film called Neptune’s Daughter. (This is one of thousands of movies I haven’t seen so I’m relying on Google for my research here.) The song is sung twice in the movie. Once by the romantic leads, Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban, then again by the comicRead More →