http://patrickmackenzie.com/blog Is this public space? Tue, 09 Sep 2008 06:11:19 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The Order of Good Cheer by Bill Gaston Anansi, 2008; 391 pp.; $29.95 The Order of Good Cheer maintains a precarious balance between comedy and tragedy. It is tragic because most of the novel is mired in the ennui of not one but two winters of discontent. It is comic because it ... http://patrickmackenzie.com/blog/?p=157 In the darkness of four o'clock in the morning, he pulled on the handle of the door of the three story walk-up where he lived to see if the lock held. The door swung open like an offer. When he left for work the previous day, he had pressed with tape to the thick ... http://patrickmackenzie.com/blog/?p=156 Whether you love them or hate them, you’ve really got to hand it to those venerable hosers from the Great White North: while lesser bands from their nascent era (that’s the early 70’s) have either gone tits-up or are touring the casino circuit in an attempt to cash in on ... http://patrickmackenzie.com/blog/?p=154 The Culture of Flushing: A social and Legal History of Sewage By Jamie Benidickson UBC Press, 2007; 404 pp.; $29.95 The Culture of Flushing: A Social and Legal History of Sewage, by University of Ottawa law professor Jamie Benidickson is primarily an exhaustive, and at times dense, account of western civilization’s environmentally unsound ... http://patrickmackenzie.com/blog/?p=152 Is it possible to refer to Modest Mouse as a pop band? In the sense that they seem to have emerged from the wreckage of grunge and carry with them a definite predisposition towards all things loud and guitar oriented, the answer for a lot of people might be no. ... http://patrickmackenzie.com/blog/?p=151 The Counterfeiters uncovers a little-known piece of Nazi concentration camp history and turns it into a riveting drama of survival. A motley group of Jewish men – some from legitimate and others from not so legitimate backgrounds and led by master counterfeiter Salomon (Sally) Sorowitsch – are taken out of ... http://patrickmackenzie.com/blog/?p=147 Even though I was never a big fan, I was saddened to hear of the death of extraordinary musician and person Jeff Healy. I do not want to sound dismissive of musical ability, but flashy blues oriented guitar playing has never been my cup of tea – and this is ... http://patrickmackenzie.com/blog/?p=145 Coming on the heels of the federal budget, the writing of this week’s installment might sound like it’s inspired by that hallowed day when, in carefully chosen rhetoric, the government in power – this time the minority Conservatives – will lay out how they plan to spend, or not spend, ... http://patrickmackenzie.com/blog/?p=142 Michael Clayton begins with a series of night shots passing over and through the office towers of Manhattan. As the camera presumably presents the audience with the faceless centers of commerce and law, a voiceover spoken through a phone with the clarity of a manic-depressive on a high accompanies the ... http://patrickmackenzie.com/blog/?p=140 After the light-hearted yet dark – and comparatively short – Punch Drunk Love, Paul Thomas Anderson returns to epic movie making in his latest film There Will Be Blood. But whereas the sprawling Boogie Nights and Magnolia seem to have been concerned with the profane details of their all-too-human characters, ... http://patrickmackenzie.com/blog/?p=136