culture - Michael Kalus.ca

culture

A collection of 13 posts

Books of January 2021

Books of January 2021

The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962-1976 by Frank Dikötter I did not know a whole lot about the cultural revolution. I was aware of broad strokes, as well as some high level ideas about Mao, this book def. did fill in a lot of the gaps. It was also

2020 - A (media) review

2020 - A (media) review

Well, thank god this is over, even though it’s merely symbolic. Most of the things that dogged us this year will be with us in 2021 as well, at least for a good chunk of it. So without further ado, here is a selection of media recommendation and warnings

March 2020 Culture and Media Review

March 2020 Culture and Media Review

Books The Image - A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America by Daniel J. Boorstin This book dates back to the 1960s, but so much of it could just have been written today. It sort of shows just how strong the human condition is. Rating: 4/5 Trump and his Generals

Stuck inside? Take a journey through Russia’s iconic Hermitage museum

Stuck inside? Take a journey through Russia’s iconic Hermitage museum

Experience a 5 hr 19 min 28 sec cinematic journey through one of the world’s biggest museums in St. Petersburg, Russia. Take in 45 galleries, 588 masterpieces, and live performances. Watch the highlights: 00:01:25 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49YeFsx1rIw&t=85s] Jordan Staircase 00:49:

February 2020 Culture and Media Review

February 2020 Culture and Media Review

Books Geostorm series (Book 1 - 3) by Bobby Akart Back in December I read Akart’s “Pandemic” series and though it was okay for the first 1 1/2 books before it became boring and in general was rather cookie cutter. Unfortunately with Geostorm there aren’t really any

Goodbye Musette Café (for now?)

Goodbye Musette Café (for now?)

Today Musette Café had its last day here on Burrard Street. It was a road cycling inspired café, though inspired doesn’t quite do it justice. It was a form of community hub for a lot of cyclists. Origins I came across the original Musette by chance. It was tucked

November 2019 Review

November 2019 Review

Books Rat f**ked: The True Story Behind The Secret Plan To Steal America's Democracy by David Daley This is one of these books that only interests you if you have an interest in American politics. To be fair to the book, I am not really. I am interested though

August 2019 Media Review

August 2019 Media Review

Books Star Wars Thrawn — Book 2 — Alliances by Timothy Zahn The second book in the new Thrawn saga and it changes the tone a bit. It runs in two timelines parallel, one where Thrown and Anakin are going on an adventure, and a second, “present” timeline where Darth Vader and

July 2019 Review

July 2019 Review

Books The Edge of Anarchy - The Railroad Barons, the Gilded Age, and the Greatest Labour Uprising in America by Jack Kelly I picked this purely by title and it wasn’t quite what I had expected. The book mostly centres around the last, great labour struggle in the US

June 2019 Review

June 2019 Review

Books Level Up Trilogy by Dan Sugralinov This was actually a surprisingly entertaining story. In some ways it is reminiscent of “Ready Player One”. What if you life suddenly turned into a Role Playing Game? Where you could level up stats, see other people’s stats and generally try to

March 2017

Movies Fiction Fantastic Beasts and where to find them I never really got into the whole “Harry Potter” series. I tried reading the books but didn’t get too far. There wasn’t really a lot that caught my imagination. There was just too much other stuff that appealed to

February 2017

TV Fiction The Grand Tour Okay, this started way back in December, but I figured I wait until the series ends before I comment on it. Short recap: There once was a rather popular show that had something to with cars, called TopGear. Almost two years ago though the main

Goodbye, Rdio

Goodbye, Rdio. December 22nd may not be the day that the music died, but it is the day that the, in my opinion, best streaming service died. So what made Rdio so good? It wasn't the sound quality necessarily, they did stream up to 320kbps MP3s, which is good and