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Showing posts from March, 2017

Agnus Dei - Samuel Barber LIVE

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I was just browsing through some concert reviews I filed more than 15 years ago, and came across one I wrote on a Quintessential Vocal Ensemble concert in May 2000. The choir, conducted by Susan Quinn and primarily populated by Holy Heart of Mary graduates, was in its prime at the time. One of the pieces it performed was Samuel Barber's Agnus Dei, which the composer set to his famous Adagio for Strings. You can find it on QVE's album Ave Maris Stella. Meanwhile, here's a rendition I found performed by the Flemish Radio Choir based in Brussels. Beautiful.

I'll take the blue pill — and I don't mean Viagra

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  A belated review of The Red Pill , a film by Cassie Jaye In February, federal Conservative leadership hopeful Maxime Bernier received an endorsement from Alberta Wildrose MLA Derek Fildebrandt. It was an important coup for Bernier who would normally face an uphill battle convincing right-leaning Albertans to bet on a Quebecer. He wanted to tweet something clever, something to show that Fildebrandt "gets it" — that he sees the real thing when he sees it. So he posted the following meme. It's an allusion to a scene from the 1999 film The Matrix in which the main character is offered a choice: take the blue pill and remain in the artificial reality you're blissfully trapped in now, or take the red pill and discover what's really going on behind the scenes. As metaphors go, it's a sledgehammer. And it's been exploited endlessly since the film came out. We're being manipulated by the system. Do you want to wake up to reality, or stay