BANISHING BOREDOM
Bloggery on music, books, films, travel, wildlife and dark matters.
The Strange Ballad of Evan C. Jones: a Tribute/Obit to and for the SNFU Drummer
A pioneer of hardcore punk drumming and vital member of the Edmonton music scene, Evan lived fast, died middle-aged and left a small yet sound legacy. Evan C Jones cracked me up and bewildered me right from the first time I met him until our last message exchanges on...
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Review of Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
One good thing about the pandemic was catching up on classics like “Farewell, My Lovely” by Raymond Chandler. For a book published 80 years ago, it’s surprisingly fresh and prescient. FISTFUL OF RAYMOND CHANDLER In Chandler’s second Philip Marlowe PI...
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Shooting Stars like Kurt Cobain: Portrait of a Rock Photographer
As a photographer Martyn Goodacre is mostly remembered for his famous black and white shot of Kurt Cobain, but he framed many more stars of rock, cinema and literature before living in Thailand for many years. The music business is a Roman circus of debauchery and...
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Elegy for a Cat by a Panel of Experts on Love and Loss from the Writing World
The recent death of my cat in a freak accident left me feeling both inconsolable yet unable to express the enormity of that loss to myself or anyone else. Words by Jim Algie After his passing, I decided not to make an announcement on social media. I’ve taken that...
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Remembering Mr. Chi Pig: the High-flying, Low-Falling Frontman of SNFU
The passing of the cult-famous punk singer of SNFU last year inspired a torrent of online tributes from fans, critics and musicians like Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, but few of them came from those who first knew him as a teenaged skateboarder from Edmonton....
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Thailand’s Last Executioner: Obituary for a Kindly Killer
What sort of cold-blooded executioner leans over a sub-machine-gun bolted to the floor, takes aim at a target on a white curtain in front of a condemned man strapped to a cross, and then pumps 10 to 15 bullets into his back? A family man, a rock musician, an altruist,...
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