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A Brief Encounter with Randy Bachman

Randy Bachman walked away from two of Canada’s hottest rock bands, the Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, when they were at the height of their fame. In his new time capsule piece, Arts columnist Brian Brennan tells what happened to him next. An excerpt of Brennan’s Brief Encounters column, Rock ‘n’ Roll Survivor: Randy Bachman: When I first met him in 1978, Randy Bachman had seemingly committed career suicide not once but twice. Or so it seemed to his fans at the time. First he walked away from the Guess Who immediately after the band’s American Woman became the first song by a Canadian rock

Imran Khan’s sad, public flameout

Political rifts in Pakistan widened recently when soldiers expelled demonstrators occupying the Pakistan Television building; at least three protesters died and 400 people were injured, writes International Affairs columnist Jonathan Manthorpe. It’s another example of trouble for Imran Khan. An excerpt of Manthorpe’s new column, Imran Khan: from sports hero to prophet of doom: The occupation of the heart of Pakistan’s capital by thousands of demonstrators demanding the resignation of the government is not so much a political crisis as a sad, public flameout by the protest leader, former cricket hero and international playboy Imran Khan. For over two weeks up to

The Week’s End: Arendt to Louisiana; China to Clam Rolls; Books and Flicks

It’s the Labour Day weekend in parts of the world: a time for a break, to advocate for Workers, even to consider “labour.” The philosopher Hannah Arendt had interesting ideas about labour: she insisted on a distinction between “labour” and “work:” She wrote quite a lot about this in her opus The Human Condition but, in short, defined Labour as providing for basic needs, and Work as creating durable things. Labour may be seen as enslavement to biological processes: to labour is to be seen as an “animal laboran,” wrote Arendt. After they’re consumed the products of labour vanish and so, since

Clam Rolls, Ocean Acidification — and Solutions

Oddly, the new column by Natural Security columnist Chris Wood brought to my mind a sign outside a university chemistry lab when, a lifetime ago, I was studying biology. “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate,” it quipped. It’s a bit of goofy scientist humour — but reading Wood’s piece, I thought, he is part of the solution — because he clearly lays out the problems we face, and presents the solutions needed. The problems of preserving a livable earth are not trivial — but they are, in theory, solvable ones, argues Wood. An excerpt of his new column, Clam rolls:

Norman Maen: from Ireland to Swine Lake with Muppets

Norman Maen had many challenges as a professional choreographer working on both sides of the Atlantic during the 1970s. But as Arts columnist Brian Brennan reports in his new time capsule piece, none was more demanding than Maen’s assignment to devise a routine for Rudolph Nureyev and Miss Piggy on The Muppet Show. An excerpt of Brennan’s Brief Encounters column, Choreographer to the Stars: Norman Maen: I had two questions for choreographer Norman Maen: 1. How did he choreograph an ice show for Olympic skating champion John Curry when Maen didn’t skate? 2. What was it like working with Rudolf Nureyev on

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