Photo of the Week - November 8, 2026

This week's photo shows part of Pickering's Esplanade Park behind City Hall with giant poppies to commemorate Remembrance Day (November 11). Taken with my Pixel 8 Pro.

Preparing for Remembrance Day

 

Saturday Sounds - Oscar Peterson, Ben Webster - During This Time

This week's musical treat features a Canadian jazz legend, Oscar Peterson in concert, recorded December 14th, 1972 at the 84th NDR Jazzworkshop in Studio II, Hannover, Germany. Peterson's trio of Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen on bass and Tony Inzalaco on drums is joined by the great Ben Webster on saxophone. 

Setlist

01. Poutin‘ 0:00:00

02. Sunday 0:08:55

03. I Got It Bad And That Ain’t Good 0:16:11

04. Perrdido 0:23:54

05. Come Sunday 0:31:59

06. For All We Know 0:39:37

07. Cotton Tail 0:50:20

08. Ben’s Blues 0:57:20

The video is quite good for 1972 and the audio is excellent (in stereo, even). The performance is up to Peterson's usual high standards. This really makes me regret never seeing him perform in person. Enjoy. 

"I Voted" the Stickers Said

I, like many other people, am still trying to evaluate the results of Tuesday's mid-term elections in the United States. It was clear before the election that the Democrats would likely do well, but the magnitude of their performance was astonishing. 

This image, from ‘I Have Seen the Enemy, and It Is Us’: Inside Team Trump’s Historic Collapse (gift link) in the New York Times sums up the national mood  better than the reams of text (including the excellent Times' article) than anything else I've seen. The caption reads "Stickers reading “I voted” on Wednesday at the memorial site for Alex Pretti, who was killed by federal agents in Minneapolis. Credit...Tim Evans/Reuters"

I Voted

From Dean Blundell, here's a look at what the scene was like in the White House on Tuesday night after the election results started coming in. The smart staffers have already left. 

Here is what White House insiders are now leaking to the Daily Mail, the Daily Beast and anyone else who will listen, because the first rule of a Trump disaster is that everyone inside it immediately starts talking.

Within an hour of the first results on Tuesday night, Trump retreated to the second-floor private residence with Natalie Harp, the 35-year-old aide who follows him around with a printer, and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. He put Fox News on. And then, according to one source, he stopped speaking. Not quiet. Not sulking. Paralyzed. One insider described him as barely getting a word out. Another said the residence was “very, very dark” and called it a dark scene, which is the kind of thing you say when you want the reporter to understand you mean the lighting and the man.

 Downstairs, Cabinet officials, advisers and MAGA hangers-on had gathered in the East Room expecting a party. Somebody had ordered platters of Cheesecake Factory appetizers. The word used by the Mail’s source for this plan was “delusional,” and I don’t think I can improve on it. By 10 o’clock, the trays were uneaten, and the senior people were gone, out the door and into the bars of Washington to drink and figure out who was going to get fired.

On a peronal note, my ex-wife won election to the Fairfield Township Board of Elections in Indiana. Go, Amy! 

 

Wildwood Is Amazing

We just got back from seeing Wildwood. If you haven't heard about it, it's a fantasy epic, filmed in a mix of stop-motion and digital, produced by the same people who did Coraline. And it is amazing. 

I haven't seen a film that drew me into its world in years the way Wildwood  did. I'd compare it to the first Avatar or Lord of the Rings in that respect. The story is OK with a mix of many standard fantasy tropes with some sly humour thrown in for the adults. (It's rated PG-13; I wouldn't bring a six-year-old to it.) But visually, it's jaw dropping. Don't be put off by the stop motion; it's better than most of the CGI superhero epics polluting the screens these days. 

Try to see it in a theatre instead of waiting for streaming. You need the big screen to appreciate the detail that went into building the world. Even having watched the "Making of" video, I still can't imagine the amount of effort it must have taken to bring Wildwood to the screen.

 

We went to an afternoon screening and there were maybe a dozen people in the theatre. I hope evening shows draw a bigger audience; I would really like to see this be a big hit. Even if it doesn't draw huge audiences, I think it will become a movie that people will still be watching twenty years from now. 

30 Days of Dead

Once more, it's time for 30 Days of Dead where for each day in November you can download a high-quality MP3 of a Grateful Dead song. Even better than that, it's free.  

t's a Dead Head's most wonderful time of the year! Welcome to another 30 days of unreleased Grateful Dead tracks from the vault, one for every day of November, selected by archivist and producer David Lemieux. The tracks are yours, 100% free gua-ran-teed, but the real fun is taking part in the challenge for the chance to win some sweet swag from the Dead.

I've been downloading these since they started in 2010 and spent many hours listening and enjoying the Dead's music. 

Movie and TV Reviews - October 2026

Short reviews of movies and TV shows I watched in October. We're back to watching more TV now that the Jays season is over.

Movies

• Avatar: Fire and Ash. I enjoyed the first movie, the second not as much, and this one not at all. Far too long and the aliens being a clone of North American indigenous peoples is getting on my nerves. (Amazon Prime)
• Masterplan: A heist thriller about a master art forger who decides to steal the Mona Lisa. Well done, light entertainment. (Netflix)

TV Shows

• Neagley: A Reacher spin-off. I liked it more than the original show. More character development and Neagley isn't the superhero that Reacher has morphed into. (Amazon Prime)
• Red Queen (season 2): In this one, Antionia takes on the Russian mob. OK  Enjoyable enough if you don't think about it too much. (Amazon Prime)
• Lanterns: I'm not a big fan of superhero shows (especially Marvel), but this one was good, probably because I wasn't very familiar with the DC universe background. (HBO).
• The Good Ship Murders (season 3): Pretty locations,, pretty actors, but not much else. (BritBox)
• Pompeii: Out of Time. A three-part docudrama about t he eruption of Pompeii in AD 79 produced by National Geographic. A bit hokey in places but an accurate portrayal of what it would have been like to have been there. (Disney+)
• Below: A better than average big monster thriller set in a Newfoundland outport. Hopefully there will be a second season. (Netflix)
• North of North (seaon 2): No kidding about being north; this is set in Iqualuit. Not quite as funny as season 1, but still very enjoyable. (CBC Gem)
• Slow Horses (season 6): The denizens of Slough House end up on the run from Russian assassins. Highly entertaining. (Apple TV)
• Dark Matter (season 2): The storyline has gotten a lot more complicated and harder to follow, but it's still an entertaining show. (Apple TV)
• Black Doves: A well done, fast paced, and pulpy spy thriller starring Keira Knightley. (Netflix)

Photo of the Week - November 1, 2026

It being autumn (and a rather pleasant one), it's appropriate that this week's photo of a tree, with some leaves still remaining. Taken with my Pixel 8 Pro, slightly cropped and with the Dynamic filter applied in Google Photos.

An autumn tree