Tad Williams

Cleaning things is, in my humble opinion, not only time consuming and smelly, but futile and morally questionable. Follow me down this convenient rabbit hole so that I can explain in detail. Watch out for the synecdoche, it’s been known to nip.

Serious People have written books about the end of evolution (e.g., about ten years ago, Peter Ward wrote a detailed account of mass extinctions which muttered darkly about our impending doom, a subject of infinite interest to me . . . if I had my own university, you would be allowed to major in Eschatology). One theory goes that humans...

So when last we columnated, we were addressing Holland’s newly discovered involvement in the whole 70’s Glam-Rock scene. A genuinely surprising bit of rockaeology for those of us whose knowledge of Dutch pop history consists of ‘Venus,’ ‘Hocus Pocus’ and ‘Radar Love.’ (That said, if you remain unexposed to the sublime neanderthality of 60’s garagesters Q65, seek them out forthwith. Their Nothing But Trouble: Best Of cd is snotty nectar of the highest quality.)

The other night I finally g...

So I had a day off from work. I had booked it months ago, knowing that deep in a Canadian winter, I would probably be grateful for a Friday where I didn’t have to resurrect myself at 4:45 a.m. Waking up to find the digital clock merrily informing me that it was 10:00 a.m.–and that my cat Dexter was curled up against me–was the sort of moment you want to put in a temporal Mason jar and hide in the attic as a refuge when a Craptastic Wednesday arrives.

My plans for the day involved being Writer Boy. I have deadlines to meet on a few projects, and the thought of actually getting to wri...