Glenn Kubish

As a live streaming experiment, Rumble 2012 between Bill O'Reilly and Jon Stewart was a failure, according to some of the loud, early online reviews from those angry they paid $4.95 for an Error 404 message. (It took me about 10 minutes to get into the stream, my issued url being a dud. At times the stream froze, which is natural around this time of the year in Edmonton, but unacceptable in this, as they say, day and age.) But looking past the obvious technical problems, the experiment in bringing together the top editorial-comedic-analytical-social guns from Fox News and Comedy Central made for an informative and entertaining evening. Neither of which adjectives could be applied to the first presidential debate. Funny, for sure. Here is Stewart invoking the shade of Clint Eastwood. It was poignant. Asked who his political hero is, O'Reilly made the case for Abraham Lincoln, the leader who wracked his own body and wrecked his own life in the service of the Union. Fo...

There's a lot of reasons to put your hands together and clap for the Edmonton International Film Festival. Shelagh, Midnight's Children The experience:  It is an adventure to head back downtown and watch Midnight's Children on a Wednesday night. It is fun to see what local filmmakers can do with 24 hours, a choice of two genres and a bag of marshmallows. It's a blast to head over to the Empire Theatres and catch a handful of shorts over the lunch hour. It's neat to have a moviemaker's sensibility linger in your imagination as you walk back through the mall and watch the little movies happening all around you. The thrill: A giant screen with a moving picture and sound right there in front of you is still a new world. And it's still rattling like nothing else to walk out of the twilight dream of the theatre and into the sunlight of reason. 24/One The movies are great. They show you the world from the perspective of a boy in elementary schoo...

Edmonton Journal reporter Elise Stolte has asked her readers to share their favourite memories of the North Saskatchewan River. Or a favourite picture or hidden beach or a cool spot on the river that is so big and quiet we always miss it. My favourite memory of the North Saskatchewan River hasn't happened yet. I mean, I know what it would be, but it just hasn't occurred. Maybe it's not possible. Maybe it's not cold enough. But I do have a favourite photo, so far. Here it is: This is the view this morning from the 16th floor of ATB Place in downtown Edmonton where I work. It shows two rivers, two flows, one of traffic on 99th St., one of water. There are many days when the water is moving faster! I love the shot because it won't let me stand still. Am I in the present, the tense ruled by the automobile, or am I in the past, when the now-forgotten waterway was the channel of transportation and commerce? It's the water that brings a fragment of a pas...

There are gaps in my pop culture knowledge, and, until last weekend, American Graffiti was one of them. But, I finally saw it. We watched it in a big tent in the quad at the University of Alberta's homecoming weekend. What has stayed with me, other than the blonde in the T-Bird, was how the cars were as much the characters as were Dreyfuss, Howard, Ford, Williams. The grilles got a lot of looks. The headlights became eyes. The hoods were heads. George Lucas's camera shots and lighting brought out the personalities in the cars. There were even a couple of killer effective scenes where the camera gave us two cars side-by-side while we heard the disembodied voices of the human drivers talking back and forth to each other. The magical effect brought the cars to life, replacing their usual voices -- horn, engine, brakes, tires -- with the human versions. Cars fascinate me. Not like they fascinate my dad, mind you,  or, for that matter,  the dudes in grade 12 who knew everyt...

Word that I had managed, through a friend, to purchase two Paul McCartney tickets (for the equivalent of a monthly mortgage payment) was received with a barely disguised yawn from Michael, our music-loving, 18-year-old son. His argument went like this:  McCartney tickets cost more than tickets for Japandroids,  so, immediately, what's up with that? Then, there is the fact that McCartney is well past his best-before date. "Dad, he's old," said Mikey. "Quite old." The argument continued like this: Yesterday, he was the real Paul McCartney. Today, he's part of an overpriced, overproduced appeal to nostalgia aimed at those who haven't listened to new music, don't support new music, are trapped in the past. And are willing to pay for that insulation. He's got a bit of a point. (And his mom has a point, too, when she said wistfully, "Who I'd really like to see is John Lennon. What would he sound like today?") But, here...

Here are some magpie thoughts, and how they chattered to each other this morning. On Twitter, this woke me up: Karen Unland  ‏ @ KarenUnland Bravo. MT  @ babiak : Provoked by  @ ChrisLaBossiere , I woke up and started a "web log" about  # yeg .  Edmonton as magpietown . Very cool. Like a magpie in a dumpster, it just fits. On the trail out to this new blog, who do I see already on his way back but El Viejo himself -- the great Ian Tyson. I have always been a Tyson fan. He has helped teach me how to see where I live. And if he thinks the magpie rises to the timelessness of song, I just sing along. Magpie D E Some say (some say) you're a bold deceiver A D E I say (I say) you're a true believer A Magpie D E A You know the west ain't never gonna die D E Just as long as you can fly Edmonton as  magpietown. It fits. Like the E chord over...

Historians and political observers have been of one voice since Premier Peter Lougheed died in Calgary last week. It's all been some riff on the theme of giant worship. With no disrespect pointed at what he saw around him when he took power, Lougheed nontheless transformed an agrarian-farming province into a modern Canadian political and economic and cultural entity. CBC News chief correspondent Peter Mansbridge said this in a tweet: Peter Mansbridge  ‏ @ petermansbridge Over the past 44 years I've covered them all, & interviewed most of them. On my landscape of first ministers, Peter Lougheed stood tallest. Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi ended his statement on the premier's passing by invoking in a nimble way the legacy of the architect: "Remember the line from Christopher Wren's epitaph: 'If you seek his monument – look around you.'" If Lougheed carried the province, tonight the honour was returned, as his remains were carried up ...