Wilf Perrault’s art is among the most immediately recognizable work by any Regina artist. His landscapes capture, not the countryside, but the back alleys of this city and others, alleys where trees, bushes, power poles, fences, garages, puddles and snow come together to create unexpected beauty. Until recently, Wilf created his art in a small …
Category: Blog
Lie detectors
Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a machine that could tell you when someone is lying? Some people believe that there is. It’s called a “polygraph”–popularly known as a “lie detector”–and it’s been in the news lately, both in Washington and in Regina. Other people, however, will tell you that the polygraph is a fraud, no …
Bionics
“Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world’s first bionic man.” So began each episode of The Six Million Dollar Man, of which I was a big fan not all that many decades ago. At the time, of course, the idea of “rebuilding” a man with artificial parts was …
Keeping comfortable
Humans are creatures of comfort; and the story of civilization is, to a certain extent, the quest to keep from being either too hot or too cold. Considering the recent swings in temperature we’ve experienced, it could be considered the story of Saskatchewan, too. The earliest form of climate control was the fire. Room temperature …
Bicycles II
It’s summertime in Saskatchewan, and that means the roads are full of joggers, walkers–and bicyclists. The first bicycle was the “celerifere,” or wooden horse, invented in France in the 1790s. It had a fixed front wheel, so it couldn’t be steered, and the rider propelled it by pushing his feet along the ground, like Fred …
Professional entertainment, amateur audiences
Last night I attended the Conservatory of Performing Arts Ballet Program’s outstanding production of La Fille mal Gardée at the University Theatre at the University of Regina. The production was just one more example of the incredible depth of talent we have here in Regina, demonstrated both by the young people who did the dancing …
Laser eye surgery
I grew up in a glasses-wearing family. My parents wore glasses, my two older brothers wore glasses and I, by the age of five, also wore glasses. In more recent years, my brother Dwight and I switched to contacts, but while contacts may be invisible to others, they’re still glasses, albeit tiny ones stuck to …
Herakleion
In Disney’s new summer animated blockbuster Atlantis, a team of intrepid explorers searches the sea-bottom for the legendary lost continent. Atlantis is only a legend, but in the non-animated world, real researchers have recently made discoveries almost as sensational, locating the fabled city of Herakleion, along with two of its suburbs, Canopus and Menouthis, underwater …
Birth order
I’m the youngest member of a family of three boys. Growing up, I always felt I benefited from seeing what kinds of trouble my older brothers got themselves into, so I could avoid it. This is no doubt why I was a perfect child. (Don’t believe me? Ask my parents and brothers…um, on second thought, …
Who should fund the arts?
I emceed an event on June 5 that got me thinking about the ever-prickly question of funding for the arts. The event was the announcement of local recipients of grants from the Du Maurier Arts Council. I ended up emceeing because, well, someone had to do it, and they usually look for a local actor …
What’s up with dinosaurs?
What would the summer be without a dinosaur film? This year it’s Jurassic Park III–testimony to the continuing fascination these ancient creatures hold for modern humans. But there’s more news in the world of dinosaurs than the latest special effects. In fact, in the past little while there have been several dynamite dino-developments. The most …
Mad science
We’ve all seen mad scientists in the movies, hair standing on end, shouting, “They laughed! They said I was crazy! But we’ll see who has the last laugh now! Hahahahahahahaha!” Havoc ensues until torch-carrying villagers burn the laboratory. The real-life counterparts to these fictional mad scientists are the scientists pursuing theories that mainstream science considers, …
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