More zouk

  I haven't had a musical interlude with Nouveauté zouk for a long time although this is one of my favorite musical genres. If you are unaware of this musical style then from Wikipedia:

Zouk is a style of rhythmic music originating from the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique. Zouk means "party" or "festival" in the local Antillean Creole of French, although the word originally referred to, and is still used to refer to, a popular dance, based on the Polish dance, the mazurka, that was introduced to the French Caribbean in the 19th Century. In Africa, it is popular in franco- and lusophone countries. In Europe it is particularly popular in France, and in North America the Canadian province of Quebec.

  This is popular as well in Louisiana among the French speaking areas. ”Ethnomusicologist Jocelyn Guilbault, however, describes zouk as a synthesis of Caribbean popular styles, especially Dominica cadence-lypso, Guadeloupean biguine, and Haitian compas” which is another excerpt from Wikipedia since there is no other information on the web. I came across it in one of my cross cultural perambulations investigating another matter. Nouveauté zouk is a recent metamorphosis of the traditional zouk where modern Rock is stylistically incorporated. Kim is one of the big stars in this particular musical genre.

Important dates in Hispanic History: 711

  One of the crucial dates that blogger Clarissa wanted her students to remember in her Hispanic civilization course was 711 so here is a video about an important event during that year to which I'm sure her mid western students can relate and especially with the hot summer this year.

Pseudoscience 3

Just to show that I’m not biased here’s a Russian dubbed video of the hollow earth theory. Supposedly there’s a gateway between the surface of the earth and a 4^th or 5^th dimension inner earth in Siberia which is guarded by fanatical FSB troopers. The last shot in the video was “inadvertently” taken by the MIR space station in 1987. A lot of weird stuff has come out of Russia over the last few decades.

Me on the Lenin hills not far from Moscow State University

Ontario Provincial Election

    On October 6, there will be an Ontario Provincial election and the Ontario Conservative Party is trying to reprise the federal election outcome by playing the anti immigrant card. Although the Canadian economy has performed much better than the American one in the last couple of years, paradoxically certain sectors of the Ontario economy have been diminished as a consequence of the strongly appreciating Canadian dollar. A little known fact is Ontario manufactures more cars than any other jurisdiction in North America including Michigan and most of these vehicles are shipped to the States. This has lead to a decrease in the workforce especially when you consider that Detroit is replacing middle class $28 an hour salaries with working poor wages of $14 an hour in America thanks to the Obama mediated agreement.   Thus the Ontario PC party wants to attract the angry, white male vote by blaming their problems on scary brown people. This xenophobic nativist attitude seems to be the path of choice for most western right of center groups these days.

   This is not a new agenda for the Ontario PC since a similar approach was presented in 2003. The Toronto Star had an article on this topic yesterday. As the paper commented:

That kind of language divides Ontarians into an “us” and a “them.” Creating divisions between struggling, unemployed workers and newer immigrants is dangerous to our long-term social cohesion. In Toronto, half of us were born outside Canada. There is no us versus them. They are us. And the faster we get newcomers into good jobs in the workforce and paying higher taxes the better for us all…Hudak’s rhetoric and the PC party’s “Ontarians need not apply” ad go too far. It amounts to a thinly veiled attack on immigrants…this is the politics of division. It is angry. It is ugly. And it’s not what Ontarians are about.

Rate my Professor

    I was reading the Inside Higher Education website today and noticed this article. Extracting a quote:

An erstwhile associate kinesiology professor at California State University at San Bernardino remains on the lam after police raided his home last week and found a pound of methamphetamine and a cache of guns. Police are charging that Stephen Kinzey, who had been on the San Bernardino faculty for a decade, was leading a double life: teaching and researching by day; directing the local chapter of an outlaw biker gang, and its drug business, by night.

  Wondering how the Rate my professor website classified this academic, I checked the site and found that his overall quality was 4.2 (excellent), helpfulness 4.2 (ditto), clarity 4.2(ditto) and easiness 3.4 (not bad). Some of the student comments were as follows:

"Dr. Steve Kinsey is an amazing (professor), who helps his students in every situation, including in their greatest need. He is a good friend of mine and we continue to get together on a quarterly basis to catch up on life. Thank god for him, because I wouldn't be a graduate without him!!!!!"

kinzey is a great professor...he keeps it real with all his students and that is why I respect him so much. He lets his students know exactly what to expect from the very beginning. I wish more professors were as personable with their students as he is. =-)

Me and my younger brother. Nascent 1% er?

   When I was in high school, I had a motorcycle which I drove down the rural concessions of Ontario but didn’t have any ambitions to buy a bigger one and join a group. Why did he keep teaching? According to the article:

Barker says that it may have been a fallback in case the kinesiology professor ever wanted to get out of organized crime. Heading the Devil’s Diciples might pay well, but it lacks the stability and retirement benefits of a state teaching job, Barker says.

   How many of your colleagues/mentors live a double life? His time management skills must be the stuff of legend since the story stated that he was a great teacher as well as chairing academic committees for service. I can just see a retiring Hispanics professor at South Eastern Louisiana University doing comparative French and Catalan Symbolist poetry by day and turning into the Honey Island swamp monster, an infamous Slidell area cryptid by night - Poesia i sistema: La revolució simbolista a Catalunya (Ed. Empúries, 1989) meets the Cajun Chupacabra. (No doubt one of Z's Yankee whore/Calvinist devil hybrids.)

Restaurant review: C5

View Larger Map

  This restaurant is on the fifth floor of the new section known as the crystal wing of the Royal Ontario Museum and this is where it gets its name. I’ve been here many times with my oldest daughter when she was studying Latin and classical Greek at the University of Toronto which is adjacent to the building. I went today (September 2, 2011) before I explored the exhibits on the lower floors of the museum.

C5 dining area

My table



C5 bar



C5 bar area to the right of the last photo

Cocktail menu

2 oz. Romtini

  For a mixed drink to start the meal, I had two Romtini since one is barely enough to drink. It consists of  Vodka, late harvest riesling - a very sweet wine, smoked maple syrup, flamed orange zest and a nash of bitters. Very good but one is not enough.

Open but discrete kitchen

Bouillabaisse appetizer

  For my appetizer, I ordered an Orange and Fennel scented bouillabaisse with Dungeness crab, Littleneck clams and calamari.

grilled Berkshire Pork shoulder

  For my main course, I had a grilled Berkshire Pork shoulder with couscous, peach & cream corn, aspiration and pancetta. It was what is called portion controlled (small) and a bit over salted for my taste but all withstanding an excellent entre. Two 4 oz. glasses of a decent Shiraz wine to go with it.

lemon and jasmine Panna Cotta

  I chose a lemon and jasmine Panna Cotta with champagne and fennel jelly, lemon meringue and green apple fennel sorbet for desert with coffee - the best desert that I’ve had for a long time and it tasted as if I would like more.

Two 2 oz. cocktails at $12, two 4 oz. glasses of wine at $14, appetizer at $14, entre at $24, desert at $12 and coffee at $4 gave a total meal cost of $106 plus tax and gratuities. This is a lot to pay for Hobbit food but the overall dining experience was outstanding including the service. If you can afford the cost and are willing to leave the restaurant feeling like you need to eat another course or two or if you`re on a diet then this establishment is for you.

Royal Ontario Museum

View Larger Map

The ROM is the second largest museum in Canada after the Canadian museums in the capital, Ottawa. It`s located in the center of downtown Toronto which with a total population of 5.5 million is the fifth largest city in North America after Mexico City, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

Main entrance to the museum

Inside main entrance. New section

Main lobby in old section

Palaeontology gallery

Babylonian gallery

Egyptian gallery

Roman gallery

Indian gallery



Chinese gallery



Native copper, Mineralogy gallery

Native gold

If these photos engage your interest then there is a ten minute video tour below which is best seen in HD and full screen.