The Black Keys

  • The music I loved in 2015

    The music I loved in 2015 I spent 2015 finishing up a book called Bad Singer: The Surprising Science of Tone Deafness and How We Hear Music. So while I thought a lot about how we listen to music, I didn’t have as much free time to actually listen to it as I usually do. Sure, I always had songs playing, but too often only in the background. Maybe that’s why a lot of my favourite albums this year were slow burns: I didn’t realize how good they were for a long time. So, with that in mind, here’s my listical-free look at the music…

  • The Globe and Mail names Bad Singer to most anticipated books list

    The Globe and Mail names Bad Singer to “most anticipated books” list

  • Bad Singer cover

    My next book, Bad Singer: The Surprising Science of Tone Deafness and How We Hear Music, will be out May 14, 2016. Here’s the cover.

  • Talking to the ‘rents about death

    Talking to the ‘rents about death Talking about how we want to die is not easy for anyone. But we do need to talk about it, as I argued in this piece for Hazlitt called “Bringing Death to the Table.” I wrote it in March 2015, a few weeks after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that we have a right to die with dignity. As the dek to the article says, “A person’s right to die means the beginning of some difficult conversations. Here, a son on what patients, families, and physicians need to talk about.”

  • The dangerous pride of the innumerate journalist

    The dangerous pride of the innumerate journalist “I suck at math–that’s why I went into journalism” is a line I’ve heard for decades. And I’ve always hated it because journalism is no place for people who hate numbers and science to hide. After all, most good stories need numbers. So I wrote a little rant about it on the Ryerson Review of Journalism blog.

  • What I loved listening to in 2014

    What I loved listening to in 2014 I’ve been doing an annual “middle-aged teenager picks his best music of the year” post for a while now. It’s always been a list, though I haven’t ranked my choices and the number of albums I picked varied. It wasn’t that I like lists so much — I don’t — but because lists are easy. Not just easy for the writer, but also easy for readers, who can quickly scan a list looking for the albums (or movies or books or whatever) that match their picks–and the ones that don’t, but sound worth checking out. Now,…

  • Definitely Not the Opera, Indeed

    Definitely Not the Opera, Indeed DNTO, or Definitely Not the Opera, the excellent CBC Radio show did an episode called “Raise your voice: why is singing so powerful?” on Thanksgiving weekend. I was part of it, talking about bad singing. The producer who did the pre-interview didn’t say anything about wanting me to sing, but once I was in the studio, host Sook-Yin Lee made me do it. Embarrassing, but good radio, I’m told. You can stream it or download the podcast on the DNTO site.

  • “The Ballad of Tin Ears”

    “The Ballad of Tin Ears” As part of my Bad Singer book project, I helped make a radio doc called “The Ballad of Tin Ears” for CBC Radio Ideas. It airs Tuesday, May 6 at 9 pm on CBC 1. If that’s not a convenient time for you, the show is available for streaming anytime (also available as a podcast for a limited time). The one-hour show features culture, ethnomusicology, neuroscience, psychology and singing — some of it, admittedly, mine (let’s just say the shower scene is the scariest since Psycho). I hope you will find it entertaining and that it…

  • Bad Singer Speaking Engagement

    Bad Singer Speaking Engagement I’m writing a book called Bad Singer. It won’t be out until 2015, but I guess it’s never too early to start the publicity. So I’m speaking at the Farmhouse Pottery Gallery and Cafe near Orangeville, Ontario, on May 1. Despite what this promotional material says, I won’t be singing. But if for some perverse reason you do want to hear me sing, listen to “The Ballad of Tin Ears,” the episode of CBC Radio Ideas that I worked on. It airs May 6 at 9 pm.  

  • Drop the Worry Ball released again

    Drop the Worry Ball released again Because the publishing industry is weird, Drop the Worry Ball, the parenting book I helped psychologist Alex Russell write, is out again. With a new cover. From a new publisher. At a new lower price. Here’s what happened: Wiley, our original publisher, decided to get out of trade books and sold its list — including Drop the Worry Ball — to Collins. Unfortunately, that meant that the popular book wasn’t available in bookstores for several months. But now it is. (It’s also available online or as an ebook from sites such as Indigo and Amazon.ca.)