July 2026 – Spinor Info

Electric concert

Books, History, Pop culture No Responses »

Jul 162026

Last night, as I was listening to the thumpety-thump of distant Bluesfest, the concert halfway across town, I was reminded of this passage from Jules Verne’s posthumously published Paris in the Twentieth Century, written in 1863:

As he walked on, silence and abandonment were reborn around him. Yet far in the distance he saw what looked like a tremendous light; he heard a great noise that sounded like nothing he knew. Nonetheless he continued, finally arriving in the center of a deafening racket, an enormous arena which could easily hold some ten thousand persons, and on the pediment of the building was written in fiery letters:

ELECTRIC CONCERT

Yes, electric concert, and what instruments! According to a Hungarian method, two hundred pianos wired together by means of an electric current could be played by the hands of a single artist! One piano with the power of two hundred!

Illustration by ChatGPT

This passage appears near the end of the book, when our now homeless protagonist aimlessly wonders a futuristic city. I am deeply fascinated by how well Verne predicted, no, not the technical details of mechanical amplification, but the social phenomenon: mass cultural events that become oddly alienating and impersonal, a cacophony of light and noise that, from a distance, often feels more hostile than inviting.

Celebrating 250 years

Canada, History No Responses »

Jul 042026

It is time to celebrate.

To celebrate the expulsion of the Continental Army, from a territory that, in the decades that followed, and in no small part as a result of this historical event, became the seed of our improbable country, Canada.

A country that has no desire to become His Orange Highness’s 51st state, just as it had no desire to become the 14th colony back in 1776.

The disastrous failed siege of Quebec City, on December 31, 1775, was followed by the Battle of Trois-Rivières in June, 1776, after which the remaining Continental Army troops eventually retreated. Quebec’s Catholics may not have been staunch supporters of the British Crown, but they decided that British rule — especially after the Quebec Act of 1774 that protected Catholicism and French civil law in what used to be Nouvelle France — was a safer bet than an anglophone, Protestant revolutionary Congress openly hostile to Catholicism. While the alliance between the Canadiens and British loyalists was never exactly enthusiastic, somehow it endures to this day.

Improbable country

Canada, History, Politics 1 Response »

Jul 012026

Before I forget: Canada turned 159 today.

Canada is an improbable country. It is the second largest country in the world, but basically just uniting the leftovers of the North American continent after the United States formed. A country of English, French, not to mention First Nations… smaller in number but living here already for millennia before European settlers arrived. A country that hosts quaint small towns that sometimes resemble the British countryside, but also a characteristic North American metropolis like Toronto, complete with skyscrapers and networks of freeways. Not to mention oddities, such as the downtown walled core of Quebec City, Vieux-Quebec.

A country that, when things mattered most, punched far above its weight. With only 11 million inhabitants at the time, Canada played a nontrivial role in World War 2, among them creating a massive navy: The Royal Canadian Navy became the third largest Allied naval force in the world by 1945. Canada also played a substantial role in the Manhattan project and hosted much of the production facilities of the world’s first nuclear weapons development effort, Tube Alloys.

And last but not least, a country that remained a constitutional monarchy. A country with leaders who remain faithful servants of an institution that, though it appears dated and archaic at times, consistently proves to be the best guarantor of liberal democracy, the best safeguard against democratic backsliding. There is a reason why constitutional monarchies dominate the top of Freedom House’s freedom index, Canada among them. It’s almost as if the country was governed by wise felines as opposed to us, silly hairless apes.

So happy birthday, improbable Canada!