by Matthew Friedman | Mar 28, 2026 | Music
I was sitting on my couch some years ago, listening with my eyes closed to Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The stereo was turned up just a bit too loud for the neighbours, I think, but I could feel the low strings and the tympani resonate through my body like a...
by Matthew Friedman | Mar 17, 2026 | Commentary
I remember the day that my father brought me up the Bank of Montreal branch at Baie d‘Urfé Plaza to open my first bank account. I was 13 years old, flush with Bar Mitzvah checks (mostly in the amounts of $18 and $36), and in need of a safe place to keep it. Founded in...
by Matthew Friedman | Feb 26, 2026 | Commentary, Politics
Nuance does not seem possible on the left right now, especially with regard to our political heroes. This has been apparent in the gatekeeping around the memory of Jesse Jackson, and the revelations of Noam Chomsky’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. In either case,...
by Matthew Friedman | Feb 25, 2026 | Music
In 1937 John Cage enunciated his credo on the future of music. “Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise,” he wrote. “When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating. The sound of a truck at 50 m.p.h. Static...
by Matthew Friedman | Feb 20, 2026 | Music
I came to avant-garde art music fairly early (and fairly easily), through the soundtrack album for Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and my friendship with Robert Kermode. Robert had similarly obscure interests, and we played a game of trying to find the most...
