Phyl profile picture

Phyl

Kleptomaniac of Shiny Ideas

About Me

I'm Canadian, living in Toronto. I live with two feral cats, and we make love eyes at each other from across the room.I have a BA and MA in the philosophy of world religions, but my first and greatest love is mythology (mostly Celtic, Hindu, Norse, and ancient middle eastern and Egyptian).I'm a writer -- both fiction and non-fiction. I've started publishing a few short articles recently, but have Much Bigger Projects in the works [she said mysteriously].I love studying history. I have recently discovered that Canadian history is fascinating, and the more of it I can discover, the happier I'll be!I love many different sorts of music, but my early love was hard rock. Favorite band is Queensryche. But I also love Celtic music of almost any type, certain folk music, and a very selective sort of jazz. Al Di Meola and Pat Metheny fall smack into that category. Alas -- after many years of trying, I can NOT make myself like country music. Sorry. I did try.I'm an ex-ex-EX-fundamentalist (now 95% atheist, 5% polytheist). I was perfectly happy to live and let live when it came to fundamentalist Christianity, until they started trying to take over the world and ram their lunacy down our throats. Salem witch hunts, here we come! So now I'm furious, and will fight their fascist project wherever I find it.And because of that, I now have a great interest in politics.

My Interests

Mythology - History - Philosophy of Religion - Animé - cats

I'd like to meet:

I once heard an interview where the guy (some famous author, I think) advised that we should make a list of whoever we think are the most important people in the world (not just policitians or artists, and not necessarily just famous people either). Then we should make it our life's goal to meet all of them. My list used to have three people on it: King Hussein of Jordan, Tony Blair, and I forget the third. Hussein is now gone, alas. And Tony Blair has betrayed the reasons I admired him, and I would never want to be in the same room with him. However, Queen Noor of Jordan is now on the list, and I'm thinking of who else I might put there. Perhaps Al Gore. I'm not sure what chance I would ever have of meeting them, but imagine the conversation, if I could ever get over being intimidated!I wish I could have met Dorothy Dunnett, the author. I think I'd have been intimidated there, too, but my goodness, what an accomplished person she was!

Music:

Queensryche; classical; Celtic; some (though not much) jazz

Movies:

Lord of the Rings. Dead Man Walking. Slingblade. Need to think more about this...

Television:

SLINGS AND ARROWS. If you haven't seen this series -- FIND IT. Any documentary about ancient Egypt (though I have much less interest in the ones trying to claim it has some connection with aliens, or Atlantis, or something). I enjoy the original CSI, and Law & Order: CI. I've also started enjoying Criminal Minds, because it's sort of a CSI for the psyche. And I LOOOOVE Anime, though mostly the ones that are for adults or an older youth audience.

Books:

Anything by Dorothy Dunnett EXCEPT King Hereafter - Joanna Trollope (sp?) - Guy Gavriel Kay - let me think of more

Heroes:

Thomas Jefferson

My Blog

"fortune cookie"

My Fortune Cookie told me: You will pay for your sins. If you have already paid, please disregard this message. Get a cookie from Miss Fortune ...
Posted by Phyl on Sat, 30 Dec 2006 11:14:00 PST

A Westerner's Quick Guide to Bollywood Movies

My travel-writing instructor recently told me he thought my style would do very well for arts & entertainment reviewing. Which amuses me to no end, since I know nothing about culture. That is -- I...
Posted by Phyl on Sat, 16 Dec 2006 03:14:00 PST

Damn Hypocrites

It's a sad commentary, being an ex-fundamentalist myself, that this is by no means an exception: U.S. evangelical leader resigns over 'sexually immoral conduct'. This is not -- repeat, NOT -- a rare o...
Posted by Phyl on Sun, 05 Nov 2006 04:31:00 PST

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Okay, listen up, since it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month. In fact -- listen up even when it's not! A bunch of my friends (and I, once) have posted about this month, and about how it's important to ge...
Posted by Phyl on Tue, 24 Oct 2006 09:02:00 PST

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

This is Breast Cancer Awareness month. But it's something every woman should be "aware" of 365 days of the year, never mind just one month! I recently had my second mammogram, as part of my yearly che...
Posted by Phyl on Sat, 14 Oct 2006 12:51:00 PST

These are my People

These are my people.   When I heard about the shootings of the Amish schoolgirls, I knew they were in Pennsylvania, but it was only yesterday that I realized that the community is located in Lanc...
Posted by Phyl on Thu, 05 Oct 2006 08:02:00 PST

This was Johnathan

I know this Globe and Mail article will be behind locked doors in a week or so, and won't be able to be read. But for now, This was Johnathan. For almost three years, we in Toronto were only allowed t...
Posted by Phyl on Sat, 30 Sep 2006 03:27:00 PST

Gay men in uniform getting married! Woo!

Hurray! I just saw a link to this article, on another forum: 2 Male Spanish Air Force Privates Wed  The Spanish military  once a crusty remnant of a right-wing regime closely linked to the Roman...
Posted by Phyl on Sat, 16 Sep 2006 10:29:00 PST

"Passages" soap opera - Episode three

Okee dokee! Episode three of "Passages" is up, at LiveJournal. Starting with a re-posting of the Cast of Characters, and then moving (through the right-pointing arrow) through the episode: http://kash...
Posted by Phyl on Sun, 10 Sep 2006 09:57:00 PST

Soap Opera - episode two!

Is up at LiveJournal: http://kashicat.livejournal.com/6180.html
Posted by Phyl on Wed, 06 Sep 2006 05:08:00 PST