Hi, I’m Matthew Parsons. I’m a writer and radio producer, and this is the blog where I (used to) post half-formed thoughts on art and pop culture. I stand by very little of what’s posted here. This blog is full of fragments and first drafts, written so poorly you’d never think I did it for a living. Nowadays if I post something to this site, it’s because of a compulsion I don’t understand and not because I want anyone to read it. It all ought to stay in the drafts, and part of me knows that.
On this site, you’ll find the complete archive of Omnireviewer (later renamed Omnibus because the first name was incredibly stupid), my two-and-a-half-year project to review everything I read, watched and listened to. You’ll find my incomplete notes on Moby-Dick, which I may one day revisit, out of grim obligation. You’ll find “The Survivors,” my series of thank you notes to the CDs I sold off. You’ll find a few old year-end lists. You’ll find the beginnings of a couple projects that didn’t get past their first or second post, and a few handfuls of miscellaneous garbage.
Every now and then I flirt with the idea that I should just pull the plug on this whole site. I don’t know why I hesitate. I suppose it’s because for quite a while this was how I spent my free time and I feel like I should have something to show for it. Here it is. Please don’t read any of it.
The “J.R.” stands for “Jordan Ronald.”
The great and shameful archive 
Hi Matthew,
I’m sorry you’re leaving North by Northwest. I’ve enjoyed ALL your pieces, and will miss your input.
But good luck with your new job, and enjoy Toronto!
Sincerely,
Marlyn Horsdal.
Saltspring Island
I chanced upon this blog an hour or so ago, as I was Googling to discover the differences between Joy Williams and Diane Williams, neither of whom I’ve read enough of to adequately distinguish one from the other. I’m glad you left it up because as a four-time reader of Moby Dick, I really enjoyed your notes, some of the most lucid explications I’ve read of that [insert inadequate analogy here] of a book. Don’t be so hard on yourself.
You’re too kind. I will be finishing up those Moby-Dick notes, by the way. I’m working on it now. It was possibly a mistake to assign myself homework in conjunction with reading that book because it makes me not want to read it. I’m at risk of seeming like I’m not actually enjoying it, which is completely wrong, because it’s almost certainly the most enjoyable book I’ve ever read. I could absolutely see myself reading it three more times. Thanks for commenting, and good luck making sense of Diane Williams; she’s the best, but boy is some of that stuff odd.