Carl Wilson at This Is Not A Reading Series

This Is Not A Reading Series Presents Carl Wilson on Wednesday, January 9 at 7:30 (doors open at 7:00) at The Gladstone Hotel Ballroom.

Why does Celine Dion inspire both passionate love and virulent loathing? Renowned music critic Carl Wilson will have a lively onstage discussion about such aesthetic conundrums with noted philosopher Mark Kingwell at the launch of Wilson’s much anticipated new book, Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey To The End Of Taste (Continuum Books). Also on the bill are performances of Celine Dion songs by 2006 Polaris prize winner Final Fantasy, Laura Barrett and The Blankett, an excerpt from the one-woman show “Celine Speaks!” by Laura Landauer, and DJ sets by Brian Joseph Davis -- a This Is Not A Reading Series event co-presented by Pages Books & Magazines, Continuum Books and Eye Weekly.

Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste: Given that Carl Wilson is a pre-eminent commentator about Canada’s indie rock scene, many observers expected his contribution to 33 1/3, the popular series of music books published by Continuum Books, to be a close reading of an obscure masterpiece. Instead, Wilson spent a year analyzing Celine Dion’s global popularity and reports his findings in Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey To The End of Taste. To her millions of fans, Celine Dion's journey from an impoverished upbringing to international celebrity is a testament to her natural talent. To the many more millions of her detractors, Celine Dion is ersatz and an extension of her (creepy) manager-husband. There is nothing cool or clever about Celine, which is part of her appeal as an object of love or loathing. Let’s Talk About Love documents Wilson’s year-long quest to locate his inner Celine Dion fan, and explores the question of what drives personal taste – and whether it is possible to change it.

Carl Wilson is an editor and critic at The Globe and Mail, and his work also has appeared in Pitchfork, Slate, The New York Times, Blender and many other publications. Guest editors Jonathan Lethem and Robert Christgau selected his pieces for two of Da Capo Books’ annual Best Music Writing collections, in 2002 and 2007. He runs the influential music blog Zoilus.com and is part of the team behind the popular non-idiomatic lecture series, Trampoline Hall.

Mark Kingwell teaches philosophy at the University Of Toronto. He is a contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine, and the author of such books as Classic Cocktails: A Modern Shake; Catch And Release: Trout Fishing And The Meaning Of Life, and the forthcoming Concrete Reveries: Consciousness And The City.