Writings, Reviews, Cultural Criticism
It’s difficult to decide what The Film Club is. It purports to be literary non-fiction and was nominated for the 2008 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction. Gilmour himself identifies the book as “true” and notes, in an afterword, the challenges of writing honestly about people you are in a relationship with — presumably because, if you write too honestly, you may jeopardize the relationship.
There’s a facebook group called: We can find 1,000,000 people who DO believe in Evolution before June.
A while ago, Vanessa Wells invited me to lead a poetry workshop with her grade 11/12 English class. My mission, should I choose to accept, was simple. She wanted me to demonstrate a few basic ideas…
According to the New York Times, an estimated 700 evangelical churches in the U.S. have mixed martial arts ministries. Yes. Rub your eyes and read that again.
How many times have you heard someone say: “But it’s only a metaphor”? While this phrase can crop up in conversations about any discipline, it seems to make itself heard most often in complaints about Christian fundamentalists who have chosen to interpret one or another Biblical text in literal terms.
Born in Riga, Latvia, in 1973, Bezmozgis came to Toronto with his parents when he was six. His collection of seven stories is, according to one reviewer, loosely autobiographical and presents us with a series of vignettes from the point of view of his fictional alter-ego, Mark Berman.
The on/off switch. The transistor. The basis of binary code. What if it’s all wrong?
In A Fair Country, John Ralston Saul offers another account as to why we find it so difficult to engage one another without recourse to polarizing habits. In brief: Canada has inherited from both France and England a colonial perspective. In fact, Canada is doubly colonized when one considers Trudeau’s statement that living in Canada is like sleeping beside an elephant; in subtle ways, we have been culturally and economically subjugated by the U.S.
MP Gerry Byrne thinks that throwing a pie at a public servant falls within the definition of terrorism. This brilliant suggestion came after Fisheries Minister, Gail Shea, got a cream pie full in the face while speechifying in Burlington, ON on Jan. 25th.
how great the fallcrashing down around my headhow great the dread i feelwhen winter breathes her first chillacross the landthe great hoar undresses gnarled limbsthen laughs her limpid taunts how i hate her voicethe icy screech of it grates on my brainit bodes a pernicious nothingthe mind asleeptoo tired even to dreamthe swirl of flakes…
When I was a teenit was inconceivablethat I might find radicaltucked in the foldsof an old man’s face.Now in my forties(though with a boy’s libido)I see in the mirrorhow the first lines crackmy youthful veneer.From mid-day the dawn lightlooks the same as the dusk.Which explains why old fogiesspend so much time counting changeat the check…
My therapist asked me:What are you thinking?I said: Nothing.My therapist said to me:No one thinks nothing;there’s always a new thoughtmoiling to the surface.So I made something upand she pretended to be pleased. My therapist asked me:What does it mean?I said: Nothing.My therapist said to me:Doesn’t matter what you tell me–even your grocery list–it all has…
Barry Schwartz suggests that we should not teach ethics courses because that puts ethical lessons into a box and divorces them from the practical context in which ethical problems arise.
Why have our conversations become so polarized? Think of the news this year. Think of how the stories have lined up depending upon the source.
“There’s a hint of -”“Pepper,” you say.“Exactly,” and the steward bobslike those dipsomaniac birdswhile I swirl, sniff, sip.I tilt as if for shots.Yay or nay, or checkbox,or I approve, then a jetof purplish juiceinto the canister. I pride myself on the subtletiesI hear in orchestration:violas from within the strings,they rise and then they sing,they sing…