Thirty days hath September, April, June and November. All the rest have 31, except for stupid February. Apparently, February didn’t get the memo, or just doesn’t care. Every four years (or, to be precise, whenever the year’s number can be evenly divided by four), it even changes its mind about how long it wants to …
The clever people who invented Pokémon Go obviously did not have my generation in mind when they launched the new smartphone craze that’s taking the world by storm. When you give the name Snorlax to one of your ethereal and elusive characters, an oldtimer might be forgiven for assuming it’s some new bedtime potion to …
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, we’ll have to make do with 500, since that’s all this space allows. The picture in question shows a young woman sitting under a bright yellow umbrella, playing a harp. The sky is brilliantly blue, with enough frothy white cloud to declare it …
When it comes right down to it, perhaps human evolution has all been for naught. My mind started drifting on that particular stream recently, as I watched my neighbour gleefully set up his patio furniture and lovingly polish his brand-new stainless steel barbecue. Several millennia ago, so the story goes, we oozed our way out …
A few weeks ago, in a light-hearted piece about bucket lists, I mentioned a trip to England with my father 20 years ago this month. I’m a little hesitant about writing a sequel some readers may find a bit too personal, or even disturbing, but you know what they say about rushing in where angels …
Most writers would be delighted if something they wrote could survive 10 minutes after they shuffle off this mortal coil. But 400 years? To use just a smattering of the literary inventions credited to William Shakespeare, such a “madcap” thought would be “laughable”, something to “arouse” either “excitement” or sheer “amazement”. According to various reckonings …
Enquiring (and even inquiring) minds want to know: what the heck is a hack, anyway? In response to numerous queries on that very subject (none, actually), I’ve been hacking my way through the undergrowth of lexicography trying to decode a term the internet seems to assume all of us understand intuitively. Surprisingly, the dots between …
Hacking Through the Internet Maze in Search of Meaning Read More »
The other day, I overheard a couple of guys in a coffee shop talking about their impending retirement. One is about to pack it in at the end of this month, the other hits the magic R-day later this year. Perhaps it was excessive politeness that kept me from offering my thoughts on the subject. …
Some people have a knack for the Grand Romantic Gesture. They’re the ones who swim the Hellespont, write soulful ballads in milady’s honour, or casually slip the keys to a Maserati under their partner’s breakfast plate. Then, there are the rest of us, the romantically-challenged, who just can’t get it right, no matter how many …
Living Within Your Emotional Means on Valentine’s Day Read More »
A couple of weeks ago, my 17-year-old neighbour hailed me from across the street, “Hey, Ken. Happy Hanukkah!” After a moment of stunned surprise, I replied, “And to you!” The thing is, I don’t happen to be Jewish. Neither is my chipper young friend, whose name is Ali. He and his family come from a …
It took a king, a pope and a former prime minister to make me rethink my scepticism about extrasensory perception. Let me set the scene. August 16, 1977 was a stinking hot Tuesday in southern British Columbia. I was on Highway 3, mid-way between Hope and Princeton, when CBC Radio announced that the King, Elvis …
Sometimes Your Mind Kicks Up Things You Don’t Want to Believe Read More »
Call me a skeptic, a cynic, I don’t care. Heck, go the distance and call me a heretic, if you wish. Truth is, I don’t believe in the Zombie Apocalypse. Or the Four Horsemen variety, for that matter. It’s not that I harbour illusions about mankind’s lease on this planet having no expiry date, or …
The kaleidoscope of memory is a wondrous thing. A quarter twist, and tiny fragments tumble themselves into a startling pattern of perception. Another twist, another vista of the past, another “aha” about the present, or the future; perhaps an insight into an unknown temporal dimension. And, like the river into which you cannot step twice, …
A word or two about memory, memoirs and waterfowl Read More »
There’s a reason people like me should never play the stock market. Some time ago, when I heard that a new arts and entertainment magazine was in the works, the cynic in me said it wouldn’t last six months. These things never do. I could not have been more wrong if I’d bet my backside …
Call me crazy, but I kind of like shovelling snow. Given my advanced age and generally sedentary lifestyle, it would probably be wiser to delegate that task to some neighbourhood kid. But with a driveway roughly the size of Taylor Field, at today’s market rates for child labour it would probably cost the equivalent of …
Backpackers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your shame. I’ve been a regular backpack wearer for only a year, since forsaking daily vehicle use in favour of shank’s mare and public transit. Back in the day, sure, I sometimes wore what we called a rucksack, or a knapsack – occasionally even …
Heidi Hehn didn’t set out to do a Halloween-themed show. It just kind of turned out that way. “I like to work sometimes in just one or two colours,” the Whitehorse painter explains. “I started doing this series of landscapes around the Yukon in the summer that was just in oranges and this sort of maroon …
They mean well, and the evening starts on a good footing. But throw in some sumptuous art books and a bottle of rum and, voilà. It’s as if Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf has melded with Lord of the Flies. Reza deftly shows how easily the veneer of civilization can be peeled from any of …
Anyone who comes to Yukon quickly becomes aware of several things: the vast landscape, the clean air, the soft colours, the friendliness, the compulsion of many locals to test their endurance in feats of outdoor derring-do. Something else newcomers soon discover is the remarkable depth and breadth of artistic and cultural expression available in the …
Exciting. But also terrifying. That’s how Paula Thompson sums up her feelings about the beginning of a new school year. She could be referring to what many students go through as summer wanes and the classroom beckons—whether it’s for the first time or something they’ve gone through several times already. “It’s one of those interesting …
A Little Off the Top: Prepping for Those First Days Read More »
Paula Thompson said it best. “I’m in awe of primary teachers. They’re amazing, amazing people. They just know what to do.” Thompson oughtta know. She’s a former teacher and a former principal. Now she helps teach teachers. So she’s well-placed to recognize the importance of kindergarten and primary teachers in setting the tone for what’s …
On June 11, 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper rose in the House of Commons to issue a formal apology for Canada’s century-long Indian residential school policy. That same Wednesday evening, a new play called Where the Blood Mixes burst upon the Canadian theatre scene at the Magnetic North Theatre Festival in Vancouver, B.C. The two …
Gary Bailie can’t keep the pride out of his voice as he guides a visitor around the imposing newKwanlin Dün Cultural Centre. As manager of the $25 million construction project, Bailie knows every inch of the 40,000 square-foot waterfront complex, built to resemble the cluster of buildings typical of many First Nation villages. The first …
Art and healing go hand-in-hand for Wayne Price. The Tlingit master carver from Haines, Alaska, is in Whitehorse to oversee the creation of a totem pole with carvers from the Northern Cultural Expressions Society (NCES), formerly known as Sundog Carvers. Unlike all but one of the 28 previous totems Price has done, this is not …
I’ve never been one to get all worked up about what my neighbours do on their side of the fence, provided nothing toxic spills onto my side, and their revelry doesn’t deprive me of more than one or two nights of sleep each year. Still, I’ve always been fascinated by the debates that crop up …
