Linnet, as in Linnet Muir, by Linda Leith

To begin at the end, here is a coda to the talk I gave today at the Atwater Library in Montreal on Mavis Gallant.

Mavis Gallant at The Standard, Montreal

A Fairy-tale Victory for Justin Trudeau

This is a fairy-tale victory for Justin Trudeau. An extraordinary triumph: a majority in Parliament, Liberals elected in every province—even Alberta—and all three territories; a clean sweep of the Maritimes; an entirely unanticipated forty-seven seats in Quebec. And, best of all, no more Harper.

Space for a Pen, part I, by Kenneth Radu

Though Carlyle was a literary giant of quasi-mythic proportions and a hero to Victorians, his theories and writing are largely forgotten or ignored outside of university departments of English. That is the fate enjoyed by many a writer, and one need not be dead.

The AGO goes AbEx: All in the Family -- and a side of dystopian doom

The family feel comes from the vivid sense of a movement, even quite literally of clubbiness that comes from the "Club" where artists and hangers-on congregated in a loft on East Eighth Street. Individual as they were and very different as is their work, they also knew each other and were keenly aware of themselves as a group.

[And the side? Edward Burtynsky's stunning "Oil," at the ROM.]