6 October 2012
These Filipinos and Guatamalans and Nigerians live in poverty and in fear and, unlike the immigrants of earlier days, they have little hope, ever, of becoming Canadian citizens. In comparison, the Alis were fortunate, for they could stay here and build a new life for themselves.
3 October 2012
Le Funambule  © Marie-Danielle Croteau, Josée Bisaillon et les éditions Les400 coups, 2010
Works by Stéphane Poulin, Marie-Louise Gay, Stéphane Jorisch, Janice Nadeau, Michael Martchenko, Barbara Reid, Philippe Béha, and others on the block at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
21 September 2012
There have been too many shows of impatience and anger, with each side blaming the other. With few exceptions, this has all been a question of words -- sharp words, throw-away words, unthinking words -- but they have succeeded in hardening attitudes and deepening divisions. Fine words are not all it takes to improve matters, but they can help a great deal in such a language-obsessed city as Montreal.
15 September 2012
Here are ten practical steps for newcomers to Canada who want to get rich. They will guide you from your arrival in this country until the end of your well-heeled life.
Step Three
Friends and Companions
4 September 2012
I once had a conversation with Doug Engelbart, the inventor of the computer mouse and, I would say, most concepts in interactive computing. He predicted that one day we would have all our experiences delivered to our senses electronically. It sounded unbelievable back then, but it is much more believable now.
30 August 2012
Practical steps for newcomers to Canada who want to get rich. They will guide you from your arrival in this country until the end of your well-heeled life.
Step Two
Schooling
[See Step One: Arrival — Save Your Pennies here]
29 August 2012
The carousel towards the latter end of the Brighton Pier, just before the roller coaster, is grotesquely beautiful, and enthrals the children and older bystanders for that reason. So vividly painted, the horses eerily distorted as they circle and bob, transfixed on a silvery pole to which half-terrified and half-delighted kids hang on and ride. Like all such carousels, this one unapologetically violates principles of aesthetic restraint, nightmarishly stunning as it spins to blaring music above the water.
25 August 2012
It’s absurd to compare the Pier, not to mention the giant Ferris wheel circling above the beach, to the gleaming perfection of the famous Assembly rooms in Bath, but absurdity is intrinsic to the Pier, so all comparisons are sublimely ludicrous.
22 August 2012
Bath is beautiful in the way Brighton is not: sedate façades and iron palings, a vigorous river and splendid rooms, all contribute to a grand effect, the Bath manner, but one longs for the upstart and riotous, for colour.
Author Kenneth Radu on Brighton Pier
19 August 2012
The translation of this vivid scene is by Helen Constantine, but who wrote the original?
18 August 2012
Practical steps for newcomers to Canada who want to get rich. They will guide you from your arrival in this country until the end of your well-heeled life.
Step One
Arrival — Save your pennies
18 August 2012
The good news, such as it is, is that there are so few of us -- Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Anglos, and all the rest of us “others” -- in the Quebec public service that Madame Marois’s proposed Charter of Secularism would make little practical difference.
7 August 2012
The sights and sounds of Smyrna, Piraeus and Athens are brought to life by Fragoulis’s finely crafted prose. The cast of characters – manghas, manghissas, and the girls in Kyria Effie’s brothel, are fully realized. The result is a novel which is as tough and intelligent as Kivelli herself.
Review by Margaret Goldik
2 August 2012
Today it is possible to walk in the bookstore and ask for a book to be printed and bound as you wait. The machine is also a powerful tool for authors to create and sell books.
14 July 2012
Van Gogh's “starry, starry night” is the night of mega-stardom. Our view of his art is inevitably coloured by his celebrity.
Vincent van Gogh Almond Blossom, 1890
Oil on canvas, 73.5 x 92 cm
Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
6 July 2012
The Globe and Mail wins the prize for obscurity.
1 July 2012
We need to move on, see the wave coming, and ride it. (Warning: it may be like a tsunami.)
26 June 2012
The meal consists of Le Grand Aïoli, breads and cheeses from Kamouraska, and a perfect strawberry tart. The wine is pale, nuanced, and perfect. The company is lively. Fun!
-- with July postscript from the New York Times.
22 June 2012
Ingrid Bejerman, former director of the renowned Julio Cortázar Latin American Chair, writes about her relationship with the recently deceased Mexican writer and some of the stories his friends remember him by.
Photo: Dulce Ma. Zuniga
6 June 2012
Not long ago I saw the extraordinary Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express, a Josef von Sternberg movie with wonderful black and white cinematography, much of which occurs on a train. In the film Dietrich utters the magnificent line, “it took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily.” Presumably not all on the train, but one is allowed to imagine so.
Marylebone Station, London
6 June 2012
The old trains and their stations are marvels of intent and mystery. No wonder so many films make use of them.
King's Cross-St. Pancras, London
