I’ve been thinking about the word “plangent” lately, a word with mourning tolling inside it like a bell. The weather has been perfect lately in Toronto, one breezy summer day following another, the sky a high light blue, the air warm and dry. But it’s mid-August and our short Canadian summer will end before long. […]
Last fall, I began researching a new novel with the Russia writer Anton Chekhov as a character, oblivious to what was about to happen in Ukraine. That means I spent the past few months reading Russian history, biographies and literary criticism while reading and re-reading the literature, this at a time when Vladimir Putin’s army […]
I was in the drugstore the other day, lining up to pick up a prescription. There were a few people behind me in the line, but a guy ignored us and headed for the prescription counter. “Excuse me,” I said, “but the line-up’s over here.” He turned and answered in this overdone oily voice, “Oh, […]
Something I’ve noticed: people apologize for getting sick with COVID-19. Or maybe they laugh nervously when they say their daughter brought it home from university, their embarrassment combined with anger and impatience at her carelessness, at least if she doesn’t get very sick, or someone else in the family doesn’t get very sick. When people […]
Blizzard today in Toronto with a Stay Home advisory. Continuing Omicron surge with Work From Home advice. That howl you heard across the city at 7 a.m. was parents learning that Toronto has closed its schools again for snow-related reasons on what was supposed to be the first day back to in-person learning. Around here, […]
Happy New Year. For my mother-in-law, it’s a new century, since Mary turned 100 on December 22. And as she’ll tell you, it’s the second pandemic that she’s connected to, since her parents met during the last one in 1918. In fact, because of it. Mary’s father, Cecil, was a U.S. serviceman who landed in […]
Well, this is nice. Time Squared was named one of the Books of the Year by the 49th Shelf website. Check out their recommendations here. Lots of great books on the list, both fiction and non-fiction. Plus, they’re running a giveaway!
It’s strange the way these two pandemic years have done something to time. People talk about how 2019 feels as if it was five years ago. I catch myself being unable to estimate how long ago something happened. Was it three or four years ago we met in that bar? But maybe there’s something else […]
Who deserves to win a major award? A lot of people do, but far from everybody. There’s such a thing as quality, although Black and other writers of colour have lately questioned whether the creative writing school definition of literary quality is rooted in a white male aesthetic. Show Don’t Tell. Is that a buttoned-down […]
“What can I tell you about my people?” The great Duke Ellington was echoing a question from a long-ago interviewer. “Well, I’m glad you’re recording. Of course, I had such an influence from the people. Because that’s the better word. The people, not my people. The people are my people. That is—people.” And what about his work? “It’s strongly American Negro music. There’s a […]
I was working in a small and windowless CBC Radio studio in the old red brick building on Jarvis Street in Toronto. On the other end of the phone line was a man about the same age as the building named Russell Procope, a musician, one of the sidemen from the Big Band era of […]
I’ve heard people say life is getting back to normal, but I’m not sure that’s true, even a year and a half into the pandemic. We all have to cope with big losses, family and friends gone or disabled. We also face so many small daily changes that it’s disorienting. I’ve taken my spavined right […]