CC photo “Down at Every Laundromat in Town” courtesy of hjhipster on Flickr THERE’S A coin-operated laundry room in the building where I live. Each load, washer and dryer, is $1.75. That’s $3.50 for a full, wash-and-dry cycle. The… Read More ›
Personal Essays
I Envy You, Lucky Stupid People
NOW THAT CANADA’S ten-month Winter season is over, and it’s finally almost sort-of kinda like Spring-ish, everyone is outside. The smokers are spending more time than in recent months out on the fire escape of my building, chatting with one… Read More ›
How Does A Pen Pay Tribute to the Holocaust?
EARLIER TODAY, news of the “Never Again! A Tribute to the Holocaust” collector’s fountain pen arrived to my email inbox. Here’s a description from a retailer’s website:
What is Good Writing?
BECAUSE I KNOW that some of my readers are also writers, I post an occasional essay on writing. If the topic of writing bores you, here’s my essay on Anna Hazare and Gandhi for your consideration. Or perhaps you might… Read More ›
Conversation and the Writer’s Voice
A TOPIC CAN BE both vast and yet reducible to the most simple of terms. Here’s an example: a writer is a person who does things with words. Whether her goal is to inform, deceive, terrify, entertain, charm, persuade or… Read More ›
A Pleasure to Meet You, Ideal Reader
I WAS ASKED the other day who I imagined my ideal reader to be. “Well,” I answered – “I hadn’t really thought about that.” Not exactly a stellar reply, I know. Of course I had a half-formed, all-wispy-like inkling of… Read More ›
The Return of the Fountain Pen
Above: a Wahl-Eversharp Doric in the colour “Kashmir,” c. 1931, after a restoration. FOR YEARS I’ve been restoring old fountain pens. As I’ve written elsewhere, I enjoy writing with this now anachronistic instrument — and in fact I’ve used a… Read More ›
The Key Concept
HANS KÜNG, in his book Theology for the Third Millennium: An Ecumenical View, records the satirical line about the late-Renaissance pope Julius II — the Warrior Pope — in which the commissioner of Michelangelo’s infamous Sistine Chapel ceiling inserts the… Read More ›
Death by Exposure
EARLIER IN THE WEEK, journalist Nate Thayer posted an entry to his website titled “A Day in the Life of a Freelance Journalist — 2013.” Now, this is not any old journalist we’re talking about. Nate Thayer has written for dozens… Read More ›
