Hello my friends – here’s the latest episode of “Hard Truth and a Big Hug”. It’s a small part of a book that I haven’t yet got around to publishing – but I thought the big ideas and the final take-away were
Aura and Ryerson Chunky – The volume which displaces (top photo) This is a scary time for a lot of people – very confusing also – what happened to all of the old standards? Institutions that we relied upon – especially the
Large Ess Small Press is a creator-run Toronto publishing house dedicated to bringing you works of compassion, fun, curiosity, wisdom and humour. Along with our already available launch volumes of poetry, short stories from life and whimsical writings about humans and happiness,
I’m old enough now to have seen several cycles of large scale outrage, where a big group of people who were comfortable and well-adjusted were thrown out of work or similarly hurt, many got upset – and suddenly became, by their own
Cautionary (top photo) Many years ago, a super-intellectual atheist friend of mine quipped, “Christianity would be great, if it wasn’t for the Un-Christian way so many who call themselves Christian, actually behave in the world!” I found that line funny, and told
Man of the world (Passport of Gordon Parks) Way back in the eighties I played with a brilliant and relentless improv saxophonist named Maury Coles, who booked us a series of gigs in the Subway Room of the old Spadina Hotel –
Light tumbling (top photo) You know how sometimes, you get that super-aware feeling that you’re thinking in big life-altering terms? I’ve made a few resolutions in that state, that I felt strangely sure I would stick to – one, very shortly after
False light-constructions (top photo) When Donald Trump stands up in front of television cameras and repeatedly characterizes poor refugees as rapists, drug dealers and murderers, it is easy to see that we’re being told a hateful untruth about many, which is emotionally
Have you ever struggled to figure out a way to illustrate an important but unwelcome point, to someone who isn’t interested in hearing it? Damocles is still famous, twenty four hundred years later, because of one extremely memorable approach to this problem.
A bit too much news, of late (top photo) One of the earliest ways that science tickles our young brains, is by inviting us to think about scale, with simple but exciting tools. Microscopes and telescopes prove to our young eyes that
Seen through a mud-puddle (top photo) It’s funny – more than one thinker has pointed out that the way we westerners have adopted the word “Karma” – as a running commercial account of our sins vs virtues – has almost nothing to
My first full time job (at 16) was working as glorified soda-jerk, just up from Yonge and Dundas, way back in 1981. We had fruity drinks and burgers, hot dogs and sausages, plus, we sold so much coffee that you’d always get
A fascinating study was conducted some years ago, which demonstrated that when people were being lied to, they experienced greater levels of stress, depression, paranoia and a host of other ill effects – even when they didn’t actually know for sure about
I’ve done a whole series of posts about the environment, politics, economics, and especially, the extraordinary creativity we in the west show, in our almost hilarious (if not outright tragic) and quite stupidly stubborn denial of responsibility for the dangerous situation in
I’ve had a busy November, costume modelling for art students – and as I’ve mentioned before, I often write poetry or sketch out essays in my head while up on the model stand (helps to power my sustained smile). Also brought my
Noam Chomsky is an extraordinary and nowadays almost unique individual, but I think it’s worth remembering that people who made great intellectual contributions to humanity and were also called by their conscience to speak up for justice, were far more prominent and
For many of my friends, this is an especially difficult period of time in which to find or maintain happiness. They feel anxiety on a political and even philosophical level, coupled with genuine and often urgent survival insecurity. I may seem rude
Politics is very strange stuff – during smooth and prosperous times, it feels far less urgent – more like a running game, or a longstanding rivalry conducted within some sort of agreed framework of sportsmanship or honour. When it gets very tense,
I’m crazy for books, study, and especially, for learning things which contradict things that I thought I understood, so I can open up my stale thinking, in ways which give me more useful and compassionate insight. That’s why I so often talk
For traditional societies (stable ones, which have proven the survival value of their particular approach to life’s challenges over centuries), it is quite obvious that we can expect older citizens to reflect variations of the values they were taught when young. Fiery,
There is a very popular (and rather stupid) saying in business, “If it doesn’t get measured, it doesn’t get addressed.” Some even replace doesn’t with can’t – as if only a theoretical framework, can produce a result! I say stupid also, because