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
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 –
Painting you can hear (top photo) I have a great deal of sympathy for all sorts of creative problems – and like many folks who are tuned for empathy, the weight of daily horrors and unkindness, great and small, can pile up
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
Now and then, way way over-the-top strikes me as just about exactly right. For this piece, I layered almost all of my hyperbolic obscure punning silliness into the title itself, but it still conditions the rest importantly. “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” is an
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.
Looking forward, looking back (Christina Sealey) (As always – click this top photo to see all the images in high-resolution) It’s been a very grey January – but I have a smile on my face today, because one of my favourite working
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
Here’s a video I made with my favourite out of the blue Christmas surprise last year, which I’ve been intending to repost for some time (FB vid-compression is brutal). It’s meant as a big thank you to my friend Graham, for giving
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
I really do adore digging into things – so many curious gems turn up! Today’s unexpected wackiness? – the word “Mies” in German, means ‘lousy’ – and an early part of this tradesman’s son from Aachen turning himself into a fashionable young
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
The city is especially magical at night – entertainment is more exciting, food feels more decadent, drink more intoxicating, it’s time to enjoy reward for hard work – which of course means that for a great many – evening time is time
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 write a lot about Yonge St, the place where absolutely every subculture in Toronto has managed to find some sort of a toe-hold, and yet also quite regularly feels alienated. ;o) Lite Bite – by any other name (top photo) But
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,
My sweet and kind hearted wife got into an online discussion recently, hoping to add a small insight for those who are also experiencing distress on a day to day basis – about being kind to ourselves, even though the world often
The Junction neighbourhood in Toronto, like the far more recently designated Junction Triangle area, just to it’s South and East, is named after the junction of several major railway lines, including the very first ever built in Ontario (by the CPR, back