We’re almost to the point when the trees will leaf out, two weeks or more ahead of usual. The importance of trees has been unlined this week in two stories in The New York Times. One is a hymn to a new vertical green wall in Mexico City, which is
Continue readingAuthor: Mary Soderstrom
Recreating Eden: Titanic Versus Lusitania?
What a waste of time, all this stuff about the 10th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Is it because it seems so gratuitous? Three years later another big ocean liner went down, killing just about as many people. When the Lusitania was torpedoed by the Germans, 1,119 people
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Mulcair Positive Ad Campaign
Countering the bad news: Introducing Tom Mulcair in English and in French
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Cooking Breakfast and Other Meals for the Ones You Love: Reflections on Craig Claiborne
Frank Bruni has an intersting appreciation of Craig Claiborne, his legacy and his life today. Claiborne was one of the big three inmid-20h century American cooking, the others being James Beard and the wonderful Julia Child. I have two well-thumbed cookbooks by Claiborne. Cooking with Herbs and Spices is brought
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Saturday Photo: The Results of the Natural Easter Egg Challenge
Mrs. Ikvilds’ eggs are the best. I couldn’t believe how lovely the mottled red colour was. She says she sometimes puts celery leaves on hers, so the dye doesn’t enter the leaf-protected part. That sounds really nice, but even with my experimental attempt, I got a subtle flower pattern on
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Making Easter Eggs Today with Natural Dyes
One of the pleasant memories of my childhood is dying Easter eggs. When the kids were small, we did it too, frequently with friends who’d share an Easter dinner with us on Good Friday or Saturday and who had kids too. But when everyone grew up I put that aside.
Continue readingRecreating Eden: April Used to Be the Smelliest Month in Montreal…
Sometimes things improve, believe it or not. One of them is the way that people here, at least, pick up their dog poo now. It used to be that when the snow melted, five or six months worth of dog were uncovered, ready to fester in the spring sunlight. Walking
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Hot off the Presses: Bulletin of NPD Outremont
As some of you may know, I’ve been involved in the New Democratic Party for years. The Outremont riding association has been around for almost as long, but until the last few years–with the arrival of Thomas Mulcair as our MP–activity has taken a quantam leap. From a membership of
Continue readingRecreating Eden: ERDC Maybe Settling with the Last Defendants!
Not much of a post today as I have to go to court in the Electronic Rights Defence Committee’s 15 year old (almost to the day: we filed April 7, 1997) class action against The Gazette and its various owners. At issue is electronic use without payment or permission of
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Raising Eyebrows: How Much Time to Look Beautifull…
And what constitutes beauty? Maybe it’s the slightly warmer weather, which means that girls and women aren’t so muffled up, but I’ve lately been struck by the care that nearly everybody under the age of 50 lavishes on her eyebrows around here. I remember that last year springtime brought into
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Saturday Photo: More Signs of Spring
When I was in Brazil a few years ago, I was told that the bougainvillea was called “primavera”, or spring. Haven’t been able to track that down–most of the translation sites give buganvilea as the Portuguese term–but certainly this spring for the first time in years my bougainvillea is blooming.
Continue readingRecreating Eden: More Thoughts on the Novel Versus Cable Series: Four Writers and The Hunger Games
The Globe and Mail’s television guy John Doyle, as noted earlier, claims that cable series (he particularly mentions Mad Men, have surpassed novels in story telling excellence and in fidelity of rendering time and place. That has not gone unnoticed: the newspaper yesterday asked four writers to give their opinion,
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Protest against Fee Hikes in Montreal, and Jeanne Was There
Because I was in Toronto a week ago I missed the amazing demonstration against tuition fee hikes. Elin, Lukas, Sophie and various friends were there, though. So was Jeanne who marched along, beat time to the drums and by all accounts had a great time. Here’s a great time lapse
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Back to Short Stories: The Dubliners Is the Best
Now that the NDP convention is over and the manuscript for River Music has been delivered, I’m back working on the collection of short stories I got a grant to write last summer. Some of what I have so far is all right, but in order to hoone my critical
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Cable Series Tell Stories Better Than Novels? A Mad Idea
John Doyle had a column on Monday that should interest anyone who cares about fiction. As he points out, he’s not one of your TV critics who never read a book, but a pretty well educated man (BA and MA from University College, Dublin, the latter in Anglo-Irish studies.) And
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Muito Obrigada! Lovely Welcome in Toronto for My Presentation
Muito obrigada to all who came to my presentation in Toronto last week on my book about the Portuguese and their descendants around the world, Making Waves: The Continuing Portuguese Adventure. It was great fun to meet you. Professora Manuela Marujo of the University of Toronto also made me blush
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Saturday Photo: Tom Mulcair in 24 Sussex Drive, Not Stornoway
It was quite a weekend. After the delays in voting due to a cyberattack, our man Thomas Mulcair was elected to the NDP leadership. But the ever-creative youth team spent the time between rounds of voting making buttons (the demand was intense!) and building a small city on the floor
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Signing Off for Few Days: Going to Politic and Promote in Toronto
Thursday morning very early I’m taking the train to Toronto for several very good reasons. 1. I’m giving a presentation on Making Waves: The Continuing Portoguese Adventure at 5:30 pm. Thursday at the Centro de Língua Portuguesa Camões (800 Lansdowne). 2. Friday morning I’m going to hand over the latest
Continue readingRecreating Eden: ERDC Annual General Meeting: Maybe the Last One?
All right, boys and girls of the print media: next Tuesday the Electronic Rights Defence Committee will holds its annual general meeting to elect officers and to review progress in our long-standing class action against The Gazette and its successors over theft of electronic rights. The meeting will be held
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