The New York Times on Tuesday had an interesting interview with Montreal-born psychologist Steven Pinker, whose new book The Better Angels of Our Nature argues that violence has become less…
A few leaves left floating in a fountain before the winter snow comes. Got the boots and winter coats out, even wore them earlier this week. But the snow disappeared,…
Jeanne and her parents are looking for good child care these days. She’s 15 months old, and until now they’ve been able to work their schedules so that one of…
As I write this, it is 1:31 p.m., a year exactlyl after the moment when the first call went in on the fire which put us out of our house…
An interesting comparison between the front pages of this week’s Time, for the US, Europe, Asia and South Pacific. The Americans get the cover story “Why Anxiety Is Good for…
It’s one of the days when I keep running around. Here’s music and dance to go with that frenzy: Ravel’s “Bolero” in Copenhagen, “This Time for Africa” in Rome, and…
Elin spent three years at The Hague, living just off a canal on a street that ended with -laan: neither she nor I can remember the complete name but the…
Since it’s Thanksgiving south of the border, and other holidays are coming up, here’s a recipe that I found a couple of years ago on Global Gourmet and adapted a…
Neither David or Merrily won in their categories. In fiction Dimitri Nazralla won for Niko (Véhicule Press) while Joel Yanofsky won in non-fiction for Bad Animals: A Father’s Accidental Education…
Tonight is a big literary night. It’s the Quebec Writers’ Federation annual awards gala, and my good friends David Homel and Merrily Weisbord are up for prizes. Thank goodness they’re…
A Canada-wide poll commissioned by the CBC shows that Canadians are not averse to letting the user pay when it comes to roads and bridges. More than three-quarters of those…
This is a good traffic day in Montreal, where the problems of urban sprawl are considerablly less than in many other North American cities and where public transit ridership is…
Last week I posted about how for the first time since we came to Montreal there were no snow flakes before my birthday, November 8. A couple of people reported…
There are times when a writer feels absolutely second rate, completely forgotten, totally unnecessary in the scheme of most of society. But then something comes along that amazing evidence that…
Last month we talked about Jane Eyre at the Atwater Library, and tonight it will Jean Rhys’s idea of why the first Mrs. Rochester went mad, Wide Sargasso Sea. Both…
Open File has a lovely story about a young immigrant from Germany, Alfred Bohn. who took many pictures of Montreal after he and his wife immigrated in the 1950s. Check…
I'm expecting fascinating discussions this weeks as two of the book groups I lead will be talking about Mario Vargas Llosa's historical novel about Paul Gauguin and his grand mother,…
Perhaps my favourite photographer is Henri Cartier-Bresson. On a trip to France a few years ago we spent two afternoons in a restrospective exhibition of his work at the Biblithèque…
Memo to Stephen Harper and others who'd like to integrate the US and Canada: it's not the welfare state that causes problems, it's the inability to manage your economy independently.Today…
