Debriefing Elsipogtog: the Anatomy of a Struggle
Debriefing Elsipogtog: The Anatomy of a Struggle Miles Howe Fernwood Books, 2015 When is a journalist not a journalist? According to CBC New Brunswick’s Information Morning host Terry Seguin, and…
reviews
Justice Delayed is Justice Denied
Highway of Tears Matthew Smiley 2014 Sean Carleton is a member of the CD collective and writes The Popular Front column on pop culture. Highway of Tears is an excellent…
Castelli Secondapelle bike gloves – barely there
Slick, and tight-fitting, they do indeed feel like a second skin. But that ‘minimalist’ thing gives them a tight timeline for staying comfortable.
Jerseys – for when you need to keep your shirt on
A lot gets said about jerseys. They’re part totem, part equipment. So there’s more lore, superstition and custom around them than most other bits of bike kit. I will explain…
Bike gloves – hide the liver spots
Wherein I review all the warm weather, fingerless gloves I’ve ever used and wrecked. Including some I hope I don’t wreck for a long, long time.
Media discourse and the Cuban question
Cuba, the Media, and the Challenge of Impartiality Salim Lamrani Monthly Review Press, 2015 Salim Lamrani is a French journalist and academic. His 2013 volume on Cuba and the West,…
The dehumanizing power of institutions
Human on the Inside: Unlocking the Truth About Canada’s Prisons Gary Garrison University of Regina Press, 2014 Writing prescriptively about incarceration is to wrestle with abstractions. Contained in each statistic…
On Palestine: A brief but essential update
On Palestine Noam Chomsky & Ilan Pappé Haymarket, 2015 In 2010, Haymarket Books published a collection of interviews and essays from Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé that attempted to make…
Bibshorts: MAMIL sausage
Wherein I compare the comfort and usefulness of the various bib shorts I’ve used
Base layers: the old man and the undershirt
Part two of a series on my search for the perfect all-day cycling kit. Base layers.
Pasta Books Reviewed, Part 2
This follows from part one of my book reviews, posted on this blog. Please see that post for the introduction. These, with either the Pasta Bible or Pasta Cookbook (preferred)…
Pasta Books Reviewed, Part 1
While I can’t say my collection of pasta making and recipe books is as exhaustive as it could be had I an unlimited amount to spend and equivalent time to…
Montreal Fringe: Three for the road
Cootie Catcher, written and performed by Lucas Brooks, focuses on Brooks’ close encounters of the transmissible kind. Using a cootie catcher, better known to some as a fortune teller, Brooks…
Montreal Fringe: Laureen: Queen of the Tundra
As an American expat unfamiliar with the pop-cultural aspect of Canadian politics, a lot of the jokes in Laureen: Queen of the Tundra went over my head. However, it is…
Montreal Fringe: Non-conformist jugglers, Mrs. Pirandello, and intense performance art
The New Conformity, from Vancouver circus troupe Cause & Effect, is on its most immediate level a direct commentary on contemporary corporate culture. The performers, clad in identical grey suits,…
Montreal Fringe: Dystopia, misogyny, and carrés rouges
2056: A Dystopian Black Comedy takes place in a near-future Canada, controlled by an authoritarian regime known as the Helpers who have, in the wake of an atheist Reckoning, abolished…
Montreal Fringe: The No Bull$#!% History of Canada and Bar Kapra the Squirrel Hunter: No-bullshit reviews
No bullshit, just coffee: Kyle Allatt performs The No Bull$#!% History of Canada to June 21st A tight, well-paced show, The No Bull$#!% History of Canada rips through 600+ years…
The outlaw love and godless gospel of roots rocker Rodney DeCroo
Albumn review, “Campfires on the Moon”, by Michael Nenonen. Rodney DeCroo’s latest album, “Campfires on the Moon,” reveals hidden faces. I’ll say more about that in a moment. “Campfires”, released…
Shaping a new democracy of consensus
The Extreme Centre: A Warning Tariq Ali Verso Books, 2015 In 1977, two years before Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, political theorist Tom Nairn’s The Break-Up…
Can democracy be salvaged?
The Extreme Centre: A Warning Tariq Ali Verso Books, 2015 In the late 1970s, several years before Margaret Thatcher would become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the remaking of…