“I’ve found I have started to use small-time mob-boss tactics in my house. I figure out things that they like, and then threaten to hurt those things.”— Jerry Seinfeld In November 2006, Jerry Seinfeld was… Read More
“Every baseball crowd, like every theatre audience, has its own distinctive attitude and atmosphere. You can usually tell as they are coming into the park whether it is going to be a happy, responsive crowd… Read More
I can tell my mom’s mood from 20 paces. I often see her in the corridor, leaning on her walker, and she turns as she hears me call her name. Her face might break your… Read More
“Although it may be true to say that an American is a creature of four wheels, and to point out that American youth attributes much more importance to arriving at driver’s-license age than at voting… Read More
“I was given the illusion of power while the real deciders had private calls without me, and you can only be undermined so many times on an adaptation of your own life before you start… Read More
“I had friends, for sure. Lots of them. But I still really enjoyed, mostly, being alone and going home and getting under the dining room table after school. And there was this long cloth over… Read More
It’s a clever “what if” conceit, a plot theory to upend one of the great narratives of modern fiction. What if Sherlock Holmes and James Moriarity, deathly rivals in the work of Arthur Conan Doyle… Read More
“Be pitiful, for every man is fighting a hard battle.”— Ian Maclaren This quote has a bit of history since the Scottish writer Ian Maclaren contributed it to the nonconformist religious publication British Weekly in… Read More
Historica Canada posted something of note yesterday on Facebook: a new Heritage Minute is coming, and it’s about Gander and 9/11. In a starring role: Rick Mercer, as former Gander mayor Claude Elliott. It’s a… Read More
“The bad times I can handle. It’s the good times that drive me crazy. When is the other shoe going to drop?”— Erma Bombeck This feels like the credo of a pessimist, or maybe a… Read More
“I think I learned years ago that you don’t get songs that have that long stride and that pivot-hinge ability if it’s too much diary entry.”— Leslie Feist Feist made this observation about her songwriting… Read More
“My thought is always, ‘It’s only downhill from here.’ That’s how I’ve always operated, ever since I began Family Guy. I had the crippling fear that I used up all the funny last week. That crippling… Read More
Earlier this week, I put the first line of clothes of the year out on the line. Now it’s spring, I thought to myself. I made a quick post on social media, and hours later,… Read More
“The sea can swallow ships, and it can spit out whales like watermelon seeds. It will take what it wants, and it will keep what it has taken, and you may not take away from… Read More
On the weekend, Martha and I drove to Cape Broyle — about an hour south of St. John’s — and spent an afternoon learning how to make pasta. It was one of the best things… Read More