Like a lot of people, I didn’t think that much of George Michael at the outset. Wham! was a huge pop act in the early and mid-Eighties, and were hard to escape. Nothing really against… Read More
“Ideas brush past fleeting and insubstantial as moths. But I let them go, I don’t want them. What I want is a voice.”— Joyce Carol Oates Having turned 88 last month, the American author Joyce… Read More
For many years, I’ve delighted in telling people about a library in St. John’s that most folks have never seen — nor even heard of. I’ve written an article for the summer issue of NQ,… Read More
“We have things that grow outside of the house but I wouldn’t really call it a garden.”— Roz Chast A prime attraction of The New Yorker for almost five decades, the cartoonist Roz Chast draws… Read More
“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally.”— Flannery O’Connor You won’t find photos of the American author Flannery O’Connor as an old woman, nor even really of a middle-aged… Read More
I love libraries. I wish the libraries in St. John’s were like cathedrals, that there were more of them, that they were better located and that they had better resources for public use and service…. Read More
“I began to understand that self-esteem isn’t everything; it’s just that there’s nothing without it.”— Gloria Steinem Self-esteem has been on my mind a bit lately, for a variety of reasons. One thing that has… Read More
“I was a voracious reader, but you would be mistaken if you took that as evidence of my quality.”— Mordecai Richler The phrase “voracious reader” can be a loaded one, often without meaning to be…. Read More
“I guess I don’t subscribe to the twee school. I remember trying to lose our copy of Thomas the Tank Engine before I had to read it again. Life is a more dimensional and interesting… Read More
“For better or worse, it is the commentator who has the last word.”— Vladimir Nabokov This observation from Vladimir Nabokov is spoken by one of the Russian-American novelist’s characters, and not a nice one, either…. Read More
“One should never trespass on kindness. Human kindness is like a defective tap: the first gush may be impressive, but the stream soon dries up.” — P.D. James I had come across a truncated version… Read More
“I hate it when actors use the word ‘journey.’ That’s not a f–king journey, winning a Spirit Award. Escaping from Ukraine is.” — John Waters I’ve been a fan of John Waters and his trashy-chic… Read More
“Some say that no one ever leaves Montreal, for that city, like Canada itself, is designed to preserve the past, a past that happened somewhere else.”— Leonard Cohen It’s been almost a decade since Leonard… 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 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