Monthly Archives: August 2014

Omens–Sure, I believe. A robin showed up this morning in the garden on my 65th. As favorable omens go, I’ll take it. Totems–L’il Red, the backyard squirrel, dropped by for his morning shelled peanuts and a swing on the tray, … Continue reading →

(evocative 1962 Coward-McCann dust jacket by George Salter) ……………………………………………………………. Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is … Continue reading →

is what Robert Frost called a “momentary stay against the confusion of the world”; a small, personal, creative act of order in a world increasingly chaotic; the making and expression–out of nothing–of something that has a potentially meaningful, satisfying form.

in the history of the English novel: “It is a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”–spoken by the about-to-be-guillotined Sydney … Continue reading →

In the fall we drift along the tree-lined streets of unfamiliar places. Leaves cover everything: sleepy cars and houses sidewalks and our coats. My son drags his foot beside the curb like a street-cleaner but even he admits we could … Continue reading →

Hello Katzville! ………………………………. (Give us this day our daily major overhaul and deconstruction. Permanence and stability ‘no longer live here’.) News item: Katz reveals new downtown skyscraper and other development in Edmonton ……………….. note/Sept 27: Katzville as a term has only … Continue reading →

(epigraph) And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night– We talked between the Rooms– Until the Moss had reached our lips– And covered up–our names– –Emily Dickinson, excerpt #449, “I Died for Beauty”

This odd 1959 movie was one of two popular movies about the famous 1924 “Crime-of-the Century” Loeb-Leopold thrill-killing . (The other was Rope directed by Hitchcock, which focused on the suspenseful lead-up to the discovery of the murder victim’s body.) Compulsion … Continue reading →

“We fear the thing we want the most.”–Dr. Robert Anthony “Fear is the prison of the heart.”–Anon “Of all the passions, fear weakens judgement most.”–Cardinal De Retz There is no greater self-imposed limitation than fear itself. Fear limits us from … Continue reading →

is easily the most limited and limiting factor in people’s lives. No fear is worse than irrational, ego-based, self-imposed fear. “A man can do all things if he will.”–Leon Battisa Alberti (as demonstrated by Roger Ebert’s life after his jaw … Continue reading →