Author Archives: rdavies

scintilla. Meaning trace or flash. O, to have scintillating wit!

A very rare signature by Harris from a 1950 political-history book, that was in his Vancouver home library, which had been given by an author-friend. After 1924, Harris stopped signing anything.

for Harry and Meghan in Canada. Why should Canadian taxpayers have to pay for their personal whim forever?

Old Wayne and Shuster line in their classic sketch”Rinse the Blood off My Toga”, based on Julius Caesar. Trump up to 16, 241 false or misleading claims going into his impeachment trial. Why would anyone trust anything he says?

What with the passing of Edd “Kookie” Byrnes from tv’s 77 Sunset Strip, I went in search of a precious artifact that changed my view of language at an impressionable age. Kookie’s lingo in the brochure was an offshoot of … Continue reading →

The amazing Emily Dickinson who wrote the most compact metaphorical poetry in English. She showed that a woman writer needed no one else but her imagination to bless her own work. She is the supreme spirited poet of the dark … Continue reading →

The first 5 CDs of the Telemann Edition boxset played by Canada’s Tafelmusik. Elegant, tasteful, and confident.

High-mindedness. Courtesy. Common Sense. Cautiousness. Serious thinking. Significant consciousness, especially involving an appreciation of context and empathy.

Human error. Human distress. Human emergency. As long as there are people and you live in a city, there will be sirens. 24/7.

poem of all is Robert Service’s “The Cremation of Sam McGee”. (illustration by Frank Newfeld of Alligator Pie fame) (I had the good fortune to have Frank as my illustrator in my first school textbook, 1980)