Category Archives: Uncategorized

You can tell when the Frame channel on Shaw starts broadcasting its continuous fire segment. This morning I got up, opened the front door to pitch darkness, and still-snowing -30 windchill, took in and read the very real physical newspaper, had … Continue reading →

shallowly, into the future. They have sold or given up their souls and hearts to 5 1/2″ screens, technology, machines and abandoned consciousness, ideas, language, depth, sensibility, and authentic, physical presence, live-in person-living. “I am a part of all that I have … Continue reading →

in tuning in to one’s self and actualizing oneself, attitude and personal choice are the two singlemost things that determine one’s life and fate, regardless of limitations. In whatever situation or context, the individual typically has a choice even in … Continue reading →

My daughter talking with her boss today after several months of working together. They establish that they both lived in the same community of the city at one time. Then he reveals he lived in the same condominium complex as … Continue reading →

As winter descends bigtime on Katzville, I am reminded yet again how cold and dangerous travel is in winter as reflected in Jack London’s short story “To Build a Fire”. When I started teaching in 1972, the short story text … Continue reading →

Just in time for winter. Adapted from a novella by D. H. Lawrence, The Fox tells the tale of Jill and March, two women who’ve found they can manage a remote farm in the Canadian woods without any men around. Jill … Continue reading →

Don’t fret, angst, or worry; it’s all brief, transitory, and ephemeral in the great scheme of things. Focus, instead, on the personal choices you make by the moment, the day, the week, the month, and the year. In that is … Continue reading →

It was inevitable naturally that someone would try to film W.O. Mitchell’s classic novel and, in the 70’s blossoming age of Canadian filmmaking, this was finally done by the experienced Allan King. He used the prairie town of Arcola, SK … Continue reading →

The blinds were closed that Sunday September afternoon. I had closed them for my wife’s father who, otherwise, would have been blinded by the light as we watched the football game on the tube. A familiar context, for sure, and … Continue reading →

(In memory of Mike Nichols) Two of my most formative which are also cinema classics: The Graduate and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Top-notch satires and two of the most truthful films about their times and about human nature. The … Continue reading →