Blog # 178...June 2026

There are many wonderful things to see and do in Glasgow. The presence of architect Charles Rennie MacIntosh is everywhere, and great pubsand  restaurants. It's a cool place now but remembers and retains with pride its working class past, The  People's Palace shows how ordinary people lived, worked and played in the city's evolution. There's also a plaque in City Hall marking a visit from Nelson Mandela in1993 to accept the Freedom of the City, awarded to him in 1981 while he was in prison. Then there's the Glasgow Women's Library, a beautiful building, dedicated to women writers and readers. As well as shelves of books and a welcoming atmosphere, they host  authors sharing their work as well as frequent open lectures and workshops on topics of particular interest to women. Every few months, I get their newsletter with the latest menu. A recent  appearance by Donna Moore previewed her new book Knit One, Heist Two. If you liked, as I did, The Thursday Murder Club, you might want to check this one out. 

Scotland seems to be on my mind right now, I've been using my great grandmother's tea set brought over on a ship in the late 1800's, and thinking of her and what that journeyand her arrival here must have been like. As well as being the land of my forebears,Scotland was the centre of psychiatric innovation in the 1970's with RD Laing and Maxwell Jones, among others. 

Still in that mood, last week saw the most moving film I've seen in a while. Called I Swear, it's set in Cailean Shields,a small town about a hundred miles north of Edinburgh. John Davidson is a  promising young football goalie, expecting a visit from a professional scout. Much to everyone's horror,  he develops physical tics and begins  shouting obscenities...yup, it's Tourette's Syndrome. It's not recognized or understood though and his life becomes a misery of ridicule and persecution. Playing John Davidson won the best actor BAFTA (the British OscarT) for Robert Aramayo who makes the role and the film unforgettable.

I'm often thinking of Iran these days too,y I just heard some bits from writers who appeared at Blue Metropolis, the great Montreal literary festival  Azar Nafisi was much in the news in 2003 when we were all  fascinated by Reading Lolita in Tehran where she revealed how  she  encouraged her students to remove their hijab and read forbidden literature as secret acts of rebellion against their restrictive regime.  A quarter of a century later, she's still at it, in the relative safety of the US, and has just published Reading Dangerously. She spoke of the tragedy in her country, but also of the insidious erosion of freedom where she lives now,  for women as well as other vulnerable groups.

Two other Iranian women living in the diaspora are in my thoughts. Christiane Amanpour has a public platform with her daily appearance, with her former husband, Jamie Rubin. called The EX Files. Available  daily,on YouTube, its subtle message is that two people who can't agree to stay married can still discuss topics in a reasonable and respectful way.  They take on the global news, frequently bringing Christiane's personal knowledge and experience of Iran into the conversation.

Some years ago, I met a recently arrived Iranian  woman in a conversation group, set up to give people learning English an opportunity to chat and discover the language casually. I was in touch with her recently and learned that, although her immediate family members are safe here, jerr husband's family are in Iran, with no possible point of contact. The courage of these three women, along with millions of others in many different situations is sobering and cause for gratitude for our basic freedoms here.

Designs coming from the Haida culture are unique and have become easily recgnized and two indigenous artists are bringing these designs into prominenc. Dorothy Grant, a fashion designer who has just been awarded the first prize for indigenous fashion designm usung the motifs on common objects like jewellery and clothing. Briain Jungen does the opposite,taking apart Air Jordan sneakers, arranging them to create Haida patterns. He sats cutting up the sneakers reminds him of gutting a salmon.. Brian's sense of whimsy extends to a life size dinosaur skeleton created with white plastic lawn chairs.

I'm determined to create this issue without mentioning the place where I live, which usually dominates and I'm going to try and be more outwardly directed in future. Any suggestions from your neck of the woods would be welcome,you know where to find me. Back inJuly. 

 Blog # 177...May 2026

Despite having a pretty low tech household, there seem to be a number of disembodied voices that keep me company. My bluetooth speaker murmurs softly when I turn my computer off, I can't quite make out what it says, maybe, have a good sleep, or, you should really do something about those cuticles. It's taken me some time to realize that voices approaching me from behind on the street are likely from a person having a phone conversation and not responding to imaginary voices. I listened to one of the latter this morning and decided that if I had to live on the street, I'd probably be yelling  obscenities too.

The CBC brings welcome voices int my life, I start weekdays with The Current and end with Ideas, Saturday morning I catch up on political shenanigans with The House. On Sundays, I eat breakfast with Sunday Magazine and lunch with Bookends.  Most of my blog features are gathered from those sources...just so you know.                                                                                                                    Other regular voices are accompanied by faces, Jon Stewart breezes in with a weekly breath of fresh air from the US and Christiane Amanpour, safe in the UK, brings her perspective on what's going on in her homeland of Iran.  Occasionally Bill Nighy pops in with Ill Advised, and most days Rebecca and Richard fromThe Daily Mail distract me for a few minutes with Palace Confidential. What a houseful!

Speaking of disembodiment, there seems to be a moving away from dating apps to in person meretings.  These  meetups sprung up in NYC in the nervous atmosphere after the attack on the World Trade Centre...9/11. I mentioned a few blogs ago going to a Death Cafe where the urge to talk about death seemed sondary to wanting to gather in a group. Lots of ways to come together  are emerging to meet our human instinct to be with each other.  It's a healthy sign, all that anonymous swiping would make me nuts if I were in the dating game.  

A Michael Fliess photo

On our way to see the David Blackwood show at the AGO recently, my eye was caught by this piece by Allison Katz. She's captured something interesting and amusing that speaks to me of many things - our relationship to art, our feelings as women and life itself.  She's new to me  and I'll start watching for her work. I could have stayed looking at her collection all afternoon but my friends reminded me that we had  come to see David Blackwood so I tore myself away.

It was totally worth it. David Blackwood is new to me too. Descending from  generations of sea captains in Newfoundland, the North Atlantic is in his bloo and his paintings.  They capture its beauty and power as well as the the flora and fauna of the surrounding land, I could almost feel the salt spray. He's also known for the unique print technique he developed called intaglio  that produced beautiful etchings.  What a treat it was to discover both of these woderful Canadian artists.

 There's joy in discovering a new writer too. Early in the days of the self help and improvement titles that now crowd the shelves of bookstores, Harriet Lerner captured our attention with Dance of Anger. She cotinued to dance with Fear, Intimacy, Connection and Deception. Her son Ben has inherited the writing gene  and uses his talent for both novels and poetry, winning Canada's Griffin Prize in 2019. I've just finished his second novel,  10:04,  (the title refers to the time appearing on a clock in a film) in which the protagonist has Marfan's Syndrome, a condition that, although not very noticeable or fatal, affects a life. Ben share's his mother's interest in physicality and its link to behaviour and explores how the character's situation plays ot. Blending personal details with fiction,which Ben does, unsettles a lot of people but for me it's usually engaging and I don't mind a bit of challenge and uncertainty.

I posted about music in Powell River a while ago and they're in the news again. The town was founded on Indigenous land, its People displaced and the town was named after an early white settler. It was an era of cultural assimilation, and now in more sensitive times, the original inhabitants are asking for the original name to be restored. It raises the sticky matter of name replacement. On one hand, the rights should be respected but on the other hand, could retaining the imposed name offer an opportunity to talk about the wrongs that were done... Sometimes though, there is no other hand and as with much of life, it's complicated.  Namesake, a documentary appearing at this year's HotDocs festival in Toronto explores this, watch for it on a screen near you. 

It's raining very hard as I'm writing this, many places are flooding, hopefully not my basement!  I think and worry about water and love listening to The Great Lakes Suite, just put out by The  Rheostatics, celebrating the five expanses of it that define so much of our border with the US.  The music and narrative are a meditation, with the poignant voices of Tanya Tagaq and the late Gord Downie warming my heart. A more chilling view from Louise Penny's latest Gamache novel, The Black Wolf looks at a plot south of the border to take our water, wishing I could unread this!  

I think April is World Poetry Month, and if it isn't, it should be. My friends know how I love limericks, and I thought of writing one for you, but decided to share one of my favourites from Dorothy Parker, a forerunner of Hip Hop. not technically a limerick, but close enough.

"Oh life is a gay and glorious song,
A medley of extemporanea.
And love is a thing that can never go wrong,
And I am Marie of Roumania.”

There are scads of birthdays in May, if yours is one of them, count your blessings and have a happy day.

 See you in June and don't forget what arrives tomorrow.