Blog # 177...May 2026

Despite having a pretty low tech household, there seem to be a number of disembodies voices that keep me company. My blue tooth 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  obsenities too.

The CBC brings welcome voices into 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 Amanour, safe in the UK, brings her perspective on what's going on in her homeland of Iran.  Occasioally Bill Nighy pops in with Ill Advised, and most days Rebecca and Richard fromThe Daily Mail disrract 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 meetings.  These  meetups sprong up inin 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 secondary to wanting to gather in a group. Lots of ways to come tohether  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 was 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 capyured something interesting and amusing that speaks to me of many things - our relationship to art, our feelings as women and life itself.  She's n ew 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 form  generations of sea captains in Newdoundland, the North Atlantic is in his blood 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 know for the unique print technique he's developed callled intaglio  that produced beautiful etchings.  What a treat it was to discover both of these wonderful Canadian artists.

 There's joy in discoverying a new writer too. Early in the days of the self help and improvement titless that now crowd the shelves of bookstores, Harriet Lerner captured our attention with Dance of Anger. She continued 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, 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 out. 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 names 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  app,earing at this years'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 fromf Dorothy Parker, a forerunner of hip hop. not techically 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.

                                                                                                               

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Blog # 176..April, 2026

 I started this blog thinking it was a one of, but then kept going as there I kept noticing how art enriches and reflects our lives. It's sort of taken on a life of its own, veering into hope...the two things have much in common.

Panya Clark Espinal encourages us through her art to look at our surroundings more carefully  and feel differently about them. Her installations enhance many corners of Toronto, including the Bayview TTC station on the Sheppard line. She's an  artist to watch as she honours both the present and the past with inventiveness.  In I am Your Window, her current exhibition at the MKG127  gallery, she's ventured into weaving, referencing the art of her grandmother Paraskeva  Clark,  The actual tablecloth that appears in one of Paraskeva's canvases is placed beside the painting, both of which form part of Panya's childhood memories.  Different renderings of the pattern form the centre of this small but stunning show, full of craft, memory and love.

My cousin Billy gets a shout out for sending me a clipping from a Georgian Bay magazine that featured a cousin of our grandmother's. Jay Blairwas a well loved and eccentric figure from our  childhoods as well as those of our fathers. He lived well into his 90's without having conventional work, but was always totally occupied with his passions. He was well known as an amateur archeologist, devoting himself to searching for relics of previous inhabitants of the area around his home in Duntroon and reaching as far as  Midland and Penetang. The Royal Ontario Museum has several of his finds on display As a side hustle, he created new varieties of fruit by grafting plum branches o.nto apple trees, coming up with some pretty weird results that he delighted in showing us when we'd visit.

March brought the Paralympics which always engage me more than the big show. The games that feature people with a range of disabilities have slowly entered the public sphere much as people themselves have done.  In one of my many lives, I made documentary films, focusing on my experience with people with disabilities.  The first one, FREE DIVE, was about a group of kids in wheelchairs who had started a snorkel and scuba club. I learned many things from them, including how important it is to engage in something where they can be just one of the gang. The short version had a theatrical release across Canada in 1981, if you're interested and have 7 minutes to spare, you can view it at https://youtu.be/AN91JtDwCJQ

 What a mix of joy and sadness to see Joni Mitchell, that incredible genius of poetic expression struggling with the language to express her gratitude at being honoured with Juno's Lifetime Achievement Award. An aneurysm robbed her of some of her physical ability but her spirit and courage brought a lift to my heart and a tear to my eye.

Despite the balmy weather that's arrived, visions of the art that we saw in the bleak midwinter at the National Gallery in Ottawa occasionally pass across my screen, especially the wall with the many Inuit words for snow. A psychiatrist friend who spent time working in Iqaluit discovered that they had no word for depression, called it, thinking a lot and crying.

After the April showers, we'll have May flowers, see you then.il

Blog # 175...March 2026                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

One winter morning many years ago, my next door neighbour Lesley called excitedly to tell me there was a snowy owl perched on the roof of the hoiese across the laneway from us. I rushed out on the 3rd floor deck without stopping for a coat amd watched until freezing set in.                                    When I shared this amazing experience with my friend Robert, he gave me this photo, taken near Collingwood where we used to ski.                           I've had many pets over the years...this one sits quietly over my desk as I'm writing this, not demanding anything but my admiration

                                                                     February has been Black History Month with some  great art in the subway stations, and attention directed to contributions made by Balck citizens that may have gone unnoticed. I was touched by many of the stories featured on CBCand spent some time imagining the early Black residents who settled my neighbourhood. Deborah Brownand her family lived several doors away, I wish I'd had a chance to know them. 

Artificial intelligence is all over the air waves these days, accomplishing both good and evil, There's much pondering whether it will ever take over and leave us floundering in the.dust.  I heard an interview with science and nature writer Michael Pollen recently about his latest book, A World Appears... journey into consciousness. It looks encouraging as he reminds us that our brains have distinct areas of thinking and feeling, unique to each indiividual, and difficult to replicate, unlike computers with hardware and interchangeable software. He explores the mysteries of consciousness combining insights from a broad range of fields, including neuroscience, philosophy,  literature, and the study of psychedelics. It's all about our favourite subject, ourselves, and sounds like a worthwhile read.

Nadya Tolokonnikova, a member of the brave activist gill band Pussy Riot, ventured out of exile  recently to bring an interesting show on tour. She uses her art to channel her rage and frustration towards her native Russia and how it treats its citizens. The ICE activities going on in the US couldn't help reminding her of the repression and brutality that forced her too leave her country.

Church parking lot on a 19th cetury Sunday

I promised to share impressions of the show of winter art at Ottawa's National Gallery\last month. Since we're g.hrough a winter that seems endless, it was great to be cosy inside and admiring the beauty of winter captured in  paintings and sculptires...a sort of hygge (remember that?) Whole rooms were devoted to winter light and abstractions, those wonderful shapes created by snow and ice

There were many highlights, I particularly loved a piece by Kathleen Moir Morris, a Quebec artist who painted with the Beaver Hall group and whose talent surpassed her disablement  with cerebral palsy.                                                                                                                                                                                                      Indigenous artis are well represented with a room devoted to clothing created and worn to survive the cold, sleds and implements to hunt and cook.The walls of the final room of the show are lined with the many words for snow, my favourite was snowdrift caused by wind.                                                    

March brings longer days of light, International Women's Day, the ides, St Patrick's Day and the first day of Spring, and time to begin to think of filing your income tax...something for everyone..                                                                                  I'm always aided in getting this blog out, John Bilodeau, who got me started all those years ago, and is always there when I get caught up in technical tngles.  And Margeret Adamson, who has been contributing her eagle eyes for the past six months to send out work free of typos.. Thanks to them and to so many of you who tell me that you find ithe bloginteresting...I love writing it!  See you next month.

 Blog # 174...February, 2026

Well, we've taken a bite of the new year, bittersweet so far,  predictables and surprising, many elephants lumbering around the room, keeping me awake at night...business as usual.

I mentioned, Hope in Action, last month and I'm now reading it. I've always been interested in Finland, visited a number of times and had some long term close friends there. I've been struck by some similarities to Canada, two official languages, many lakes and forests and northern regions  stretching to the Arctic. They also share a long border with a large super power, theirs took Karelia, a large chunk of their land in 1942, ours is threatening. Reading Sanna Marin's memoir has given me a totally new look at the country from the inside and helped put some hope in action myself.  

Sanna became Prime Minister of Finland in 2019, at the age of 34, bringing together a coalition government with 5 parties, Left, Right , Centre, Green and Swedish, all led by women, all but one under 40. She's open about being raised by a single mother in a same sex relationship, surrounded by the LGBT community,  Her memoir tracks her involvement from an early age and includes many candid looks at the political process, both inside her country and in the many EU agencies and committees on which she served. I'm loving it.

Politics and hockey are both pretty hyper masculine settings and it's comforting to see some push back against the two sex only rules being enacted south of our border. The TV series, Heated Rivalry, has attracted huge audiences around the world, in communities both straight and gay, sports loving and not so much. I'm lacking the equipment to see it, but will figure something out to deal with that.

Watching the world spin into disorder sometimes seems like some cruel version of whack a mole (not to be confused with guac a mole which is delicious).   Ukraine, Gaza. Sudan, Venezuela, Iran, and othe troubled spots, not to mention Minneapolis! Two speeches in Davos, ours and theirs.  And Greenland, which evokes memories for me, not just from a few days spent there but from Peter Hoeg's 1964 novel,  Smila's Sense of Snow. A young indigenous woman from Greenland struggles with life in Copenhagen. We're not the only people with a history of treating our first nations brothers and sisters badly  

In the Cree language, when they ask someone's age, it translates as,"How many winters do you have?:  The National Gallery, as well as stirring up political scandal,  has been busy putting up, Winter Art, a vast and ambitious show featuring artists from around the world...Kurelek to Kandinsky, Monet to Monkman. I'm planning a trip to Ottawa in February, so I will tell you all about it in March. In the meantime, Katherine May’s book, Wintering, offers rest and retreat in difficult times..

 Blog # 173...January 2026

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Some things that made me happy in 2025:                                                       

Hearing an interview with Sanna Marin who at 34 became leader of the Social  Democrats and Prime Minister of Finland in 2019. She led her country through COVID and their application to NATO, resigning in 2023 to write Hope in Action,  a memoir of her time in office...it's on my reservation list at the TPL.                        

Discovering Patti Smith, a punk rock musician as far as I knew, is actually a fascinating, curious person of substance. She's widely read and travelled from Tokyo to Tangier, Berlin to Broadway. She's sought after to appear in such widely diverse corners  as the Continental Drift Club who honour the work of Alfred Wegener, and Casa Azul, the home of artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. I've read M Train, one of her memoirs and am heading for others.                                              

Remembering Oliver Sacks and liking him even more after reading the revealing profile  in the New Yorker.  

Amassing a collection of authors whose work is available on audio books, Colm Toibin, Susan Orlean, Barbara Kingsolver, Jonathan Kellerman. I've grown to love audiobooks, many people like to listen while they drive, work out or run, for me it's replacing my failing eyes. Being read to is also comfortingly regressive and relaxing, no need to hold a book and turn pages.

Reading biographies, which I've mentioned before, lets me in on the lives of people I've never met, but who have caught my interest. Something in their experiences may resonate with mine, or not. I'm also liking getting to know recurring characters in crime fiction, like Alex Delaware, a psychologist who collaborates with Lieutenant Milo Sturgess solving LA homicides. It's a bit like spending time with old friends in a one-sided way, I can sort of see the appeal of AI connections.   

I'm trying to expand my view of Canada and the world and love thinking of the music going on in Powell River, the BC town that struggles to survive the closing of the paper mill a couple of years ago. Luckily there was music established there already, and it was aided by Dutch cellist Arthur Arnold who left his position as Music Director of the Moscow Symphony when Russia invaded Ukraine. He's doing great things in this small vibrant community.

I was thrilled to hear that Dave Bidini, founder and editor of the West End Phoenix. a community newspaper in Toronto, and  the Rheostatics celebrated the band's 45th anniversary with The Great Lakes Suite. It stakes a claim and honours the huge bodies of water that centre our country. It includes a poem read by the late Gord Downey and a performance by throat singer TanyaTagaq. We began the year with our elbows up and we're keeping them there.

So those are some of the things that helped counteract all the chaos, meanness and inequity that social media delivers so relentlessly, news broadcasts too. 

Last time I checked, February comes next, see you then. 

 

 Blog #172... December 2025

November is the darkest month, or the cruelest month and it's also a month for remembering. In Mexico it's the Day of the Dead, and here we honour combatants killed in wars. Although we're still in the decade of the pandemic, it's somehow receded into distant memory, one of the weird things about it. 

 Margaret Atwood's been all over the airwaves since her memoir Book of Lives appeared. I picked up her Fourteen Days, and discovered a fascinating production. Commissioned by the Authors Guild Foundation as a fundraiser for writers who lost income due to COVID, and edited by Atwood, it's a collaborative  novel with contributions from 35 writers from the US and Canada. Taking place over 2 weeks in early April, 2020 in a rather seedy NYC apartment building, the tenants meet each evening on the roof to applaud health care workers, and to tell stories.  It's early days of lock downs and there's much talk of distancing, masks, hand sanitizer, toilet paper...and death. Margaret Atwood presides like a wise and witty Scheherazade over the piece and it took me back to how it was in that time that seems so long ago.

This eventful November began with the excitement of game 7 of the World Series. The emotional intensity was too much for me and although I usually lean towards stimulating reading, I found myself sinking into Helen Humphrey's short novel  Followed by the Lark. She introduces a small boy named Henry who loves nature and, as he ages, gradually reveals that it's Thoreau...it was a perfect refuge for a few hours from the craziness of the world.

Susan Orlean has just released a biography called Joyride, a nice way to describe life.  Libraries and stories play a huge role in her life, as they do in mine, maybe yours too. In a recent interview, she mentioned that in Senegalese, the word for death means his/her library burned.  So, we could think of a life being made up of stories and when the physical form is gone, the stories remain.

Salman Rushdie also has a new book out that tells the most important story of his life. In 2022, he was stabbed while speaking in the outdoor amphitheatre at the Chautauqua Institute.  In The 11th Hour, both the title of his book and how he thinks of the stage of his life, he determines and examines what he chooses to value in the time he has left.

Our local library held a Death Cafe recently - seems a theme is \ emerging here. I decided to go ,not knowing what to expect, but curious.  My first surprise was the age of the other folks, probably mostly 40ish, and pretty equally boy/girl. After a very brief intro by an organizer, a random group of us gathered around one of the tables and got down to business remarkably quickly and easily. The conversation opened with expressions of a wish to connect with other people.  As we moved around the table introducing ourselves, individual issues emerged: the recent death of one man's wife, upcoming deaths of parents complicated by estrangement, a recent brush with a near fatal illness, a student of  thanatology.  I brought up how we avoid saying die, preferring passed away or deceased. I found the connections warm and gratifying but left the session with the slight uneasiness that there was unfinished material.  I hope it was the beginning for people to be open with their feelings, and support for continuing..

And finally, New York's often in the news, Uganda not so much, but two items caught my attention this morning, both about elections. New Yorkers chose Uganda born Zohran Mamdani to be their mayor and Nancy Kalembe has been elected Uganda's first female president. I visited my cousin Marney in Kampala in 2003 when she was working on a project that encouraged women to engage in politics. I wish she were still alive so I could share that news.  

 We'll meet again, God willing and the creeks don't rise, in 2026. In the meantime, take care, and find some ways to enjoy the holiday season.

And finally, New York's often in the news, Uganda not so much, but two items caught my attention this morning, both about elections. New Yorkers chose Uganda born Zohran Mamdani  to be their mayor and Nancy Kalembe has been elected Uganda's first female president. I visited my cousin Marnet in Kampala in 2003 when she was working on a project that encouraged women to engage in politics. I wish she was still alive so I could share  that news.  

 We'll meet again, God willing and the creeks don't rise, in 2026. In the meantime, take care, and find some ways to enjoy the holiday season.

 Blog # 171...November, 2025                                                                                            

 As I keep my eyes and ears open to the art around us, I'm starting to find the art of survival capturing my attention...so many challenges in so many places.  And I'm reminded of something I read about the activity and growth that occurs along the banks of a fast moving body of water, far from the rush of the mainstream. I think of that when I hear about a small creative initiative happening on the margin, like a small plant surviving in the rich soil and protected calmness at the edge of the rushing stream.

Artangel, located in the UK"produces extraordinary art in unusual places". In his book Mad, Bad and Dangerous, Colm Toibin takes us to an Artangel production in Oscar Wilde's cell in Reading Gaol to hear the prisoner's voice read De Profundis, his polemic directed to his former lover Bosey and the English upper classes. How's that for extraordinary and unusual!   Toibin's book explores the lives of Wilde, WB Yeats and James Joyce in the context of their time and families, particularly their fathers. If  you share my luxury of time and love of Irish literature, this book is a joy to read, as are two others by Toibin, The Magician, and The Master about Thomas Mann and  Henry Jamesm respectively. 

This morning, I heard Zita Cobb express her philosophy of connective tissue which she employs at Shorefast, her charitable foundation that operates the Fogo Island Inn off the shore of Newfoundland. Her example of a small community united by a small but successful business is an encouraging example of\ connective tissue, a concept close to Cobb's heart.  Makes me think of  the music initiative in Powell River, ready to pick up the pieces when the local mill closed..

Toronto hosted a music event recently that was a collaboration between a couple of unlikely partners. Dan Brown, in between best selling thrillers, has created a book for children featuring animals that's been made into a musical, produced by actor Viggo Mortensen. The performance was featured at the World Congress of Music, bringing children from different parts of the world together to perform, listen, learn and make friends.

I'm remembering Robert Redford and all the support he gave to indie film makers with the Sundance festival.  He was also a pretty good actor, I'm re-watching some of his films. his last one All is Lost is amazing, made when he was almost 80, doing all his own stunts!                                                                                                      I'm congratulating Sarah Mulhally, first woman to be Archbishop of Cantervury. And. I'm sending kudos to all the Toronto artists who make Toronto's Nuit Blanche such a spectacular event year after year.

I discovered the cause of the underlined website connections mentioned in the last blog and dismissed it.   And I've decided to change my attitude about all the  changes that appear on internet sites, you know when a button you always use in the bottom left corner disappears and after searching for 10 minutes you find it under 3 dots in the upper right cornnr. I'm going to consider it a chance to sharpen my wits. 

                Halloween on Markham Street, created by our neighbour Spencer,                                                                  photo by John Bilodeau

That's all for now, as the dark part of the year begins, keep looking for the cracks where the light comes in.  I'm posting a bit early to send good vibes out on the airways to the Blue Jays let's wrap it up tonight.     Go Jays!