Minari and Nomadland. Two movies currently earning all kinds of praise and pre-award season accolades that for me triggered diametrically opposing feelings and opinions. I hated Nomadland (only lasted 20 minutes before shutting it off), and I loved Minari (sat there staring into the closing credits just thinking about it all.) The movies share a... Continue Reading →
How to Go Make-Up Free This Summer (But Not Really What Are You, Nuts?)
If you're old, chances are you're also ugly. At least, that's what Crystal Martin, Fashion & Style writer for the New York Times believes. Martin's article “How To Go Makeup-Free This Summer” reminds us that summer’s heat and humidity can make a makeup-laden face feel oppressed, which is why she's gone ahead and compiled a... Continue Reading →
The Strange Courtship of Abigail Bird: An Homage to the Endearing Outlier
Witty and complex yet masterfully distilled, The Strange Courtship of Abigail Bird sets the reader on course for an eventful face-off between our protagonist Ishmael (who, much like his unbiblical counterpart in Herman Melville's Moby Dick is a bit of an outcast), and, a hugely daunting, wholly unpredictable aggressor called 'life.' Compliments of his socially... Continue Reading →
Honeysuckle Gods
Earlier today I headed out to my favourite cafe in search of chocolatey croissants and a higher order of coffee. Instead of taking the main road up 10th Avenue, I took 11th. With its canopy of billowing trees and row upon row of perfectly manicured yards, 11th Ave makes for peaceful reflection. It’s quieter back... Continue Reading →
If You Wanted Him to Write Warmly About You, You Should Have Behaved Better
After reading Jacob Silverman's Down and Out in the Gig Economy I was briefly compelled to do him a solid by sending him a copy of Dan Lyons' 'Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble,' because both writers share a similar lament, but only one of them gets the message across without sounding like the... Continue Reading →
Nebulous Ties
Like any close-knit community, Point Grey is home to a few friendly cliques... You've got your cycling crowd of super-warriors who push themselves to their limits every Saturday and then gather outside the local Starbucks to leak sweat; the early morning coffee ladies at Bean Around the World who sit at the window counter and... Continue Reading →
The Asshole’s Checklist
Sometimes I feel like I'm surrounded by assholes. Sandwiched between them even. Perhaps that's my lot in life. Maybe it's my destiny. But I refuse to just sit around, and do nothing. Here's the Poop Regardless of the degree of dysfunctional indoctrination one may have suffered at the hands of utterly incompetent authority figures there... Continue Reading →
Merciless Beauty
The upside to being pummelled by the flu when you’re closing in on 53 is that it gives you the opportunity to see what you’ll look like when you’re 80. This is called a “Life Hack.” A Life Hack is a 21st Century term that means you’ve been using tools like mirrors, all wrong. Welcome... Continue Reading →
Ill Prepared for Life or Death
Anyone who's ever owned a pet knows that when they pass there's no moving beyond, or turning the page, or putting it all behind you. There's none of that. Instead, the challenge is in getting unstuck. It's in finding a way to exist in neutral with a heart so swollen with grief it's almost impossible... Continue Reading →
How I Plan to Get Rich Quick
I was watching my daughter's volleyball game this afternoon when I was joined by her good friend's Dad. Frank is one of my favourites. He's a high school teacher with a terrific sense of humour; one of those even-keeled types that make you just want to lay your head on their shoulder in that socially... Continue Reading →