Last night, out of the blue, an email arrived bearing a 43-year-old video. Sent via a chain of friends and relatives, the clip showed me at my first wedding, singing my heart out to the accompaniment of a slide guitar. My niece appended a note saying that she fully expected Pete Seeger to come onstage …
It’s a fallacy that deer don’t eat potatoes, or at least strip the plants naked. I guess I should be grateful for the stalks and tubers left behind, and hope that the deer get sick enough to discourage further nocturnal raids. It’s another fallacy that talking about how we feel always results in connectedness, support, …
If you’re as old as I am, you’re already singing the next line in this iconic Dylan song. You also know that the answer “blowing in the wind” is both blindingly obvious and as ephemeral as a breeze down Carpenter Creek Canyon. I’d like to think that one answer to Dylan’s rhetorical ponderings is blowing …
The line “What fresh new hell is this?” was famously coined by the American critic Dorothy Parker when her writing was interrupted by the telephone. There’s something deeply true captured by Parker’s flippant phrase, that oh-so-human experience of feeling overwhelmed by one calamity while still in the throes of previous one. I prefer numbness to …
I am an avid reader; unlike my high-minded family and friends, however, I prefer novels to non-fiction. A well-written novel can introduce me to a whole new way of understanding the world, like Richard Powers’ The Overstory. Even the deceptively simple novels of the ethicist Alexander McCall Smith—such as The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency …
I thank my lucky stars (as my mom used to say) that I have a dog. Among other things, having a dog means that I am committed, no matter how somnolent, to an 11 p.m. walk every night around the front yard. Last week’s yard visits included views of the full moon—more accurately, the Pink …
WIDE SPOT meets again on Sunday, May 14th, to explore the question of Medical Assistance in Dying. YES, IT IS MOTHER’S DAY. But your mother would want you to think about this! PLEASE NOTE NEW TIME AND LOCATION: We’ll be meeting at KNOX HALL in NEW DENVER at 6 p.m. to begin this very important discussion. Dessert will be …
The Wide Spot dinners continue at the Apple Tree Restaurant! Our next gathering is Sunday, March 26, at 4 pm. We’ll be exploring the question, “What values do I share with those people—the neighbours with whom I don’t agree politically, socially or morally? Come see what might lie beyond labels and opinions… Music by Freya; …
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