Day 911: The TP Divide

originally published June 29, 2014 This could be the most important article I will ever write. Far beyond the knuckle-clacking tensions of dog people vs. cat people, Shelly Long fans vs. Kirstie Alley fans, or bacon-eaters vs. people who don’t know better, there lies the conflict of toilet paper orientation. The solution offered by both […]

Day One After 909: Maxwell’s Silver Hammer Of Quality Education

originally published June 28, 2014 It is the final day of classes. Just a day in the life of Mr. Maxwell, a grade six teacher who’ll be flying across the street to teach summer school next week. It’s not the end for him, just the annual hello/goodbye to this year’s crop of kids. The man […]

Day 909: The Real Grand-Daddy Of Motion Pictures – Louis Le Prince

originally published June 27, 2014 As an aspiring young (using the most broad and generous definition of “young”) film studies major, I was fascinated by the pre-Edison attempts at capturing moving pictures for subsequent viewing. Eadweard Muybridge used a long row of still cameras to capture a galloping horse’s stride, only to spurt the images […]

Day 908: It’s Hee-eere… This Article About Poltergeist

originally published June 26, 2014 Despite being physically nothing more than distortions of light and shadow on a few reels of tightly-wound celluloid, a movie can possess the power to frighten free the literal turds from viewers’ backsides. I was eleven or twelve when I first saw Poltergeist, and I remember clearly the electric squirms […]

Day 907: Who Stole The Moon?

originally published June 25, 2014 I’d like to open today’s missive with a few kind words about President Richard M. Nixon. In an act of international fraternity and savvy diplomatic P.R., the Nixon administration celebrated the American victory in the Space Race by doling out gifts of free moon rocks to every state, every US […]

Day 906: Lord Gordon-Gordon & The Case Of The Tycoon’s Million Bucks

originally published June 24, 2014 How does one judge the success of a swindle? To my hopelessly naïve and tragically honest mind, I believe one must be able to enjoy the bounty of one’s evil in order to truly rate it as a win. Others might disagree, claiming the mere act of absconding with a […]

Day 905: Slapping Those Words In Their Smarmy Little Faces

originally published June 23, 2014 There is a scene in the Kevin Smith film Clerks 2 in which a character (a very white character) decides he wants to “take back” the term ‘porch-monkey’ so that it can shed its racist connotation and act as a slur against lazy people of all tints and hues. The […]

Day 904: Acquiring A Taste For Acquired Tastes

originally published June 22, 2014 Earlier today, someone suggested to me that I pen an article about surströmming, which is a northern Swedish delicacy. As with any food that is considered a delicacy of a very specific region, yet has not made the official menu of well-known cliché ethnic foods from its nation (in Sweden’s […]

Day 903: O Transatlantica, Our Home And Native Land

originally published June 21, 2014 What’s in a name? That which we call a prairie By any other name would smell as grainy; So Saskatchewan would, were it not Saskatchewan call’d, Retain that weird insect surplus which it owes Without that title. So begins an unimpressively cutesy introduction to today’s discussion about the hallowed names […]

Day 902: The Guy Who Made Movies Sound So Damn Good

originally published June 20, 2014 If I were to venture west (okay, mostly south and just a little west) to stake my claim on a Hollywood career, I might end up as Channing Tatum’s body-double (or, more likely, Danny DeVito’s), or if I’m lucky, as Steven Spielberg’s on-set beard-groomer. Either way, I’d be looking at […]