One afternoon last week a stunningly gorgeous cumulonimbus cloud was building over Calgary, towering over the downtown towers. The thing was alive - if you stopped long enough to watch it, you could see the cloud tufts grow and move like an organism, or like a floating cauliflower on steroids. It had an eerily nuclear appearance… Continue reading Friday photos
Bedtime reading with our kids is one of my favourite things to do. I love the quiet bodies and whisper breathing of our children as they listen, but also I love getting to read great books (like the great labour relations drama of Click, clack, moo, the wonderfully egalitarian Everyone poops, or anything from the… Continue reading Uncle Andrew and me
Saw this oddly named back alley in Midland, ON. (right beside Proletariat Ave.) The pedestrian in the sign has the smarts to know better than to head down that way.
Ever since reading Lewis Thomas' Lives of a Cell, I've been thinking smaller, curious as to the life that teems unseen all around and in me. In keeping with this blog's mashed-up name (Squinch = square inch), I got to wondering what might fill one square inch of ... Soil - go plunge your hands… Continue reading One square inch of …
After church on Sunday, I caught a bit of Michael Enright's The Sunday Edition on CBC. It was an encore presentation that included an extended piece on the resurgence of interest and acclaim in Emily Dickinson's poetry (you can listen to it here). Apparently, Emily Dickinson is having "a cultural moment." I listened with curiosity… Continue reading The discipline of verse
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was born on this day. OK, not so long ago and not so far away - Sunday July 21 at 8:15 am. at the Humber Memorial Hospital in Toronto. A birth like most others, welcomed into this world with a frantic race through traffic… Continue reading On birthdays
The curtains sway shut. Exit stage left. We're going to miss you, Mr. Potter. With the final Harry Potter film out, I'm resurrecting an editorial I wrote exactly 6 years ago for the Calgary Herald (then marking the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince), which still echoes some of why I love the… Continue reading Farewell Harry Potter
Life at the cottage - sweet summer living.
Happy Canada Day there eh! A great day to celebrate a really good nation. So fine a country is Canada that if you're not a citizen of the Great White North or never lived here, you should want to be Canadian. Let me give you just a few things to love about Canada: Maple syrup… Continue reading You should want to be a Canadian!
Squinch 