Blinded by City Lights
Much like Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus, City Lights is a film that exists for its ending alone, a “comedy romance in pantomime” as the opening…
Arts & Culture
The noughties in Asian cinema
For the past month, arts and culture sections in newspapers and magazines have been filled with top 10s, fives and perhaps a few top 14s,…
Creating little worlds
Lake Superior State University — longstanding arbiter of taste and go-to state university for word-banishing — declared the word “epic” banned for 2011. Along with…
The Wall
The back lane is creepy — pitch black in the summer and surprisingly bright in the winter, but creepy all year round. The reason the…
The Rider
The rider sees the cabin; he sees the creak of its door; he sees the shadows that pour in from the lightless house astride the…
Chronicles of Mezzezeh: Part 3
Mezzezeh opened the door to his chamber and there she was, lying on the straw bed. Her hair was long and lustrous and woven into…
Go west
After endless hours of driving we reached the Tsawwassen ferry docks, from which ferries run between the B.C. mainland and Vancouver Island. They are actually…
Rolling down the No. 1
The prairies of Saskatchewan along the Trans-Canada Highway are hands-down the most captivating sections of land across the western half of Canada. Well, maybe I…
Power to the people
In every friendship I have cultivated over the last few years I’ve found it necessary at some point to sit down face to face with…
In Desolation
You can always tell which books on my shelf are my favorites; they have been read so many times that the spine is creased, the…