Arts & Culture

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…



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…



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…