Ravishing Beasts
Reflections on a visit to the Vancouver Museum’s taxidermy exhibit.
Tracing Night
Immersive maze installation by acclaimed visual artist, Ed Pien, comes to Museum of Vancouver.
Re-imagining Narrative
We’re copying down “I will not talk in class” one hundred times because the teacher told us to. One hundred times a second. But we are our own teachers. It’s time to give ourselves new assignments.
Not quite Walden Pond
Ever since I was quite young, I have both enjoyed and suffered the incongruity of wanting to be out of the city while wanting to be in it.
Not quite a car-free city
Last weekend in Vancouver, two events took place that sought to advance the idea of the car-free city. One I attended, the other I tried to avoid, with limited success.
Dream 2: The Way We Commute
Just imagine what cities would be like without a steady stream of four-wheeled machines. Maybe it’s not so remote a prospect.
I Have a Dream (Part 1)
The introduction to a series of newly un-stifled imaginings from the recesses of desire.
A few summer travel pics
A photographic round-up of my summer of travel.
The Occidental Tourist
Singapore has a reputation for being a pretty rigid place, where gum chewing is against the law. From my brief visit, it didn’t seem so bad.
Cattlecars of the Sky, redux
Flying New York to Vancouver, with a stopover in Hell.
To the commune
Summer travels: wandering in Boston and New York.
The Best and Worst of Boston
Summer travels: Culture – the good and the bad – in Boston.
Fredericton: Noble daughter of the forest
I have entered, for the first time in my life, the Atlantic time zone, having arrived in Fredericton, New Brunswick on Wednesday morning. The trip was uneventful. I spent so much time and energy packing my bike in one box and my panniers in another – making sure that the weights and dimensions were not [...]
Ranch Undressing
I spent the past weekend at a ranch, fifteen kilometres south-east of Spences Bridge, that belongs to a couple of gentleman farmers of my acquaintance. The ranch, a small orchard operation, is a peach-shaped property near a sharp bend in the Nicola River, a tributary of the Thompson, which in turn feeds the Fraser, the [...]
Spring Break in San Francisco
I’ve just returned from a quick trip to San Francisco, a week by the bay, where I was satisfyingly warmed by the California sun after months of (relative) freezing in Vancouver. Either I’m getting old and soft, or spending much of last winter in Costa Rica has removed my usual winter hardiness. Or both. Whatever. [...]
Boil me in my own pudding!
“Why does Scrooge love Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?
Because every buck is dear to him”. — Unknown
As is well known among those who have long felt an inexplicable desire to suffer my company during the darker months, I am not an enthusiast of the holiday in which we are currently immersed. I don’t erect [...]
Coping with Adversity
For the past week, I have been suffering from flu-like conditions that I apparently picked up secondhand from the current consort of my roommate. Such misery! My throat feels like ground glass when I cough or sneeze – not an infrequent occurrence – and I have plenty of aches of the head, neck, shoulders and, [...]
Alabama
The nudist gathering finished up, mercifully, with one sunny, warm day on which to actually remove one’s clothes comfortably. Though the overall event wasn’t really my scene, fundamentally, I had some fun and met some good people. Among these was Paul, who most people considered my body double though we didn’t think we looked like [...]
Where’s the hypothermia prevention workshop?
I spent the better part of the night freezing and huddled in the foetal position beneath the thin gruel of my $48 linens, enhanced by the meager weight of all my clothes (how many could I have brought to a nudist camp?). The wind was howling and banging doors and windows. I was somewhat surprised [...]
Off with the clothes!
As I may have mentioned previously, I have a commission to produce a couple of articles about an annual nudist gathering for gay men in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. To that end, I picked up a charter bus outside of Fordham University in Manhattan, next to Lincoln Centre, on Friday afternoon. Rather than observe [...]
