LESSONS FROM LUCIANO: ON MONEY
February 18, 2010
I started working at Luciano's cafe when I realised I really didn't want to work in a fishmonger, after all. I had lasted exactly one and a half weeks, long enough for the pair of jeans I'd been wearing to work to become tainted with a second-hand ...
FIVE RING CIRCUS: NEUTRAL GROUND
February 17, 2010
Photo by Iva Gruden
Olympic correspondent Paloma Friedman is in Vancouver to take in the 2010 Winter Games and related celebrations. Today, she profiles the House of Switzerland.
The first thing I encounter when I enter the Swiss House is a wall of stench. A few seconds later, the scent ...
VANCOUVER OLYMPICS REAX
February 16, 2010
I landed in Vancouver during the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics. At the baggage carousel, passengers clustered around a TV to watch K. D. Lang sing “Hallelujah.” You had to wonder, looking at shots of the hockey god Bobby Orr, in a white zoot suit, whether he ...
FIVE RING CIRCUS
February 15, 2010
Olympic correspondent Paloma Friedman is in Vancouver to take in the 2010 Winter Games and related celebrations. Today, she profiles the fan-demonium at the German House.
“We will win men’s hockey this year,” deadpans Tobi, a teacher from Hanover. I’m inside the German house, a huge tent erected ...
BRAD CRAN VS. VANOC, CTD
February 14, 2010
Earlier in the week, I jotted down some quick reactions to the Brad Cran/VANOC fall-out. All the background story you’re going to need to know what I’m talking about can be found here and here. I wouldn’t say that I want to apologize or retract any ...
NOISY TWITS
February 13, 2010
126 posts in, I'm still finding Twitter largely pointless. It's just not enough for me to care about -- Facebook has these big huge profiles and blogs have as much space as you would like, but there's almost no way to determine who you are dealing with on ...
THE ART OF KNIT GRAFFITI
February 11, 2010
Yarn bombing, or knitted and crocheted graffiti, is a relatively new phenomenon, but in the last couple of years it has cropped up in most major Canadian cities. Taking the form of tree sweaters, parking meter cozies, and even knit shoes tossed over power lines, these acts of rebellion inspire ...
POETS ARE MANICS
February 8, 2010
The poem state is manic: written as if it talks fast, talks much, talks an ear off; it grasps what it can, perhaps stays too long, but it is glitteringly present, evanescent, has the amiability of a high. But the real danger of the poem is the change it makes ...
THE SLOW DEATH OF HAWKER STALLS
February 7, 2010
Mr. and Mrs. Wong have sold electrical appliances — lightbulbs, wiring, batteries and that sort of thing — from a green wooden stall on Aberdeen Street for more than 50 years. I met then when I was working on a CNNGo story about the gentrifying neighbourhood in Central now known as Noho ...
REINTRODUCING THE INTERROBANG
February 5, 2010
In 1962, Manhattan advertising executive Martin K. Speckter was unhappy. Unhappy with words, the tools of his trade, and unhappy with punctuation. Bored by the usual methods of conveying delight typographically—laundry whites brighter!, new cars faster!—Speckter wanted something with more oomph.
His answer? Take the question and exclamation ...
