Category: Education & Learning
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“Too fancy and ingenious”: Children’s Books by Adult Writers
Reading to children is inextricably intertwined with the idea of home, comfort and love. These five children’s books by authors better known for their adult writing, are available in first edition form from Peter Harrington, London’s leading rare book firm. And because we all love a good backstory, the home lives of the authors prove as interesting… Read more
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Julia Child Cooks Thanksgiving Dinner
This is Julia’s house. This is Julia’s kitchen. This is Julia cooking thanksgiving dinner with Jacques Pepin circa 1999. In her house. In her kitchen. Wishing a Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends. May your year be filled with blessings. Read more
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Ellis Island: JR and the Art of Immigration
The United States, like Canada, is a country of immigrants. Between 1892 and 1954, twelve million citizens of other nations landed at Ellis Island seeking asylum in their new homeland. Close to 40% of Americans can trace their genealogy through these early immigrants. ((http://www.history.com/topics/ellis-island)) There are two kinds of Ellis Island tours available. The first is a free… Read more
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The Splendiferous Redpath Museum Montreal
A shrunken head. Mummies. Dinosaur bones. An anaconda skeleton. Shells the size of a child’s head. A life-sized origami Pterodactyl. A gorilla guarding the staircase. With nearly three million objects spanning natural history, ethnology and mineralogy, the Redpath Museum Montreal is the ultimate Victorian curio cabinet. The first purpose-built museum in Canada, it was commissioned by Peter Redpath and opened in 1882… Read more
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Nobody Tells This to Beginners, He Says
It took some clickety-clicking to find the derivative work, but here’s John McWade’s original posting on Ira Glass and the beginnings of creativity. It’s worth watching Mr. Glass’s video if: a) You’ve ever thought of learning a skill or creating something new; or b) See above. Mr. Glass’s thesis is this: Creatives are compelled to create,… Read more
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A Tree Grows in My Bedroom
“Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?” – Walt Whitman A bitter, alarming storm blew up the river and through the village a few weeks ago. Swaths of trees were felled in an instant, looking like a gaggle of giants had stomped through. The rain blew… Read more
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All Manners of Eating With Children
I wish I had never raised the subject. We’re taking the family away for the summer to France and Italy, which have heavily ritualized food-based cultures. Husband was born and raised in Northern Italy and I have been a regular visitor to western Europe over the years, so we’re not unfamiliar with the cultural expectations… Read more
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Exit the Television
We haven’t had a television in our house for a very long time. One day I got fed-up trying to place the family room furniture in a conversation-friendly layout that also permitted television viewing. So I called up a friend who drove over and drove away with our set, bound for a Community Living group… Read more
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Encyclopedic Knowledge
And the train of thought goes like this: How did I marry someone who has the identical leather-bound, gilt-edged set of Encyclopedia Britannica that I have? Where do encyclopedias go to die? Where did all the door-to-door salesmen go? How come it’s mainly political candidates and religious folks that drop by? Now that I’ve framed in and… Read more
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The Oracle at Lee Valley
Yesterday morning Husband and I had one of those insanely stupid thirty-second flash arguments, this time about the best way to sharpen the garden tools. My rule of thumb is he/she who actually does the work has absolute sovereignty – including the last word – over the purchase, maintenance and use of tools/systems around that… Read more