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A Psycho House on Top
While most people who drive the I-81 through Syracuse, New York are focussed on the gargantu-signs that foretell their arrival at the state’s largest shopping complex, I am fixated on another architectural curiosity: a decrepit Victorian house on top of an abandoned warehouse.
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Nicolas Cage Returns to Burritts Rapids
Also see the Facebook Page: Nicolas Cage in Burritt’s Rapids ***** In 1986, a 22-year-old shirtless Nicolas Cage starred as world-champion sculler Ned Hanlan in the Canadian film production of “The Boy in Blue,” partially shot in the village of Burritt’s Rapids, Ontario over eight days in September 1984. On Wednesday, April 19th, 2017, Cage…
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Developing a Personal Point of View
I stop for a latte and drink in the view. The café, six tables and a banquette against the plate glass wall, offers a window onto the Byward Market and the Gatineau hills. Wind pushes the clouds across the city in an ephemeral drama of light and shadow. A commercial crane, red and ten stories tall, anchors the scene.
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What I See When I See Smiths Falls – Part 3
You can find Part 1 & Part 2 here. After 17 years and a thousand round trips, I could drive from Burritt’s Rapids to Smiths Falls with my eyes closed. But why would I want to?
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Winter Light
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, Whether the summer clothe the general earth With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall Heard only in the trances of the blast,…
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A Ride Home from Prison
I don’t have any time to waste on jail anymore ~ Stanley Bailey, newly-released former inmate Carlos Cervantes, a former inmate, says every ride home from prison is different. He picks up men released from life sentences after California reformed its three strikes law in 2012. Most of the men don’t have family or friends anymore;…
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I Am Not Your Negro
The question you have to ask yourself, White America needs to ask itself: Why was it necessary to have a nigger in the first place? ~ James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro In a neighbouring village more English than England and whiter than white, I found Agatha Christie’s book in the stacks of the church’s charity book sale. I was…
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More Than Enough Refugee Blues to Go Around
Refugee Blues was published by writer and poet W.H. Auden in 1939, at the start of World War II. It’s safe to say not much has changed and, perhaps, it never will if war and hatred continue to be our modus operandi. The million dollar question is this: Are we doomed as humans to this destructive cycle of scapegoatism…
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Guerrilla Art for Curious People
It took 18 years of rural living for Guerrilla Art for Curious People to appear. The idea popped into my brain because I love nothing more than discovering public art in unexpected places. Every time I’m surprised by an installation – turning a corner or driving through a neighborhood – my body vibrates, my head alights and I am consumed by…
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What I See When I See Smiths Falls – Part 2
This is the second in a series of visual love letters to Smiths Falls, one of my favourite towns in Eastern Ontario. You can find the first installment here.