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Love Your Children Well
For the past few years, I’ve been struck by intermittent doubts about whether we’re raising our children “right.” Our house is filled with a gaggle of teenagers. As our eldest nears university, his upbringing is a done deal, the question a moot point. As for the others, it is said that parents have a diminishing influence…
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Skating the Rideau Canal in Burritt’s Rapids
I love living in a place with distinct seasons. What I particularly love is that just when I start to really, really enjoy something – swimming in the river, gardening, snowshoeing, falling leaves – it’s gone. Skating on the Rideau Canal in Burritt’s Rapids is like that. And its fleeting and unpredictable nature makes me appreciate…
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What I See When I See Smiths Falls
This is the first in a series of visual love letters to Smiths Falls, one of my favourite towns. I’m from Vancouver, and while there are great things about the westcoast, I have called rural Ottawa home for the past 20 years. The single best thing I love about living in the east is the riches of…
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New York and the MTA Underground Art Museum
I love riding New York’s subway system – just not as much as I love walking the city. Riding necessitates paying attention to lines and stops and tracks – my mind can’t wander for fear of ending up in who-knows-where – but walking favours mental and corporeal freedom, especially when time holds no sway. However, my penchant for perambulation has its downside: walking New York…
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It’s Just Not Christmas Without Homemade Baileys
Every Christmas since I’ve been an adult, I’ve used my mom’s recipe to make bottle upon bottle of homemade Baileys, which I’ve distributed to friends and neighbours. The original recipe card is so well-used it’s begun to look like an ancient artifact. You’d think I’d have memorized it by now, but every year I pull…
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My Brain on Art-O-Mat®
It’s more fun than Pez and more addictive than crack. I nearly lost my mind when I stepped into District Taco and spotted the Art-O-Mat® against the wall. It’s a refurbished cigarette machine, but instead of vending cancer sticks, it dispatches micro art pieces for five bucks a hit. Of course, I immediately started plugging it with money and pulling the…
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Walking the White Rock Pier
It’s curious how one can routinely walk the same path for so long, then alter a single element and watch the common unfold in an uncommon way. This night (and day) I put aside my camera bag – a constant – and tucked my iPhone in my vest pocket. Without the weight, my body felt lighter and my step…
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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…
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Larry’s Christmas Cards
I didn’t so much as meet Larry Racioppo as find him. Home from NYC and working on this piece, I admired his photographic work on the 9/11 Memorial & Museum site and he agreed to lend me an image. Turns out, he’s lived a fascinating life; he’s been a NYC taxi driver in the early 80’s, staff photographer for the…
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The Sham of Highest and Best Use
This triplet of houses in Québec City defies the modern logic of “highest and best use” and its inherent rule of being “maximally productive.” It flaunts every last morsel of economic thought except one: It is a keeper of history, and provides a vital and extraordinary point of interest in the city’s viewscape, arguably contributing to the profits realized by the city’s…