“He had mastered the art of rendering himself insignificant, invisible.” – Elie Wiesel, Night (1972, 1985) “We are all made of nouns, live by verbs, enlarge and entertain ourselves with adjectives and adverbs.” – Anna Quindlen, Write For Your Life (2022) I am an obscure writer… a writer of no consequence. I have been at it most of… Read More »
“Antsy for adventure, I consider other ways to transport myself. I settle on a tried-and-true escape hatch, accessible to anyone with an armchair: reading.” – Melanie D.G. Kaplan, “Find your literary getaway.” Toronto Star, April 25, 2020. “Reading is…going somewhere without ever taking a train or ship, an unveiling of new, incredible worlds. It’s living a life you… Read More »
PART II Anything above zero in this part of the north is tropical. At 52 deg. North and just below the tree line, by mid-Oct. ice starts forming in the lakes. By Nov., the kids are already playing hockey. So by late December, it is hard to find open water in any of the lakes surrounding this Reserve. … Read More »
“There are lots of things that do happen in life and lots that could, but you’re just left waiting for them. It seemed to me that more things I wanted were coming very slowly, and when they did happen it wasn’t the way I’d wanted and planned; they’d all taken too long, as if to annoy me, and… Read More »
“Lebensraum… is impossible without invading other countries or attacking other people’s possessions. Further successes can no longer be attained without shedding of blood. It is a question of expanding our living space…” – Hitler. “When at last the cat woke, the bunny asked her friend, who was much older, ‘Where do we go when we die?’ The cat… Read More »
“Sunny day…life’s so gay/Then suddenly…it goes away/Without a warning, lightning strikes/I’m heading for another lonely night/Cause I always get caught in the rain/It seems my heart stays in pain.” – Lyrics from the song, I Always Get Caught in the Rain, sang by Dionne Warwick. The Philippines, because of its unfortunate geographic location (referred to as the typhoon… Read More »
REMINISCING MY YEARS AT THE REZ and the perils of early retirement PART 1 Working full-time in a stressful job was just the recipe for thoughts of early retirement, a “seven-year itch” three times over, especially for one who’s been at it for more than three decades. Even for school teachers, long summer breaks, in my case, meant… Read More »
“Ah, my child, no one is listening to you, there is no use in crying. You will soon learn that you’re alone in this world! You too will be afraid…” – Marie-Claire Blais, A Season in the Life of Emmanuel (1939). “The sun’ll come out tomorrow/So you gotta hang on ‘til tomorrow/Come what may.” – Tomorrow from the… Read More »
“From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink – greetings!” – George Orwell, 1984. “Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.” The quotation was from a line in George Orwell’s novel 1984, the same book as… Read More »
HOW AND WHY DO WE FALL FOR THESE ABSURDITIES: Amusing and laughable, frivolous, and ludicrous are just some of the characterizations that I share with people who hear about outlandish theories proposed by equally nonsensical people invested in Conspiracy Theories. We will examine the origins and explore why a particular population segment believes them. Early humans understood their… Read More »