Now that my son is seven, our weekend mornings have gelled into a proper routine. He wakes up at some ungodly hour—earlier, by the way, than he gets up on weekdays—and plays for a while in his room. When he’s tired of that, he’ll grab a couple of granola bars from the kitchen and then […] More »

“Your address?” she asks. We’re talking on the telephone. “Post Office Box 3, McCallum, Newfoundland, A0H 2J0,” I reply. “Would you like me to spell McCallum for you?” “I need your street address, sir.” “I’m sorry, I don’t have one.” “I need the street name and number on the building you want us to send […] More »

On stage, a group of classical musicians dressed in formal evening wear hold their string, brass, and woodwind instruments. Making their final preparations before playing, they check their tuning, adjust their seats, and arrange sheet music on the stands in front of them. A pianist sits to one side, and a drummer near the back. […] More »

Russell Peters’s much awaited return to television was finally satiated with the CTV show The Indian Detective, which aired last December. The sitcom has been five years in the making, and it’s a first for Peters, a Canadian stand-up comedian who began his career in Toronto. It tells the story of Doug D’Mello (played by […] More »

Time bends on The Bachelor. For one thing, its passage is parsed in weeks, as if love’s progress was some form of gestation hitting developmental milestones, scaling up from lima bean to lemon to dragon fruit. And within this episodic unfurling, contestants suffer the effects of time turned lopsided. Bachelor time is like chewing gum: it […] More »

I spend a lot of time parsing the language of Silicon Valley, that heady mix of technobabble and pseudoeconomics where many words are used to say very little. It’s a lexicon designed by “visionary” business types (though they prefer to be called “entrepreneurs” now) and the middle managers they hire, saying words filled with pomp, […] More »

Dear internet algorithms, I know that you’re cold, calculating, and goal-driven by nature, so I’ll get straight to the point: We need to talk about your manners—or rather, the fact that you don’t seem to have any. I know you’re made up of computer code, so it’s understandable you’d favour logic and efficiency over any […] More »

Canada’s geography lends itself well to the canoe, our vast landscapes boasting an abundance of rivers, lakes, and coastlines. For more than 150 years, we have indulged in this mode of transportation, the vessel’s iconic shape ingrained in our national identity. Long and slender, wood or fibreglass, rounded at the bow and stern. Its image […] More »

In August 2015, Ala Buzreba, then the Liberal candidate for Calgary Nose Hill, was giving up her candidacy. Just 21 years old, Buzreba was trying to unseat Conservative Michelle Rempel. But that dream crumbled when a few less-than-savoury comments posted to her Twitter account during her high-school year surfaced—four years before she entered the political […] More »

Dear pop culture, You know I love you, but you really need to stop making me nostalgic for the technology of days gone by. Please, I beg of you, stop reminding me of the good old days like I am Lindsay Lohan and you are 2004. In Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson, Adam Driver’s character Paterson refuses […] More »

Theatre air conditioning once beckoned crowds during heat waves, but this year, even that couldn’t lure people to the movies. This summer, the film industry struggled as the North American box office recorded its lowest-grossing summer quarter in 10 years. In all fairness to moviegoers, the summer movie choices were anything but new: mostly remakes, […] More »