Justinio and Jolanda – the movie outline
Memo to Steven Spielberg From David Simmonds The plot summary below is better than a Shakespearean tragedy, You could make it into a movie bigger than Citizen Kane—and make yourself a bigger star than Orson Welles. I await your prompt response. Justinio is the first born-son of Pietro and Margherita. Pietro, now deceased, was a […]
Taming of the tangles
I remember the moment as clearly as if it had just happened. My then 15-year-old, daughter said to me, “Mom, your hair is kind of pinkish-brown.” I knew it was. I was hoping no one else would notice I’d made a terrible mistake in my “I can colour my own hair” escapade. She noticed. It […]
Make way for Snowplow Parents
Helicopter Parents, step aside and make way for Snowplow Parents, Snowplow Parents don’t just supervise their children’s lives: they clear away all obstacles to their children’s success. They do whatever it takes—lawful or unlawful. The leading cohort of Snowplow Parents is the group of 33 people, including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, charged with […]
Your neighbourhood
The older I get, the faster time seems to fly by. March 2019, roared in like a lion and, as I write this, it’s looking over its shoulder and snarling a little bit. March may not go out like a lamb and April will be three days old when this column in The Times hits […]
The night bridge at ice-out
I’m thinkin’ it’s past midnight, but without a timepiece it really doesn’t matter because here is a place of no-time. A thinking spot, a seat of intercession, a hideout I come to often, albeit past months of slack days and lost hours and other topics I can no longer remember, caused me not to be […]
A Sign of the Times
The sign has been erected along Wharf Street where the former Cribs on the Creek used to be. The Cribs website refers you over to the Drake website, and the Drake website says it’s “coming soon”. So I guess it’s official: the Drake empire is expanding, and the Drake Motor Inn will be the first […]
Clippings or cucumbers
Like I’ve been saying, “March is Women’s History Month”. But by the second to last weekend of the month it’s difficult to remember it’s still March. Most of us have moved along to seed catalogues, lawn care products, bedding plants and patio party planning. My mom was raised in downtown Toronto. The yard at her […]
Searching for Churchill
It has been a week filled with political tension in the UK, as the March 29 deadline for Britain’s escape from the European Union moves ever closer. The British parliament has now voted down Theresa May’s Brexit deal twice, but has also voted down the idea of leaving the EU without an exit deal in […]
Peel, Wrangle, Write
March! It’s still Women’s History Month and I’m still on a journey to understand myself. I used to think life would be pretty simple once I found the “man of my dreams”, settled down and made a home for my own family. I don’t know where I got the idea that adult life was a […]
Sugardance
There was a man, a writer priest who worked on commission for the King of France and who told in his records of an explorer and mega star from the port of Saint Malo on the channel coast of France, a place renowned for its industries of local extortion and worldly excursions of adventure. The […]