Looking at life through a funhouse mirror
In the early 1970s, Toronto’s Yonge Street was a place to see and be seen. The sidewalks from Bloor to Queen were filled with people shopping for Indian cotton gauze shirts from stores that smelled like pachouli, buying head shop roach clips fashioned from hardware intended to look innocuous to feckless cops, and scoring the …
ICYMI, the audio format of Nowhere like This Place: Tales from a Nuclear Childhood was released earlier this year. In case you are really out of the loop, this is what the book is about: Marilyn Carr’s family arrived in Deep River, Ontario in 1960 because her dad got a job at a mysterious place …
I am not a huge online shopper, no matter what colour Friday happens to be. This is probably because I am not much of a shopper and not much of a girly girl, with all the lack of penchant for shoes, bags, perfumes, and magic potions that implies. But I do admit the Interweb does …
“Looks like this laptop was dropped,” the geek at Best Buy said. “This whole edge has gone all wonky.” I feigned ignorance. “Possibly. I wouldn’t know. But can you fix it?” “Maybe. The power supply port is out of alignment. That’s why you can’t plug it in. For $100 I can send it to the …
It has been a long time since I was part of the back-to-school cohort, at least when it involved education that was not of my choosing. As I recall, there was the requisite B2S prep and shopping, with one of the most important tasks being deciding what to wear for the first day. It was …
Sometimes when I’m out and about on the bus or subway or simply just walking around, I amuse myself by reading signs or even reading articles of clothing. Inevitably, I come across crimes against the English language. Committing these crimes can occasionally be forgiven if they occur within the privacy of your own home, but …
I am pretty sure I have mentioned this before, but I am a magazine-aholic. I currently subscribe to six magazines: Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Bon Appetit, The Walrus, Cottage Life, and Toronto Life. I also get the Report on Business every month via my Globe and Mail newspaper subscription, bonus issues of Fashion (useless) …
Like many of my cohort, I am in deep denial with respect to my chronological age. In my head, I am in my early forties, officially grownup but still able to stay out way too late on a school night without dire consequences. The money the government sends me every month tells a different story. …
The room is about eight feet square, with baffles on the ceiling made of foam that looks like upside down egg carton innards, black acoustic panels on the walls, and grey industrial carpeting on the floor. All of this makes it look like a rec room renovation that veered way off the rails. The room …
In my own defense, I am far from a Luddite. I have been paid lots of money to tell people what technology they should use and why. However, I am a practical person. I do not need new gadgets just for the sake of new gadgets. My iPhone 5 was doing just fine up until …