November 2013
So often when one is travelling the most popular tourist sites turn out to be the most disappointing.
In Vienna recently I took the train out to visit the Schonbrunn Palace, home to the Habsburgs until their empire crumbled during World War One. It is apparently the most visited site in Austria but I was disappointed, make that angry, at the banality of the interpretation. Walking through the spacious rooms, audio guide pressed to my ear, I was treated to a barrage of trivial...
Friday evening found me downtown at the annual Mayor's Arts Awards. This year's award for achievement in the literary arts went to my pal George Fetherling so I went along to raise the general noise level.
The Science Centre is a weird venue for such an event, formal and distant. But host Bill Richardson was his usual...
In June I mentioned the story of Moby Doll, the first killer whale taken into captivity back in 1964.
The story is told in a book I co-wrote with marine scientist Gil Hewlett, Operation Orca (Harbour Publishing). But more recently Moby was the subject of a radio program in the CBC series Ideas. "Moby Doll: The Whale That Changed the World", produced by Mark Leiren-Young, was broadcast in early November. You can listen to a podcast...
Down to the Portside Pub in Gastown last night to attend a joint launch for a pair of books about one of my favourite subjects, Vancouver.
First up was Lani Russwurm, author of Vancouver Was Awesome (Arsenal Pulp Press), a self-described "pictorial history" of the city. He showed some slides and talked a bit about the career of George Paris, boxer/musician/sportsman, as an example of the unusual people and events he features in the book. I've long been a fan of Lani's (I don'...
I mentioned in an earlier post that I was in Ottawa this past week visiting the School of Canadian Studies, chatting with students there and delivering a lecture.
The visit was a great success, from my perspective at least, and I think from the School's. My formal talk was recorded and can be listened to here.
On the occasion of Remembrance Day, a few of my favourite books relating to war.
1. Two wonderful volumes by the Ottawa military historian Tim Cook: At the Sharp End: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1914-16 and Shock Troops: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1917-18. Cook recreates battles and explains tactics but his finest achievement is to take the reader into the trenches where the soldiers' lives were lived, and lost. And he has interesting things to...
I am going to be in Ottawa next week giving a lecture and talking to the students in the School of Canadian Studies at Carleton University.
Forty years ago I attended what was then called the Institute of Canadian Studies at Carleton. At the time I was working as a newspaper reporter and the idea was that if I knew more about the country it might make me a better journalist. ...