Category Archives: Essays

This was written in the summer of 1999 as part of the Chapters book chain’s ‘Great Writers’ series of essays that ran as full page inserts in Canadian newspapers.     ‘Mythology is what never was, but always is.’ It … Continue reading →

Mondegreens This piece first appeared in the National Post. It is reprinted here with kind permission. Sometimes life delivers something we always longed for but didn’t even know it. It doesn’t happen (as best I can tell) nearly often enough, … Continue reading →

This was first printed in the Globe & Mail, May 2008. Reproduced with kind permission. Incidentally, the title was their choice!       Edmond Burke said, “All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do … Continue reading →

This was first printed in the Globe & Mail, October 16, 2009. This time of year, in France and Italy, hunters renew their licences and start cleaning rifles, not always carefully enough, preparing to go forth to destroy the peace … Continue reading →

This was first printed in the Globe & Mail, January 2009. It was recently reported that over fifty million Russians had decided the greatest Russian ever. In a broadcast on the state-run Rossiya channel, which concluded three months of telephone … Continue reading →