I tried to pack lots into my five days in Vancouver: a conference presentation given, a panel chaired, met up for dinner with a former high school teacher of mine from two decades ago, had a morning coffee with a former colleague from the History honours program at Concordia University, dinners, lunches and lots of travelling on the SkyTrain…All in…
Author: Christopher Adam
Rabbi Amy Eilberg’s book, From Enemy to Friend — Jewish Wisdom and the Pursuit of Peace, seems especially relevant in the era of tribal politics and visceral political discourse, where ideological disagreement often leads to enmity. Drawing from the well of classical religious texts, contemporary communication theory, conflict studies and mediation, Rabbi Eilberg points to the pathways that may lead…
Fr. Joel Sember serves as pastor of three churches in the Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin. When he shared the audio recording of his most recent homily, entitled “The Problem with the Catholic Church is…,” I found it hard to suppress my curiosity. The homily’s theme was prompted by the cancellation of Saturday evening Mass at St. Anthony, one of…
Spring came late this year in my part of the world; either it dragged its feet mulishly or else winter overstayed its welcome. Either way, I’ve had my camera out the past few weekends as I tried to capture small signs of how new life slowly crept into things around me. I spent two of these weekends out of town,…
The raw language, powerful and harsh in its unadorned simplicity, matches the desolate landscape, both rural and urban, and the severeness of life for two working class brothers in Willy Vlautin’s novel The Motel Life. Deep loyalty, and a promise made as teenagers to their dying mother to stick together, make Frank and Jerry Lee Flannigan inseparable, as they live in…
On May 4th, I took my passport, a coffee and a small piece of Ontario over to New York’s North Country, arriving in Cape Vincent to give a reading from my anthology of literary fiction, I Have Demons. What an engaged and welcoming group of local poets, writers and readers I found in this little village along the Saint Lawrence…
During a period of intense anti-Catholic persecution, a nameless priest wanders through Mexico as a fugitive, trying to evade authorities that have placed a 700 peso bounty on his head. Stemming from pride, mortification and a sense of pastoral mission, the destitute priest hears confessions, anoints the sick and celebrates Mass in the communities he visits. But is father bringing…
I stumbled upon a curious little print publication this Wednesday at lunch. I sought a Cubano sandwich at The Working Title Café in the hall of what used to be All Saints Sandy Hill Anglican Church and ended up taking home an unpretentious, yet delightful zine of analog black and white photography by Ottawa area photographers. The inaugural issue of Do…
Terse, aloof, cold, almost completely devoid of intimacy–this is how I would describe much of the dialogue in British novelist David Storey’s 1972 book Pasmore. The narrative, heavy on clipped dialogue, explores the mental unraveling of the 30 year old protagonist. Colin Pasmore is a university lecturer living and working in the London boroughs of Camden and Islington. He has…
From seedy hotel rooms, grimy pool halls, the brutality of reform school in the 1950’s, county jail and ultimately San Quentin prison, Hard Rain Falling is a coming-of-age story wrapped up in the existential crisis and dehumanization of protagonist Jack Levitt. It also explores class conflict, how class plays a role in criminal justice in the United States, it touches…