Les inspirant langues de Tomson Highway

The strongest aspect of English for me is that it’s the world’s foremost intellectual language, it comes from the head. The French language comes from the heart, it’s an emotional language. And Cree is a visceral language, it comes from a third part of the human body, a part that’s forbidden to be talked about in English. It’s the garden of joy, of pleasure, from which the English language was evicted 4,000 years ago — to put it in theological terms. It’s hysterical. When you speak Cree, you laugh all the time. Every syllable is a kick in the arse. So when I want to laugh, I speak Cree. When I want to make money, I speak English. When I want to make love, I speak French.

The full interview

A story for the year of the rat

You wouldn't want me, standing here, to tell you, would you, about my friend the poet (deceased) who said, 'My heart has followed all my days something I cannot name'?

The Door, by E.B. White

Bees

Photographer Adam Makarenko's miniature/photo bee projects are mesmerizing.

Recently awarded the American Photo of the Year, "[i]n this project, Makarenko created a detailed imaginary world -- a 'pseudo garden of Eden' he calls Langstroth Range, located in Canada's Yukon Territory."

A grey mood

There's a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons--
That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes--

~ Emily Dickinson (No. 258)


Renowned Vancouver architect Arthur Erickson said of his favourite medium: "Concrete is the marble of the 20th century." His creations are anywhere from fascinating to confounding to starkly beautiful. But his contributions to this city, one socked-in by grey for much of the year, sometimes simply overwhelm.

It's the 21st century, is our future to remain grey?


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The Gray Areas of Jasper Johns
By Carol Vogel

February 3, 2008

ONLY one artwork hangs in Jasper Johns’s all-white Caribbean home here. It’s a nearly nine-foot-tall canvas in three sections: a harlequin pattern that cascades down on the right, a series of colored circles on the left, and a montage of gray encaustic brush strokes in the center. Two overlapping wooden slats are attached to the painting.

Full New York Times article