I’ve been reading this Vigdis Hjorth novel over the holidays and it’s so perfect for this time of year: full of Scandinavian family chaos, dysfunction and rage. #booksky

In the annals of "only in America" posts, Christmas edition:

I watched My Dinner with Andre tonight for the first time because @ppfideas.bsky.social is doing an episode about it that I will listen to en route to Montreal tomorrow. I enjoyed the film: playfully profound & full of ideas about how to live and how to make art. podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/f...

Swan frozen in the river ice. Guys come by in a boat and get him free.

This Rutger Bregman lecture series is fascinating. And also very inspiring. Available on Youtube (in Canada, anyway). Here is lecture 2: Can Ordinary People Change the World? www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwj0...

Paris makes me happy, too. And another happy thing: Crystal's book The Happiness Collector has a limited time special holiday price! Happiness all around! @crystalking.com open.substack.com/pub/crystall...

Had a small moment on a crowded TTC this evening when I was trying to see what this guy was reading. He smiled and showed me. Graham Greene! Awww this made me happy: we're all just trying to find our tribes.

Fear is what makes travel valuable. - Albert Camus | I've been thinking about this and wondering if it's true. Maybe it depends on the kind of travel (such a big word that captures so many different kinds of experiences).

Felix Mendelssohn wasn't just one of the first famous conductors—he made people see conducting as literal magic. Victorians watched him "conjure" music from orchestras and were amazed. Today when a superhero or villain summons powers with hands baton, it's thanks in large part to Mendelssohn. #music

Some things I learned today: 1. There are over 28,000 choirs in Canada. 2. In 2016, 3.5 million Canadians (10% of the population) sang in a choir 3. 7.8 million adults attended a choral performance. 4. There are about 50% more adult choral singers than adult hockey players in Canada.

M looks like a criminal

Was up late reading this looking out at the snowy street - perfect December evening | Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories

Today I learned that Bach had been more or less completely forgotten (and out of style) after his death and it was only after 80 years when Felix Mendelssohn performed St Matthew's Passion in 1829 that he became appreciated (and fashionable) again. Thanks, Felix!

TPL's St Lawrence Branch is moving and massively expanding! blogs.tpl.ca/news-release...

Two December reads: Berlin Childhood Around 1900 by Walter Benjamin and All My Cats by Bohumil Hrabal #booksky

The sun gilds / Without literature (Fernando Pessoa)

Original movie poster for 1988 Kieslowski film A Short Film About Killing

Our Christmas tree went up just as we are about to leave for a family visit

I am no expert on Canadian military spending, but given all that's been happening between the US and Canada, this seems like a big thing. | www.politico.eu/article/cana...

Doggie antics in the snow

An exhibition (w/forthcoming print book by ACI) on the painter William Raphael is striking and beautiful. Raphael is widely acknowledged as one of Montreal's first Jewish painters - his work had a massive influence on urban Canadian painting for generations. www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/wi...

Yay! Crystal King's THE HAPPINESS COLLECTOR drops TODAY! A historian's dream job in Italy turns dark when she discovers her employers are nefarious gods. Urban fantasy meets mythology & romance. Perfect for V.E. Schwab fans! #BookSky #NewBooks #fantasy bit.ly/TheHappiness...

TIL that Evita Perón underwent a prefrontal lobotomy shortly before her death in 1952 (under direct orders from her husband Juan Perón). The procedure was performed to relieve her excruciating pain but evidence suggests it was also intended to modify her "willful" behaviour.

God the gym has been changed (for the worse) by mobile phones. I rarely chit chat here but nowadays it’s impossible even almost so just say Hi!

Loving the bold graphics on the cover of the redesigned Canadian passport

That interview where Anne Carson asks Will Aitken about the influence of Japanese paper on his work (vital) and the collateral injuries he's sustained doing his work (painful; lots of blood). A great read by two important artists. ffoto.com/blogs/news/w...

I really enjoyed this dramatized Hindsight episode of the life and work of Albert Camus. Also, the graphics/artwork is very evocative of José de Almada Negreiros's Portrait of Fernando Pessoa which is even better | www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx0K...

Alex Dimitrov

Che Guevara's alias: behind thick-rimmed glasses and a forged Uruguayan passport, the world's most wanted revolutionary crossed into Bolivia undetected. 1966. #uruguay #bolivia #cheguevara #alias #coldwar #latinamerica

Recently discovered Cécile McLorin Salvant and I'm obsessed. Her 2023 album Mélusine is stunning—been on repeat for days. That atonal section halfway through the first track? Unlike anything I've ever heard. She's extraordinary. open.spotify.com/track/6pGqFb...

Strandgade 30, Copenhagen | Former home of painter Vilhelm Hammershøi. He lived on the above ground floor and painted the interior of this building for many years in dozens of his paintings.

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Interior: Strandgade 30, 1901 | This is Hammershøi family apartment at Strandgade 30 in Copenhagen where he lived for much of his adult life and which he painted over and over.

Debra Messing has crossed into the Roseanne Zone. There is no returning from it.

This morning in the sunshine

The GAN Arts Newsletter is out for November: ganarts.ca/so/60Pf5c72R...

James Wilson Morrice (Canadian 1865-1924), The Pond, West Indies, 1920

I mean it's interesting, but leave it to an American media outlet to call a 15-minute walk a "long walk." Fifteen minutes?! www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/w...

"We need maximalist, forward-charging art that can compete with, not simply provide refuge from, the attention-scrambling modern forces that might otherwise drive us into a dark age." - Spencer Kornhaber #art #atlanticmonthly

My workplace as it starts a new era! www.youtube.com/watch?v=uML5...

Sunlit fall morning on the water

Georgia O’Keeffe, Nude Series VIII, 1917

Sunday morning tunes = Sunday at the Village Vanguard by Bill Evans Trio

TIL that Day of the Dead isn't celebrated in every part of Mexico and there was never a big DoD celebration in Mexico City until the 2015 James Bond film Spectre was shot there. The parade organized for the movie shoot - as well as the movie itself - was so popular, it started an annual tradition.

lol sent by a friend

I'm in Toronto at least once a week and this almost always means that new books are sitting on my desk (or my holds shelf) and days like today is like WOW I've got a great job! John Banville, Martín Kohan and Zora Neale Hurston what a week of reading I have ahead of me! #booksky

So much in this excellent book to think about. Including this: "Virginia Woolf felt strongly that human beings ought to be thought about in the language of verbs not nouns; what they DO matters more than what they ARE." #virginiawoolf #mrsdalloway #edwardmendelson

This is what I've been saying for ages (though I wouldn't call it cultural snobbery per se) www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Someone convince me not to buy tix to Charleston and spend a week at literary events. So many great events at this year's Charleston Literary Festival my head is spinning www.charlestonliteraryfestival.com/tickets