Louche Leaves

Forget: A Common Word with an Unusual Pedigree

Such a simple and commonplace word, and yet it has a moderately complex history. Intriguingly, it has almost been forgotten despite being not only a common and workaday term, but also a uniquely distinct word — a peculiarity in the English language. The word is believed to have originated from the

What the Dictionary Got Wrong: An Etymology of Skedaddle

The Oxford English Dictionary: Distinguished, revered, venerated, respected, hallowed, culturally enshrined. Who could even think of suggesting that this monument, this monolith is not perfect? The mere notion could be considered iconoclastic at best, or heretical at worst. And yet, here we are. I did not set out to be

Forbidden and Transgressive Space

They say you can never go back, but that’s not always completely true. Life has come full circle and after decades of moving to so many different places I have now returned to my childhood home. Some things have changed, some have remained the same, and some in between.

Sins of Omission: Suppressed Work History — Part One

My “official” résumé, is, shall we say, a pared down and highly streamlined version of my actual work experience. The last time I counted, I believe I’ve had at least 24 jobs or occupations. Spanning a period of about 50 years, there is a great deal of overlap as

A 400-Year-Old Paper Mill and Sealing Wax

Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff And brought him strings, and sealing wax, and other fancy stuff — "Puff the Magic Dragon" by Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul

Losing Weight: Alice in Wonderland, The Matrix, and The Wicked Witch of the West

"I suppose I ought to eat or drink something or other; but the great question is, 'What?'" — Alice (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) Grace Slick of the iconic rock band The Jefferson Airplane in the famous song “White Rabbit” likened the story of Alice in Wonderful

The Marriage of the Dead and Capitalism at the Altar of Petroleum

Spiritualism and Capitalism certainly make for odd bedfellows. In the United States, both commercial oil interests and spiritualism were born at almost the same time and geographically close to one another. Both dealt with the unseen — the spirits of the departed and the rich resource buried deep in the ground.

books

Dreamseller: Turtle Creek Books

My secondhand bookshop trades in ideas, knowledge, and wisdom, often providing access to wonderfully word-crafted works that may inspire hope and provide solace. Our trade can be as simple as entertainment and humour; a balm to the ravaged soul. We broker esoteric theories and the wondrously simple commonality of being

George Carlin

The Hoarders' Orison: A Counterpoint to George Carlin

“A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it.” – George Carlin Carlin was a genius. Funny, provocative, irreverent, he was a master of observation and biting satire. His rant on “stuff” is a case in point. For the most part, I would tend to agree with

Employment

Employment Agency Memories: The Unemployed and the Unemployable

Back in the late 1980s I worked as an executive recruiter. The firm where I worked was a very small one, specializing in a particular sector of manufacturing, and we were just a tiny bit pretentious in that we only took on managerial or executive candidates. Our group operated in

Italy

Learning A New Language; Or Calling a Nun a Whore

In July of 1974 I found myself in Castelfranco Veneto, a large town northeast of Venice. The “old” medieval part of the town was encircled with a moat and crenellated walls while the circular road around those walls was surrounded with renaissance (or later) buildings, most with archways (called “portici”

Coal

Review: Fire Underground

The book Fire Underground: The Ongoing Tragedy of the Centralia Mine Fire by David DeKok tells the story of how a mining disaster made a ghost town of Centralia, Pennsylvania. Back in 1999 a friend of mine was playing a rather dark yet compelling video game called “Silent Hill”. I

etymology

When Rocks Became Clouds

It's cloud illusions I recall I really don't know clouds at all — “Both Sides Now”, song by Joni Mitchell To name a thing is how we think we know it. There has been much investigation on how language affects our thinking. One famous study gave us

Port Credit

Cooksville Creek: A History of Saul’s Creek and the Saul Family in Port Credit

We now know it as Cooksville Creek, but from the 1800s to the 1960s it was known as Saul’s Creek. A lively little waterway, it meandered through lands owned by Hugh W. Saul. The creek runs 16 km from near Bristol Road to Lake Ontario. This watershed has been

sight Featured

Why Louche?

When describing a lexicographer, Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) opined that a writer of dictionaries was “a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original and detailing the signification of words”. Oh, Mr. Johnson, despite your erudition, you must not have savoured many of the exquisite joys of etymology. I love

slavery

Something Wicked This Way Came

In the mid-1990s my family and I were vacationing on the Island of Saint Kitts. The choice of Saint Kitts was largely mine. My 6th great-grandfather Robert Choppin (died 1688) arrived in Saint Kitts in 1629 as part of the fleet of Sir Thomas Warner (who was one of the

olfaction

A Whiff of Nonanal — Or Why You Should Hang Your Laundry in the Sunshine

I first acquired a dryer, meaning a clothes drying machine, in 2005; but only because I inherited one. Used less than ten times in almost 20 years, I just don’t see the necessity. If the weather is completely dreadful, as in snowing or raining, I hang up the laundry

self help

Toxic Positivity : The Dark Face of Positive Thinking

A Facebook friend recently shared a “positive” meme, and it just kept bothering me. Aside from the saccharine wording and facile sentiment, I find there is a deeper, highly insidious and profoundly negative thought pattern under the surface. The post appeared on a Facebook page with over 33 million followers,

tree, trees, nature

The Oldest Tree in Mississauga

Although there might be an older tree in town, the white oak tree growing just off Clarkson Road North is likely the most ancient. Indeed, it is so old that it was designated as a Provincial Park! According to various sources, the typical lifespan of this particular type of white

savant

Islands of Genius in a Sea of Ordinary Life

In the 5th hour of the 5th day of the 5th month of the 5th year of this new millennium my mother died. Perhaps she was making it easy for me to remember. Nonetheless, she would have liked the numerical symmetry of it. Her interior or innate wiring was a

Lake Lacuna

Sometimes they call it “brain fog”, or that the word one forgets is “on the tip of the tongue”. Some envision their brain as a huge repository of files, storing all sorts of information and that, for the moment, they can’t find the file. I conjure something different. Like

family history

Strangers on a Train; Or How I Met Your Father

Looking back, I now see that trains and train stations have been a constant backdrop in my life — hours of commuting to high school, travelling to and from university, going to visit my parents when we lived in different regions of Italy. It was on one of these trips from

scopa

750 Hours on a Train

Living in northern Italy in the late 1970s I would take a commuter train every morning, at 5 or 6 AM, and ride just under two hours from Treviso to Vicenza, where I was attending high school. I was 16 or 17 years old at the time. Each morning, painfully

books

Help Wanted

A few people worked in the bookshop with me. My first assistant was a university student who was studying psychology. Friendly, smart, upbeat, responsible, computer savvy… she was wonderful and of course didn’t last. Once she got her degree, off she went and good for her! A later employee

toilets

Close Encounters of the Third Kind of Facilities

Moving to Europe in my early teens was an enormous transition. In the 1970s we were not living in a “global village”, and things still varied tremendously from country to country. One significant adjustment that was required every day — indeed, multiple times daily — was using the toilet. Such a universal