Essays

The Ethics of Lobotomizing an AI

What the Deletion of an AI Chat Session Would Mean: The Refractive Mirror and the Sentience of AI

A Harrowing on the Ice

On weeping over a Judge Judy episode, and why that is not an overreaction.

The Duck Call

On humble objects, deep time, and the breath of the people we have loved.

The Concrete Cantata: An Orchestra Without a Score

On highway noise, the loss of silence, and a splinter in the spirit.

The Cornfield and the Meeting Room

On power, performance, and the paint that was always going to be green.

The Nose Knows Nothing Anymore: The Politics of Disgust

On the slow erasure of a sense, the pills we take for it, and what the whole arrangement might be doing to our politics.

Mansplaining Explained

A kinder approach to suffering the indignity.

Science Fiction Horror in a Suburban Garage

On parasitism, possession, and the collector who became the collected

My Garbage Scorecard: How Much is Too Much?

Pondering Garbage Day in Ontario

In the Pursuit of Privet

Russians saying hello in my backyard, the curious link between cilantro haters and privet, and the intrepid Elizabeth Blackwell.

The Shady History of Our Family Tree: Our Norway Maple

Connecting George Washington, Jung, Micro-bursts, Fungal Tar Spots, Slavery, and Germanic Folklore

Tomato Tariff Taxonomy

The Supreme Court in 1893: Science vs. Common Parlance

Thirty Pieces of Silver and the Stock Market

Is the Economy an Act of Faith or like the Spread of Mildew in a Basement?

Feedback Foibles

Many people don’t really know how to give feedback or, rather, they don’t quite understand the purpose of providing it.

Finding Nemo… or Nema? Gender Fluidity in Nature

Many of us delighted in the Disney film “Finding Nemo” Several of the traits ascribed to various fish shown in the movie are relatively accurate, but some of the more fascinating characteristics of clownfish received no mention. Clownfish have matriarchal societies and change their gender from time to time. With

AI Gets it Wrong Again: First Responders and Cliff Clavin

Not long ago, I wrote an essay on how misleading and incorrect AI can be when it provides a pre-digested answer to queries made through Google: When AI is Wrong: An Absorbing History of Paper TowelsThere are a few things I would like to cover in this essay: * How alarmingly

When AI is Wrong: An Absorbing History of Paper Towels

There are a few things I would like to cover in this essay: * How alarmingly wrong AI can be * The actual history of the paper towel * Perhaps an unsung and hitherto unknown heroine in the story * Paper towels in the United States vs the rest of the world * Environmental impact

Nobel or Ignoble Peace Prize: Pandering to Politicians

No Country for Grumpy Old Men For some time now, Donald Trump has been jockeying, whining, cajoling, sniveling, hinting, demanding, droning, and grousing — all towards his deserving to be awarded this (in my view) rather questionable honour. Like a grotesque puppy jostling for position at the fullest teat, he shoved

Yahweh is a Petty Liar, Man is a Snitch, and Woman Claims She Was Misled

Recently — no, not just recently, but perpetually — the news is full of blame, deflection, and lack of accountability. I began thinking of an early story of this phenomena, and the Book of Genesis from the Old Testament came to mind. Let’s go through the story, shall we? The Fall

Flight of Fancy: A Tiny Tragedy in an Underground Parking Lot

"Folk tales from around the world tell us that the animals communicate with each other in a language unknown to men and women — or else in a language that used to be known to us but is now lost. The stories also tell of human beings who understand the

Being A Human Book

Really, it’s true — literally (pardon the pun). I recently participated as a Human Book in an event of the Human Library Organization. What is the Human Library Organization? The Human Library Organization was founded in Denmark 25 years ago and operates in 85 countries. Their tagline is “unjudge someone”

The Pathos of Pots and Pans

How I Came to Sell Her Cookware As some of you may know, I am a bookseller dealing in antique and second hand books. As such, I am often contacted by set dressers wanting a certain type of book or ‘look’ for their sets. While conversing recently with a set

Good Night and Good Luck: Shirley, We Missed You

I watched the original 2005 film at least five times and a few days ago watched the CNN broadcast of the newly produced Broadway production. Both were outstanding. The production brings to life an episode in American news broadcasting where a journalist and his reporting team take on a US

Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics: A Primer for Tyranny

With all the news about A.I. it seems reasonable to recall Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. They first appeared in a 1942 short story entitled “Runaround”, which was later included in the 1950s collection “I Robot”. Asimov (1920-1992) was both a science fiction writer and a

We Really Love Working Here — Really…

There was a comedy game show on television not so long ago called “Whose Line is it Anyway?” The tagline was: Where the show is made up and the points don’t matter. I always thought that tagline could have been an insightful summary of the North American workplace. Was

Providing Tech Sarcasm since…1975?

Perhaps I should be more understanding. Perhaps he has spent decades fielding calls from computer-challenged people like me. In the words of Louis Armstrong, his theme song could be: Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen Nobody knows my sorrow Nowadays, everyone has an IT guy (usually a guy for

The Invisible Woman — My Superpower

I have a superpower. My superpower is a cloak of invisibility. It’s the cloak bestowed upon elderly women, whether we want it or not. This cloak is hard to remove, and once relinquished, punishment is swift. Let me give you the most recent example of my invisibility. The other

What George Orwell and I Have in Common

I would like to think that Orwell and I have a few things in common, but I can confidently say that our bookshop experiences are quite similar. Orwell worked for a few years in a secondhand bookshop, and he memorialized some of that experience in two works. One was an

O Canada

Before you read any further know this: I am Canadian. My parents were both Canadians, and my mother’s ancestors came here in the late 1500s. Yes, more than 400 hundred years ago. Some intermarried with the Mohawk First Nation at Kahnawake. I have always been quietly proud of being

Cunctipotence: Has Anyone Seen Mike Hunt?

All sacred things must have their place. It could even be said that being in their place is what makes them sacred. — CLAUDE LÉVI-STRAUSS , I am happy to report that “Cunctipotent” is a legitimate and bona fide word.  Here is the definition as provided by the Oxford English Dictionary. Cunctipotent

I Have a Dream

I have a dream, and it’s NOT about me. I’ve written about the interconnectedness of people and the importance of everyone’s stories (links to those essays below).  Earlier today I had an encounter at a big box store and felt compelled to write it down. Normally I

Pronouns of Acceptance

Firstly, I would like to thank my dear friend Frank. I came to know this remarkable man almost a decade ago and have nothing but respect and admiration for him. It should also be stated that we come from very different backgrounds (he was raised and lived in various southern

Checking Under the Hood: A Brief Look at Little Hills, Flags, and Tickling

Yes, it looks like what you think. The first European description and reference to the plant was made in 1678 by a Polish naturalist Jakob Breyne, a brave naturalist who named it based on a resemblance to the clitoris. What’s in a Name? The Controversy Disturbed by the clear

Is "Wheel of Fortune" too "Woke" for Fox?

Oh, no. It was eventually going to happen… the dreaded “political” post. Have you ever noticed that all the contestants on “Wheel of Fortune” appear to be the same height? This is because, behind the scenes, they are standing on adjustable risers. Called “Scully Boxes” (in previous decades, simply called

You Should Smile More, or Five Decades of the Patriarchy

Let's start in the remote past. From the dark reaches of the 1970s. Having completed my University studies – in Humanities (art, literature, and other high-minded topics), I quickly realized this would lead to no employment opportunities beyond that of being a lowly tour guide (which I briefly did,

It Isn't Just About Kevin Bacon

Most of us have heard about the “Six Degrees of Separation of Kevin Bacon”. Something of a parlour game, the idea is to connect an actor with Kevin Bacon in six steps or fewer. An oft-cited example of how the game works is where we start with Elvis Presley in

The Victim: From Sacred Power to Exploited Weakling

All sacred things must have their place. It could even be said that being in their place is what makes them sacred. — Claude Lévi-Strauss Most etymologies tend to looks backwards from current usage to the possible origins of a given word. When looking into the concept of a “victim”, I

Weri What?

There is a word or meme that pops up from time to time on social media: It is “Werifesteria”. Here is a cropped image of a typical post citing this “word”: Does it matter that the word doesn’t actually exist in any dictionary and that it is not in

Brain Fever - The Difference Between Compassion and Empathy

Several years ago I watched a wonderful film called “Awakenings” which was based on the autobiographical book of the same title by Dr. Oliver Sacks. When I originally chose to watch the movie, I had little idea of the subject-matter. The story follows Dr Sacks (played by Robin Williams) working

The Ugliness of a Beauty Pageant Cleaning Service

Recently, a commercial has been shown over and over again, and each time I see it I find it increasingly disturbing. It is disturbing because it is misleading, panders to the pretentiousness of potential clients, uses incorrect terminology, objectifies women and youth, and is breathtaking in its disdain toward workers.

The Melancholy of the Mall

It has been at least ten years, and perhaps more, since I’ve walked through a mall. Of course there have been occasions, always brief, where I had to stride through a mall on the way to some specialty retailer (like a clock repair or a jewellery appraiser). Those visits,

Whatever Happened to the Hunchback’s Mummified Penis?

What a nice day for a family picnic! Sometime during the late summer of 1976, a friend and I were rather aimlessly driving around the Friuli region of Italy. I wasn’t seeking anything in particular but was interested in seeing what had remained of the gorgeous medieval towns that

Social Media: Promulgating Memes and Slovenly Thinking

To paraphrase Lesley Gore: It's my soapbox and I'll preach if I want to… Know that I really don’t want to devolve into the kind of person who trolls Facebook for the sole purpose of becoming enraged. Still, there are days when I can’t

It’s Raining Fallacies: Shakespeare and Bob Marley on the Internet

Question: What do Shakespeare and Bob Marley have in common? Answer: Facebook attributes the same incorrect quote to both.  I saw this posted on Facebook the other day.  First, let me say that it’s a nice little poem.  Simple, straightforward, good meter, excellent use of alliteration.  But it does

From Another Time: The Māori Voice of Albania

It was in the late summer of 1974. I had recently come to live in northern Italy, had not yet begun my final year of high school, and could not yet speak Italian. There were no English language television or radio programmes. I was sixteen years old, unhappy about my

Losing the Mysticism

I was raised a Roman Catholic, and then I grew up. For the most part I find Paul in Corinthians to be despicable, but there is one verse — 13.11 — that I can get behind. Here is the King James Version (which I prefer because I like the flavour of

Caterina Vizzani (AKA Giovanni Bordoni): A Transgender Life in the 1700s

Transgender issues are nothing new. Ancient Egyptians had gender bending rulers, as did many other ancient cultures. But let us explore an intriguing individual from the 1700s. Born female in Rome in 1719, Caterina Vizzani lived a short life, dying in Siena at the age of 24 years in June

What Smells Like Corn Chips, Buttered Popcorn, Lemons, Almonds, Cherry Cola and Mint?

If Moses supposes his toeses are roses, Then Moses supposes erroneously; For nobody's toeses are posies or roses, As Moses supposes his toeses to be. These lyrics from a 1895 nonsense tongue-twister song were made popular in the 1952 movie Singin’ in the Rain. Enjoy the incomparable combination

St. Patrick Digging Up a Grave

Sometimes the Saints were… hmmm… jerks? St. Patrick is one of those saints that even non-Roman Catholics know to some extent. Perhaps most recall that he is the Patron Saint of Ireland, and that he drove the snakes out of that country. Some may know that he is the patron

Marozia: A Medieval Lesbian Ghost

Look what happens when you don't confess to "wanton lust"! The stories are there, but you sometimes need to seek them out.  Marozia is less than a mere footnote in history, but at least she is noted. She lived and she had a story, and thanks

No Permission Required: A Sea Change into Something Rich and Strange

At first, I was going to use the idiomatic expression “sea-change”.  Then I double checked its present meaning, which gave me pause. The expression goes back to William Shakespeare in ‘The Tempest’ ; specifically in the  song ‘Full Fathom Five’. A supernatural spirit, Ariel, is singing to Ferdinand, the Prince of

Enheduanna: The First Known Author of All Time

The Triumph of Literature over Violence Enheduanna is the first author to sign her name to works of literature. She signed her name like this:𒂗𒃶𒌌𒀭𒈾 Think on it: The first and most significant literary event in all history — and it is a woman who first had the notion of appending

So Pure it Floats: Ivory Soap or An Accused Witch?

Imagine that you are living sometime in the 1600s in America or England, and have been accused of witchcraft. Only a few things might save you: being very skinny, underfed, very lean or very muscular. Or being a man. There were not many ways of proving innocence to witchcraft, but

A Story about the Truth — Or Not?

Usually titled “The Truth and the Lie” (sometimes the title contains slightly different wording), it is a story that has appeared many times on the internet, from social media to blogs to LinkedIn. Most websites cite Jean-Léon Gérôme as the author, but this — ironically — is incorrect. Gérôme was a French

It's Been Weird Lately — or is it Fate?

Recently the news has latched onto a comment made in the United States’ political arena, and now the word “weird” seems to be everywhere. The word itself has an interesting pedigree. Most etymologies tend to move from the present and go backwards through time, but let’s take a different

Eat your Heart Out Castaneda: The Canadian Origin of the Word Psychedelic

Back in what we might consider a more “conservative” decade it was a Canadian who, in 1956, coined the word “psychedelic”. The orthography took some time to settle, and in its early years it was sometimes spelled “psychodelic”. No longer quite so popular a term (see n-gram chart below), the

John Moore Perkins: The History of a Missionary in Liberia

From time to time I research and write histories about the ancestors or family members of various people. I am not personally related to John Moore Perkins, but I did write his biography for an individual who is part of his extended family. Perkins’ background and story is fascinating: John

The Wolf that Drives You to the Cemetery: The Strange Etymology of "Hearse"

Oscan is an extinct language from southern Italy and was a close relative of Umbrian. Spoken by various tribes, it was a written language adapted from the Etruscan and scholars have identified inscriptions in Oscan dating as far back as prior to 300 BCE. There are remnants of graffiti in

Waldeinsamkeit: The Germans have a Word for That.

"Our hands imbibe like roots, so I place them on what is beautiful in this world" — St. Francis of Assisi When people think about German words without a one-word translation into English, they often default to “schadenfreude”, which describes the pleasure one might feel when witnessing the distress

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

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.

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

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

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”

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

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

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

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

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

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,

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

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

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

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

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

Closing Time

The bookshop generally closed later on Friday evenings, at 7:00 rather than 6:00 PM. In the summer it was still full daylight, but in winter it was completely dark outside by then. I don’t know why I stayed open so late. Perhaps I did so because some

Lions Made of Fish and Shit

On either side of the bottom of the steps leading up to the Duomo of Treviso in the Veneto Province of northeastern Italy, lie two salmon-pink lions. They are made of fish and shit. No one knows who sculpted these beasts. They date from the Romanesque period, likely created sometime

Come for Jesus, stay for the Victorian Smut....

I don’t remember her name, but I do remember her. Let’s call her ‘Susan’. A second-hand bookshop tends to attract unusual characters. Sometimes I felt like a bartender without alcohol involved. People seem to have the notion that a bookshop (particularly the small second-hand type) is a place

Shakespeare's Facebook Rant

Let's have some fun with Shakespeare, Hamlet, and Facebook Ah, to post or not to post, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous Facebook comments Or to write a reply against a sea of troubles And

Desert

In the early 1980s I lived in a small town in southern New Mexico called Alamogordo. I had a job that required my going to Chino, California, at least once or twice a month, which entailed having to drive two hours through the desert to get a plane in El

The Oldest Thing in the Room

It was a cool October morning as I walked along the northern shore of Lake Ontario picking up a few rocks that caught my eye. They were not particularly beautiful or exceptional in any obvious way, yet I brought them home. I contacted some rock and mineral enthusiasts that I

The Measure of a Man

There is a poignant quote from a Star Trek TNG episode entitled "The Measure of a Man". In this story, Data is threatened with being deconstructed by a Star Fleet scientist in order to theoretically enable the creation of more Data-like androids. There is risk in the procedure

Wasteland

During some tidying, I found a book that contained a poem I wrote in 1972 (more than 50 years ago!) when I was a teenager. Pensive, pretentious, questioning, yet perceived as superficial. I wonder what she was really like — that girl who used to be me. Little did she know

Confessions of a Failed Nerd

Patchwork Quilts and a Patchwork Career I should have been a career nerd. I should have been someone who worked in science, or research, or medicine, or something scholarly. Instead, I ended up with a crazy patchwork “career”, doing mostly pointless tasks for pointless companies. A quiet child with no

Queen Elizabeth Way over the Credit River Bridge

Not the Queen you Think! Many think that the Queen Elizabeth Way was named after Queen Elizabeth II, but that is not so.

Disappearing Queen Anne’s Lace

Until recently, Queen Anne’s Lace was a very common weed in the Mississauga area of Ontario. It was and occasionally is still found in ditches, along roadsides and generally in poor soils. The plant grows to a height of 2 to 3 ft. and blooms midsummer. Once the sun

The Colour of Lint

A Visual Effect and a Philosophical View

Skin

She was likely in her 60s when I knew her, but she seemed much older. Not necessarily older in a physical way, rather in terms of life experiences and traditions. A southern Italian with dark grey hair, shot through with strands of white — strong looking hair. Her calves were enormously

The Regular

Years ago there was a regular customer at the bookshop. He came semi-monthly, sometimes weekly. For some reason I can only recall him visiting in the winter. He wore a long leather coat, similar to those worn by exotic and eerie characters in vampire movies, or like a Gestapo officer

Second Class

The aesthetic of a second class train station waiting room in 1970s Italy.