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The Baltimore House in Hamilton: A Culinary Experience Courtesy of Edgar Allan Poe
If you’ve ever been seduced by the Gothic works of Edgar Allan Poe, then The Baltimore House is the place for you. Tucked around the corner from Jackson Square it functions as a café by day and a lounge/bar by night. The café room boasts ample natural light, and old church pews act as benches…
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The Oscillating Universe: A Review of Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell’s “Godhead: The Brain’s Big Bang”
Reviewed in this essay: Godhead: The Brain’s Big Bang, by Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell. HG Publishing, 2011. For some time, scientists have been marshaling their knowledge and resources in an effort to answer some of the biggest questions about the universe. With each grandiose experiment, however, science seems to be little closer to solving…
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On Rob Benvie’s Maintenance
Reviewed in this essay: Maintenance by Rob Benvie. Coach House Books, 2011. Rob Benvie, author of The Safety of War, offers in his second novel, Maintenance, an important investigation into the relationship between place and despair. Benvie’s characters bleakly exist in suburbia — Mississauga — at the turn of the millennium and while they want…
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The Sublime Object of Ideology: Understanding Undefeated
Reviewed in this essay: Undefeated, directed by Daniel Lindsay and TJ Martin. Starring Bill Courtney, O.C. Brown, Montrail “Money” Brown. Running Time: 113 minutes. Early on in Undefeated we witness Bill Courtney – the head coach of the Manassas High School football team – address his players. Courtney, a white local businessman who coaches a predominantly…
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CanLit Canon Review #6: Harold Innis’s The Fur Trade in Canada
In an attempt to make himself a better Canadian, Craig MacBride is reading and reviewing the books that shaped this country. Harold Innis’s The Fur Trade in Canada, published in 1930, is an indispensable record of the fur trade and early European-Aboriginal relations, but it is also a brutal and exhausting test of endurance. You…
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Ellis Avery’s The Last Nude
Reviewed in this essay: The Last Nude by Ellis Avery. Riverhead Books, 2012. If you didn’t already have a crush on Paris, reading The Last Nude may well convert you. If you’re already a Francophile, this is your bread and honey. Or perhaps, more appropriately, your pain aux chocolate. Avery’s novel retraces a familiar period,…
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Into Thin Air: J.C. Chandor’s Margin Call
Reviewed in this essay: Margin Call, written and directed by J.C. Chandor. Starring Zachary Quinto, Jeremy Irons, Paul Bettany, Kevin Spacey, Demi Moore, and Stanley Tucci. Running Time: 107 minutes. Available now on Blu-Ray and DVD. In Michael Lewis’ 1989 memoir Liar’s Poker, he described the idea of “jamming bonds”: when you knew your bank…
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The Spirited Letters of Joseph Roth
Reviewed in this essay: Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters, translated and edited by Michael Hoffman. W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. Some writers do their most interesting work in correspondence; only with the right private audience does their voice reach its full potential. The letters of Kingsley Amis, for instance, are more hilarious, caustic,…
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Creating a New Food Paradigm: A Review of Food Sovereignty in Canada
Reviewed in this essay: Food Sovereignty in Canada: Creating Just and Sustainable Food Systems, edited by Hannah Wittman, Annette Aurélie Desmarais, and Nettie Wiebe. Fernwood Publishing, 2011. Food issues abound these days, from northern communities that lack access to affordable food, to foodborne illnesses initiated by poor industrial hygiene practices, to community-driven initiatives connecting rural…
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Toronto’s first “Kula”: a Review of Vanguard of the New Age: The Toronto Theosophical Society, 1891-1945
Reviewed in this essay: Vanguard of the New Age: The Toronto Theosophical Society, 1891-1945, by Gillian McCann. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012. On 26 March 1891, some of Canada’s early avant-garde artists, labour activists, and feminists sat in the parlour of an esteemed Spadina Avenue home to discuss “The Key to Theosophy on Karma.” Spurred by…
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A Window Into Baseball’s Golden Age
Reviewed in this essay: The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball from the Men Who Played It, by Lawrence S. Ritter. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2010. As winter turns to spring, the sports fan’s mind turns to baseball. Arguably, it’s the most literary of all the sports, even if only…
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Where’s the Beer? And Jamie Fitzpatrick’s You Could Believe in Nothing
Reviewed in this essay: You Could Believe in Nothing, by Jamie Fitzpatrick. Nimbus Publishing, 2011. Until a few weeks ago, I thought I knew hockey culture. Like many Canadians, I grew up playing the game, and put in my time watching Don Cherry in the 80s and 90s. And, like Derek in Jamie Fitzpatrick’s fine…