PARASITE

Is it me, or does the title of best picture Academy Award from a few months ago now seem weirdly prophetic. ‘Parasite’? I get that it’s a metaphor for the 1% of people who float atop the capitalist wave pool (or the remoras who swim beneath them). But it also works as a label for

Numbskull Narcissists

“Of course, we are not the only nation to be conducting an interesting social experiment to determine what happens if you elect a clinical narcissist to run a country which later turns out to be facing grave danger. At this stage, the US’s experiment appears to be going rather worse, and you certainly wouldn’t rule

Clubbing Your Books

For years, when I lived in another city, I belonged to a men’s book club. I know; you hear lots about women’s book clubs but rarely men’s. Men don’t read as much as women and when they do, they are pretty much either business management books, sports biographies or something by Malcolm Gladwell. I had

Rank Bigotry

“45% of immigrants to the USA are on welfare”, said my friend. “I got that figure from someone who is very well informed on these matters.” “And who would that be?” I asked. “It’s not important. Let me just say that he’s a very intelligent person who has done quite a bit of research in

‘Conrad Black’s Whitewash’ from Private Eye Magazine (June 2019)

“This completes the destruction of the spurious prosecution of me. It’s a complete final decision of a not guilty. That is finally a fully just verdict.” No surprise that this was the verdict of convicted fraudster Conrad Black on his presidential pardon earlier this month from his old pal, fellow former Palm Beach resident and

Twin Piques

“Buffoons in Love” could be the title. A movie about Donald Trump and Conrad Black’s crazy, rollicking friendship would be absolute box office gold, right up there with Dumb and Dumber. Admittedly, it’s — as they say in the business — ‘high concept’, but when you consider the rather implausible idea of a Reality TV

Edmund Burke at Miami Basel

A couple of quotes: “Art is a conspiracy between artists and rich people to make poor people feel stupid.” That’s from Kurt Vonnegut. And this from Robert Hughes, the late, great art critic for Time magazine: “Art prices are largely about voyeurism and toxic snobbery. They are what you see when you peer up the

Arts and Letters Portrait

This year I was chosen by the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto to paint the portrait of Marianne Fedunkiw, 2015’s outgoing (in both senses) President. It was a great privilege because I joined a long list of notable Canadian artists, including members of the Group of Seven, who have created images of former presidents.

Fossil Hunters by Alan King

Science fiction writer H G Wells didn’t know the half of it. Time travel sometimes takes more than just imagination and clever engineering; it can take a lot of arduous footwork, the kind that gets you up to 7,500 feet above sea level. Unlike Wells’ lucky Time Traveller who was effortlessly zapped millions of years into

The Man Who Mistook His Life for a Notebook

I have a confession to make. I’ve read just about every word Oliver Sacks ever wrote and, God knows, the man wrote a lot. Yes, I know it sounds like an unhealthy interest in medical literature — borderline OCD. But it’s not like I’ve read all of Sherwin Nolan or Jerome Groopman or Atul Gawande