A Decade of Hamilton Arts Week
This week, Hamilton Arts Week marks its ten year anniversary. An annual celebration of arts and culture in Hamilton, the festival takes place every June and coincides with the Hamilton Arts Awards (taking place tomorrow night!) This is all bit of milestone for me. Though I’m not part of the organization anymore, I was working…
Springtime Chapters: Top Local Reads by Local Writers
The weather is doing its seasonal see-saw of cold then warm then wet then cold again. Yes, you occasionally see the sun but, right now, it’s mainly clouds in the sky. It’s not a whole lot of fun to venture outdoors. That’s why this time of year is perfect to start a new chapter… in…
Yo Joe…
I have a complicated relationship with G.I. Joe. I’m a child of the eighties, and action figures were all the rage. Sparked by Kenner’s unprecedented success with Star Wars, every toy company set out to cash in on the craze to make posable toys at the 1:18 scale (or thereabouts). Fisher Price had the Adventure…
In Residence
This post was originally published for the arts and culture blog Beyond James (May 30, 2023) For the past few months, I’ve made a weekly pilgrimage. Okay, maybe it’s not much of a pilgrimage. It’s more of a destination. Every Tuesday morning, after dropping my kids off at school, I take the short trip from…
Through the Looking Glass: The Culture of Conspiracy in JFK (Part 5)
By the end of the nineties, my obsession with conspiracies was being replaced by a greater sense of awareness in my own politics. I took an interest in current affairs, started watching The West Wing and followed with rapt disbelief the 2000 election victory of George W. Bush. Did I not see a conspiracy in…
Through the Looking Glass: The Culture of Conspiracy in JFK (Part 4)
In creating a counter-myth that would take down the sacred cow of the Warren Commission, Oliver Stone would also have to counter the sacred cows of filmmaking that had made him a darling of Hollywood. For the director, this meant that JFK would chart a course for the unknown and fundamentally change the way he…
Through the Looking Glass: The Culture of Conspiracy in JFK (Part 3)
My fascination with conspiracy theories would be accelerated by that other paranoid milestone of the 90s: The X-Files. I can still recall with absolute clarity that fateful Friday night in September of ‘93; a slow creeping revelation that I wasn’t just watching some sci-fi show about UFOs but something far deeper. The X-Files, and the…
Through the Looking Glass: The Culture of Conspiracy in JFK (Part 2)
It’s easy to look back on the last thirty years and dismiss paranoia-as-pop-culture as something that’s always been present. But it’s simply not the case. It owes a narrative debt to film like Three Days of the Condor, The Parallax View and of course, All of the President’s Men. But there is no mistaking that…
Through the Looking Glass: The Culture of Conspiracy in JFK (Part 1)
There is a moment in the movie JFK (1991), Oliver Stone’s opus on the investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy, where the film pauses from the pace of its narrative and points the attention of the protagonist squarely upon the viewer. Taking place mere moments before the credits roll, District Attorney Jim Garrison—played by…
Down Ontario Highways
This blog is taken from a Facebook post I wrote in reaction to the recent story of Greyhound Canada ceasing all operations. As you can see, it stirred up some memories. I am a child of the road. Growing up in the 70s and 80s, my family took regular road trips from Ottawa to Toronto…
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