Writer, Explorer and Travel Philosopher
Outpost Winter 2019… Berlin, baybee!
The latest issue of Outpost hit newsstands across Canada a few weeks ago.
This time in my Adrift on the Continent column, I’m taking you to Berlin. Well, I suppose I should say “bringing you to Berlin”, since I live here.
The Blurred Crusade — live, electric, and in its entirety…
The centrepiece of this packed London weekend I’ve been telling you about was two days of music with The Church at Bush Hall.
I travelled by thought with The Church long before I ever set out on the road for real.
Hiking above the valley of Pjófadalir…
This distant northern country might be the most popular tourist destination of 2017.
It’s a place where the wind gusts so strong it will literally tear the door off your car.
It’s a place where the landscape morphs and changes before your eyes such that you can see geological time.
An afternoon visit to my neighbourhood copy shop…
It’s been pretty quiet on the blog this year, but I’ve got two good reasons for that.
One: I just haven’t been traveling very much. A visit to Japan, a short trip down to Sardinia, and a long overdue visit to Canada — my first trip back home in over 3 years. And that was about it for 2017.
Berlin is such a liveable city…
It’s been ages since I’ve published a blog. I think I’ve only written 3 this year.
But I haven’t forgotten you, or vanished in a desert somewhere.
It’s just that I haven’t been traveling at all. We moved to Berlin at the start of January, and I haven’t left the city since.
Evening views over Pariser Platz from the Akademie der Künste exhibit…
Okay, I swiped that title from Steve Kilbey. It’s the name of a really cool box set containing a CD of spoken word tracks that accompany a series of postcards printed from his paintings. I highly recommend checking it out — my favourite prose poetry pieces on there are The Visitor and The Lonely City.
The war graves section of the Pershore cemetery — 41 of these men were Canadians
Yesterday was Remembrance Day — November 11th, the day we pause to think about all those who lost their lives in the two World Wars, and in Korea and all the conflicts that have happened since.
I still remember the moment I knew — really knew — that my dad was dying.
I was in a cheap hotel in Bangkok, lying there awake trying to sleep. I’d received an email that day which said my dad had been ill, and they were sending him for some tests. One of the last lines read, “You should probably come home.”
It’s Banned Books Week.
I’m sure the majority of people aren’t aware of this. And even avid readers may have missed the news.
But this is the special time each year when we pause to think about censorship, and to remember all the great literature that has been banned, suppressed or otherwise made purposefully unavailable in an effort to control what we read and think.
I got a sneak peak inside a crucial part of the publishing industry last week when I was given the opportunity to tour Lowe-Martin’s Ottawa St. Laurent facility — where Outpost and other fine magazines are printed.
