a blind flaneur

“Albert Hofmann, the mystical Swiss chemist who gave the world LSD, the most powerful psychotropic substance known, died Tuesday at his hilltop home near Basel, Switzerland. He was 102,” according to Craig Smith’s NYT obituary. “The cause was a heart attack, said Rick Doblin, founder and president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a […]

“My father showed me how to hurt a man one August night at the Torch Drive-in when I was seven years old. It was the only thing he was ever any good at. This was years ago, back when the outdoor movie experience was still a big deal in southern Ohio. Godzilla was playing, along […]

You know he’s in there somewhere, hefting his club, grinding his massive molars on one prehistoric resentment or another. Why listen to Prozac when you can consult your own inner Neanderthal? Anthropologist Robert McCarthy has developed a computer model of Neanderthal speech based on ancient fossils from France. Now you can hear the cave man […]

Scylla bloom in a lawn near Lake Ontario in historic Oakville. [Photo by Ms. Modigliani]

Flowering Cherry Trees line the walk around the southwest corner of the Robarts Library at the University of Toronto. [Photo by Ms. Modigliani]

Nina Simone sings two Bob Dylan classics, Just Like A Woman and I Shall Be Released. The cuts come from her phhenomenal album of 60s cover songs,

The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto is presenting an exhibit April 17- July 13 exploring Canadian disability history. “A display of 13 diverse objects reveals a rich and nuanced history that pays tribute to the resilience, creativity, and the civic and cultural contributions of Canadians with disabilities,” according to the ROM news […]

I don’t mind flying, but airports oppress me. When I fly, I try to remember an epiphany I had in Atlanta several years ago: airports are complex ecosystems, and a blind traveler navigating through them with a white cane is just another bottom-feeder plying the food chain.
That day began with carefree dancing in the street […]

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe marked the anniversary of his nation’s independence with a speech to 60,000 supporters in a sports stadium near Harare. ‘Zimbabwe will never be a colony again — never, ever, ever,” he said. ”We will not compromise our principles of freedom and national sovereignty, no matter who gets upset.” Mugabe didn’t […]

Once as a child I caught more fish in a day than I have for the whole of the rest of my life. All I had was a cane pole, a bobber, and a tin can full of night crawlers. I must have caught 30 bluegills and sunfish that day. I returned diligently to the […]