Fifty years ago, Philippe Petit wowed the world by walking a tightrope between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Anniversaries, like birthdays, can be arbitrary things. Contrived, when we celebrate for the sake of celebrating. This anniversary is different. In a life filled with daring and an appetite to tackle the impossible… because,…
On April 22, 1970, over 20 million Americans participated in the first Earth Day. It was a big, proud series of events that precipitated, among other things, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Earth Day was also at least partially a reminder of our inclusion in and our responsibility to nature. I say reminder…
More than 100 people stepped up recently with donations totaling over $700,000 to buy 80 hectares of BC wilderness that will soon be added to the province’s massive Tweedsmuir Provincial Park. The land was a homestead settled by Ralph and Ethel Edwards before the park was created in 1938. The funds raised cover the purchase…
The 2020 Oscar nominees are going to be announced on March 15th. I haven’t cared the Oscars since Gandhi beat E.T., but it’s been a tough year so I’m here to give a helping hand. The simple offer: skip the nominations and the ceremony, and go with these, the first ever Darwin’s Gong Show Oscar…
Dr. Reese Halter, a champion on behalf of nature, has put in time during this hellish Covid-19 pandemic to do us a favor. He’s published a new book, Gen Z Emergency, to again highlight the danger our natural world is in and, perhaps most importantly, show us some of the now massive steps required to…
Free Solo is the name of the National Geographic documentary about Alex Honnold’s years long effort to climb El Capitan without any ropes. It’s an ironic name because the endeavor came at a steep emotional cost to both Honnold’s relationships and film crew. And, since El Capitan is 3,000 feet high, Honnold ran the risk…
I recently finished Love! Nature by conservation biologist Dr. Reese Halter. Here’s my review: read it. Love! Nature is a collection of more than 75 essays that provide a tour of the natural world. Reese’s eye and interest moves from oceans to mountaintops, desserts to rain forests, and covers the environments, bio-mechanics, evolution, habits, and…
It doesn’t come close to being there. But it comes closer to being there any just about any other footage around. In crazy times — no, in all times — it’s worth remembering that what is good in people is precisely whatever it is that compels them to create. And to be moved by what…
There are about 18 billion of them on Earth. Eyes, that is. Peering into them might just save us. Is a scarcity of eye contact crippling modern culture, as performance artist Marina Abramovic believes? Well, it’s certainly not the only thing, but addressing that avoidance could go a long way to curing our modern ills.…
Were he still alive, Samuel Beckett would be 111 today. Since his death, the world has become more absurd, perhaps more than even he could have imagined. We’ll have to forge ahead without him. But not without his works, nor without celebrating his great efforts to bring them to us. A toast to him and his everlasting…
Google Arts and Culture, the site and the app, is technology in service of the human. Sadly, it’s little known and probably one of the most neglected of all Google’s properties. But since it is the best bi-product of your privacy-invading, data-mining, banner-ad-generating covenant with Google, it also (nearly) makes Google worth the price of admission.…
It was scribbled in these parts years ago that “it shall be known from here forward that music has the word’s power to communicate quintupled.” It was an awkward way of saying writing can’t connect human hearts the way music can. Now in NT Times Magazine Wyatt Mason has given word to that thought. He does so…
It’s a tech story and it’s a people story. Not about the downsides, the bad habits, the life sucking waste of time of games/apps/social media, nor the digital self help apps designed to make up for all of those. It’s about a company (Bell Canada) gathering men and women from sports and entertainment to use…
On December 31st, it seemed that when most of the globe was ringing in the New Year, the celebrations were mainly about ringing out the Old Year. For most, 2016 was a year of huge losses on so many fronts. But thanks in part to the world of politics, where those of opposing views dug their entrenched…
“He auctioned off the pistol that killed Trayvon Martin. She watched her child die in a mass shooting. Can they change each other’s minds about guns?” That’s the big question in the lead of a stellar read in NY Magazine. Whether minds were changed or not in this instance, you’ll have to find out. Missed, perhaps,…
Darwin's Gong Show