Brains leaking
May 14, 2013 / 5:00 am
The doctor’s office is a sardine can of suffering humanity stacked side-by-side in pinched discomfort. I am waiting for the receptionist. Her head is an auburn porcupine slung with a device that curls along her cheek and stops suddenly at her mouth. With practiced courtesy she spills...
The Age of Oakley
Apr 16, 2013 / 5:00 am
Dr. Oakley's baggy eyes looked directly at me as he searched my chest with the cold, round instrument. Rubber hoses flowed from each end into his hairy ears. And I looked back in fear; wondering if he was going to give me an injection. At seven years of age I...
Kissed by spiders
Mar 19, 2013 / 5:00 am
Photo: Thinkstock.com Sister Mary Albert was a tall black bird with a white throat. Her habit floated behind her gaunt exterior like a little black tail as she clicked down the school corridors on bird-feet. Children were afraid of this nun and whenever I saw her...
Like a serpent in the belly
Mar 5, 2013 / 5:00 am
Memory… Angelo's Roman nose is a monument on an otherwise slim, narrow face. In the third grade he defends it against the taunts I hurl by pushing me and running away. Reflexively I throw a rock, but am alarmed when it strikes the back of his head. Concerned and repentant, I...
A pettiness to expiate
Feb 19, 2013 / 5:00 am
Memory… In profile she is an African fertility goddess: belly and behind protruding in opposite directions. She is presenting a workshop to which I’ve come feeling groggy and cranky from a cold. And I want to be back in bed with earplugs and sleeping mask firmly in...
In praise of older women
Feb 5, 2013 / 5:00 am
Memory… The powder of snow around Brandt’s Creek path has melted. And leafy remains, black and pressed into the soggy lane, prepare for next year’s compost. I emerge alongside the little bridge spanning the duck pond where orange-billed inhabitants mill about in widening...
Fonzie
Jan 22, 2013 / 5:00 am
(Photo: Flickr user - jima) Because of his ‘50s rock-star haircut, I like to think of him as Fonzie. He is tall, slightly stooped, head inclined to the pavement as if searching for nickels and dimes. I see him shuffling St. Paul Street, perhaps on his way to a hit of...
On the road to find out
Jan 8, 2013 / 5:00 am
My fingers type the title: In the Age of Tattooed Girls (a previous column). But at the time I do not realize that girls is not the feminine parallel I am seeking to the word guys. And will later discover that what to call someone changes and flows like mercury on glass. My article reports...
In the age of tattooed women
Dec 11, 2012 / 5:00 am
Foreword This is the age of tattooed women with pit bulls at their side. This is the age of females tongue-kissing females on global television. This is the age of slut-walks and pole-dancing as feminist statements. This is the age of grrrl power, cougars and boy-toys. This is the age of...
Kelowna Right to Life: Part 3 of 3
Nov 6, 2012 / 5:00 am
For Kelowna Right to Life: Part 1, click here. For Kelowna Right to Life: Part 2, click here. Photo: Contributed “We’ve become a culture that has accepted the notion that the unborn child is...
Kelowna Right to Life: Part 2 of 3
Nov 4, 2012 / 5:00 am
For Kelowna Right to Life: Part 1, click here. Photo: Contributed “If we’re going to punish anyone in that situation it should be the rapist, it shouldn’t be the innocent...
Kelowna Right to Life: Part 1 of 3
Oct 30, 2012 / 5:00 am
Photo: Contributed Marlon Bartram, executive director, and Julia - members of Kelowna Right to Life. “You don’t have to believe in God to think that taking an innocent human life...
On the banks of the creek
Oct 16, 2012 / 5:00 am
…a memory of summer Photo: Contributed - (Photo: Flickr user - jpott) Beneath the brilliant sun my bicycle spins its way down Brandt’s Creek Linear Park. I am exploring the neigbourhoods that have sprung up around this lazy stream in upper Glenmore, when I...
Summer's last act
Sep 18, 2012 / 5:00 am
Summer’s impending exit is celebrated with poetry and song in Kerry Park where my camera discovers the failing of still and voiceless images. The lute plucks an ancient air, and I am taken by the chants of women cloaked in white and red: throats releasing sound like instruments tuned for...
At the Centre of Gravity
Sep 4, 2012 / 6:00 am
They have gathered on the beaches: flocks of bikinis and muscles tilting beer to the revolutions of leaping motorbikes and scratch music. City Park is a festival of testosterone and estrogen while body art, all the rage for this generation, is the accessory without which limbs and other parts...
Dancing in the park!
Aug 21, 2012 / 5:00 am
I have brought my camera to Kerry Park to capture the love of movement. The Latin band has released the merry dancers from the burden of the day; golden couples wanting the world to know how great it is to be alive; how great to sway and let the body speak. And I am primed to catch and store...
On the street
Jul 24, 2012 / 8:00 am
It is hot downtown. And with camcorder on tripod I search for a homeless person to interview. I am waiting for the traffic light at Water and Bernard, ready to end my search when a grey-haired woman glides in beside me and asks, “D’you have a twonie you can give me?” Her...
Soldiers on Bernard
Jul 10, 2012 / 5:00 am
Photo: Contributed I am astonished by a truck emblazoned with giant photos of aborted foetuses, driving blithely up Water Street as if it were just another moving-van. I run down Mill to Bernard and there I burst upon a group of protestors drawing attention to billboards of...
Mayor Sharon Shepherd: Part 3 of 3
Jul 1, 2012 / 5:00 am
For Part 1 and 2 of this interview, click here. “We are a fairly white community, and I think that over time that’s going to change, and that’s going to be a good thing.” “We’ll have to be more open than Kelowna has been known to...
Mayor Sharon Shepherd: Part 2 of 3
Jun 30, 2012 / 5:00 am
For those of you who missed Part 1 of this interview, click here. “A lot of my values come from the way she (grandma) treated people.” “It was (lonely) at times because we had predominantly male management.” (During a negative...
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