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Musical gems culled from three centuries played in small-group formations by top-tier performers—that and some first-class jazz is in the cards during the month-long Montreal Chamber Music Festival that gets underway this month. Talking about it with festival founder, cellist Dennis Brott, I returned in my mind to the marvelous [...]
Throughout Israel’s embattled history, it has been a badge of honour to serve in the country’s armed forces. For obvious reasons, public expressions of conscientious objections, draft dodging or anti-war sentiments have been virtually non-existent. While objections to the draft remain relatively marginal, there has been a change among Israeli [...]
Union leadership usually begins on a voluntary basis, when none of your colleagues wants to accept the challenge of standing up for a worker’s rights, in the office or on the shop floor. It puts you in conflict with management, marks you as “the enemy within” and exposes you to [...]
If you ask people to name the most consequential inventions of world history, you’ll probably hear a list that includes the telephone, the wheel and, among some of my rowdy crowd—beer. The creation of the alphabet should be on this list if we measure the extent of its use in [...]
Living paycheque to paycheque? Unexpected expenses regularly throwing your retirement savings goals off-track? This is a good time to schedule a financial-planning checkup with a financial adviser. The key to staying on track for retirement is having a plan. Contrary to what you may think, developing a proactive plan is [...]
Debrah Gilmour is a Montreal artist specializing in landscapes and portraiture. She graduated from the fine arts program at John Abbott College and continued her studies in education, literature and art at Concordia University. Gilmour’s works are in private collections across Canada, with four images published as greeting cards by [...]
The little Hilo airport was eerily empty. The 20 or so people on my flight from Honolulu grabbed their belongings and quickly went on their way. Left were just one young man, and me. My driver soon arrived and picked us both up, as we were staying at the same [...]
In 1997, in his Encyclopedia of Words and Phrase Origins, Robert Hendrickson’s entry for “whole nine yards” states: “The expression did not arise in the garment industry but among construction workers, the nine yards referring to the maximum capacity a cement-mixer truck can carry—nine cubic yards of cement.” Hendrickson was [...]
I took the Big Leap last month. Not sky-diving, not bungee-jumping, not leaping in front of a New York subway. Instead, I stood up in front of a crowd of about 60 strangers, most of them half or one-third my age, and told a five-minute story. The technical name for [...]
David Sherman – journalist, editor, playwright and singer-songwriter – is presenting his latest work, a musical titled Lost & Found, with fellow musician Nancy Lee. Its subtitle – a story of love, loss, life and lunacy – reflects Sherman’s travels of the mind and heart. It is directed by Guy [...]
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