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I did not just fall off the turnip truck. But these turnips did. A whole whacking pile of them, silently reeking away at an obscure street end in Ladner outside Vancouver. Why? What does it all mean? Is is nefarious? Is someone dumping turnips illegally? Are the producers trying to cut supply to drive up [...]
At last, they’re finally going to prove it. YOU’RE not the weird one…it’s that parallel universe you’ve always suspected. The giant atom-smasher near Geneva is ready to rock. Cern researchers will sift through the subatomic debris of proton collisions for signs of extra dimensions and hitherto invisible particles that will bolster belief in “supersymmetry”, a [...] If you’ve ever visited Kamakura, the ancient capital of Japan one hour from Tokyo, you’ve probably visited Hachimangu Shrine. Which means you surely saw and admired the huge, gnarly, rope-encircled, 1,000-year-old ginkgo tree at the bottom of the steps leading up to the shrine. A fantastic plant, and one with plenty of stories it could [...] I’m not sure if it’s THE highlight but it sure got my attention when I visited the Clinton Library in Little Rock, Arkansas. And I’m still kind of fascinated by it, for reasons I don’t understand. On display, under protected glass, along with exhibits on the Middle East and educational reform and the Oklahoma bombing, is [...] For the latest installment of the opera series I’m doing for thetyee.ca I took a punk/hipster to see “Nixon in China”…and he liked it!
The Tyee — Operatic Thugs: ‘Nixon in China’. Richmond’s reputation as an over-built suburban mess just took a glorious swerve for the better with the city’s purchase of the Garden City lands to create an urban farm. Smug Vancouver and the rest of the Lower Mainland have a lot to learn. We’re going to have a world-class model of enlightened urban agriculture right [...] I thought it might be cool to be able to drop into conversations at cocktail parties that I was the new opera critic for The Tyee. Then I remembered that I don’t go to parties. Too late, though, I’d already landed this gig. It starts with this: 10 (Bad) Reasons to Hate Opera. Midori: April 2002 – 18 Oct 2009 Here’s bidding a fond farewell to the best pet we ever had. Midori (which means “green” in Japanese) went out in a rainbow. Of all the colours she’d displayed over her long (possibly extended) lifetime in our house, it was one mix I’d never seen. Here in Vancouver the prospect of allowing backyard chickens got some residents all aflutter. In the UK they’re talking about home-raised pigs. A yard big enough for a medium-sized dog, says one expert, is big enough for Porky, although they’re party animals so you want to keep more than just one. Link to the Guardian story, [...] It’s December 12, 2012, when we’re all supposed to die according to Mayan prophecy. Whatever. I can’t help wondering if the real lesson from our ancient jungle-dwelling friends isn’t included in this: “As published in the July issue of the “Journal of Archaeological Science,” paleoethnobotanist David Lentz of the University of Cincinnati has concluded that not only [...] |
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Copyright © 2010 David Tracey
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