Letters from the Pandemic 34: To Walter Benjamin by Linda Quibell * Walter Benjamin was a German philosopher, literary critic, translator, and cultural observer. He attempted to escape the Nazis, but in 1940 took his own life in Portbou, Spain — Ed. * February 20, 2021 My dear melancholic friend, Please, tell me about exile….
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A History of My Brief Body: A Memoir by Billy-Ray Belcourt Toronto: Penguin Random House (Hamish Hamilton), 2020 $25.00 / 9780735237780 Reviewed by David Milward * The term Two-Spirit is used in many contemporary Indigenous communities to describe Indigenous persons whose personalities and spirits may have both feminine and masculine aspects. Many Indigenous people suggest…
Read more 1144 Belcourt’s Two-Spirit journey
Surreal Surrebutter Rebutter Sandwich Spread by Ernest Hekkanen * Editor’s note: The archives of the New Orphic Review (NOR) are a popular part of The Ormsby Review website. Since 2018 all the back issues of NOR have been housed under our roof. Founded in 1998 by Ernest Hekkanen and Margrith Schraner, NOR was a semi-annual…
Read more 1078 Hekkanen’s Kootenay Surrealism
Dear Diary by Bob Foulkes * I am approaching the mid-point in my GLS program; by April 2021, I will be three-quarters done. I am devouring courses. They are my lifeboat in the storm of the pandemic. They give me purpose, discipline, structure, puzzles, and paradigm shifts to fill the emptiness created by our temporary…
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ESSAY: The Will to Pleasure: Hedonism, Ethics, and Aesthetics from the Ancient World to the Present Age by Eryn Holbrook * When Christianity and Marxism end their shared reign, we will need visions of new possibilities. There is always one fixed point: the body. Not a body of Platonic ideas, nor a body cut in…
Read more #847 Hedonism, pleasure, ethics
The Guilt Factor: A personal exploration with assistance from Antigone by Al Jones * Experiencing and living with guilt, whether small or big, is part of the human experience, and as I look back on my life I ask myself how guilt has affected me. At times, I am perplexed by how guilt can be…
Read more #834 Lessons from my brother’s room
Conversations in a mountain cave by Havi Neeman * We are pleased to present a literary mashup by Havi Neeman, a former student in the Graduate Liberal Studies program at Simon Fraser University. A mashup is a creative work, such as a short story, novel, or song, that combines or blends pre-existing text or music…
Read more #827 Conversations in a mountain cave
ESSAY: There’s no place like home: our connection to meaningful places by Joanne Crozier * We are pleased to present an essay by Joanne Crozier, There’s no place like home, as part of an ongoing collaboration between The Ormsby Review and Graduate Liberal Studies at Simon Fraser University, an interdisciplinary program that leads to the…
Read more #822 Home is where the memory is
ESSAY: Universal Technologies and Traditional Innovations: A Comprehensive Perspective for Museums by Yosef Wosk An Ormsby Exclusive, in collaboration with the The Canadian Academy of Independent Scholars First published Feb. 5, 2019 * We are pleased to present an essay by Yosef Wosk about nothing less than mankind’s accumulation and appreciation of shared knowledge and wisdom. This extraordinarily…
Read more #479 On the wings of forever
Provoked by Gilgamesh: The Search for a Way Around Death by Gilmour Walker Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2018 $18.95 / 9781553805205 Reviewed by Peter Babiak First published Sept. 21, 2018 * Inspired by the Epic of Gilgamesh, Victoria’s Gilmour Walker (a pseudonym) tells how, in his forties, he left his seaside home in Nova Scotia on…
Read more #380 Road trip with Gilgamesh
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada, 2018 $34.95 / 9780345816023 Reviewed by Ron Dart First published Feb. 23, 2018 * Controversial University of Toronto psychologist and cultural critic Jordan Peterson, condemned by Maclean’s as “the stupid man’s smart person,” has spoken to sold-out audiences…
Read more #251 The stupid man’s smart person?
The Sacred Herb / The Devil’s Weed by Andrew Struthers Vancouver: New Star, 2017 $19 / 9781554201150 Reviewed by Erika Dyck First published June 23, 2017 * British Columbia is the perfect setting for this timely book on…
Read more #142 Sacred Herb & Devil’s Weed