Wish I could share this talk via actual video, but the best I can do is share the feed. Rabbi Harold Kushner visited Toronto at the end of last year to give a talk based around his latest book, Conquering Fear, Living Boldly in an Uncertain World. I really enjoyed the depth and breadth of his insight and spirituality. He covers many topics, though he starts with fear, but does not ever seem to be wandering. What he says regarding fundamentalism, fear, not being intimidated, God vs. nature and what God has in store for our lives all struck me deeply. I’ve yet to read his books, but his name keeps popping up lately and the quality of message in this talk makes me think long and hard about doing so soon.

The Rabbi’s talk was aired on a Canadian television show called Big Ideas. From their website,

“BIG IDEAS is a showcase of ideas that shape our public debates. At their best the lectures featured on the program expose us to the differing ways of defining what matters and how that affects our understanding of the world as it is and as it is likely to be… Each age has a set of questions by which it defines itself. If, 50 years from now, someone came across a list of BIG IDEAS shows, they would have a pretty good idea of what people thought about and debated in the early 2000s.”

From this link to the Big Ideas website, you can see the video or listen to the audio. We get the show in podcast form via iTunes each week. Expand your world view and have a listen. It certainly did for me.

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Having recently finished President Obama’s The Audacity of Hope and had the flames of love rekindled in hope for the future of my home country, True Patriot Love was a welcome and introspective look at the national identity of my other home. Mr. Michael Ignatieff looks back through four generations of his family at the role each played in shaping the Canadian identity.

“Family traditions are more than arguments with the dead, more than collections of family letters you try to decipher. A tradition is also a channel of memory through which fierce and unrequited longings surge, longings that define and shape a whole life. “

If you are reading this from America, you might be asking yourself “What Canadian identity?” with an incredulous look on your face. My answer to that would be “Exactly!” Ever since stepping foot in this expansive land, I have known deeply that something about it was fundamentally different than the US. But you have to look deeply to find it. Because for all exterior purposes, Canadians look just like Americans and the few minor differences have become cliches and frequent targets of comedians, eh?

With a swift pace that carries you along willingly, his retelling is filled with historical detail and the romantic imaginings of the bigger picture he is trying to paint. The theme of the book is carried very well throughout. The Canada that was always undescribable to me is, after this reading, much more at my fingertips. And political situations that used to make me scratch my head have suddenly come into the light.

“Because we remain a land of hope and opportunity, and new Canadians see in our unfinished destiny an image of their own unfinished destines.”

I particularly admire his humility upon what he calls “The Inheritance” of all these generations upon himself and what he feels is his responsibility to go forward for the good of Canada. The last chapter bears this same name and where every other chapter has drawn each ancestor in a larger than life fashion, Mr. Ignatieff chooses not to detail the accomplishments of his own years. Rather he looks forward to what he believes are the next hurdles for Canada as a nation.

Excellent and inspirational. I really liked it.

“The next morning… Grant awoke, rubbed his eyes and stepped out into bright sunshine. They had broken through the forest cover and he was standing on the edge of the Prairies.

‘I found myself in Paradise,’ Grant scribbled excitedly into his diary.

A vast whispering ocean of green grass, waist high, sprinkled with wildflowers, yellow, lilac and white, stretched to the horizon, perfectly flat, under a vast blue sky. The elemental stillness was broken only by the whispering grass and snatches of birdsong. There was not a building, not a fence, not a column of smoke in sight.”

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In my continual efforts to improve relations across the border, I’d like to introduce you all to the favourites (with a u!) of a Canadian trick or treat bag. These treats make our ghouls, goblins and super heroes sooo happy.

Specimen #1: Coffee Crisp from the Nestle company “makes a nice light snack.” How surprised I was to discover that my love of all things coffee does not extent to this chocolate bar. The kids love them however, and my son lined them up along the floor parallel to the Kit Kat. I think it started as two different piles that eventually reached and reached and just barely touched each other. What a nice pictorial metaphor of north meeting south.

#2  is Aero, also from the Nestle company. Bubbles, lots and lots of bubbles!

This third picture includes Oh Henry and Crispy Crunch. The latter is the Canadian version of Butterfinger, but imho doesn’t hold a candle to the peanut-buttery wonder I grew up with. hehe

And finally, the eternal debate: what is a Rocket and what is a Smartie?

The first picture shown above contains what I grew up knowing as the little tablets of pure sugar called Smarties. No way man, here they are called Rockets. Because the name Smarties is reserved and beloved by all Canadians as a slighty different but no less tasty version of an M&M.

That Peter Puck in the picture is the only treat that was new to me. Apparently Hanna Barbara invented this little guy in 1973 at the request of an NBC sports executive. He was featured in little shorts intended to teach kids about the game of hockey and that would play during commercial breaks of NHL games. He’s really quite adorable. Check out this recently reinvigorated Canadian icon turned Halloween candy and his short videos on the CBC website.

Hope I’ve helped defer any international incidents of a Halloween nature.  Happy chocolates everyone!!!

ps. no i was not rifling through the candy bags this morning. it is my children’s halloween ritual to sort and organize their loot then trade like mad with each other. two crispy crunches for that mars bar?

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Fan Expo in Toronto is the premier Canadian comic book convention. Only it’s alot more than comic books! Sci-fi, horror, anime and gaming are also all included and it turned out to be such a fun day. Except for the lines. /sigh

This year’s event had almost 60,000(!!!) people when they expected half that many. Silliness that we are and due to the issue of whether I could get off work to go, we forgot to buy advanced tickets and stood in a long line to buy them that morning. When we thought we had arrived at the front of the line, it turns out there were still more twisting rows of people hiding behind a well-placed curtain. And sadly even after we finally had our tickets(!!!) there was one more line waiting for us: the line to actually enter the exhibition hall. What a tease these show organizers turned out to be! So we passed by the brightly colored blown up pictures of Wonder-Woman, Frodo Baggins and Spock only to continue moving past out of the warmth of their luminescent glow.

Master Chief himself however greeted us when we got into the exhibition hall and the rest of the day was all good. (Turns out in the end we were the lucky ones. Some of those people behind us in line got turned away. Imagine. Sheesh.)

I want to call it a geek fest, but to my eyes, it was like seeing creativity come alive. From the people in costume to the independent artists offering prints of their work to the enormous display of graphic tees, I felt like I was walking in vibes of goodness. Weary feet and cranky kids – did I mention the line there was to get a pizza at lunchtime? – nothing lessened my experience. I was a kid in a huge candy store.

And yet I yearned for more! More cosplayers. More creativity. More… genius. I mean, come on. How many “fleece hats with cat ears” booths does one convention need?! And that’s when I realized for the first time that there is a difference between production and creativity. Reinvent the wheel – or the fleece hat with cat ears industry – and that’s something. Use your sewing machine to crank out a few hundred of someone else’s bright idea. Not so much.

Anywho back to goodness, the costumes were awesome!!! I could have walked around all day and only taken photos of them. We did get a few snaps but this guy on Flickr has a whole set of them! Hop over there to see zombies, Waldo, Supergirl, the Joker and many more famous characters come to life. Some of the simpler costumes were great too – like the girl dressed up as Starbuck in everyday around Galatica wear that the pilots wore on BSG.

On the comic book front, I was not immune. The fever in the air carried me away. It wasn’t all that hard to follow either. DC had a huge booth with tons of free mini-comics, and their main slogan seemed to be “After Watchmen… what’s Next?” Watchmen is one of the classics of graphic novels that was recently made into a movie – aka why I read it. Now that movie seems to be part of this larger marketing scheme of getting people into comics in general. The idea is that if you liked Watchmen – which I did – what else in the genre might you also like to read? They offered plenty of suggestions. lol

And even though my one comic book purchase went to my undying devotion of Buffy, I have – since the convention – been maddeningly requesting the other great graphic novels from my library, bloating my currently reading shelf to epic proportions and requiring me to create an actual graphic novel shelf in my profile! {gasp}
Here’s a link to my new graphic-novel shelf @

I do find that comics are great for keeping me awake on night shift!

The playfulness of people, friendliness and camaraderie was another great aspect and simultaneously mind-blowing — Darth Vader playfully attacking my daughter who was dressed up as one of the Jedi when we accidentally stepped onto the escalator next to him, people gladly taking pictures with my kids, people asking my kids for *their* picture, adults looking so psyched to even see kids there instead of grumping about their disruptive presence. I got my picture taken with a hunky and way too nice Green Lantern, we watched the local branch of the 501st duke things out Jedi vs. Sith and somehow managed to see celebrities I didn’t care so much about while missing the Mary McDonnell and Emma Caulfield that I really did care to see. Ah well.

Then it happened. It was time to leave. But the day held one more surprise for us.

Walking out of the convention center, with my son dressed as one of the 4 Castle Crashers from a popular Xbox Live Arcade game by the same name and not seeing anyone else costumed likewise all day, we finally run into… duh duh duh… the green knight!

He goes “Dude! We couldn’t find one more friend to be our orange! My friends just left they’ll be right back. You HAVE to meet them. They’ll be SO excited!” Sure enough, they appeared shortly and it was quite the reunion spectacle. Most cute. Proud mom.

So, yea, it was a fun day. Can’t wait till next year.

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The awkward young sailor who is always seasick
Is the one who will write about ships.
The young man whose soldiery consists in the delivery
Of candy and cigarettes to the front
Is the one who will write about war.
The man who will never learn to drive a car
And keeps going home to his mother
Is the one who write about the road.

Stranger still, hardly anyone else will write so well
About the sea or war or the road.
And then there is the woman
who has scarcely spoken to man except her brother
and who works in a room no larger than a closet,
she will write as well as anyone who has ever lived
about vast open spaces and the desires of the flesh:
and that other woman who will live with her sister and
rarely leaves her village, she will excel
in portraying men and women in society:
and that woman,
in some ways the most wonderful of them all,
who is afraid to go outdoors,
who hides when someone knocks,
she will write great poems about the universe inside her.

by Canadian poet Alden Nowlan

the more i read this one, the more i am blown away by the lines. each individual one. i am walking around the house today, tidying organizing in bliss with the last line on repeat in my head.

ps. Can you name the authors referred to in the poem?

i will confess to only being able to name two of them before looking at the answers. but i’ve left the answers in the comment section.

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