Edward O'Connor – Writer, editor, part-time birder
I biked down to the Leslie Street Spit the other day to look for winter birds and brought a camera with me in case anything good turned up. “The Spit,” as it’s known in Toronto, is a former landfill in the east end of the city that juts into Lake Ontario for about five kilometers … Read more
In its root sense, the French word derive is a nautical term that comes from the Latin rivus or river. It means “drift,” as a canoe drifts down the river or a ship drifts out on the ocean. In the second half of the 20th century, certain French writers appropriated the term as the name … Read more
Early in his career as a painter, Vincent Van Gogh wrote a letter to his brother in which he said, “There is no color that is not gray.” I have to assume Van Gogh would have loved Toronto in the winter since that season in this place is a study in gray in all its … Read more
Thirteen years ago, the Canadian poet Don Coles published a remarkable essay with the title “Light Fantastic” in the Three for Thought series that used to run at the back of the Globe and Mail’s Books section. At the time, I was so impressed that I cut the essay out of the paper and filed … Read more