Essay

The rides of your life.

Tupac Shakur’s work is as resonant today—days after a police officer shot Michael Brown and left his body in the street—as it was then: an indicator of still-grim realities.

The luxury cruise is, often, a vacation to be endured: the rigid structure, embarrassing pampering, forced interaction, the terrible predictability of it all. What could compel a person to keep shipping out, year after year?

In the aftermath of rape, and throughout the two-year-long rape trial, I was obsessed with dangerous animals. This is how I went from prey to predator.

To those deemed worthy, six weeks at the MacDowell Colony bring new work, friendships, and great meals. Compare this to the Canadian model, in which artists (even emerging ones) receive just enough to live on from governments. Which way works best?

There is music and rhythm and beauty and joy to be found in both Jerusalem and Ramallah—despite the outrages, honest and otherwise, readily available in the space between.

Raising a mixed-race son in the Canadian city with the most mix-race couples is a dream borne of the Trudeau era. But Vancouver is a city of appearances, and diversity is much more complicated than it seems.

On learning to love the abominable mix of Soviet brutalism and unrelenting American capitalism around which Edmonton revolves.

Windsor and Detroit are more than just neighbours: Their commerce, their culture, and especially their citizens, are inextricably linked. When Detroit declared bankruptcy last week, few felt it like those across the river.