The town, which in the afternoons lay beneath the heat like some old animal too tired even for malice and yet never too tired for observation, for that slow communal watching by which people in small Southern places sustain themselves against the terror of their own inward silence, had taken to speaking of him again, his name passing from porch to porch and across counters smelling of flour and kerosene and pickled meat, accompanied always by that same mournful inflection mas

Unless you count the Homer and Jethro record that my mom bought for me when I was six (which featured such enduring classics as “Let Me Go, Blubber” and “She Made Toothpicks of the Timber of My Heart”), the first LP I ever owned was the Twist and Shout Beatles album released by Capitol Records of Canada in February 1964. In that more innocent era, it was standard practice for the PR types who wrote the notes printed on the back of albums to include lighthearted data sheets in

Bob Morrissey I’ve just come to the end of a love-hate relationship with doctors and the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec (RAMQ), our province’s version of Medicare. The love part has to do with a few caring health professionals I encountered during this past month. The negative side has to do with a system that lets a person — in this case, me — suffer needlessly for almost three weeks. It all started five weeks ago, the day after I had played something I hope resemble