Time is a fluid condition which has no existence except in the momentary avatars of individual people. There is no such thing as was — only is. — William Faulkner, as quoted by Jean Stein in a 1956 article in The Paris Review If one has been granted enough years to discover that the years themselves are curious deceivers, there comes a season when the old arithmetic ceases to satisfy, when one no longer believes that life has been composed of separate compartments dutifully e

David Sherman Awhile back, I chronicled how our village in the mountains north of Montreal had been invaded by white people. Fleeing the ravages of urban parking, impossible rents, impossible home prices, bike lanes competing with car doors, sirens, traffic and bad movies at multiple multiplexes, they made their way north to destroy our way of life. The white invaders were accompanied by phalanxes of multi-coloured dump trucks, cement mixers, and, my personal favourite, dyn

Not to be born at all is best, far best that can befall; next best, when born, with least delay, to trace the backward way. — Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus One occasionally hears the view that our world was a better place before humans evolved and will be so again when our species goes extinct … the sooner the better. That opening quotation from Sophocles dates from the fifth century BC, so it’s clearly an idea with some staying power. Few have expressed it more starkly than