Apr 1, 2013

Art and text by Geoff Olson • You might see one or two at a collector’s fair or antiquarian bookshop: dog-eared copies of Popular Science magazines from decades past, with covers promising a sunny future of expanded leisure time. There might be, for example, an illustration of a beaming Caucasian family in a hovercraft, weaving past city spires on a...

Feb 1, 2013

by Geoff Olson • Years ago I read a fantasy short story – I’ve long since forgotten the author’s name – that begins with the death of a worker on an assembly line. The man’s fatal heart attack leaves his wife to grieve alone in an empty bed. Then late one night at the factory, after all the workers have left for home, there is movement at the...

Nov 1, 2012

fire as fable and fortune by Geoff Olson • Fire has a way of getting people’s attention. Some years back, during a period of change in my life, I made arrangements to stay at a friend’s cabin in the interior. Driving up the Coquihalla Highway, we were surprised to see columns of ash in the distance, rising into the sky. We hadn’t intentionally planned...

Oct 1, 2012

A new take on a Cockburn classic by Geoff Olson • If kvetching was an Olympic category, I’d be up there on the podium wearing a furrowed brow and bronze medal. I can think of at least two friends who would be next to me with the silver and gold. When a group of us get together for lunch to discuss current events, it’s game on. Not only is the glass...

Aug 1, 2012

The best editorial cartoonists in Canada gather in Québec by Geoff Olson • Dave Rosen knows a thing or two about humour. In 2011, the Montreal-based satirist released The Stephen Harper Colouring & Activity Book. For five years, he wrote and produced a weekly comedy spot for CBC Radio called What Happened? For nine years, he was the regular editorial...

Jul 1, 2012

article and photo by Geoff Olson • The Hungarian-born émigré and mathematician John von Neumann is remembered as an urbane and witty man. His colleagues admired his finely tailored clothes and superhuman capacity to handle liquor, to say nothing of his important contributions to a wide range of fields, from game theory to quantum physics. The man’s bald...

Jun 1, 2012

It’s time to declare peace on people, places and the planet • by Geoff Olson • “War!” Edwin Starr roared in the 1969 Motown protest song of the same name, “What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!” Yet from the evidence of everyday speech, you might get the impression it must be good for something. North American social...

May 1, 2012

Star phenomena? People aren’t looking up at the sky – they’re tracking celebrities • by Geoff Olson • There’s a great jpeg floating around the Internet that shows the star systems within range of Earth’s radio and television broadcasts. Aldebaran, a red giant, located about 65 light years away, is in the range of President...

Mar 1, 2012

How a few choice words can change worlds within and without • by Geoff Olson   • The world appears to be on a knife-edge again, with leaders from Tel Aviv to Tehran playing out idiotic games of brinkmanship better suited to pre-war Europe than the whistle-blowing world of WikiLeaks and Anonymous. To write about poetry in this context may seem...

Mar 1, 2012

UNIVERSE WITHIN by Gwen Randall-Young “What you think of me is none of my business.” – Terry Cole-Whittaker • It is amazing when we stop to think how much of our culture is based on what people think of us or more importantly what we think they think of us or what we want them to think of us. Fashion magazines, beauty products,...