Can't stop eating chocolate? Try the water cure
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Sunday, October 18, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
French director experiments on Toronto audience
“We can’t rewrite politics, but we can tame it, making a new puzzle out of the same pieces,” Jean-Guy Legault. Théâtre Extrême invites the audience into the back rooms of politics where powerful people are made...
Opinion: French director experiments on Toronto audience (Includes first-hand account)
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Monday, October 12, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
My first full-length article on DigitalJournal
Do you think cell phone users make dangerous drivers or should the police let us make our own decisions behind the wheel? Decide for yourself, and support my new foray into journalism... I appreciate it.
Ontario Bans Cell Phones Behind the Wheel But Is It Enough?
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Ontario Bans Cell Phones Behind the Wheel But Is It Enough?
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Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Cerealboxreader on DigitalJournal
As of today I have been approved as a Digital Journalist at DigitalJournal. The emphasis will be on news stories but I don't plan to turn my back on books. Do me a favour and check it out.
DigitalJournal is an international news site, physically based in Toronto, Ontario. I heard about it through a co-worker but there is also an article in Maisonneuve magazine which gives a fair description of this cutting-edge news experiment, as part of a larger article on what constitutes journalism in web 2.0.
I hope people will subscribe to my feed and start reading my articles. My only complaint about this blog is that it reaches so few people. I'm hoping that on DigitalJournal, I'll have more opportunities to interact with readers and writers. My goal is to write a few articles a week. Wish me good luck.
Happy reading.
DigitalJournal is an international news site, physically based in Toronto, Ontario. I heard about it through a co-worker but there is also an article in Maisonneuve magazine which gives a fair description of this cutting-edge news experiment, as part of a larger article on what constitutes journalism in web 2.0.
I hope people will subscribe to my feed and start reading my articles. My only complaint about this blog is that it reaches so few people. I'm hoping that on DigitalJournal, I'll have more opportunities to interact with readers and writers. My goal is to write a few articles a week. Wish me good luck.
Happy reading.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Word on the Street
Here are a few photos from Word on the Street, 20th anniversary edition, Sunday Sept. 27, 2009.
Attendance was good, despite the threat of rain.
The lineup to have books signed by Margaret Atwood, stretched from the Al Purdy statue across Queen's Park.
The lineup to have books signed by Margaret Atwood, stretched from the Al Purdy statue across Queen's Park.
Tara Tallon, of Galaxion comics, appeared on a panel with Claudia Davilla and Jim Munroe to discuss "Creating Comics and Raising a Family," in the Comics & Graphic Novels Tent.
Watch this blog for forthcoming clips of Margaret Atwood reading from her latest novel The Year of the Flood, and of the coast-to-coast Q & A which connected Atwood fans from Halifax to Vancouver.
Margaret Atwood - Live from Word on the Street
Margaret Atwood celebrated the 20th Annual Word on the Street festival with a technological twist. Known for her invention of the LongPen, a multimedia device which allows her to remotely sign autographs and talk to fans, Atwood has gone one step further on the book tour for her latest novel, The Year of the Flood.
Sunday September 27, she appeared virtually in Vancouver and Halifax from the Scotiabank Bestsellers Stage at Word on the Street, Toronto. After a reading from her novel, Atwood answered questions from fans in Halifax, Vancouver and finally, from the live Toronto audience.
The images of Vancouver and Halifax looked grainy and there were some difficulties with the sound in Vancouver but the experiment inspired plenty of applause. As Atwood put it, the LongPen is "a way of connecting with people across space." For her, all technology is "neutral," an extension of "human bodies, human desires and fears."
Atwood has taken to blogging and to composing Twitter Tweets to promote this latest book, a companion to her Oryx and Crake which came out in 2003. With her characteristic wit, Atwood promised those participating in the coast-to-coast reading: "You will all be mentioned in this blog, although possibly not individually."
Flood revisits the same post-apocalyptic world as Oryx and Crake, but this time, the point-of-view characters are female. Part of the inspiration, Atwood said, came from people asking her why she had used a male protagonist in that novel.
When asked a general question about sources of inspiration, Atwood hesitated. Instead of giving the usual laundry-list of influences, she cited all the books she read between the ages of five and sixteen as triggers for the desire to write. Once you begin writing, she explained, it becomes less a question of inspiration than being immersed in the process.
Where do her characters come from? She is often inspired by a plot that seems to be going somewhere. Beginning with a situation and using a kind of actor's improvisation, Atwood builds, layers by layer, until the character emerges.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Made to Stick
I enjoyed Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. The subtitle, Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, explains much of its appeal. If you want to get across a message that people will understand, remember, and act on, this is your book.
A lot of the Heath brother's advice is common sense but there are surprises. In an annual experiment Chip does at Stanford, he gives his students a set of crime statistics and asks them to make a one-minute persuasive speech. The speeches are then rated by the class.
The speeches are always excellent and the smoothest, best talkers are preferred by their peers, but are the best speakers the best communicators? Ten minutes after the speeches are given, the content of even the best statistic-heavy speech is forgotten. Regardless of speaking ability, the one student in ten who decides to tell a story, passes on information which is remembered.
Here are some Velcro clad tips to make your ideas (or your teaching) stick.
SUCCESs is the Heath brother's acronym for Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Emotional, Stories. They promise that if you use these principles, your ideas will be understood and remembered, just like perennial urban legends. First, simplify the idea to first principles, then use unexpected images or situations to make the idea memorable. Next, stimulate an emotional response in the receiver and don't forget to use stories, because stories, told even tolerably well, are more memorable than other forms of information.
They cite the 'Kidney Heist,' an urban legend where, after a drink with a woman in a bar, a traveller wakes up naked, packed in ice in his hotel bathtub. He has a fresh surgical incision. Just within reach is a phone and instructions to stay still and call 911 for help because his kidney has been removed. Does this story sound familiar? We remember stories like these because they are simple, shocking, emotional and full of concrete details like ice and incisions.
Now to get my French students to remember their possessive pronouns as easily as they remember all those 'Alligator in the Sewer' legends...
Made to Stick is an amusing book full of anecdotes and mnemonics so that the take away message really does go with you. I recommend it if you want to write better or teach better. Their methods also show how a democratic-minded leader can sidestep the buzzwords and create an inspirational mission statement employees can really use to make day-to-day decisions.
Happy reading.
A lot of the Heath brother's advice is common sense but there are surprises. In an annual experiment Chip does at Stanford, he gives his students a set of crime statistics and asks them to make a one-minute persuasive speech. The speeches are then rated by the class.
The speeches are always excellent and the smoothest, best talkers are preferred by their peers, but are the best speakers the best communicators? Ten minutes after the speeches are given, the content of even the best statistic-heavy speech is forgotten. Regardless of speaking ability, the one student in ten who decides to tell a story, passes on information which is remembered.
Here are some Velcro clad tips to make your ideas (or your teaching) stick.
SUCCESs is the Heath brother's acronym for Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Emotional, Stories. They promise that if you use these principles, your ideas will be understood and remembered, just like perennial urban legends. First, simplify the idea to first principles, then use unexpected images or situations to make the idea memorable. Next, stimulate an emotional response in the receiver and don't forget to use stories, because stories, told even tolerably well, are more memorable than other forms of information.
They cite the 'Kidney Heist,' an urban legend where, after a drink with a woman in a bar, a traveller wakes up naked, packed in ice in his hotel bathtub. He has a fresh surgical incision. Just within reach is a phone and instructions to stay still and call 911 for help because his kidney has been removed. Does this story sound familiar? We remember stories like these because they are simple, shocking, emotional and full of concrete details like ice and incisions.
Now to get my French students to remember their possessive pronouns as easily as they remember all those 'Alligator in the Sewer' legends...
Made to Stick is an amusing book full of anecdotes and mnemonics so that the take away message really does go with you. I recommend it if you want to write better or teach better. Their methods also show how a democratic-minded leader can sidestep the buzzwords and create an inspirational mission statement employees can really use to make day-to-day decisions.
Happy reading.
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