July/August 2005

"I'm wanted at the traffic jam. They're saving me a seat."
--Leonard Cohen

July/August 2005

Franklin’s Library

by Helen Humphreys

The sailor looks up from the book. He looks up, out of the oily coin of…[more]

Illustration by Michelangelo Iaffaldano

Fiction

Catechism

by Wayne Johnston

…[more]

Books

Identity Crisis

by Randy Boyagoda

In this 2005 review, Turkey’s recent Nobel laureate evokes his country’s ongoing struggle with the role of Islam in day-to-day life.…[more]

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Diamonds And Soot

by Douglas Coupland

People say when you’re in love you enter a parallel universe—a republic of two, hypnotic, exclusive, and…[more]

Poetry

The Twentieth Time

by Sheldon Zitner

Some say it looks like rain, some say they believe in God, some say they are going to Winnipeg. The polling numbers are accurate to within plus…[more]

Imaginings

My Living Media Will

by Marni Jackson

In the event that my health deteriorates to the point where extreme measures are required to sustain life and keep me…[more]

Books

A Civilizing Influence

by Charles Foran

Tariq Ali’s Islam Quintet paints a softer face on the historical interactions between Muslims and the West…[more]

Field Notes

The Punk Who Would Be King

by Hal Niedziecki

stratford—In 2001, I took a carload of people to a reading by Chris Rickett, infamous resident and future…[more]

Technology

Torrential Reign

by Matthew McKinnon

A mega file-sharing protocol called BitTorrent is making the music piracy of yesteryear look like petty theft.…[more]

Culture

Arsenal Of Illusion

by Jake MacDonald

Hollywood know-how is helping to create new kinds of military weapons that target the brain—but not with a bullet.…[more]

Sporting Life

My Tennis Game

by Don Gillmor

My tennis game was raised by wolves. Abandoned as an infant, it sat in a dark part of the forest for three days. It…[more]

Fiction

Pericles

by Yiorgos Skardonis, translated from the Greek by Karen Emmerich

May 1941. The corn is high. There are two goatherds keeping watch over all the goats in Zostiko. A Greek and a…[more]

Field Notes

The New Word Order

by Charles Foran

hong kong—Imagine this seating chart for a dinner at a literary festival in Hong Kong. A Chinese-American…[more]

Field Notes

Moving Back To Chernobyl

by Larry Frolick

chernobyl—Nineteen years after the biggest nuclear disaster in history spewed radioactive material across…[more]

Politics

Green Party Blues

by Murray Dobbin

Can Jim Harris rescue the environment by mainstreaming the Greens?…[more]

Politics

The Dictator Debt Catch

by Paul Webster

A US-brokered deal to forgive billions in Iraqi debt is causing other countries to say “me too,” even as some Iraqis wish they’d said “no thanks.”…[more]