Late July

I'll just be crappy at work tomorrow.

Information overload can be a wonderful thing.

There's so much information available these days that you can't possibly be expected to remember all of it.

Although it's always best practice to memorize as much as you can.

Maple Walnut

Macchiato mystic meshing
hypoallergenic threshing
lathered corn bread salivation
sloppy moist picante summation

raisined California steepin'
politesse in wayward breachin'
polyester pyrotechnics
undulating churned uncredited

lotion warmly applied
immaculate in motions nigh
like grease a' drippin' from the pan
onto a buttery kickstand

the land immersive furtive beckons
accelerating optic reckon
collocated caramelized
syncopated true North skies.

Weirdos

The striking underground comedic Canadian coming of age pseudo-road trip, nestled on cozy Cape Breton Island, with teenage conflicts to settle and communal sympathy to spare, a wide variety of soulful situations stitched together to explore desire, relationships, and family, as a young couple discuss the nature of their bond, both representatives confused and curious, as they head to a beach party revelling off the beaten track.

Weirdos focuses on identity inasmuch as it challenges gender based preconceptions.

Alice (Julia Sarah Stone) wants to be a police officer for instance and Kit (Dylan Authors) wants to move away from his father, who uses homophobic slurs.

They're not particularly weird though.

I didn't think they were that weird anyways.

Perhaps they were in 1973.

There was this dance I saw on Degrassi Junior High when I was a kid that presented a bunch of fellow youngsters from different backgrounds just having a good time dancing together.

It didn't seem weird.

In fact it seemed like a lot of fun.

I figured the title is more of a test, a challenge, do you actually think these characters are strange or are you missing the point if you can't see how normal they are?

If you ask me, there's really just being, living, wanting to do things and doing them.

If jerks won't let you try due to some shortsighted notion based upon a callous stereotype ignorantly generated by fear and hatred (how these rotten individuals are trying to make themselves seem like victims in the Trump era [as they recklessly bully]), screw 'em.

If you really want to do it, find another way, even if it can be incredibly difficult at times.

You may just find a lot of people believe in you.

Weirdos excels.

A light examination of difference that generates contentment and disappointment while gingerly transitioning from one scene to the next.

I didn't understand why Kit's mother (Molly Parker) received such harsh treatment though.

Artists criticizing artists for lacking social graces always confuses me.

She doesn't understand children well nor the impacts of the statements she makes.

But toss her into a mental hospital? Again?

Odd.

There's probably something I'm missing about the character, but I still wonder if the amount of money French cultures spend promoting the arts and artists is directly proportional to that which English cultures spend promoting pharmaceutical drugs and psychiatric hospitals.

I'd like to research that theory.

Going to see a French artist perform on French turf is quite remarkable. They have personality and they're there to entertainingly share that personality while performing to an audience who isn't only there to see them play music.

The audience wants to hear what the artist has to say.

When you hear French people discuss artists in conversation they do so with a degree of respect that I rarely note in conversations regarding the arts with English people.

Not all English people.

Obviously this isn't a critical reflection that exhaustively examines shortcomings etcetera, but these are features I've noticed about French culture in conversation.

A criticism of artists in English realms I've often heard is, "why did they talk so much between songs?"

I never understood that point.

Just experiential observations.

Things I've noticed.

Is there a contemporary band out there which focuses solely on covering songs performed live at the original Woodstock?

Emphasizing Santana, Sly & the Family Stone, Joe Cocker, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and Jimi Hendrix?

Was that a huge thing in the '70s?

While ye olde kale burger has its charm, and tastes delicious with pickles, tomatoes, onions, mustard, etcetera, I'm wondering if anyone is currently mass producing butternut squash, beet or sweet potato burgers, vegetables that may produce a tastier option than that created by the aforementioned cabbage?

It's win win!

Dunkirk

Hedged-in and horrorstruck, 400,000 soldiers await evacuation from France to Britain.

The blitzkrieg having overwhelmed brave defences, sanctuary upon the continent is rapidly diminishing.

Those who avoided capture or weren't stuck fighting against maniacal odds, found themselves awaiting a rescue that was itself fraught with peril.

On a lonely beach in Dunkirk.

Nazi aircraft bombing them from the skies while u-boats viciously lurked beneath open waters, hope nevertheless still reigned, as the absurdity of their position encouraged resilient pluck.

And so a fleet of civilian boats left Britain's shores to dare save them.

In possession of nothing less than the will to endure that drives so many, they immediately dropped everything to boldly challenge Hitler's despotic ambition.

With resounding allied success.

Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk viscerally threads the line between despondency and fortitude as impossibility is flipped the bird by land, water, and sky.

Heroic acts undertaken by those calmly balancing risk with resolve, Nolan's script modestly yet courageously envisions the potent danger.

A well-edited film (Lee Smith) which patiently blends the restrained passions of men statically suturing on the ground, with those defending them above and approaching by sea, the staggering unnerving losses counterbalanced by fortifying victories, aeronautic adrenaline, nautical initiative, Dunkirk celebrates as it suffers, with unified tripartite tenacity, presenting inherent atrocities without sensationalizing the violence, crisp resolute solemnity as opposed to sadistic sanctimony, steady as she goes, into the great beyond.

The numbers don't add up but its genuine character far outweighs what visual enhancements would have offered.

The real crafted realistically.

It never ages.

I'd love to see a Canadian film about an auteur frustrated in his or her attempts to make a nature documentary.

By human and animal kind alike.

Love watching the jugglers.

Up and down the stairs.

10 balls at a time.

Incredible.

Kale

Saturated to the bone
escapades the hippodrome's
immersed enraptured fertile crescent
everaftering 'fervescent

boocho grimble quays siracha
ambient unfazed errata
drifting calmly through the bay
with sunburns enterprising stray

allayed hypnotic starchy buttress
submarined aquiline cutlass
wading sultry sapphire shivers
plunging sponging clasps and quivers

down beneath high up above
the things I've found I truly love
aren't that concerned with crest or creed
yet still recall stresses and deeds

replete.

Spider-Man: Homecoming

The bourgeoisie surreptitiously asserts itself in Marvel's new Spider-Man: Homecoming, as competing potential father figures sternly challenge wild teenage convictions.

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) offers fame and fortune.

He nurtures young Peter (Tom Holland) with august olympian tragedy, but isn't there to provide sought after guidance when the perplexities of crime fighting overwhelm as bewilderingly as they undermine.

His approach is school-of-hard-knocksy and Mr. Parker is none too amused.

Thus, he sees Mr. Stark's world and that of the Avengers as too ornate, too disassociated from that of the common person, and even though he wholeheartedly seeks to become an Avenger, like Henry Carpenter, he prefers to keep his feet on the ground, since he's unable to balance avenging rewards with communal sacrifices.

Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton) on the other hand presents a successful self-made entrepreneurial gritty streetwise contrast to the illustrious Ironman.

He doesn't hobnob with politicians and plutocrats and geniuses and royalty.

He's an intelligent hands-on formerly honest businessperson who was forced into a life of crime by insensitive shortsighted unapologetic bureaucratic greed.

Choosing to keep his house and to save the jobs of the workers he employs, he adapts to his unfortunate circumstances and finds ways to controversially endure.

He's still a criminal though, and Peter's right to attempt to stop him from selling highly advanced weapons to bank robbers and thugs (he could have found other applications for his salvage), but when Peter sees the effects his actions have on his friends at school, he can't help but wonder if he's made the right decision.

He's caught between silver spoons and heavy metal, uncertain as to where he fits in, naturally gravitating towards Mr. Stark, who is a good person and can't be accused of being self-obsessed after the ballplaying actions he takes in Captain America: Civil War, but Pete still can't help but wonder if there's a dark side to his illuminated heroics, a dark side that leaves people like Toomes and his family stricken, as he prepares for another year of high school.

In hearty bourgeois style.

I doubt critics who lambasted the bourgeoisie for decades thoroughly contemplated a Western world where there was no bourgeoisie and a serious lack of honest professions for intelligent hard-working University grads.

Not me. J'aime mes emplois.

I may have done that too.

Before entering the real world.

The internet does provide ample opportunity to set up a business though.

Or your own newspaper.

It makes sense that traditional news outlets would vilify self-made electronically based independent journalism for trying to broadcast news online because they can realistically put them out of business, a threat major news sources didn't have 15 years ago.

Monopoly contested.

If they won't hire you, and you want to be a reporter, just keep reporting online while utilizing commensurate principles of honesty and integrity.

If they call your news fake afterwards, you'll know you've been noticed.

If you are just making stuff up out of thin air and not adding a humorous element that makes it obviously seem ludicrous, then major news sources are justified in labelling your outputs fake.

Oh man, too heavy.

Spider-Man: Homecoming is an entertaining thought provoking comedic yet solemn examination of contemporary American society crafted from hardy adolescently focused momentum.

Parker's struggles to fit in, to get Mr. Stark to listen, to prove himself avengefully, to impress the girl he likes (Laura Harrier as Liz), etcetera, aptly reflect the struggles of so many youthful reps, who likely also possess incomparable super powers.

Peter's friends and family, along with his teachers and adversaries, and Toomes and his squad, persuasively expand the Marvel universe's exceptionally diverse cast into cool and quizzical alternative realms, complete with the potential for amorous arch-villainy, possibly in a sequel that builds on Peter's conflicted yet contending earnest yet withdrawn middle-class symbolism.

With that theme in mind, the next Spider-Man film could rival Captain America: Civil War in terms of groundbreaking action-based sociopolitical commentary, streams crossed and minds melding, to keep things fresh and pyrotechnically strewn.

Perhaps Peter will be strong enough to hold the boat together in subsequent films?

That's what the middle-class does when it doesn't overstretch itself.

Steady as she goes.

Classic 20th Century Canada.

Cyberorganics?

Does online code deteriorate?

Is there a cyberorganic nature to the net similar to that which effects metallurgical and biological entities or do phenomena survive online as long as the internet continues to regenerate?

Perhaps as code itself mutates overtime it will become more difficult to find specific articles/columns/websites/. . ., but will said articles etc. disappear, fade like an aging uncared for building?

Or will they persist in an alternative underground layer, a cyberstrata?

Will future cyberarchaeologists have to know how to electronically excavate beneath manifold layers of superimposed codes to discover ancient attributes of techsavvy cultures from the 2040s for instance?

Will future historical scholars have to take mandatory code classes in order to successfully compete within their respective fields?

22nd Century Code.

Imagine the Rosetta Stone/s.

Are there any greasy spoons out there equipped with their own in-house gyms?

Then you could devour tantalizing snacks/meals/platters (including a variety of vegan and vegetarian options) and work out immediately afterwards.

It's win win.

The Beguiled

Lost and desperate, unable to move, in need of shelter, nourishment, warmth, comfort, convalescence, clinging and clutching, forlornly crutching, a young isolated soldier lies dying in the woods having survived to expire woebegone, patiently waiting to succumb to his injuries, consciousness slowly fading, as the days coldly pass by.

A haven, a sanctuary, a cloister, a dream, a school nestled in the forest delicately composed, full of sympathy and understanding, it miraculously takes him in, cares for him, coddles him, feeds him, talks to him, falls in love with him, the absence of men blended with Corporal McBurney's (Colin Farrell) charm and good looks leaves it tantalizingly taken and amorously affected, yet he can only respectfully choose one belle without slighting the others wholesale.

Like Paris of old yet disregarded by the gods, he grievously misjudges the situation and attempts to claim everyone for his own.

Perhaps he's not thinking clearly, due to his wounds, but he honestly believes his counsel can guarantee active lust, and proceeds to recklessly gorge with impulsive selfish gluttony.

Hold on, just let me explain . . .

Look, we're just . . .

Let's think about this logically . . .

I swear, it's not my fault!

Screwin' up big time, even if he would have screwed up less if he hadn't been so adamantly sought after, the palatial invokes the pernicious, a wanton craven eruption, infernally and retributively so.

It's a great film, painstakingly and provocatively crafted by Sofia Coppola, her clever well-written multileveled script and poetic title, composed with several compelling characters from different ages and regional backgrounds, presents a sound intricate knowledge of her controversial subject matter, and what otherwise could have been a raunchy sensational grotesque flash comes across as a cerebral elegantly fierce tale.

The feeling, the tranquil restful sensitive bucolic emotion stylizes an environmental awareness that's as curious as it is unconcerned.

Cinematography by Philippe le Sourd.

Nicole Kidman (Miss Martha) keeps getting better.

Pressing matters for the unrestrained, an optical host confined to disillusion.

Desire undoubtably blessed incarnate.

Rent in wonder dis/possessed of forthright loss.

I would have ended it right after he hit the floor.

A controversial metaphorical take on the American Civil War.

Could bacteria or a virus that had survived for thousands of years within excavated pyramids have been responsible for the mysterious deaths of so many who discovered them?

It seems like the lost city of El Dorado was more of a trick that betrayed avarice than a legend bearing auriferous yields.

If conquistadors were terrorizing South America, and the South Americans realized they lusted for gold, it makes sense that they would lure them with fantastic tales deep into the heart of the unforgiving jungle, where they would find naught but suffering and ruin.

Although there may have been an ancient city of fabulous wealth that had once existed, and still persisted in oral tradition, indigenous South Americans still may have failed to mention to the bloodthirsty conquistadors that the city's legend was as ancient as it was ineffable, as they tried to rid their countryside of the invincible threat.

Idea aided by The Lost City of Z.

Catatonic

Succulent neurotic melons
honey dewed exotic gellin'
undulating breezy haze
enrapturing the mealy graze

unsprouted embossed salivation
thirst like sunburst dearths evasive
shimmering landlocked exhale
embrace the lubbers 'dorned and pale

regale the wooded impish leather
gusting primples 'lorn all-weather
insolence atoned refrained
in sweltering exiled exchanges

moments mustards misty mountains
drenched myself beneath the fountain
fabled forthright chevalier
in bounding pounding courtly brays

sashay.

Transformers: The Last Knight

Can science, myth, religion, history, the aristocracy, the people, the British, Americans, the privileged, the self-made, the men, the women, humankind, and Autobots, be chaotically yet adventurously, ideologically yet practically, intergalactically yet locally, or quite simply extracurricularly brought together in a wild brainiacally styled jewelled Nile Summertime extravaganza, complete with a spellbinding mix of the brash and the delicate which epically unites risk, love, service and dedication, to thoroughly entertain while multilaterally seeking knowledge, like a trip to New York, or a voyage down under?

Yes.

I would say, "yes, yes they can."

"Affirmative" even.

A constructive ebb and flow.

It's always fun when the new Transformers films are released but I'll admit I've never enjoyed one as much as The Last Knight.

I mean, I'll actually watch this one again.

It's number 5 too.

So many metamorphic developments.

Plucky little Izabella (Isabela Moner), resiliently in search of friends and family.

The hyperreactive robotic butler (Jim Carter as Cogman), who flamboyantly yet earnestly adds neurotic inspirational spice.

Agent Simmons (Jon Turturro) is back, theorizing and analyzing his way to the heart of the narrative's conceit.

Sir Edmund Burton (Anthony Hopkins), youthfully and mischievously contemporizing more than a millennia of British legend.

England and the United States romantically come to terms?, the couple in question perhaps creating an invincible universal super being?

Plus secret entrances, spontaneous sushi, cheeky self-reflexive criticisms of blockbuster music, Cuba once again warmly featured in a 2017 American mainstream release, prophetic books preserved, getting-away-with-it explanations, scenarios, Bumblebee (Erik Aadahl), First Nations fluidity, Tony Hale (JPL Engineer), whales.

The wild script energetically shifts from sentiment to shock to certitude to sensation, manifold short scenes eclectically yet straightforwardly stitched together with (en)lightninglike speed and ornate dishevelled awareness.

Fascinated, 'twas I.

I've often thought these films don't focus enough on Transformers, but Last Knight presents a solid shapeshifting/organic blend, its biological proclivities overwhelming desires to see Transformers discursively deliberating, relevant contributing human factors, caught up in the thick of it, creating solutions intuitively their own.

In fact, the subplot involving Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) was my least favourite part of the film.

The extraordinary examination of British History and its relationship to transforming-lifeforms-from-space easily made up for it though.

I'd love to see Stonehenge on the Summer Solstice during the witching hour.

How did they move those rocks?

They be pretty freakin' huge.

Baker's Dozens at Tim Hortons?

I was thinking about baker's dozens the other day, and it occurred to me that it would be cool if Tim Hortons had baker's dozens of donuts available.

4 times a year.

Tim Hortons could potentially celebrate the beginning of each season by offering baker's dozens of donuts to the public for no extra charge, the extra donuts within being seasonally themed, perhaps with sprinkles and something chocolate or fruity, as a matter of expression.

That would indeed be delicious and generous and forward-thinking and kind.

I'm hungry.

I don't think I'd buy a robot pet.

The House

An adorable loving cute-and-cuddly family suddenly finds itself violently managing a rowdy small town underground Casino in Andrew Jay Cohen's hit-and-miss The House, awkwardly refining streetwise bourgeois semantics thereby, while teaching their young daughter improvisational economic lessons learned.

Chug-a-lug-lug.

There would have been no need however a corrupt city councilperson embezzles the funds that would have paid young Alex's (Ryan Simpkins) college tuition, the Johansen's (Will Ferrell as Scott and Amy Poehler as Kate) unexpectedly finding themselves 250,000 dollars short afterwards, with no legitimate means to raise the cash required.

Enter their porn-afflicted deadbeat addiction-prone friend (Jason Mantzoukas as Frank) whose wife has just left him, but he's got an idea to win her back, and you've found a trendy sanctified sordid perky do-gooding sleazy debacle, complete with absurdly relevant relatable yet sensational stock (the mismanagement of government funds resulting in heavy taxes for small businesses?), weathering the wherewithal, manifesting latent complexes, hewing the graft, and exercising freewill.

It's a great idea for a comedy, glossing over serious defects in the American dream too lightly perhaps, but not unsympathetically, in its brazen hardy risk management.

How do people pay $50,000 for one year's tuition?

N-n-n-nutso.

That is one big bloody army.

Full-on crazy, this here historical epoch.

A great idea supersaturated with too much improbability that revels in its hypothesis without generating convincing conclusions, The House has its moments but some scenes are total amateur hour, even if they're naively treading the rambunctious deluge.

The script intends to blend the wild with the worldly in a bizarro multicultural cavalcade, but ironically leaves the parenting behind for too long, and focuses too intently on plain old thuggery.

It's true though, the film would have been stronger if they had cut back on the buffoonery a bit, even if Scott's 1970s-90s? cut-off hopeful progressive determined speech near the beginning suggests The House ain't that kind of film.

Butchin' and burnin'.

Is it really a comedic western?

This morning I was thinking that if it was in fact rancid stink that was responsible for creating the best perfumes, perhaps potent snake venom should be used to find cures to various diseases.

Suppose people have been doing that for centuries.

With or without success.

I'm betting Luke dies like Obi-Wan.

Hoping that's not the case.

Boo!

Sort of dies.

* #MoreHamill

Chestnut

Waterslid on down the passage
sacrilege condoned impassive
parliamentary precision
saturated extradition

blew up me cushy inner tube
and lazed about in woodsy fugues
then drifted calm all down the line
with pulpy undulating brine

aligned fourscore impersonate
likewise distentions resonate
the dates unharkened sun drenched lanes
beguiled like trusty lemonade

in spades the garden graceful grows
raccoons at night to taste the throes
albeit voiced in ukulele
courted down in ye olde bailey's

recesses.

Baby Driver

Split-second ingenious unassailable guiltless reflexes, instinctively classifying delicate improvisation, piquant extemporization, serpentine spontaneity, the driver, driving the getaway vehicle, atavistic awareness vigilantly circulating extractions, an unprecedented impresario envisioned in wild heartlands brake swerve accelerate, coordinate chaos with implicit clandestine credulity, pulsating pumping propulsive paved impertinence, irreducibly reacting, to unpredictable explosive larceny.

Mad skills.

Variably exercised.

Character driven.

Edgar Wright's Baby Driver's hilariously character driven, with Ansel Elgort (Baby), Lily James (Debora), Bats (Jamie Foxx), Buddy (Jon Hamm), Darling (Eiza González), Joseph (CJ Jones), Griff (Jon Bernthal), and Doc (Kevin Spacey) each chauffeuring full-throttle eccentricities that make said characters their own.

The well-thought-out creatively choreographed romantically comedic yet harrowingly hardboiled script (Wright) supplies them with ample maneuverability.

In fact I'd argue this is Wright's best film.

There are two notable oppositions within that reflect different intellectual styles.

Baby and Doc's youthful and aged conversations provide the film with an executive frame as they reticently interact, Doc's nephew Samm (Brogan Hall) brilliantly expanding one of their sequences, while Bats and Buddy concurrently represent clever tenacious earnest hard work, as they durably discuss various subjects between jobs.

Nice to see Jamie Foxx rockin' it again.

Doc heartbreakingly embraces romance in the end, risking everything to aid young Baby and Debora as they wildly set off to matriculate on the run.

I've been focusing on the criminal nature of the film but it's also a warmblooded romance.

Baby owes Doc a large sum of money that he's been slowly paying off for some time.

He meets Debora at the diner where his deceased mom used to work and they hit it off, young adult love at its most endearing, hesitantly tender and shyly enthusiastic.

Since he engages in illicit activities quite frequently, however, the nogoodniks eventually terrorize their sanctuary, especially after they craft plans to escape, which unconsciously precipitate embroiled maturations.

Excellent film that's patiently yet boisterously detailed, the dedicated caregiving, the musical artistry, the Mike Myers gag, the paradoxical sense of coerced altruism, the relaxed quiet dignity, the wanton perplexed angst.

Realistic reverberations.

Sweet sweet summertime.

Breezy.

Wiped out hard after stepping off the bus the other day, a total helpless collapse to the ground (the grate that used to accompany a sidewalk tree had been removed [as had the tree])). I got up quickly and stood there monitoring the pain in my ankle, wondering how bad the twist was, when I noticed that concerned citizens were observing me from the bus, and that, the bus driver themself had indeed left their charge to ask me in person if I required medical aid. I was on my way to JazzFest, and really didn't want to miss the show, so I figured, unless it was clearly a break, I would deal with the pain and limp my way around throughout the evening. Yet I thanked them for their kindly regard, of which I was most appreciative, and gave the thumbs up to the passengers travelling therewithin, then put most of my weight on my uninjured foot, a cumbersome bulk this Summer, felt as if I could move, watched as the friendly public chariot speeded away, and made my way towards my eagerly anticipated destination. The next day I awoke to discover that I was not burdened by a swell, and proceeded to go about my routine activities with only a minor degree of unsettling discomfort.

Like I've never experienced this before.

Throughout the ages.

It's so blasé.

I, Daniel Blake

Like Going in Style's much grittier independent cousin, Ken Loach's I, Daniel Blake sympathetically examines poverty in Britain to find working solutions to bureaucratic prerogatives.

Daniel (Dave Johns) is a respectful hardworking individual who lives within his means and has never had to learn how to use computers.

He meets Katie (Hayley Squires) and her children one day at social services and responds reasonably to her criticisms of its harsh procedural dictates.

She's a young struggling single mother of two who wants to go back to school but can't afford to take care of her family at the same time.

Daniel helps out as much as he can, but has to spend 35 hours a week looking for a job that he has to refuse, should it be offered, because he can't physically return to work due to a recent heart attack.

He tried to tell this to a social services rep but potential heart failure wasn't an option on the questionnaire, which deemed him fit to return to work since he answered it truthfully.

He appealed but still had to abide by the initial ruling meanwhile.

A lot of time and planning goes into providing people living through hard times with financial assistance, but if there are no alternative options in place for the exceptions to the rules, as I, Daniel Blake sharply points out, the safety net needs to be adjusted in order to considerately accommodate.

For instance, as previously mentioned, Daniel can't use a computer, it's probable that other applicants can't use computers, it makes sense that a workshop should be created to help these individuals collectively learn computer basics, so that they can then access the services which can correspondingly assist them.

It's often just a matter of adding another question to a form, but it's surprising how hard it can be to change a form or how long it can take for the changes to be implemented after it's been approved by committee.

Daniel's feisty.

He gets along well with his neighbours but doesn't shy away from airing grievances.

It's a great film examining honest attempts to live honestly within a mistrustful situation.

Neither preachy nor sentimental, it's more like a realistic hypothetical investigation of unfortunate sets of circumstances, which for austere reasons can't be rationally resolved, than a poppy good natured heist.

Decent jobs with decent pay make a nation's reliance on social services much less taxing.

There's an interesting sidebar that examines how the internet can theoretically aid underemployed earnest entrepreneurs, who have physical jobs but lack full-time hours.

Strong performances, heartwarming community, heartbreaking realities, tenacious script, Ken Loach conscientiously examines postmodern day British poverty through a contemporary Dickensian lens to shed light on dark issues.

Do people still read him in Britain?

Seriously, it's worth building up the vocabulary.

I suppose the word grit may come from integrity.

Jeremy Corbyn.

In possession of both I imagine.

Fluently translating cool from one language to another is difficult to do.

I suppose it depends on how cool it is to learn another language at any given time.

But if you can win over different crowds representing different linguistic ethnicities while effortlessly appealing to different organic demographics during the show, with different jokes, that's a big time accomplishment.

Humorous polyglots may disagree.

JazzFest's Canada 150 Discothèque was tons of fun last night.

I had no clue what it was going to be like and suddenly, after plenty of cool, there's Men Without Hats performing live!

Pop goes the world.

What a great time.

Glacier Lily

A nation born in fabled flux
and principles the finest
hearty stoic stormy morns
and evening walks in kindness

although not always oh so green
nor cherry blossom strewn
the peeps at odds disputes bucolic
fashions thrift marooned

but deep beneath polemic griefs
lies communal passion
six months to spree 6 more to plead
with guiltless weathered rations

the mountainous the Eastern trusts
the prairies's drifting sway
North of 60 stark and pithy
Québec's starry gaze

perhaps one day paths will be paved
that breed coastal consensus
hypnotic seeds sprout hearty deeds
beyond regional quenches

'till then within our disciplines
I'll wager these surmises
keep them heads up to shoot the puck
past anyone who rises

with a bit of tourtière

a grilled cheese with tomato

and some ketchup chips.

*Hope Canadian flights are cheaper in 2067. Could you imagine you could fly to Vancouver from Montréal and back for $300? That would be incredible.