In My World

I have loved Maggie Smith since I first saw her in  The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) .  She is one of my favourite actors of all time.  In  Keeping Mum (2005) , Dame Smith has the opportunity to play a fabulously quirky character, the new housekeeper.  You may find it hard to believe that she is a cheerful serial killer, but she plays the part perfectly.  You will find yourself cheering for her by the end, I promise. Rowan Atkinson plays an adorable but absentminded vicar in a village called Little Wallop.  One of the many things he has forgotten is to pay attention to his wife, played by Kristin Scott Thomas, so his wife decides to have a fling with her golf pro, played by Patrick Swayze.  Swayze is hysterically funny as he plays his part in the broadest possible way.  You actually feel that if you touch him you'll find his skin is slimy.  The daughter is a nymphomaniac with really poor choices in boyfriends and their son is a...

So why, when I've said so many times how much I hate violent movies, do I love this crazy movie.  I've also said more than once that I hate Quentin Tarantino movies.  And yet I've now seen two of Tarantino's movies that I love . . . Inglorious Bastards and Django Unchained. Perhaps it has something to do with the stars of the show which I absolutely love.  Christoph Waltz cracks me up.  And I love to hate Leonardo DiCaprio. The short version of the story is that Django ("The D is silent. Payback won't be.") is teamed up with a German bounty hunter.  The hunt bad guys.  The bounty hunter agrees to help Django find his wife who had been sold off.  They find out where she is and come up with a really complicated plan to free her. There is a lot of violence and red stuff and the language is a "bit" much but the story is good and the actors are amazing. Academy Awards, USA  2013 Winner Oscar Best Performance by an Actor in a ...

Today's Prompt: So What Do You Do? What do you spend most of your time doing - when you're not journaling , of course! Most of my time is spent working on various craft projects, trying to keep my apartment clean, looking for the joy in my life, and spending time with my family and friends.

I loved loved loved this movie. Of course I don't think I've ever seen a Morgan Freeman movie I didn't love. Tim Robbins plays a young banker who is found guilty of murdering his wife and her lover. He is innocent but I guess that doesn't matter. The movie is about his life in prison and his friendship with Red, played by Morgan Freeman. My favourite scene is right after the arrival of donations for the prison library. That is all I am going to say except that it is an uplifting moment. I really love the ending but I'm not going to give it away in case you've never seen the movie yet. Let's just say it is good to never lose hope . . . and to be a very clever banker. Both Robbins and Freeman give award worthy performances in this great story of hope. I can't believe they didn't win any Oscars but the movie was nominated for: Best Picture - Niki Marvin Best Actor in a Leading Role - Morgan Freeman Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material P...

Sunset Lake Resort, is an equally captivating narrative full of thrilling twists, exciting reveals, and gorgeously drawn women characters. When Ruby’s father passes away, but fails to leave her the millions some expected, Steve, her husband of 35 years, moves out. Alone, but in control of her own affairs for the first time in her life, Ruby is torn between panic and relief. When she investigates the remote beach cabin her father had left her instead of his estate, she discovers a dilapidated beach resort in a remote location, seemingly untouched since its former owner, Cecelia Johansen, died under mysterious circumstances. Despite the condition of the property and rumours it is haunted, Ruby decides to move to Sunset Lake Resort, determined to find out why her father bought it, and why he left it to her. Sunset Lake Resort is now available wherever books are sold. @joannejacksonauthor @river_street_writes @stonehousepublishing #canlit #canadianbooks #bookishcanadians #bookstagramcanada...

Are you a fan on trivia?  Odd facts?  Titillating questions and interesting answers? Might I recommend Can You Have Too Much Sex? Not only will you find out if you can have too much sex, you will also find out if we need our pinkie finger, why our stomach doesn't digest itself, and why we don't ride zebras. Enjoy!

My son called one afternoon to tell me he had watched a great movie and he knew I was going to love it.  He's usually wrong but I watched the movie anyway and he was right. This story has so many comedic elements to keep it from becoming unappealingly maudlin and the quirky characters are meant to be loved, liked, or hated in turn.  I felt this for each character. The trailer tells the basic plot quite well.  Be prepared for some violence and coarse language. Academy Awards, USA  2018 Winner Oscar Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role Frances McDormand Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role Sam Rockwell Nominee Oscar Best Motion Picture of the Year Graham Broadbent Peter Czernin Martin McDonagh Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role Woody Harrelson Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score) Carter Burwell Best Original Screenplay Martin McDonagh Best Achievement in Film Editing...

Set the timer for 1 minute . . . what can I say about the word Play in 1 minute? . . . hmmmmmmm . . .  I love to play music.  Just about any kind of music.  I love to play cards.  I am a lousy card player.  I think it is the whole "socialness" of card playing that is fun.  I love to play Apples to Apples and Clue. Wow . . . sixty seconds sure doesn't last long . . . 

  Kingston author Armand Garnet Ruffo's staggeringly powerful poetry collection,  The Dialogues: The Song of Francis Pegahmagabow.   brings to life not only the story of the famed WWI Indigenous sniper, but also the complexities of telling Indigenous stories.  From Wasauksing (Parry Island) to the trenches of WWI to the stage, Ruffo moves seamlessly through time in these poems, taking the reader on a captivating journey through Pegahmagabow’s story and onto the creation of  Sounding Thunder , the opera based on his life. Throughout, Ruffo uses the Ojibwe concept of two-eyed seeing, which combines the strengths of western and Indigenous ways of knowing, and invites the reader to do the same, particularly through the inclusion of the Anishinaabemowin language within the collection.  These are poems that challenge western conventions of thinking, that celebrate hope and that show us a new way to see the world. Request a review copy  here . More ...

Happy Publication to Tim Bowling and his new poetry collection, In the Capital City of Autumn, published with Wolsak & Wynn! Tim Bowling is in top form in his latest collection of poetry, In the Capital City of Autumn. Threading through autumnal themes such as the loss of his mother and the demolition of his childhood home, his children growing and the inevitable passage of time, Bowling writes with rich lyricism and imagery. Sweet William and loosely woven woollen mitts for his mother, the moon as “an egg in the pocket of a running thief” for time, salmon for eternity. In the Capital City of Autumn, the characters of The Great Gatsby come to life, and three a.m. brings wisdom. These are masterful poems, lightened with a touch of whimsy, poems to sink into on a quiet evening. @wolsakandwynn @river_street_writes #canlit #poetry #publicationday #bookbirthday #poetrycollection #nationalpoetrymonth #poetsofig #bookishcanadians #bookstagramcanada #canadianpoet #canadianpoets #canadianpo...

Happy Publication to Melanie Marttila’s debut poetry collection, The Art of Floating, published by Latitude 46. The Art of Floating is Melanie Marttila’s debut poetry collection, and a result of and testament to years of honing her craft. The collection of five sections of free verse poems is wide ranging and eclectic, bringing to life her deep connection with the earth and sky of Ontario. The aptly named collection describes her learned ability to ride the unpredictable waves of mental illness  and prevent herself from drowning within it, while seeking solace in the natural world around her. These lyric poems are stunning and transportative, absorbing the reader with captivating imagery, complex diction, and highly relatable themes most pivotal in life, such as loss, grief, and hope.  The Art of Floating is an elegant and beautifully crafted debut collection of poetry by Sudbury’s Melanie Marttila. Her poems are mirrors to the tiny, often quiet, and supposedly insignificant m...

  Write down your top 5 favourite inspirational quotes.

Happy Publication Day to Robin Pacific and her scrappy and sensational memoir in fragments, Skater Girl! (Guernica Editions) Skater Girl is a collection of intensely personal essays, an archaeology of the self. Robin Pacific sifts through the midden of consciousness to find shells, potsherds, a broken piece of mirror. Themes of art, spirituality and social justice run like a current through otherwise disconnected pieces and fragments, many as short as one paragraph. Further, ideas about aging, loss and mortality colour many of them. The book is about the formation of Robin Pacific's many selves, about creativity, spiritual seeking, and the dream of a more equal society. Robin Pacific‘s work has spanned thirty years and a wide variety of media. In addition to writing personal and critical essays, she has produced artworks in a variety of media, encompassing painting, drawing, video, installations, performance, and numerous community based collaborations. Robin holds a PhD in  Englis...

  Borrowed Memories is an absorbing story that explores the life of Ivan Pyefinch, a freelance translator, who is the self-appointed custodian of family memory. He is faced with the challenges of caregiving for elderly parents and grapples with the question of how much of his life is too much to give up to this end, and for how long. Ivan Pyefinch moves home to the Thousand Islands for the summer to care for his aging parents and escape the sting of his failed marriage. His father Horace, a former World War II pilot, is fighting now to regain his driver’s license, while his mother Aida wages a losing battle against Alzheimer’s. They are living on borrowed time, and Ivan is there to lend them some more. Enter Mia Hakim, a Jewish filmmaker in Quebec who has always preferred the memories of others, even as she dreams of her Sephardic roots. She plans a research trip to Tunisia in search of her lost childhood and enlists Ivan to translate her scenario. When Mia arrives unannounced at ...

Happy Publication Day to Ellen Chang-Richardson and their extraordinary debut poetry collection, Blood Belies (Wolsak & Wynn, 2024). Chang-Richardson writes of race, of injury and of belonging in stunning poems that fade in and out of the page. History swirls through this collection like a summer storm, as she brings her father’s, and her own, stories to light, writing against the background of the institutional racism of Canada, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the head tax and more. From Taiwan in the early 1990s to Oakville in the late 1990s, Toronto in the 2010s, Cambodia in the mid-1970s and Ottawa in the 2020s, Blood Belies takes the reader through time, asking them what it means to look the way we do? To carry scars? To persevere? To hope? Ellen Chang-Richardson (they/them) is an award-winning poet of Taiwanese and Chinese Cambodian descent whose multi-genre writing has appeared in Augur, The Ex-Puritan, The Fiddlehead, Grain, third coast magazine, Vallum Contemporary, Watch Your ...

Today's Prompt: Spring Cleaning Is there anything in your life you should really throw out, but you just can't bear to part with it? I honestly can't think of anything in my life I would want to throw out.  I've pared back my life to suit me, my energy level and my goals. I'm wondering what my husband and family would say I should throw out of my life?

Today's Prompt: Luxury You've been given $100 on the condition that you have to spend it all on yourself. What are you going to do with your gift? Head to the nearest craft store. I can't believe you didn't already know what my answer would be . . . LOL!!!!

At the southernmost point of the Canadian mainland, Point Pelee National Park, you can experience nature like never before. Whether you cycle, paddle, or hike, in Canada’s second smallest and most ecologically diverse national park, you’ll be immersed in an unforgettable eco-adventure. I started scrolling Pelee Point National Park's website https://parks.canada.ca/pn-np/on/pelee and was soon lost in dreams of camping and hiking and all the activities available at this park.  And since I am so close to Pelee Island I feel I really need to go there as well. I've wanted to go for as long as I can remember.

  When were you last surprised?

Tanka Tuesday: Stairs Tanka is a form of poetry similar to haiku. It's short, and the lines don't need to rhyme. The just must have a set number of syllables: 5/7/5/7/7. Today's tanka prompt is: stairs. I love the look of stairs wood tile cement whatever Leading to someplace new different familiar old and beautiful to look at

Mom and I went to see the Downton Abbey movie at the local theatre.  You know how "these things" can go so very wrong but I can honestly say I was enthralled.  It was brilliant.  And by seeing it on the big screen it was easier to see all the details of the beautiful costumes and furnishings.  I will not go into details because I don't want to spoil the event for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. The best part is that you don't have to have watched the TV series in order to follow the movie . . . but . . . it was so nice to see our favourite characters again and how they have changed and, more importantly, stayed the same.  I really loved the downstairs mutiny.  (oops! I guess I let one spoiler slip) Dame Maggie Smith (aka the Dowager Countess) is her wonderful ascerbic self.