Journalism
Coffee and Coral Snakes: Batesian Mimicry at Work and Play
From Vancouver Magazine Fall Issue 2012 *** Note: I was inspired by the always-fascinating work of Eric Falkenstein (at Falkenblog) in my application of Batesian Mimicry to consumer behaviour. *** It will have escaped nobody’s notice that Vancouver is a top-ranked city in at least three categories. We’re always high on those “liveable city” lists.…
Read MoreMusic in the City and the Psyche
Update: 28 August 2012 The editors at Harpers have assigned the story. So this piece will be appearing in an upcoming issue of that great magazine. We’re very much interested in the story of PTSD and how it is illuminated by Christian Ellis’s story and the remarkable opera inspired by his experiences. That’s both sides…
Read MoreThe Accidental Local
First published EnRoute Magazine We’ve been motoring seaward for about an hour when Roberto finally cuts the diesel. Brazil is a bare pencil line on the horizon, Monte Pascoal a tiny bump, as it must have been when Portuguese explorers first came across these cobalt blue waters 500 years ago, and I’m feeling more here than I…
Read MoreThe Adventures of Generation F
From the November 2010 Issue of Cooking Light A couple of hours after setting foot in Brooklyn for the first time, I find the heart of the action. It’s 7 p.m. on a hot summer weeknight, and I’m hanging with a group of fashionable young people, all good-looking and under 30, who favor the uptown stylish…
Read MoreWillamette Wandering
It takes a while to reach the Willamette Valley in Oregon, but you’ll know it the moment you arrive. Out the interstate south of Portland, past King City and Sherwood, the strip malls and discount stores fall away and the fields open up to either side. Somewhere around Newberg – as the light grows golden…
Read MoreCEO of the Year: Christine Day of lululemon
Man, did I get pilloried for this article online. Lululemon fans thought it was insulting (and I didn’t even get into the whole Who is John Galt business). Worse, someone on Facebook called it a puff piece, because I didn’t get into the real psychology of the CEO in question. Who is Christine Day and…
Read MoreChaos and Planning
This article ran first in Vancouver Review. Sadly, I have to report that the Red Gate did finally lose its battle with the city and has been evicted. CHAOS AND PLANNING: A tour of Vancouver’s public art ONE: THE RED GATE By the time you read this article, an interesting but little-known Vancouver public-art institution will either have…
Read MoreMan Standing
This profile of Inuit film-making legend Zacharias Kunuk was originally published in Canadian Art Edited by Richard Rhodes *** Final descent into Igloolik and I’m feeling the cold already. It’s seeping into the plane, into the soles of my feet, stiffening my knuckles and knees. It seems to be reaching out toward me, and I…
Read MoreAre student loans the next financial bubble?
My regular Big Ideas column for the Globe and Mail Report on Business Magazine is this month about a looming potential problem that everybody seems to know about already. It was interesting to learn, researching this piece, just how widely the problem is already being discussed while nothing is really happening at higher levels to forestall a disaster. You have…
Read MoreToo Big to Fail?
Originally published in The Globe and Mail Report on Business Magazine: Newt Gingrich is back and doing what he’s done so often: igniting controversy. The architect of the Republican congressional revolution of the 1990s has created a firestorm by proposing a U.S. federal law that would allow states to go bankrupt. At present, only cities…
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