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Aleck’s Last Playlist: Vol. One – Professor Longhair
My brother Aleck re-entered my life one Thursday, it seems to me a sunny Thursday afternoon, April 25th, 1984. The phone rang. “Is this Ted?” “Yes.” “It’s Aleck.” I couldn’t at that moment remember...
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Aleck’s Last Playlist, Vol. 2: The Country Blues
Beginning that Thursday night in April in 1984, most of the time for the next two decades, Aleck and I roommated together. He wasn’t always around, mind, but he had a way of moving in and out without...
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Aleck’s Last Playlist, Vol. 3 – The City Blues
One time Aleck and I heard about a beer festival coming around town. Our information was vague. We had a notion that it was happening on Davie, but no. We were on the wrong trail, but there must have...
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Hacking the Briefcase
I have an old leather briefcase which has been lurking about for a decade, unopened. It has dual combination locks, one of those sorts where you can set the combinations yourself, but those numbers...
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Smokin’ Joe Frazier, The Great Nemesis, 1944-2011
A great champion demands a great nemesis. George Foreman gave Ali his greatest victory, a victory of tactics over power, but it was Joe Frazier who fought the champion’s defining battles. Famously,...
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The Pony-Rider by Mark Twain
In 1861, in the course of a stagecoach ride to Nevada with his brother, Mark Twain has a brief encounter with a rider from the already-legendary Pony Express. In a little while all interest was taken...
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How I Wrote a Story With Tennessee Williams
I don’t know about all artists, but some seem only to thrive within an intimate audience. After Mark Twain’s wife died, he never finished another book. The number of art school students who...
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To My Granddaughter
Welcome, little one. What’s your name? Maybe Malaika, but you don’t know yet? 5 weeks early! Well, well. Haisla said to the doctor, that’s too early. But you were going to come regardless, and here...
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An Ambiguous Death
My friend Jo died near the end of last month. She was the best friend I had while that role was still possible for her. Long before that she was my wife, and the mother of my daughter Haisla. She...
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My Murderer
Butcher, baker, candlestick maker. Is there a rhyme that includes “murderer”? Perhaps not. But I knew a murderer once, maybe the most reviled and notorious murderer in the community of Canadian...
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