Today was the McMaster Humanities Convocation, held as usual at the Hamilton Place auditorium. What a great afternoon! I love our students. They are such impressive people and they were at their best today. Elegantly dressed, well-spoken, surrounded by families who love them. It was a pleasure to watch them file in. I love our …
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McLuhan on the Global Village. Amazing.
I am continually amazed at how prescient Marshall McLuhan was about how new media would change our culture, economy and society. Listen to him in this series of clips: Here he is, interviewed on CBC TV: And here he is, presented by Peter Hirshberg during his TED Talk: The Web and TV, a sibling rivalry …
A great dinner party!
Last night I went to a dinner party hosted by an old friend and McMaster French Studies alumna Claudia Bustos in Hamilton. What a pleasant, elegant and casual night. I must say that it felt a little like a Mac reunion with another McMaster French Studies alumna, Sonya Ugarkovic and her partner, Rob in attendance. …
Montréal, je t’aime.
Sometimes, my mind wanders, during that brief moment between dusk and night, as my eyes adjust to the dimming light and advancing twilight makes the edges of tree branches seem soft and hazy against the paling sky. My mind wanders back through misty memories to moments I would like to relive or retrieve. Perhaps it …
QPMAP – Question Period Monitoring and Analysis Project Launched at CCA in Montréal!
Today, my colleague Philip Savage and I presented the first, very preliminary results from our QPMAP: Question Period Monitoring and Analysis Project in front of a great crowd of 24 engaged colleagues from across Canada at the Canadian Communication Association’s (CCA) annual conference at Concordia University in Montréal. The CCA was part of the Congress …
A day of writing at Le Westin in Montréal
I spent today holed up in my hotel room at Le Westin in le Vieux Montréal. It was a quiet day – I woke up really late, because it took me 8 hours to drive in from Hamilton with the crew. I was annoyed because I was tired last night and scratched one of my …
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Chapter 4: Simona drops the pickles
Simona Manelli was running down Locke St., one of the prettier streets in Hamilton, her arms full of pickle jars. She was running to the Manelli’s Fine Foods, a little green grocer’s that her great grandfather had started, after scrimping and saving for years. He had worked in the steel mills in the East End …
25 Things About Alex Sévigny
A bunch of people have asked me to repost this to my blog, so I thought I would put it up, since I have been too preoccupied to post much recently and this will keep some people entertained! 1. I was born in Toronto, am half French Canadian and half Macedonian, so my education, culture …
All writing all day. Oh yeah, and I LOVE The Tudors!
Not much to report today. I woke up at 7:55am and started writing and editing. I didn’t stop until about 20 minutes ago. Only three chapters to go in the book. So, once I finish Understanding Human Communication (2nd Canadian Edition), I have a few more writing projects for this summer, some articles, a couple …
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Ha! I fixed my tire for cheap!
Today was a day of meetings and writing for me. We had two “mentorship meetings” with junior colleagues, in which I tried to understand the research programs and teaching profiles of my colleagues who are still on the harrowing path of seeking tenure. I also got my tired fixed – without having to buy a …