wade davis

Tags: wade davis

Air Apparent

Back in 2019 when newspapers were made of paper, I would take part in an annual ritual of disbelief: I’d turn the page of The Globe and Mail and there would be a full-page ad for Air Canada congratulating itself for being voted the Best Airline in North America.

I would quickly check to see if it was April 1st. Then I would read the small print to find out who gave them the award for four consecutive years from 2019 to 2022.

It’s a magazine called Global Traveler for “U.S.-based frequent, affluent travellers”. It claims the average Global Traveler reader has a net worth of $2.8 million. Yes, Air Canada’s business class is….respectable. But the Best in all Classes in North America? Puleeeeze.

True, this was before Air Canada reduced its routes; slashed the value of Aeroplan Miles; made spontaneously cancelling flights a sunny-day activity; amped fares; admitted its Montreal-based CEO, Michael Rousseau, can’t speak French; saw customer complaints to Ottawa rise from 18,000 in 2020 to 30,000 in 2022, then 57,000 last year; fought to avoid offering refunds if a flight failed to take off; and claimed its own chatbot was “a separate legal entity that is responsible for its own actions;” before all this, Canadians had a love-hate relationship with our national airline.

Read on…

May 4, 2024 June 28, 2024

Up Chuck and Di

That was a rude sign greeting Charles and Diana when they visited Vancouver to open Expo ‘86. I thought it was way over the line. But oh my, how the line for the Royals has changed. Hacked phones, pedo pals, vengeful duchesses, and tabloids full of scandals.

Back on June 2nd 1953, Queen Elizabeth’s coronation was in many ways the first global broadcast of an event. It was in black and white. Elizabeth’s funeral last September 19th was called “the biggest human event of all mankind” because it was seen by 4.1 billion people. This is no surprise. Despite Britain’s straitened prospects today, the British Empire remains the largest empire in human history. At one point, 23% of the world’s people lived under the Union Jack and it covered close to a quarter of the world’s land area including Canada and Canadians. So there’s a vast vestigial interest.

Some of you got up at 4 o’clock this morning to see Charles’ and Camilla’s coronation. I didn’t, not because I don’t love all that, but I can always catch it later. I also sense that this may be the last coronation any of us will see. So for today, let the pomp and circumstance, despite the looming judgement of history, go marching on.

Meanwhile…

May 6, 2023 July 7, 2023

Whither the weather?

A friend of mine who spent a year in Leavenworth said: “You can get used to anything.” But getting used to summer sunshine in March one day, followed by a brutal snowstorm the next, will take some getting used to. I get that our punishment for overwarming the earth is extreme weather. But I can see a huge uptick in the sale of suitcases, for example, so that we can put our summer duds in one and our winter ones in another when we go to Montreal for the weekend. Or when we pack our bathing suit in the trunk, to think: “Where’s my toque?” No wonder North Americans consume well over two-thirds of the world’s production of antidepressant drugs. It’s the weather.

Meanwhile…

April 22, 2023 May 26, 2023

Not a good look.

I remember as a kid in Edmonton walking home and looking at families in their windows and seeing them having dinner or playing together, and thinking: “Why can’t our family be like theirs?” Well, of course, I had no idea what their lives were really like. I was comparing their appearance to our reality – and coming up short, as we all do.

This was a big week for that old bugbear between appearance and reality:

● The BBC told its reporters to look a bit more sweaty and dirty
in order to appear more authentic to viewers.

● Imposter Syndrome, “the crippling idea that people like us could not possibly triumph given what we know of ourselves,” got a new workbook.

● Here are this year’s Oscar Visual Effects nominees.

● Where do you call home? The citizen intelligence agency Bellingcat uses geolocating to find where Isabel dos Santos, once Africa’s richest woman, is really hiding out.

Meanwhile…

March 4, 2023 May 11, 2023

If anyone knows about the promise and perils of psychedelics, it’s the renowned author and anthropologist Wade Davis.

In 1996, he wrote One River, the story of the riches of the Amazon rainforest and the extraordinary plants whose effects range from medicinal, to magical, to marginal.

Since then, he has gone on to become one of the world’s authorities on the deep connection between people and plants; and how psychedelics are enjoying a resurgence as a treatment for many mental maladies.

So what better time than now to have this daring and original thinker talk about the psychedelic journey, past, present and future?

Please join us to hear Wade Davis.

To say the world is his stage downplays his effect on Covent Garden, the Met, Stratford, the National Arts Centre, Quebec City, the West End, Cirque du Soleil, the Canadian Opera Company, and of course many moving pictures on screens large and small.

And now, Robert Lepage will reveal where he’s headed next.

February 27, 2023 August 17, 2023

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Tags: wade davis

Air Apparent

Up Chuck and Di

Not a good look.

Wade Davis

The Plague-Ground – Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…

The Plague-Ground – These are a few of my favourite things

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