BANISHING BOREDOM
Bloggery on music, books, films, travel, wildlife and dark matters.
Struggling to Put Food on the Table for Thanksgiving
Canadian Thanksgiving on Monday, October 13, 2025 will be a more subdued affair this year with up to 25 percent of the country’s citizens suffering from food insecurity. Around the world food prices are surging while wages stagnate. For these belt-tightening...
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Swan Song for Jon
I originally wrote this as a tribute to Jon McDonald on Facebook shortly after his untimely passing in early 2019. I’m posting it here as a tribute to the enduring influence of a man who continues to mean so much to so many of us. During my early years of...
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Bringing the Stanley Cup back to Edmonton
Jim Algie reminisces about the last time he saw the Stanley Cup celebrations in person and how they stacked up against the bedlam in Barcelona after a football victory by Barca against their chief nemeses from Real Madrid. The Oilers’ overtime winner to...
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5 Canadian Teams Make the NHL Playoffs
It’s great to see five Canadian teams make the NHL playoffs this year, but nostalgic or sentimental allegiances can make it the thorny task of untangling the winners from the losers and the roses from the pricks all the more difficult, writes Jim Algie. ...
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Horsing Around with Cowboys at the Sasquatch Music and Arts Festival
Jim Algie talks about the most representative photo he has ever taken of his home province of Alberta, which he snapped at the Sasquatch Music and Arts Festival in Alberta’s Drayton Valley in 2007. We were walking towards the main music stage and had to pass by...
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The Tribulations of the Trial by Franz Kafka
The Trial by Franz Kafka is one of those books that continues to bewilder many readers even a century after it was written. As a student and critic of existential lit and philosophy, Jim Algie makes a case for the novel’s ongoing relevance. Among the dwindling...
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