Glenn Kubish

If I had a happiness and gratitude sonar, these would be the three pings from last week.   Three Things, episode 140:                               1. Experts   Before social media and the democratization of knowledge made everyone an expert, there was a class of people called, well, for lack of a better term, experts. Newspaper editors. Doctors. Politicians. University professors. Civil servants.   It wasn’t necessarily the best of times. Many other voices weren’t heard, lots of experience was somehow ruled to be of no value.   I worked in newspapers as the hierarchy of knowledge came crashing down on some bewildered gatekeepers who I can still see walking out through the debris of fallen pillars as the influencers sashayed in. Those technocrats are not the experts I want back, but I do miss some experts. Or, at least, one specific category of expert. I miss the disc jockey. I still pref...

Here are three things that moved the needle of happiness and gratitude in the week that was. Three Things from Edmonton, episode 139:                               1. Sounds of summer   When the snow comes and the land in this part of the country sounds its long steady note of winter, other sounds will drift out of range for a time. That’s why I ignored the voice inside me that said get up and go do something productive, and, instead, stayed where I was, sitting in a chair in the backyard, listening to rain falling down onto the gazebo roof overhead.   When the snow comes and the side streets and back roads are shined up like glass, access to other sounds will lie buried for a time. To prepare, I looked down and listened to my bike tires bite into a gravel road at the University Farm as I pedalled to pick up a dozen fresh eggs. Not a bite as much as a sizzle, to hear it. When the snow forces bare feet b...

Back to school is in the air. Hope you all have your duo-tangs, hole reinforcements for binders and your inky-pink erasers, or have helped others get the same. Here are three other things from the past (week) that left behind traces of happiness and gratitude.   Three Things, episode 138:                                 1. Microscopes I remember the moment so vividly still because it was pickled in the brine of junior high school fear and doubt. Grade 7 science class. Mr. Litwin was our teacher. He wore colourful silk scarves around his neck to hide, he said, the marks of the stitches left behind when his head was completely severed and sewn back on after a plane crash in the war. He would tell that story and gauge our reactions and smile. We were studying cellular structure one week. There were illustrations in our biology textbook showing the differences between plant cells and animal cells. It was ou...

The Canadas are conducting test flights, friends. It’s September-time in Edmonton. Here are three other things that left behind signs   of happiness and gratitude last week.   Three Things podcast, episode 137:                               1. Small world   I saw two Fringe plays this time around. God is a Scottish Drag Queen played to big laughs at the Garneau. Okay, Come On, Where Do We Know Each Other From? played to a smaller but engaged audience at Sugared & Spiced Baked Goods, the wonderful bakery in the alley in Old Strathcona. Okay, Come On, Where Do We Know Each Other From? is a mystery. The version that I attended starred Shelagh and Patti, both customers at the bakery that morning. It played out as they looked at each other, realized that their paths had crossed somewhere, sometime. Their lines were familiar. How do I know you? and, I know, right? You look so familiar? With Jeff the ...