Glenn Kubish

Here is where this time every week,   I play back three things that made marks of happiness and gratitude on my timeline.   Three Things, episode 133:                                 1. Oppenheimer   Tatlock: I don’t want anything from you. Oppenheimer: You say that and then you call. Tatlock: Well, don’t answer. <brief silence> Oppenheimer: I’ll always answer. That little back-and-forth between the Jean Tatlock and J. Robert Oppenheimer characters near the start of the biopic works on many levels. I’ll always answer is his pledge to a lover. I’ll always answer is his approach to his Star Chamber interrogators. I’ll always answer is his action before the riddles of nature. I’ll always answer is a prophecy: he will forever be required to provide a defence of his actions and their reactions. As a man, as a citizen, as a scientist and as an American god—private, public, professional, P...

Happy end of the week, friends. This is where once a week I try to notice, remember and record three things that left behind tracks of happiness and gratitude as, hey, hey, hey, the rolling river rolls on. Three Things podcast, episode 131:                               1. Language   I suspect that artificial intelligence has already done laps around me on this observation, but here’s the observation: the capacity for and the enjoyment of figurative language sets human beings apart from the machines. To be able to say that something is something that it obviously isn’t, or to be able to say that something is like something that it obviously isn’t, and what’s more, to get one’s meaning across, and, what’s even more, to impart a sense of newness and wonder in the world, this is what we can do with language as human beings. Metaphor and analogy are our superpowers. Thank you,   Man In Black. From the turnt...

As we wait for the mosquitos' reaction to all the rain of late, here are three things left behind tracks of happiness and gratitude this week. Three Things, episode 127:                          1. Meow!   It’s August 1997. We are at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival. From inside a portapotty near the children’s stage, I hear John Prine singing Hello In There. I am in the hot, polyurethane plastic confessional supervising one of our young sons who, I know, will, when we’re done, insist on going not to the stage Prine is at but back to the children’s area. In the battle of Gallagher Hill, it is Fred Penner triumphs.   Dr. Fred Penner was back on stage at the Jubilee Auditorium last week. It was spring convocation at the University of Alberta. The chancellor, Peggy Garritty, had just made him an honorary Doctor of Letters. Penner told the grads about his younger sister, Susie. She was born with Down Syndrome. He rem...

Here is my weekly survey of three things that left behind tracks of happiness and gratitude. Listen here to Three Things, episode 121:                              1. Old film   It’s not easy playing hockey in Vegas. I used to be part of a travelling team called the Emperors. Not a travelling team I had to try out for as a promising minor hockey player, more travelling in the sense of wouldn’t it be a blast if I said yes to my buddy Mitch’s invitation to join an oldtimers outfit he had put together and play some games and drink some beers in a tournament in the desert.  Those trips were something. One year there was a case of mistaken identity when I walked out a back stairwell at the Monte Carlo and into a surveillance operation staffed by security officers trying to apprehend a pornography distribution suspect. Another year, I ate a warm beet parfait at a pre-game lunch and ended up locked in a fenced...