New Text: The Low Acuity for Blue: Perceptual Technics and American Color Television

(coauthored with Dylan Mulvin) “The Low Acuity for Blue: Perceptual Technics and American Color Television,” Journal of Visual Culture 13:2 (August 2014): 118-138. This piece is the first of a pair of articles on colour television that Dylan Mulvin and I wrote together (the second has been accepted to Television and New Media and will appear in 2015 …

London (no, the one in Ontario)

When I first moved to Montreal in 2004, people would tell me they were going to “London” and I’d get excited for them because I thought they were going to the UK.  Then they’d say “London, Ontario” and it would be slightly disappointing.  Nine years later, last night, I’m checking in at the airport to …

Baby’s First Quebec Election

This comes a little late but sobeit.  Tuesday we voted for the first time as Canadian citizens.  We’d registered a couple weeks back, and the volunteers there assumed that as Americans we would expect fancy electronic machines.  They warned us, “it’s very old fashioned.”  And it was: we arrive at the polling place (a short …

The Citizenship Ceremony

Yesterday Carrie and I were sworn in as Canadian citizens. Our ceremony took about two hours. First, all 40-odd immigrants (from 25 countries) had to have their IDs checked, and get one last set of questions as to whether we’d been in trouble with the law or immigration since we submitted our forms. We also …

The War of 1812: A Comparative Study in Nationalist Mythology

After having an anxiety dream last week about Tuesday morning’s citizenship exam, I got serious about studying for it. We’ve made flash cards and are practicing on a daily basis. It’s probably overkill, since immigrants who have English as a second language and not much schooling also have to be able to pass the test, …

Yet Another Layton Obit (upon reading today’s Globe & Mail)

When I arrived in Canada in 2004, I was blown away by the mere existence of Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe. Here were two politicians who spoke the truth, had roots in labor and consistently and unambiguously promoted left values. Layton was of course frequently red-baited by both the liberals and press (a fact conveniently …