Author: Geoff Micks

• Awesome Pictures: The Great Depression Era’s Concept of Gun Safety

  What is it: This is my grandfather, Murray Anderson, in 1942 at age 17, pointing his gun directly at the photographer. Why is it Awesome? Okay, let’s get a closer look at this. You tell me, what’s interesting about this image? Is it the bit where you can see directly down the barrel of what…

  Geoff Micks

  November 29, 2009

• Notable Quotes: Alex Trebek!

  Alex Trebek is one of those guys who you just know is cool in real life. I honestly think Alex Trebek isn’t playing a ‘game show host’ on Jeopardy. That’s just how he is. He doesn’t fake smile. Sometimes he’s patient with people who deserve some impatience –which a game show host has to do-…

  Geoff Micks

  November 29, 2009

• The day a red-winged blackbird hit me in the head seventeen times

  My first job out of school was working as a production assistant for a weekly community newspaper in a little town in the heart of Mennonite Country north of Waterloo, Ontario. One slow news day we received a call about a neighbourhood being terrorized by a dive-bombing red-winged blackbird. One of the things I love…

  Geoff Micks

  November 27, 2009

• My grandfather was a horse-driving milkman as a young man. This is his story.

  I mentioned in an earlier post that I spent last weekend up at my grandparents, and I scanned in over a hundred old photos. Here are a couple of them, along with an essay my grandfather, Murray Anderson, wrote at some point for a local newspaper about his days as a milkman in Bracebridge, Ontario,…

  Geoff Micks

  November 26, 2009

• My favourite Robert Frost poems (and not the ones you’re thinking of)

  In the summer between my fourth and fifth year of university I did a four-month unpaid internship at the National Post. Without a penny to spare for recreation, I turned to the University of Toronto’s library for my reading material, and I decided to sample some of the giants of American Literature: I read Ernest…

  Geoff Micks

  November 25, 2009

• The Log Driver’s Waltz

  For most Canadians of my generation, this needs no introduction. For the rest of you, get ready for a real treat! When I was five or six I used to watch this every morning between cartoons. “The Log Driver’s Waltz” is a Canadian folk song written by Wade Hemsworth. The most famous version of the…

  Geoff Micks

  November 23, 2009

• In 1830 some of my ancestors founded the town of Kenmore, Ontario

  Last weekend I went up to my grandparents’ place in Gravenhurst, Ontario. Their health is beginning to fail, and so I decided we should find a sedentary activity to occupy our time. I went through half a dozen old family albums with them and scanned in over a hundred family photos. Many of them, and…

  Geoff Micks

  November 23, 2009

• What if the Earth had rings like Saturn?

  I stumbled upon this while wandering around the internet. It’s an animation by Roy Prol depicting what the Earth would be like if it had rings like Saturn’s, properly scaled to our planet. It uses Ave Maria as the sound track, which only adds to the experience. Enjoy!

  Geoff Micks

  November 20, 2009

• How do you tell people 10,000 years from now to stay the hell away?

  Every day I check out Slate.com, a news e-zine currently owned by the Washington Post that focuses less on the news of the day and more on analysis and critical thinking about what is happening in the world. Today I read a fascinating article By Juliet Lapidos entitled Atomic Priesthoods, Thorn Landscapes, and Munchian Pictograms:…

  Geoff Micks

  November 16, 2009

• Poems: Samples of the work of Luella Federonik

  Secrets The trees are wearing Their finest dress Full Skirt, puff sleeves, Gloriously coiffured, Beauty overtakes winter’s scene. Sure wish they would disrobe! I cannot see What the neighbours are doing! Another Holiday Blues Talked to my plants Gave them a drink Washed their leaves Faced them to the sun Told them how much I…

  Geoff Micks

  November 13, 2009