Morning Stories

My subconscious must have been busy last night. I fell asleep with The Boss — and woke up because of - the boss.

Tennessee Williams could never have imagined how famous his portrait of a 1930s family would become. Yet it did. The Glass Menagerie captures the fragile beauty — and the quiet despair — of an American family.

Do babies still feel comfortable when they realize, right after birth: “Ouch — I’ve landed in the women’s group”? The gender ranked at the lower end?

There’s something about a Tracht. Something special — both in meaning and in memory. It’s tradition you can wear.

“Don’t play with the mucky pups. Don’t sing their songs. Go to the Upper Town. Be like your brothers.”

In bright, glittering letters, her T-shirt read RESIST. The shirt — and the woman wearing it — celebrated resistance. Ah yes… but resistance against what, exactly?

The first thing that stands out are the first four letters: M U S K. Those four characters of the linguistic universe have gained global weight.

The Ghostbusters film series remains a fascinating example of how a clever mix of humour, horror, and special effects can create a lasting and beloved piece of pop culture.

His face revealed nothing. No sign of tension, no flicker of doubt. The patient — the world — waited in silence for the diagnosis.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” That’s one of those classic questions adults ask children — often right in the middle of a sandcastle project. Most kids freeze when they hear it.

Strictly speaking, the plural would be correct. There isn’t just one house where the mad rewrite the fate and story of humankind.

How empty does something have to be before it becomes good? Or at least seems good? What could possibly be so wonderful about an object full of nothing but warm air and a hint of optimism?

Kids can be uncomfortable. Kids can be annoying. Kids ask too many questions.

For a long time, even Canadians themselves didn’t really know who was living up there at the northernmost edge of the Arctic. This mysterious group had settled long before the first Europeans ever arrived, struggling to survive in the biting cold.

As I’ve mentioned before, my Morning Splinters usually begin with a single word — the first one that drifts across the horizon of thought. But this morning, when the word Greenland appeared, a small red warning light blinked in my head. “Nooo, not that one!”

Some words are so loaded with emotion that they practically hum when you speak them. Barely have the first two letters appeared around the corner, and entire worlds of feelings are already in turmoil. Associations, it seems, have a power of their own — wild, uncontrollable, and often irrational.

Please, separate your words correctly. That’s what modern spelling rules suggest, at least. Because when you split a word the wrong way, you might sprinkle a little confusion into the mix.

Owning one — or even several — doesn’t make you special. Practically all human animals and animal-like humans have them: those lightning-fast flashes of thought — ideas.

Those who dare to feel before they find the words for it are already doing quite well.

The little rodents are Canadians. Among others. They live in the Arctic — in large numbers. As long as there’s enough food, that is.

Anyone who stays at the surface can afford to slow down now and then. Because just beneath that polished layer lies the unknown — the vast, restless sea of everything we don’t know.

When ICE takes control of the roads, the sand in the box suddenly has a lot of work to do. That gritty helper improves traction on slippery streets, and every creature with a vehicle hopes its gears won’t get too close to the ground.

Days and nights used to be long — and rarely entertaining. Life in the northern world, hundreds of years ago, was sparse: a bit of fog, bone-deep cold, a view of the next hill, and endless forests with no exit.

Language doesn’t live on words alone. It thrives on change — and, more than anything, on meaning. Whether written or spoken, language (and rhetoric with it) is a fascinating adventure. And we are the adventurers of linguistics.

When Peter Tosh passionately sang “Legalize It” fifty years ago, smokers everywhere perked up and stood tall. Finally, they thought, the haze of prejudice around the so-called “devil’s weed” might lift.