Alex Carrick’s Blog

Mille Feuille hated and loved the Mix Master. Both were stars in their tiny firmament. They were on the faculty of the English Department at a smallish but well-respected university in Peterborough, Ontario. The academic life in such a small community was a tiny whirlwind of activity that mimicked the larger vortex in nearby Toronto […]

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I refer to this piece as half poetry, half storytelling and half crazy. Since there is a poetic element, I’d like the flow to be consistent down the page (or screen, actually, in this case). Thus present preamble to take the intro past the picture of the scholarly-looking gentleman on the right (your left). ** […]

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Branscomb Hall was where the brainiacs lived. There might be psychedelic drugs, free sex and rock and roll elsewhere on campus, but the boys of “Branny” were renowned for keeping their noses to the grindstone. South of the border, Americans were agonizing over the Vietnam War. In Canada, these were the halcyon days before OPEC […]

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Now that our oldest son Tom has returned to university, it is my task at night to walk our beautiful dog Daisy before we all lay down our heads. While the journey is usually pleasurable, there are always hidden dangers lurking around the corner. This preamble is by way of saying that Farley and Grover […]

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Griselda Beamish was happier than she had been in a hundred years. While others of her kind were having trouble adjusting to modern times, Zelda embraced the new. All of the most recent advances in technology made her life simpler. There were opportunities that she could never have imagined before. Take her job for instance. […]

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I’ve come up with a parlour game that’s the mental equivalent of twiddling one’s thumbs. Think of an imaginary statement, proposition or news item that uses at least two popular song titles. Then consider what the reaction of an impartial observer might be. Is this confusing? Read a few examples and you’ll quickly catch the drift. […]

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The following are a dozen good reasons a proper young lady should never date a vampire. (1) There’s not much point to installing a mirror over your bed. (2) Your blood pudding will never measure up to his mother’s. (3) When you tell your BFFs about his mother, they’re disappointed you think she’s an old […]

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Since video book trailers are now all the rage, the following is the script for the first foray into the field by Donna and myself. This is a little self-serving, no doubt about it, plus there is some catharsis. The camera starts rolling. ALEX: Hi everyone, my name is Alex Carrick and I’m here to tell […]

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For all her flustered outward appearance, Jilal was a deep thinker. Single, aged 32, a brunette well-above average in appearance and living in an eco-friendly home halfway between the citizens on ground level and those perched high above, she was having a typical day off. Mid-morning and her heart was already pounding. Too much to […]

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My name is Earl Thomas and I’m a reporter with the Tombstone Tabloid. Every week we try to bring our readers an interview with one of the Wild West’s more prominent citizens. This week we have “One Shot” Calhoun in the Hot Seat in our saloon studio. One Shot, as surely everyone knows, is the […]

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