deva's blog

News and Notes

deva — Mon, 7 Jul 2008 14:01:12 -0500

It's been a hectic couple of months since I returned from Barbados and started life as a full-time freelance writer - good for the most part, but definitely a little crazy. I thought I'd post a few links and notes explaining what I've been up to, and where I'm headed next.

The adjustment has been harder...

Kindred Spirits at the Convenience Store

deva — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 09:45:33 -0500

"I work...to travel," the man behind the counter says in careful English, spreading his hands to gesture at the narrow confines of the convenience store. Then he tells me a little about his travels - to Mali and Niger, to West and North Africa, to Europe. He reels off a list of languages he speaks: English,...

Small Victories...

deva — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:37:03 -0500

Some of you might remember that I blogged awhile back about an unarmed Polish immigrant who was killed by four members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at Vancouver International Airport.

Well, the various inquiries into Robert Dziekanski's death specifically, and police use of Tasers more...

The best game you can name...

deva — Sun, 18 May 2008 19:03:28 -0500

It’s that time of year again: the season in which I inevitably find myself in a foreign country, asking around to see if there’s any chance I can catch the hockey game on TV.

The tradition started in my undergraduate years. At the end of the winter semester, in early or mid April, I’d rush off...

Coming Home Again

deva — Sat, 17 May 2008 18:02:30 -0500

I don’t mean for this to sound (quite) as harsh as it probably does, but coming home to Ottawa is a bit like stepping into a black hole.

I’m always excited to get home; the problem is that within days, or even hours, of arriving back here I start to forget that I ever left. I’ve been home this...

"Smile When You're Lying"

deva — Wed, 7 May 2008 17:17:08 -0500

I’m a late-comer to the discussion about Chuck Thompson’s Smile When You’re Lying. In January, I read Rolf Potts’ review and followed its epic comments thread at World Hum with interest. I also read the BNT...

Dogs of Bequia

deva — Sun, 4 May 2008 16:10:02 -0500

As promised, some photos of the extraordinarily happy stray dogs of Bequia, the northernmost island in the Grenadines chain.

Notes from SVG

deva — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:23:43 -0500

There was more to it than love at first sight, of course.

To be honest, when I first got out of the cab in downtown Kingstown, here in Saint Vincent, late on Saturday afternoon, I had to keep a firm grip on my positivity. The streets were littered with smashed glass, odd smells, feral-looking dogs that...

Smitten in the Grenadines

deva — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 15:50:57 -0500

It took me less than five minutes to fall hopelessly in love with Bequia. I'd just checked in to my little hotel and was sitting in its open-air cafe, facing the beach and Admiralty Bay. Yachts nodded gently in the water. The wind rattled the palm trees overhead. In the kitchen, the young cook was...

The Real Barbados

deva — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:15:47 -0500

It's easy, and common, to write the Caribbean - and particularly, these smaller, more elite islands of the Eastern Caribbean - off as resort-saturated, tourist-tsunamied outposts of travel consumerism. Most folks looking for "authentic culture" probably figure the islands are well and...

Mangoes

deva — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 16:13:25 -0500

I spent a good portion of this afternoon dodging around under the spreading branches of a huge mango tree in the front yard. My dad was on a ladder, using a long hook-ended pole to knock the ripest fruit from the tree, and I was running from side to side, awkward in a skirt and flipflops, trying (and...

How To Make A Movie About A National Trauma

deva — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 09:10:35 -0500

I came across this piece in The Globe and Mail today: Some People "Really Didn't Want This Movie Made". It's about film-maker Denis Villeneuve, and his recently-completed film, Polytechnique, a movie about the "Montreal Massacre" of December...

Cowabunga?

deva — Mon, 7 Apr 2008 17:09:01 -0500

Growing up in Saskatoon and then Ottawa, I was a long trek from the nearest wave. Surfing was not an option. But water, whether fresh, chlorinated or salted, has always been the only antidote to my natural scaredy-cat tendencies: as a kid I wouldn't even think of climbing a tree, and I once told...

Greetings from Warner's Terrace

deva — Sat, 5 Apr 2008 10:31:49 -0500

I'm sitting on the back patio of a large white-plastered house, on a ridge about a kilometer inland from the south west coast of Barbados. Ahead of me, and stretching to the horizon on all sides, is the Caribbean Sea - and let me tell you, the view from this - my new "office" - sure beats the one I just...

It's Official!

deva — Thu, 3 Apr 2008 22:32:33 -0500

As the plane circled over the south east coast of Barbados yesterday afternoon, I found myself trying to do too many things at once: catching the last few minutes of a Hillary Swank tear-jerker on my mini-screen, craning my neck to catch glimpses of searingly bright beach and ocean below, and hastily...

Road Burn-Out

deva — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:21:54 -0500

I left New Orleans yesterday morning, having juggled my schedule to stay there an extra day and a half, and now all the “fun” time is over for this trip. All that’s left is a grinding drive from Pensacola down to Tampa today, a hockey game –...

Seen & Heard

deva — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 14:21:12 -0500

"It's Jack Daniels time!"

That was the refrain of "T-Model" Ford, an ancient Delta bluesman I saw play in a small bar in Greenville, Mississippi. T-Model was in his 80s and had to be helped up on to the stage by two of the barstaff; a third carried a fire-engine-red electric guitar up and draped...

Half-Time Show

deva — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 21:03:38 -0500

I’m at the half-way mark of the road trip now, and starting to show a little wear and tear. It’s been a hectic first two weeks – covering more than 2000 miles, 7 states, 13 cities and research for half-a-dozen stories or more – and I can feel that it’s time to slow down. I’ve had a sore...

A night out in Nashville

deva — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:18:03 -0500

The plan was to head downtown in the morning, see the Country Music Hall of Fame, kill the afternoon in a live music venue, and head back to the motel in time for a late dinner and an evening of writing. Instead, around midnight I found myself doing tequila shots with the band in a dive bar, singing...

What's that old saw about getting what you pay for?

deva — Thu, 6 Mar 2008 13:47:01 -0600

Tuesday featured a second run-in with law enforcement officials (they let me off with a warning for doing 55 in a 45 zone), a long drive on secondary highways through several counties that later turned out to be under tornado watch (really need to start listening to local radio!), and a stay in what...

Look, ma, I'm a film critic!

deva — Tue, 4 Mar 2008 11:13:57 -0600

Dear Matadorians:

I know that even if you haven't seen "Into the Wild" (or read Jon Krakauer's book of the same name), you probably have opinions on the themes of "losing oneself/finding oneself/killing oneself in the wild" and the "transformative power of travel" and that sort of thing... So if you have...

The Story So Far

deva — Mon, 3 Mar 2008 16:54:04 -0600

Days: 4

Cities: Atlanta GA, Charleston SC

Confederate flags spotted: 2, not counting the zillions in souvenir shops in downtown Charleston

Bumper sticker of the moment: “Got Jesus?”

Favorite cheesy Charleston pirate souvenir magnet: “Work is for people who don’t know how to...

Carnage on the I-26

deva — Mon, 3 Mar 2008 16:40:03 -0600

I was three and a half hours into my drive from Atlanta to Charleston, and finally starting to get comfortable with the rental car and the interstate. The traffic had thinned out almost completely after Columbia, and the road was nearly empty for a long winding rural stretch, the opposing...

The Chevy Cobalt Has Landed

deva — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:24:50 -0600

So far, so good! Twelve hours ago I was still frantically packing, mopping the kitchen floor, washing dishes, cleaning the bathroom, but now I’m sitting in a Caribou Coffee near the Carter Center in Atlanta,

Friday Night Ice

deva — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 12:45:24 -0600

It’s been thawing, storming and snowing in heaps, and then plunging to a deep-freeze in irregular cycles all winter here – more proof, by the way, that the world is ending – and one result is that I hadn’t gotten out skating on the canal yet this year. It’s either been too warm, so the ice...

Taxes, will.i.am, Mali, and rainy days: some links

deva — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:40:14 -0600

I came across a raft of interesting stuff this week that doesn't fit into any of my "official" blogging responsibilities, so thought I'd just post it all here. My friends are thrilled, now that I have Matador to spill my every thought to, I almost never send out forwards or mass emails anymore...

1)...

'She's A Nice Girl': A Story About Tolerance

deva — Sat, 9 Feb 2008 13:14:44 -0600

In all the Obama excitement, I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard people say that they just don’t think America is “ready” to elect a black man. I suppose, though I don’t like to believe it, that may be true – but a lot of people go further: they say white Americans will never be...

Wok Your Way To Inner Peace

deva — Wed, 6 Feb 2008 21:02:01 -0600

I think it's got potential as a self-help book / cookbook / spin-off daytime TV show concept, don't you?

I've had one of those days, today - you know, the sickeningly stereotypical, Generation "Why" days where you wonder what you're doing with your life. I haven't been worrying about where I'm going,...

Fear, and Control: Traveling to Let Go

deva — Fri, 1 Feb 2008 23:28:34 -0600

For Canadian kids my age, the phrase ‘I smell burnt toast’ is like a joking code word for seizures and epilepsy. In one of a wildly popular series of ‘Canadian Heritage Minutes’ that ran on TV when I was growing up, a woman smells burnt toast before collapsing in her husband’s arms....

Faulkner on New Orleans

deva — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:45:54 -0600

I’m deep into my Dixie “research” by now (an awfully serious name for the pure pleasure of reading some great books for the first time, and binging on YouTube clips of Muddy Waters and Patsy Cline), and at the library not long ago I came across William Faulkner’s...