Ides Edition

15 March 2026

This might look like a typo for an Ideas Edition, but I did mean Ides, as in the Ides of March, which I understand is the 15th, the day after Pi Day and a few days before St. Patrick’s Day. Even if you haven’t seen Julius Caesar, you may have heard of “Beware the Ides of March” which (spoiler alert) is when the main characters meets his end. I remember seeing the play in Stratford, Ontario with a high school audience. After a bunch of characters end up dying, the audience actually laughed, which was kind of weird. I’m not sure how much of the problem was with the presentation and how much with the audience.

Monday

Moon of the Crusted Snow is an great title. It sounds poetic and suggests something to do with Indigenous culture. The story begins with the point of view character who has just killed a moose to prepare for winter. So it feels chilling from the beginning and the tension gradually gets cranked up all the way through. He lives in a small Indigenous community (fictional) in northern Ontario that had been forced from their original settlement a generation ago and how some are trying to rediscover their traditional practises. The author Waubgeshig Rice used to be a journalist for CBC.

Tuesday

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll already seems kind of surreal and this version of Alice by Jan Svankmeyer doubles down on the weirdness. The film features a human Alice, who seems to be playing by herself in a cluttered attic, and everything else is done with things in stop motion animation. It has minimal dialogue, accompanied by a close-up of her mouth saying things like, “said the white rabbit.” The white rabbit is a badly taxidermied thing, with the sawdust falling out. It reminded me of a sad museum I saw in Niagara Falls once. The caterpillar was a sock with false teeth sitting on a darning mushroom, which I appreciated from watching videos on how to darn socks.

Wednesday

I’m not sure why Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka was on my mind, particularly given that I am not even sure I have read the text completely. But the thought of being an insect reminded me of studying biology in undergrad and the problem of size. My understanding is that insects use tubules that more or less rely on diffusion to intake oxygen, unlike our actively mechanical lungs. So if they get too big, they aren’t able to get enough oxygen to function. The giant insects of past times were supposed to be possible due to higher concentrations of oxygen. I have not checked this explanation lately, so it might be outdated, so if I am spreading misinformation, I apologize, but at this stage it just seems like a drop in the bucket.

Thursday

Although Eileen Gu is the most decorated free skier in history, and I have not actually seen her perform. She has been a bit controversial because although she grew up in San Francisco, she also speaks Chinese and competed for China. I only recently saw her speak in the recent one when she discussed “neuroplasticity”. I think she was mentioning it to suggest that by applying her introspective methods mere mortals could also transform themselves into beings of adulation.

Friday

Even before I heard Eileen Gu’s suggestions for self-improvement, I have been trying to begin my day introspectively, but the demands of the external world always seem to tug at me. Our poor aging dog does not seem to be able to last overnight anymore. I am hoping the vet will be able to find a solution, but in the meantime, I just have to deal with it.

Saturday

The Moon Prince is a graphic novel fantasy by Kevin Fraser Mutch. Apparently, the two main characters were inspired by his own biracial children. Interesting that he would depict them as enslaved orphans at the beginning. I suppose that gives them a deeper hole to get out of as in Vonnegut’s telling of the man in a hole scenario.

Sunday

A scene from my graphic memoir in progress, Not Made in Japan, about when I studied marine ecology in my twenties, in southern Japan, in the late 1980s. I remember having mikan around Christmas time growing up in Toronto, but it was different to be in a place where they came from.

That was my week. I hope you had a good one with a better one to come.