Editorial note: Charles William Johnson shares some of his intriguing and controversial research into ancient art forms, with special reference to the legend of Pan Gu as it appears in both Chinese and Maya cultures. He describes how transparencies of […]
Along the south bank of the River Thames strode a sunken-faced man carrying a small book. The man, only thirty-nine years old, was meditating on life and death as he walked down the waterfront promenade. His eyes, bruised […]
Perhaps scientific understanding and artistic imagining are different aspects of the same impulse. And humanity’s great understanders and imaginers are inspired from similar sources. Jack Klein That science informs art is patently obvious: painters and sculptors studying anatomy […]
Montréal Serai editor Claudia Itzkowich visited Amanda Woolrich in her studio to prepare this piece. An etching press presides over Amanda Woolrich’s apartment/art studio in Mexico City. Next to it hangs Amanda’s camera, looking down from a rustic […]
Call of the Loon Come back. It’s cold here without you. When I bend my neck to drink there is no reflection in the water. Come back to the wild. When I call your name it ricochets off […]
My father’s death defeated me; I felt robbed by it. It didn’t come as a surprise because he had cancer, lung metastases to be exact, and we were told at some point that he had a month left […]
Mitochondrial Eve A plague of poppies: salmon, tomato, apricot. Some years I save the seeds, audible in upright cups, and carry them, carefully, to make two lemon cakes, eat all those flowers. Flowers that are as famous as […]
When we say first principles, we claim we are going down to the basics. To a fundamental truth. Being totally iterative, methodical and without prejudice. We are arriving at a fundamental principle. Scientists are not supposed to assume anything […]
Turbulence it’s not the breath, in or out not quite breath’s only the boundary sneaks past smooth ebbs on laminar silent it’s where streamlines retch mouth shot off with plosives, or trills eddying deep into passionate night where breath […]
One reason to go to medical school can be a letter from a university congratulating you on a successful application, with the suggestion that you bring your thinking cap and your running shoes. So long, Dostoyevsky; hello… Galen, Harvey, […]
I I find her hunched in her chair a wizened crow wrapped in a food-smeared bib porridge drying on her mouth and chin. Her hands are bony and translucent and her nails curl back on themselves like talons. She […]
The zeitgeist of our times is characterized by creativity and innovation, particularly in the fields of art and science. A question often pondered is where these two fields intersect. Do they touch each other at a tangent? Do […]
Cardinal Flower Red flash— a few sprigs puncture the monotony of brown-green bog, never-ending evergreens and skeletons of cedar. I know you, skulking in the wetlands between bridge and dam, around the island, beneath the boulder’s shoulder, under jack […]
ODE TO HIPPOCRATES Who’s Hippocrates, I know, in Crete or someplace else – calling out to the Sirens, the Sea’s own and asking you for healing ways, the mind or spirit’s, not the body’s own. Oh, the body, and […]
“In its encounter with Nature, science invariably elicits a sense of reverence and awe. The very act of understanding is a celebration of joining, merging, even if on a very modest scale, with the magnificence of the Cosmos. And […]
Snow Is Falling Snow is falling. The earth turns white. Its new skin is as smooth as silk. The sun hides behind a veil. I stay confined inside my shelter while the cedars run between the houses and collect […]
Summernote V Call her goddess of heath and yellow gorse. Tell her you have left the moon unlit. Snuggled into its folds. Swamp-fed forest creeks. Grafted to fen carr, sedge grasses. Dwarf blackberries. See if she believes you. […]
The South Asian Film Festival of Montréal (SAFFM) was launched in 2011. Since then it has established a reputation for showcasing quality documentary and feature films from India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, as well as films about the […]
Cheeky Mathematics He and she fuse their cells with the sticky glue of their warm juices Two cells become one which then divides and multiplies until one plus one adds up to ten perfect little toes Baby trades […]
