Conversation Piece XXXVII
A weekly series.
Enjoy our Sunday series, Conversation Piece, a NUVO-curated digest of things on the Internet we think you’ll want to talk about.
Love at first site. As you likely know by now, Parks Canada has granted free admission to all national parks and historic sites for 2017 in honour of Canada’s 150th birthday. The question is… where do you start? Throw a dart at a map? Just hit the road? Parks Canada has created a more sophisticated, tailored approach to planning your journey. Take their Love at First Site quiz and discover which national park or historic site you should take advantage of this year. Find the quiz, here.
Writing for cellies. For nearly two years, inmates at the John B. Connally Unit in southern Texas have found purpose and healing in a creative writing course instructed by University of Texas professor Deb Olin Unferth. Recently developed into a two-year, thesis-driven certificate program, the class released its first literary journal, The Pen City Chronicles. The beautiful and frank short stories depict prison environment, family members who visit and those who don’t, and first days in the institution. Read three of the stories in Vice, here.
Quebec rocks. A team of international scientists has found the oldest record of life on Earth in Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt, Northern Quebec, dating back at least 3.8 billion years. Get excited, sure, but also know that these life forms were micro-organisms that reacted with dissolved iron in the water that once covered our planet, and manifested themselves as bands of colour in ancient rock. What it means: the earth was hospitable earlier than scientists had previously theorized, and even then, Quebec was a great place to live. The discovery could also aid in the search for life on other planets. Read more, here.
Come to those who wait. When The New York Times men’s style contributor John McWhorter was but a child, he hastily pushed past his mother to get to the TV in time for the opening credits of I Love Lucy. That McWorter’s impertinence earned him a stern lecture may not be surprising—but that the lecture was about sexual virtue? Plot twist. “You know what’s going to happen to you if you don’t learn to be more patient?” he remembers his mother asking. “You’re going to have premature ejaculations as a man!” That’s one way to learn a lesson. Read the story, here.
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