Friday
Jan272012
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Moira Farr explores a variety of subjects in her work, including nature, literature, music, art and design, mental health, post-secondary education and women's issues. She lives in eastern Ontario, Canada.
Friday
Mar042011
Robarts Mansion
Friday, March 4, 2011 at 05:20PM 
Quiet, please, girls...In 1980, as an undergrad at the University of Toronto, I managed to get a part-time job at the famed Robarts Library on Harbord Street. I instantly took to the work – the summer before, I had been a waitress at Ontario Place. Let’s just say the atmosphere at the library was a little different from Kelly’s Keg & Jester. I loved the hush, and being surrounded by vast troves of books and scholarly people seriously reading them. I also enjoyed no longer having to wear a shamrock-green serving-wench uniform.
Monday
Apr052010
Save the Cephalopods
Monday, April 5, 2010 at 04:50PM 
I'll be watching youLike SPINE blogger Dana Carman, I have qualms about eating members of the animal kingdom; while I still eat some meat, I'm more or less down to consuming only creatures who have had spa vacations, massages and steady diets of their favourite food before going to their instantaneous deaths gently tranquilized, as sweet harps play, holding hooves or trotters with their favourite bovine or porcine friend.
Sunday
Mar282010
Cat Cafes: Big in Japan
Sunday, March 28, 2010 at 11:31AM The Japanese have long understood the aesthetic appeal of cats, and also their function as bringers of peace and calm (perhaps not while pouncing on mice and birds, but let's focus on the cat at rest). It was a revelation, but not really a surprise, to read news of Japan's "cat cafes," places people go to take time from stressful lives, sip a soothing beverage and contemplate cats.
Sunday
Mar212010
Throw Down Your Heart with Bela Fleck
Sunday, March 21, 2010 at 09:12AM I didn't expect to be sitting in an oaken pew at Dominion Chalmers United Church in downtown Ottawa on a cold Monday night in March, enjoying the best concert I've seen in years. My friend Nancy had suggested, spur of the moment, that she'd try to get tickets for Bela Fleck's performance. I had a vague idea of who Bela Fleck was. Something about a banjo. And a band, the Flecktones. But it was all very hazy.
Bela Fleck 
is indeed a banjo player, but don't be thinking hillbillies on broken-down porches. Fleck is a Grammy-winning virtuoso, who happens also to possess a great curiosity, and generosity, of spirit, which took him on a tour of Africa to discover the roots of the instrument he has so supremely mastered.
tagged African music, Bela Fleck, Throw Down Your Heart, banjo, bluegrass, jazz, n'goni
African music, Bela Fleck, Throw Down Your Heart, banjo, bluegrass, jazz, n'goni Sunday
Mar212010
Sky news: The Lyrids are coming
Sunday, March 21, 2010 at 07:09AM Also, the Eta Aquarids, the Delta Aquarids, the Perseids, the Draconids, the Orionids, the South Taurids, the North Taurids, the Leonids and the Geminids.
These are not bands, and you don't have to pay a cover charge to see them. All you need is a dark sky and your eyes.
Watching meteor showers is one of those cosmic experiences that is every human being's birthright. You're scanning a night sky full of stars, when one of them moves, leaving a glittery trail. A true meteor shower leaves you dazzled by all the action.
tagged Meteors, SkyNews, The Braniac, astronomy, comets, solar system
Meteors, SkyNews, The Braniac, astronomy, comets, solar system Sunday
Mar212010
Dude, where's my car? Right by the curb, baby, right by the curb
Sunday, March 21, 2010 at 05:53AM Some people are born to run. Others are natural trombonists. I, on the other hand, am very good at parallel parking.
Monday
Mar012010
Eagles and Turkeys and Deer, Oh My
Monday, March 1, 2010 at 03:21PM They looked like rocks to me, just dark shapes against the escarpment in the distance, on an overcast, black-and-white kind of day in Quebec's Gatineau hills. But my companion's sharp eyes had it right: These were no rocks.
Wednesday
Feb172010
Into the Blue
Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 11:40AM On a freezing winter day in Ontario, Canada, the Niagara Butterfly Conservatory is an oasis of warmth, scent and colour. Step inside and feel your dulled senses awaken and unfurl. Wander along palm-lined pathways, admire red, yellow and white tropical blooms, listen to the roaring waterfall, feel the skin-plumping humidity you forgot could exist. Be dazzled by a flutter of blue morpho (Morpho menelaus) butterflies.
Monday
Feb082010
Unplugging, now and then
Monday, February 8, 2010 at 01:26PM It's supposed to work, but it doesn't: your computer, your printer, your iPhone, your microwave, your toaster, your debit card. Time slips away as you attempt to remedy the problem, perhaps on your own, perhaps with help from a techno expert who is supposed to know better than you, but often doesn't. Automated voices surround you, deflecting any contact you want with a real one.
Sometimes, the stress of being constantly wired in, as individuals, as a society, isn't good for us. People space out in the middle of conversations. They walk in front of buses while listening to their iPods. They crash their cars while talking on cell phones. They get lost, despite using a GPS. They have meltdowns when something doesn't happen instantly. We want it NOW.