Fifty per cent of Borges
“For nearly the past three years, I have been lucky to have my own translator by my side,” Jorge Luis Borges wrote in 1970, “and together we are bringing out some ten or twelve volumes of my work in English, a language I am unworthy to handle, a language I often wish had been my...
Behind the mask
There’s a movie I love called The Red Violin, by Canadian filmmaker François Girard. I was in university when it came out in 1998, and watched it in one of those old theatres where the seats were upholstered in rough velour, the tickets were cheap and the popcorn stale. The Red Violin, if you’re not...
How Boris Johnson ruined my book launch (and Vladimir Nabokov restored it)
There’s a persistent aftertaste to bad timing. Just ask someone born on 11 September 2001, or the brides and grooms of late November 1963, after JFK’s visit to Dallas. Better yet, consider Vladimir Nabokov, whose novel The Real Life of Sebastian Knight – not nearly as famous as Lolita but arguably on par with it...
Adventures in improvising
The single rule in contemporary comic improv sketches, is, Yes, and… If your partner starts a sketch saying, Hey, I just met a green-skinned alien!, you must build on that premise; for example play the skincare guru and ask, Dry, normal, or oily? To scoff and say You’re nuts! There’s no such thing! is to...
