Carolyn Bennett Writer/Comic

          He wants to put her earrings in his mouth. He wants to lick the smoothness of the metal, let it roll around on his tongue. Her earrings look like water droplets, like clean, clear water, water that would quench and rejuvenate him, make him holy. And those are just her earrings, he thinks. Imagine the rest of her.           She's frowning and pointing at an item on the sheet of paper in her hand.           "It says 3/4 inch. Not an inch and a half. That's three quarter of an inch more. That's about" -- she puts her thumb and index finger close together -- "this much. What am I supposed to do?"           She's wearing a wine-coloured scarf, bordeaux swaddles what must be a fine white neck. The contrast makes him tilt his head, like a confounded dog.           She'...

Photo: Mark Blinch Copyright: 2019 NBAE Homage to Walt Whitman's I Heard America Singing. I Heard Toronto Singing     I hear Toronto singing, the varied carols I hear,     Those of Raptor fans, each one singing their/they as it should be delirious and enraptured,     The dishwasher singing their as they craft a homemade sign,     The administrative assistant singing their as they make ready to cheer, and leaves off work,     The retail worker singing Drake from their store, the programmer singing anticipation at the computer,     The street food vendor singing as they feed throngs from truck, the beggar singing hopeful as they sit with hand outstretched,     The sports commentator's song, the City employee on their way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,     The delicious singing of the fan, or of the young fan aloft on p...

                                                                                                                                                Photo credit: Spacing Magazine My phone is busted. I downloaded, or I'm least sure, I downloaded Money by Cardi B, but it doesn't show up on the playlist I called Artificial Intelligensia. I like making playlists, so don't tell me to just Spotify it all. I get to be the DJ this way, tailoring my own personal atmosphere and my self-artistic expression and moving all the people I visualize. It takes talent to curate music this way, letting one song flow into another, the waves sometim...

            A forensic identification services van blocks the entrance to the gas station. The other entrance has yellow crime scene tape restricting entry. This will not do. I need a slushie and I need it bad. The gas station serves slushies par excellence. That's French for excellent, I think. Anyway, they know me at the gas station, it's just down the street from my place. I am a preferred customer, according to my slushie card that gives me a free slushie after I buy 20.             "Why do you come here, miss? Why don't you have a car?" the chap behind the counter once asked.             "Because, sir, your slushies are a revelation."             He had his back to me while I replied. It was a rhetorical question I realized much later in the day. ...

As some of you may know, I am a born and bred Montrealer. Being a Montrealer of a certain generation, we were inculcated with a profound mistrust and contempt for Toronto. We looked down our nose at Toronto because it symbolized everything staid and boring and grey. When I was growing up, Montreal was Canada 's biggest city: its nightlife was legendary, its hockey team supreme, its arts and culture vital to the people. When the Parti Québécois and Bill 101 made it difficult for unilingual anglophones to imagine a life in La Belle Province's new reality, over 100 thousand or so fled down the 401 to settle in staid and boring and grey Toronto , I being one of them. It felt treasonous. How could I ever adjust to this place of 11 p.m. closing times and rehashed British influence? With the last name of Bennett I would have an easier time fitting in, but I could not relate to Toronto 's bland reason. I was used to being surrounded by a culture that, by birth, was not mine, b...

Happy New Year, dear reader. It is 2014: year of the horse, the 100th  anniversary of the start of WWI, 75 th anniversary of the stirrings of WWII, the year Canadian Forces pull out of Afghanistan and, most monumental of all, the municipal election year in Toronto. Ah, Toronto , city of tempered glass, concrete, steel, and a subway system that hasn't changed since Charles Nelson Reilly appeared as uptight Claymore Gregg on the television series The Ghost & Mrs. Muir. Money is being invested in infrastructure, apparently. I think we’re getting a new swing set for a park. This is my adopted city, one that has been good to me. What’s been extra good to me in recent memory is our mayor, Rob Ford. People have asked me (okay, maybe not) “why haven’t you commented on Mayor Rob Ford?”  I believe the expression is “gilding the lily”. Why tamper with comedy perfection? Mr. Ford has been a gift from the comedy gods. I have always held that Toronto proved its exceedi...