I didn’t have much of an appetite for the Oscar’s this year.

Normally I’d be all in, enjoying the glittering and flimsy spectacle as much anybody, but this year felt different, and whatever spirit or anticipation I’d typically bring to the affair was just not there. In fact, I was dreading it, imaging it another long– really long– continuation of all the sneering, bitter arguments that were ceaselessly looping through my media feeds.

Social media has begun to feel like tuning in to some late-night AM radio call-in show. The voices, disembodied and angry, fire from the dark, each one inveighing some furious certainty. There is no complaint too small or too large, and each one comes obsessively detailed by the over-confident sender. There’s an urgency to all these declarations, too, as if impulse more than thought, and the momentum always moves forward– retreat or rumination, let alone a kind of sympathy, utterly unthinkable.

To willingly step into this each day, as I do, is an act of madness. To me, it feels like being closed in a room with a hundred growling dogs while the unmediated grievances of the world strobe in front of you. It colours your mood, this, so even before something of “actuality” happens in your physical life, you’re already tense and combat ready– you’ve already become somebody you don’t want to be. And I swear, if we could somehow tap into the cataract of doomed energy that feeds this monster, we would be masters of the universe.

Initially I had imagined the Internet as something almost utopian. It would be democratizing and unifying, kind of like The Force, and united by the millions we would be able to destroy evil Death Stars. Instead, it’s proven to be infinitely divisive, revealing that the Internet itself might be a horrible Death Star.

The limitless options presented by technology have moved us away from what had been commonly shared. Whatever our interests may be, however perverse, remote or idiosyncratic, we can find a subculture dedicated to that passion or hatred online. We are never alone, but our channels never seem to be open, either. Living in gluttonous echo chambers of our own devising, we now customize our experiences, changing them to suit our needs rather than adopting to the mean. In this way, popular culture is being eradicated, with each person becoming a hermetically sealed culture unto themselves.

Naturally, the idea of compassion or empathy withers in this climate of radical tribalization. It’s now completely normal for people to proudly boast of de-Friending somebody who disagrees with their politics or to happily live within the paradox of being tolerant of everything but intolerance. If you step into Twitter, far from finding a marketplace for the free exchange of ideas, you find a war zone. Every once in a while you pop up from your trench, fire off a few salvos at the enemy, and then duck down again—kind of like a shooter game.

The Internet in the age of Trump ( who I believe saw and exploited this rather than created it), is a grim landscape lacking in kindness.

Full of hall monitors ready to pounce on anybody not adhering to the common orthodoxy, it’s a place you go to confirm your certainties and your enemy’s idiocies. It is a place where fighting, where aggression is the entertainment, and it is perhaps the loneliest place on the planet.

The Leafs are on TV, but they’re losing again and nobody much seems to care, instead, they focus on the consoles in front of them, concentrating on the trivia game unfolding on the monitors above the bar.

“Which film features a man living the same day over and over again?”

The guy to my right, who is still in his FedEx uniform, is startled to attentiveness by this question, “Groundhog Day, Groundhog Day!” he shouts as if sounding an alarm.

The other men, slowly and silently, reluctantly even, nod—tell them something they didn’t know.

To my left is a man who smells like cigarette smoke and is wearing the sort of sweater that invites fascination and curiosity. How old is that sweater? Was it a gift? If not, what was it that attracted him to it? He’s the most animated person in the bar, giggling nervously and speaking quickly, his eyes always darting. He and the bartender, an efficient but world-weary bald guy, have a rapport, a banter, and they’re trying to stump one another with arcane Simpson’s trivia and forgotten players from the OJ trial.

Mark Furhman!

Nicole Simpson’s dog was a white Akita!

Can I borrow a feeling by Kirk Van Houten!

All night the conversation jumps about in this way. They’re no longer the people that they became, but are now floating free, inhabiting a nostalgic landscape where they remain limitless and ascending. O, there are just so many details to untangle and isolate, to cherish… Episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, what country was the best to build your base from when playing Risk, and later, the naming of all the Replicants from Blade Runner, each one uttered with tenderness and respect, as if each one a kind of miracle, like a love from the past who was never to be seen again.

We’re holding up pencils, trading memes about not giving in to fear and bravely demanding news agencies reprint the Charlie Hedbo cartoons, often from the comfort of our sofas while watching The Mindy Project or the hockey game. We’re warriors for free speech and we will not be silenced.

It’s ironic that our courage for free speech is predicated largely upon being able to express it through the distant, quasi-anonymous medium of social media, and it’s even more ironic that the massacre in Paris has only an optical relationship to free speech rather than a substantive one.

It seems unlikely that there’s a single person in the West who believes that curtailing free speech in order to placate terrorism is a tolerable, let alone debatable idea. The cartoons in question will go on to colonize the world, and we will gather together by the thousands in public squares to safeguard our liberties. Free speech will not die, not on our watch.

We should presume that the people responsible for these murders knew that this would be the outcome. It is, after all, always the outcome. Whenever an act of terror is committed, a robust surge of patriotism and anger—which we often mistake for courage—follows. Our tribe rises up and begins to throw rocks at their tribe, and last night as people were gathering in Place de la Republique in glowing, peaceful solidarity, others were enacting the revenge narrative by attacking mosques and bombing kebab shops.

France, the nation that banned the covering of the face in public, has a reputation for being one of the more Islamophobic nations in Europe. The cartoons that Charlie Hedbo printed were puerile, designed for provocation more than satiric illumination, I think. By appealing to a ready-made, Muslim-averse public, they were picking low-hanging fruit. In a different context, the cartoons, instead of being seen as heroic, would be seen as offensive, bigoted propaganda.

There are roughly six million Muslims in France, and they comprise about ten percent of the population. Of that six million, approximately a third identify as practicing Muslims, with the rest, many of whom are marginalized immigrants, leading secular lives that presumably include things like Grand Theft Auto, football and beer. The terrorists don’t want these people to be assimilated into French culture, they want them to be radicalized, and to do so they must feel persecuted and unwelcome. I suspect that the point behind the killings was not to quell free speech, but to ratchet up tribal warfare against Muslims, ensuring that for new, would-be recruits, participation in a holy war will always seem like a decent option.

The response then should be to treat the people responsible as criminals, and not as a part of some invisible, ever-present army. Declaring war on an idea rather than a specific, definable entity seems doomed, and as we willingly suspend our civil rights and try to make our collective fear, anger and grief manifest in physical villains, our principles and values, our quality of life, begins to rot from the inside, and right there, the war is lost.

Here are a couple of book synopses that I’ve prepared for my publisher:

“Duke Miller and the mystery of the over-spiced and runny eggs.”

Duke, a young American food critic, is the sort of man who always knows where he’s going. He’s not afraid to send food back or say something that he believes about homosexuals, even if it’s not politically correct to do so. Duke, combining the brash individualism of the US with the delicate sophistication of Europe, travels the world reviewing restaurants with his constant companion, a miniature pot-bellied pig named Clipper.

In this introductory novel, Duke encounters a plate of over-spiced and runny eggs while on a trip in France, and investigates the mystery of how this happened. I do not want to give away the ending, but a flashlight plays a key role in solving the mystery!

“Duke Miller and that hostess from Montreal.”

In this transitional book, Duke investigates his romantic feelings for Audrey, an older, seductive hostess from a Montreal bistro. However, it turns out that Audrey is not really in love with Duke but just wants to secure a good review for her restaurant, something that Clipper cottons on to long before Duke. In the end, ‘Ce Coeur De Mien’ gets the review it deserves and Duke and Clipper are once again set on their happy, wandering ways.

“Duke Miller and the mystery of why the coffee tasted like jalapenos.”

Set in the exotic local of Cuba, this novel features a sub-plot of a resort worker—Freddy– who wishes to escape the terrible food and totalitarian regime of Cuba. Duke, investigating the mystery of the coffee, stumbles upon Freddy, who was being forced by a mean, tourist-hating chef to grind hot peppers into the coffee beverage served at the resort. Duke, shocked, agrees to help Freddy escape. Things go well until Duke discovers Freddy is a homosexual, at which point Duke’s morals will no longer permit him to help.

Born to Lead

Grade 9

Bob Bord had blond hair and could almost lift the back of a car off the ground. His dad drove a BMW and Bob was the coolest kid in all of the school. His nickname was Boss B! Everything in Bob’s life was amazing except for one thing, Bob thought school completely sucked! It grossed him out, and whenever Bob got mad or bored something really cool happened to him. Do you know what that was? He turned into the Incredible Hulk only instead of being green he was red with blond hair. His rage was great. SMASH, SMASH, SMASH!! He broke the blackboard over the teacher’s head! SMASH, SMASH, SMASH!!  All the other prisoners cheered, and then the Incredible Bob Hulk punched a hole in the wall! SMASH, SMASH, SMASH!! All the kids, even the nerd kids, escaped through the hole and then played football. Boss B was quarterback, Caitlin wore her white shorts, and it was awesome.

Sometimes At Night

Grade 10

Sometimes at night I wonder

why some people have so little

and others have so much?

I am strong, rich and good at the shot put,

but other people are poor, weak and bad at sports.

Why is that?

THEY DON’T WANT IT ENOUGH!

My inner voice screams at me,

THEY DON’T WANT IT ENOUGH!

THEY ARE LAZY!!

My inner voice is never wrong!

This truth, like a Rush drum solo pounding in my heart.

Top Gunner

Grade 11

Lieutenant Ross Fordington wasn’t scared of anything, least of all big government or night demons. He was the best pilot in the entire military, even though he liked to do things his own way.

“Get out of my way!” Fordington shouted, “ I don’t need any pencil pusher telling me how to bomb a government-subsidized village!”

Jones, Fordington’s best buddy and wingman, put his steady hand out. “No,” he said to Captain Limp, a washed-out pilot who relied on a bloated salary he didn’t deserve to live a lavish, elite lifestyle and ride a bike. “You’d best leave the Bear alone unless you want a fist in the face!” Limp shriveled up like the small, scared girl he was, and then Fordington went out and bombed the village killing all of his enemies.

After his missions, Fordington was never bothered by night demons. They never haunted or tormented him in the dark hours for the things that he did, and Fordington never, ever woke up screaming and ashamed, soaked in a cold, mortal sweat.

The Night Demons

Grade 13

Fod Rord was a bull of a man. He had a thick, powerful neck, could run fast for his size and was able to throw a football 150 meters. He was also really funny and had lots of money. People loved him and always wanted to come to his pool parties. He had it all.

Until the night demons came.

Sometimes, when Fod was in bed and alone with his thoughts, he’d begin to feel restless, as if somebody, or something, was watching him because he had done bad things. Fod would try to shake it off. He hadn’t done anything wrong! He knew that! That raccoon was a societal leech! Nobody knew if Priynka slipped or was pushed! The gardener could easily have taken that money! Fod knew that he was in the right and that he was strong and destined for great things, but the night demons did not.

Each night they would come to him, their pale, weak faces chattering and asking questions. The night demons, they invaded his privacy, and even when Fod put on his headphones and listened to his greatest football huddles of all time tape, they were still there. They would not go away! They were awful! Because of the night demons Fod would often go out into the night and wander in the wooded area beside his expansive family estate in order to clear his mind. Sometimes he would just yell he was so frustrated. His roars were so terrible and powerful that the birds would suddenly take flight, and Fod would sit down and, not crying, just look up at the moon and the eternal stars that filled the sky.

There’s his passion for football, for instance, as well as smoking crack with drug dealers, calling the media “maggots” and getting thrown out of hockey games for being drunk, but there’s a lot more to the man that just his robust vulgarity. For years now, Ford has been a big fan of the New Yorker Magazine, in particular their weekly cartoon caption contest, and each week the mayor always finds time to submit to the contest. What follows are a collection of some of his better submissions:

While you’re down there….

I may have had a whale of a time, but I am not a crack cocaine addict right now!

Stupid leftie pinkos and their subways!

Ask #3 to spread her legs wider so I can get a better look.

I’d do anything for some chicken wings!!!

Remember when you used to drill me? Wanna get drunk?

Still unencumbered by whatever obstacles or sorrows the day might later present, everybody walking down the street had a crisp, optimistic look to them. Animated by the sunlight, they looked happy and ready for it all.

I stood outside waiting for a cab, watching an older man I’d become familiar with pulling weeds from a garden. Always wearing a baseball cap and a plaid, farmer’s shirt, the man has a slow, gentle and slightly uncomprehending manner, as if perhaps stricken wordless by trauma at some point in his life. From the grand house behind the property he was working on, a man walked confidently out the front door.

“Don’t pull so hard!” he said. The man in the baseball hat looked up, blinking, confused. “We talked about this,” the confident man continued, “use your head!!” He thumped his forefinger against his temple, underscoring this point. He then continued up the street, satisfied and looking like he felt he was at the top of his game, while the kneeling worker, demoralized now,  appeared as if he was feeling the exact opposite. It was 8:30 in the morning and this was the start to both of their days.

There were about 10 people waiting for the elevators in the lobby at the Mt. Sinai hospital. An older woman with smooth, freshly polished skin smiled at everyone. She was pretty, wearing the sort of hat you’d see at a fancy horse race and she carried her cane with style. “Look at us, all watching the numbers to see which one comes first, it’s like we’re gambling at a casino!” Given the hospital setting, I thought about this probably more than I should have.

On the sixth floor I got off for my appointment and as I was checking in with the receptionist, the woman in the hat showed up. She was lost and when she was told that she was on the wrong floor– that CT scans were done on the 5^th floor– a look of frustration and anger clouded her pleasant face. She turned to me, “It’s the elevators! They’re not working! The button said this was the 5^th floor, the 5^th, not 6^th!” and then she began to cry.

The receptionist was blessed with a Caribbean accent and liked to keep herself busy.

“I have my church clothes, I have my supermarket clothes, I have my pharmacy clothes and I have my go-out-and-have-a-good-time-clothes. It’s just the way that I am,” she told nobody in particular.

In constant movement, she was singing at her desk. She simply could not stop.

“We will praise you for the rest of our days. Hallelujah!” she sang.

Snapping her fingers and even sometimes dancing, she had all the sober looking  technicians giggling as they peeked over at her through paperwork. A heavier woman, also with a Caribbean accent, walked by shaking her head, “Listen Anne Murray, I will talk to you later,” and pointing her finger, gave her a look that suggested a genial, running battle.

“I got my praise on,” the receptionist shot back, “ain’t nothing going to go wrong this morning. You bring it.”