My book on walls is, for the most part, complete. I handed in my final draft a few weeks back and the manuscript is now in the able hands of a copy editor. After four years of travel, research and writing, I feel altogether strange about this project being finished. I’ve slowly removed my travel […]
The Border at Lochiel, Arizona
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
This photo of the U.S.-Mexico border fence in Lochiel, Arizona, is by musician Glenn Weyant. I’ve written about Glenn’s soundings of the border Wall previously on this blog. (Glenn also appears in the Walls book and in my TEDxCalgary talk.) I love how the fish-eye photo serves to subvert the fence it portrays. The barrier […]
March
05
“The land that maps forgot”
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
In one of the chapters of my upcoming Walls book, I travel to the northeast India to investigate the fence India is building along the border with Bangladesh. Last month, The Economist featured a wonderful story about the absurdity of the Indo-Bangla border and issues surrounding enclaves along the line that are not quite Here […]
February
24
The Horologist
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
My story about Calgary’s century-old City Hall clock and Doug Sinclair, the horologist who cares for it, appears in today’s issue of Swerve Magazine. I first learned of Sinclair when I visited the clock tower with Mayor Nenshi in November. (My story about Nenshi is finally finished and will appear in May’s Readers Digest Canada.) […]
“You have to earn an ending.”
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
I wrestled throughout high school and as a member of the University of Calgary Dinos. (57kg, if you can believe it). For my last book, Poets and Pahlevans: A Journey Into the Heart of Iran, I traveled to Iran to seek out the connection between Persian poetry and traditional wrestling. And I absolutely love this: […]
Mauerkrankheit: notes for an introduction
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
For the last several weeks I’ve been neglecting this blog and working on revising my Walls book. I am trying to transform my heap of editor-marked pages into a smoother-reading second draft for my deadline next week. In the meantime, and with thanks to Geoff Berner and Dr. Seuss, here is an excerpt from the […]
“Sand Blast”
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
The current issue of Impact Magazine, a sports and fitness bimonthly published in Alberta, features a story about my running of the Sahara Marathon – 10km of it, anyway – while visiting the Saharawi refugee camps in Algeria in 2008. The story, titled “Sand Blast,” is a tiny excerpt from the first chapter of my […]
“A courageous Palestinian has died, shrouded in stones”
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
Almost two years ago, I posted an excerpt from the West Bank chapter of my book-in-progress. The excerpt described my observations of anti-Wall protests in the West Bank village of Jayyous. I wrote about the “furious beauty” of stone-throwing Palestinian men. In today’s Haaretz, journalist Jonathan Pollak writes a compelling story of the death of […]
November
24
“Promised Land”
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
From The New Yorker “Culture Desk“: “Too often in politics, very complex subjects are being turned into sound bites, so it’s easy to take them apart,” says Christoph Niemann, this week’s cover artist. In “Promised Land,” he says, “I draw a parallel between current immigrants and early settlers—the hope is that it will provide context, […]
November
21
“The Great Wall of Montreal”
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
The current issue of Geist features my essay about the l’Acadie fence that stands between Montreal’s Parc-Extension neighborhood and the Town of Mount Royal. TMR erected the fence in 1960 to protect the Town’s children from traffic on the newly extended Boulevard l’Acadie. But since the fence stood between wealthy TMR and the working class […]
Elsewhere 