My profile of Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi appears in the May issue of Reader’s Digest Canada (and online here.) Kudos to the folks at RD for a great cover.
April
15
Anne Paq’s photos of the Wall
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
Active Stills is hosting a great series of images of the West Bank Wall by photographer Anne Paq. Many of the photos are of the Wall at Jayyous and Qalqilya, two Palestinian towns that feature prominently in my chapter about the Wall. I especially like the images of IDF soldiers posing for photographs in front […]
April
08
“A Story of Bread and Love”
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
I’m a couple of days late on this, but my story about Calgary Italian Bakery – and the charming Bontorin family who operate it – appeared in Friday’s Swerve Magazine. Luigi Bontorin came to Calgary in the 1950s, married his landlady’s daughter, and the two of them founded the business in 1962. Now, a half […]
Wall Construction Nearly Complete
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
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 […]
