Contributors’ Notes

sandra martin “The New Old Age,” p. 46

“We put aging into some nether category until it happens to us or to somebody we know, and then, suddenly, we confront it. As I approached this essay, I thought it was really important that we talk about aging in all its manifestations: personal, financial, medical. If you don’t think about your future and if you don’t start making choices, you’re going to run into the danger of other people making choices for you, and that’s something I want to avoid.” Sandra Martin is a contributor to the Globe and Mail. Her mostrecent book is A Good Death: Making the Most of Our Final Choices.

rob macinnis Photography, “Very Important Pig,” p. 28

“When I went to the animal sanctuary to take photos of Esther, the famous pig, she was dead asleep for four straight hours. There’s an enormous amount of patience that comes with shooting animals; they’re not regimented the same way that humans are, and you wouldn’t want them to be. When you try to regiment them, like when we’re farming them, their personalities just close up.” Rob Macinnis has done work for the New York Times and Toronto Life.

mehdi m. kashani “Movie Night in Tehran,” p. 66

“I was inspired to write about how I used to obtain and watch films back in Iran because I’m interested in how people’s experiences shape the way they consume art. When I was growing up, the quality of films was poor: sometimes, for example, there were horizontal white lines across the screen. But we didn’t really care, because we didn’t have a frame of reference—we thought that either you had that version or you had nothing.” Mehdi M. Kashani moved to Vancouver from Tehran in 2004 and now lives in Toronto. His work has appeared in The Malahat Review and The Rumpus. This is his first publication in The Walrus.

jason guriel “Forgotten Work,” p. 38

“I started writing a long poem about a fictional band, then realized it needed to be set twenty years from now. I wanted to pay homage to writers, like William Gibson, who’ve imagined interesting futures for media—but I wanted to do so in a seemingly anachronistic form: rhyming couplets. In fact, nostalgia courses through the poem. It’s a work of science fiction, but it’s also about the past, about the lost, neglected writers and musicians who’ve been confined to oblivion.” Jason Guriel’s writing has appeared in Slate, The Atlantic, and Elle. He is the author of several poetry collections and a book of essays.

catherine dean “Studio Visit,” p. 54

“On the way to Cape Dorset, Nunavut, to photograph the community’s new cultural centre, I got stuck in Iqaluit due to bad weather. It meant I only got to spend two and half days in Cape Dorset, and there is so much of the town I never even saw. Visibility was so poor that you couldn’t see anything past the buildings on the other side of the road from the hotel. It’s interesting to be in a really small town and still have only scratched the surface of what it’s like. Yet when I came home, I had dreams about Cape Dorset for a month.” Catherine Dean is a public-art officer for the City of Toronto. She is currently working with Tony Romano on an art project for the Toronto Sculpture Garden.