Hunter and gatherer

Writers often play the role of hunter (Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz touches on his own identification with the image in A Year of the Hunter). But I recently added “gatherer” to my roles following an invitation to serve as associate editor, British Columbia, for the liquor trade magazine Vendor. I will also be overseeing book reviews as book review editor for Amphora, the quarterly journal of the Alcuin Society, which brings together those interested in books, book design and book arts in general.

This past weekend, in between roasting a leg of lamb and preparing a delicious apple-almond-ricotta cake (not quite as gluten-free as in the recipe), I took time to listen to Johnny Cash, American V: A Hundred Highways. The final album by this legendary American singer-songwriter, it closes his career on a solemn yet peaceful note. Throw in a couple of tunes by Canada’s own Gordon Lightfoot and Ian Tyson, and my own memories of seeing Cash play in Montreal back in 1988, and this is a collection I’m glad to own as much for its cultural merits as its personal resonances. Cash, more than most, pairs words with music in an exercise that, if not faultless, certainly comes across as timeless.