I’ve Found Her

Photos of an elderly French stranger has one Canadian writer examining the threads that connect people across continents and generations.

Source: Brick
Published: Jul 27, 2017
Length: 19 minutes (4,882 words)

Please Don’t Stay Long

Excerpts from love letters between London and Łódź:

Dear Eva,

It’s no use deceiving oneself, I am very uneasy about this journey you are making. I hope this letter finds you well and safe. – I know I shall worry about you. I shall write you every day before going to bed all the days’ news. Tomorrow’s will be exciting. Give my love to everybody and be a good sensible girl, and make up your mind not to stay long. I’ll get the covers done, also see about the light in the bedroom. I must rush off. Write to me often, love as ever from your

Mark

Source: Brick
Published: Feb 13, 1928
Length: 19 minutes (4,845 words)

Xmas in Hawaii

In 1982, author Linda Spalding served as a juror on Maryann Acker’s murder trial. She believed Maryann was innocent, but was dismissed from the jury after arriving late to the courthouse one morning. Acker ended up being convicted and has spent the next 30 years in prison. Spalding, whose feeling of guilt hasn’t subsided in the intervening years, writes about time, memory, and her quest to help Maryann regain her freedom after three decades.

Source: Brick
Published: May 27, 2013
Length: 38 minutes (9,692 words)

Courage and Survival

The Legends of the Fall author and poet on aging:

“Obviously I need courage to deal with my current dysfunctional body. And religion? The bible says that the kingdom of God is within you. If so, I haven’t noticed it lately. I’m not making light of devotion or a mother praying to bring her baby back to life after it’s been cut out of the stomach of an anaconda in Venezuela. Human suffering has to be the largest of all question marks. You must beware of hope, a radically dangerous emotion. Hope can roll over and crush you. I went to a dozen doctors last winter in Tucson for shingles relief and each time I had a wide-eyed Midwestern hope and faith that was promptly smeared. Hope is a bourgeois Tinker Bell toy that can transform into a guard dog of the most vicious nature. You raise your expectations then are gutted like a deer. However, if you need to say a little prayer, go ahead and moisten your lips for the deaf gods, although it’s like fly fishing in a sewer: ‘Raise your chin, o son of man, your doom is around the next corner on the left.'”

Source: Brick
Published: Nov 26, 2012
Length: 9 minutes (2,391 words)

Unlocking the Mystery of Paris’ Secret Underground Society

On August 23, 2004, they discovered a cinema 60 feet beneath Paris. The sun was shining on the Trocadéro, the Eiffel Tower gleamed across the Seine, and deep belowground, police came across a sign. The officers were on a training mission, exploring the 4.3 miles of catacombs that twist beneath the 16 th arrondissement. The former quarries are centuries-old, illegal to enter, and the sign at the mouth of the tunnel read, “No public entry.” Police are not the public; they entered. … They found 3,000 square feet of subterranean galleries, strung with lights, wired for phones, live with pirated electricity. The officers uncovered a bar, lounge, workshop, dining corner and small screening area. The cinema’s seats had been carved into the stone itself, with room for 20 people to sit in the cool and chomp on popcorn.

Source: Brick
Published: Apr 25, 2011
Length: 32 minutes (8,194 words)