Short Story Selections

A beautiful and faithful translation to Modern English.  Originally by: Edgar Allan Poe  IT was on a dark and weary midnight, lost in thought, worn down, and tired,   Leafing through strange, forgotten stories, secrets ancient and expired.   My head was nodding, eyes half-closing, when I heard a soft tap-tap,   Like someone gently knocking, rapping at my chamber’s gap—   “Just a visitor,” I whispered, knocking at my chamber’s gap—   Only this, just that small tap.  I remember — clear as ever — it was deep December’s gloom,   Flickering embers casting ghostly shapes across the room.   Desperately I longed for morning, tried to ease this ache I bore,   Searched for comfort in the pages, but the sorrow only soared—   Sorrow for my lost Lenore, that shining soul the angels adore—   Gone from me… forever.   The velvet curtains whispered low, their rustling strange, u...

 This song is the beez neez

By: Asa Montreaux  How safe is Canada to live? Well, not as safe as you thought. Of course, by taking ample pre-caution, you can live a safe life in Canada, for certain. However, let's make sure you have the correct info to begin considering the question. (click to enlarge) As you may know, crimes often happen in larger cities, where there are more people, and more interactions between people. You may not have known, that Toronto is by far the least safe city to live in, at least in terms of overall crime rates. In addition to having the highest crime rate overall, it also had the highest number of murders in Canada, according to the latest report by Statistics Canada. This was notably by a wide margin. The number of murders (homicides) in Toronto in the full year of 2023 was 116. This is a significant number, however Toronto has the largest population in Canada at 3.1 million people. That being said, the level safety you experience will depend on the area  you choos...

  Approaching contesters near the finish, surprisingly not red in the face. I guess there was time to smile on this obviously creepy trail, along the race. Finally crossing the finsih line, I guess I'm decelerating after catching a few people.

IV    On Sunday morning while church bells rang in the villages alongshore, the world and its mistress returned to Gatsby’s house and twinkled hilariously on his lawn. “He’s a bootlegger,” said the young ladies, moving somewhere between his cocktails and his flowers. “One time he killed a man who had found out that he was nephew to Von Hindenburg and second cousin to the devil. Reach me a rose, honey, and pour me a last drop into that there crystal glass.” Once I wrote down on the empty spaces of a timetable the names of those who came to Gatsby’s house that summer. It is an old timetable now, disintegrating at its folds, and headed “This schedule in effect July 5th, 1922.” But I can still read the grey names, and they will give you a better impression than my generalities of those who accepted Gatsby’s hospitality and paid him the subtle tribute of knowing nothing whatever about him. From East Egg, then, came the Chester Beckers and the Leeches, and a man named...

 

By: Asa Montreaux  In an ever-evolving world, new wrinkles change the existing web work of relationships between things. We may think we know the status quo, but if we look at the way things are as a whole - it is constantly evolving and changing. Before you start wondering how you are going to make your relationship work, you should find yourself wondering how on earth am I going to find someone to be in a relationship with? In an increasingly internet-based, and alienating landscape of not only dating, but human relationships in general, what do people do to find love and connection? If I were to open a magazine like Cosmopolitan, like no one had ever, perhaps since the 2000s, what advice would I find? Well I will attempt to answer that question here. To what extent should you rely on dating apps, or online dating? I will attempt to answer this question as well. A study by YouGov of over 1,000 different US individuals each quarter, over the last five years, has found signifi...

It's like the feeling of love and empathy multiplied together

  III There was music from my neighbour’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motorboats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On weekends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before. Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York—every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door...