Feature Writing

Horses can be “pasture puffs” grazing their days away; they can be Olympic athletes. They’re viewed as near-magical in therapeutic and educational settings; they’re innately dangerous flight animals. Horses are symbols of freedom; horses are sashimi on the hoof.

PARD Therapeutic Riding brings the benefits of horseback riding to people with disabilities.

Karen Rohlf reminds us that dressage is meant to be for the horse, improving balance and freedom of movement as they learn to carry a rider with ease.

Everyone has a conference nowadays. Zucchini farmers, dental hygienists, the world music industry. You network, you learn stuff: Biotech zucchinis may cure obesity. Laser technology proves George Washington’s teeth weren’t made of wood. World music as a genre may be dying.

The greying, dreadlocked ‘minister of cool,’ as Gilberto Gil has been nicknamed, is regularly seen striding through international airports on government business, guitar strapped across his back.

Kane could have created a show about the rich defending the even richer, but instead he chose to set Diggstown in the “socio-economically challenged” world of legal aid clients.

Riding a 1,200-pound animal when you’ve reached the age of diminishing bounce-backability means fear is inevitably a factor. It’s a factor for the horse, too.

The counter staff is shimmying to the sound of Buena Vista Social Club as Ry Cooder strolls in. He grins. It still tickles him that it’s cafés, boutiques, and public radio that made it a “word of mouth” success.

How did a down-to-earth, second generation Portuguese-Canadian girl from Victoria land in the Spielberg kingdom? It started with her family, whose embrace of Portuguese culture was responsible for her love of singing.

It’s not like you’re the first. Other substitute teachers have come out with some real dillys too. Who can forget “think of your spine as a flexible snake in space?”

Riding horses is definitely not “just like riding a bike.” Getting back in the saddle after years on the ground can be thrilling — but also daunting.

It’s sometimes called an “equestrian palace,” and the nickname is no exaggeration — the Grandes Écuries, home to the Living Museum of the Horse is truly jaw-dropping.

It was fresh, it was shocking and people loved it. It’s easy to forget today how groundbreaking Jagged Little Pill was at the time.

When I was a kid, my parents, avid readers, talked about opening up a bookstore in a small prairie town. The town was best known for car shows, power tobogganing, and a failing newspaper — possibly not the ideal marketplace.

As composer John Rutter puts it, “Choral music goes to the very heart of our humanity, our sense of community, and our souls.”