A Crazy, Funny Novel
In this episode, George presents chapter one of the award-winning audiobook of his magical-realist coming-of-age novel An Almost Impossible Story.
The Human Machine VII
For Paul-Henri Dietrich d’Holbach, human beings and all of Nature are essentially matter in motion.
The Human Machine VI
For Julien Offray de La Mettrie, the human being is a clock-like organic machine, although there is no clock-maker.
The Human Machine V
For Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the human being is a metaphysical machine, mirroring God’s harmonious universe.
The Human Machine IV
This episode is devoted to Thomas Hobbes, whose fear of insecurity and desire for control made him develop a well-regulated machine model for society.
The Human Machine III
This episode is devoted to René Descartes, who developed mechanistic philosophy, likening human biology to clockwork.
The Human Machine II
This episode is devoted to William Harvey, who discovered the mechanism of the heart, and the circulation of the blood.
The Human Machine I
This episode is devoted to Andreas Vesalius, the founder of Renaissance anatomy and a pioneer of the scientific revolution.
Earthly Paradise
In this episode, George explores the historical of the quest to locate the paradise of Eden.
Intuition, Myth and Metaphor
George takes a historical tour of myth and metaphor, both in science and in the public persona of scientists.
A New Beginning
Science is sometimes seen as a new religion, opening the way to a technological Eden
Grenfell of Labrador
In this episode, George looks at the mixed legacy of medical missionary Sir Wilfred Grenfell.
Dreamworld VII
In this last episode of a seven-part series, George explores the largely Latin American genre of magical realism.
Dreamworld VI
This latest episode of Dreamworld is devoted to John Steinbeck’s epic novel The Grapes of Wrath.
Dreamworld V
Part five of Dreamworld is devoted to the USA trilogy by American novelist John Dos Passos.
Dreamworld IV
Part four of Dreamworld is devoted to writing about Nature, and discovering the wild side within us.
Dreamworld III
This episode of Dreamworld looks at writing as transformation, and writing about transformation.
Dreamworld II
WildTrekker presents episode two of Dreamworld – a seven-part series devoted to writing about dreams.
Dreamworld I
In this episode, George starts Dreamworld – a new seven-part series devoted to the art of fiction.
The Making of The Blinding Sea
George shares what it was like making his feature film about polar explorer Roald Amundsen
Identity and Control
George interviews philosopher Charles Taylor about human identity and the challenges of organizational control.
The Human Genome
In this archival interview, George accurately predicts the very day Sir John Sulston wins the Nobel Prize.
Predictions
In this archival interview, George meets author, inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil.
Across the Sands
George meets writer, conservationist and explorer John Hare, who crossed the Sahara riding a camel.
Music of the Wilderness
In this archival interview, musician Emily Doolittle says she devoted her doctorate in composition at Princeton University to the songs of blackbirds and humpback whales. She also composed a chamber piece incorporating some blackbird themes. And then George experiments with other kinds of music based on Nature sounds…
The Arrow of Time – 3
In this final episode of a three-part series, George concludes his exploration of The Arrow of Time. It may sound like a contradiction in terms, but the future has a history – this episode focuses on projections since the Renaissance of human longing for the perfect society into the future. This episode creates sound pictures of secular prophecies, from Thomas More’s Utopia, to Francis Bacon’s Utopia, and Condorcet’s failed dream of progress to Karl Marx’s ideal but cruel working-class state. The episode wraps up with Samuel Butler’s satirical Erewhon and the technocratic fantasies … and nightmares … of H.G. Wells
The Arrow of Time – 2
In this second episode of a three-part series, George continues presenting The Arrow of Time. This episode examines the importance of chronology. Does the world have a beginning and an end? Basing themselves on the Bible, Early Church Fathers sought to date the divine Creation of the world (in 4004 BC), as well as to anticipate the Second Coming (perhaps in 800 AD). They tried to reconcile their hope for a better future with the disasters of their own day. After the Renaissance and Reformation, chronologies began to fan out – the world no longer seemed thousands of years old, but stretched back millions of years. Recent discoveries put the origin of life on Earth some 4 billion years ago.
The Arrow of Time – 1
In this first episode of a three-part series, George explores In this first episode of a three-part series, George presents the history of an idea – The Arrow of Time. He starts off showing humans have not always seen time as a unique past pointing to a unique present and then to a unique future. There have been several competing models of time, from the cosmic wheel of time to the cyclical model of time, and from the regressive to the flux and Nemesis models of time.
The Secret World of Whales
Whale biologist Richard Sears has devoted his career to understanding the blue whales, humpbacks, fin whales and belugas of the Gulf of St. Lawrence of Eastern Canada. In this archival interview, he tells George what he has discovered, how humans tend to project their own emotions and way of thinking onto whales, and what new knowledge we may gain in the future.
The Meaning of Compassion
In this archival interview, sociologist Nechama Tec tells George about her personal journey – the way she survived the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Poland, and how the generosity, courage and feistiness of some people, and the cruelty and utter indifference of others, inspired her, to devote her life to investigating the meaning of compassion and altruism.
The Shadow of H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells is known the world over for his science fiction, which has often been adapted for the radio and the silver screen. Wells had an uncanny ability to extrapolate from trends current in his day, and project them into the future – which involved creating secular prophecies. But he also had an authoritarian strand in his personality, and wished, as a frustrated intellectual, that people like him – technocrats – would one day wield tremendous power in the world.
Beyond the Ends
In this sound poem, George brings together poetry, original music and sound effects to recount a sea voyage by cargo ship from Montreal up the Labrador coast to Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay. In the unique Arctic world of icebergs, illusions and mind-bending storms, he finds inspiration. And he questions what happens when you are taken out of your comfort zone, and thrust into the lands of crystal of the Far North.
Freedom in the Wilderness
Brian Keenan, the author of An Evil Cradling, was not broken by years of captivity at the hands of Shi’ite militias in Lebanon. On the contrary, he carved out a private space of the mind, as a hostage. And he fantasized with fellow hostage John McCarthy about traveling one day to Patagonia in southern Chile. In this archival interview, Brian tells George what it meant to be held hostage, and how it felt for the two cellmates to visit the land of their dreams, once they were released.
Welcome To My Time Machine
In this episode, George creates a time machine, the Hyperspace Voyage, and invites you along to relive his first years as a journalist, reporting on Quebec politics, the fate of aboriginal people in Canada, the cycles of wildlife in the Arctic, the scientific revolution of the Renaissance, and 4000-year-old cave paintings in the Sahara desert of Mauritania.