Over the next few weeks you’ll see this poster up around Charlottetown:

The poster—for the July 14, 2026 edition of Jack Pine Folk Club—is a reproduction of an original lino reduction print by Lisa, the result of weeks of research, planning, carving, and printing. It’s a visual tour de force, and it captures the craggy essence of the jack pine so well.

Jack Pine Folk Club is a Shane Pendergast project, one that “channels the spirit of a 1960s folk coffeehouse.” Hosted at the Trailside, it’s an evening we’ve become quite fond of, and so when the opportunity came up to collaborate with Brandon Hood, who manages the visual language of the project, we jumped at it. Brandon took Lisa’s image and wrapped it in a lovely rich orange, with Futura typography, for the poster.

The rendering of the jack pine, which Lisa titled straight spine ~ jack pine, started in April with a recon trip to East Bideford, reputed to host the Island’s largest concentration of the trees. And jack pines we found.

We found the trees concentrated in and around a sand pit off the Burleigh Road, which, because sand has been mined from it, is a sort of otherworldly landscape, both natural and unnatural.

Starting from a reference photo of a jack pine that she took that afternoon, Lisa drew on tracing paper, and then transferred that to lino block:

Layer by layer, using on our Golding Jobber No. 8 letterpress for efficiency, we printed colour upon colour, Lisa carving away more of the block between each:

The final two layers were hues of red/magenta; here’s the second-last layer ready to print:

Our biggest technical challenge proved to be getting ink to dry, a result of mixing ink chemistries (Akua soy-based ink overprinted with Cranfield Safewash oil-based ink). The prints are drying, but very slowly. To aid them along, we rigged up a drying line down the middle of the print shop:

A limited number of signed original prints of straight spine ~ jack pine will be available at Jack Pine Folk Club on July 14.

This new bus shelter ad from The 5th Wave and Red Island Cider reminded me of coffee bags of yore.

Using a name that isn’t your everyday name when your Starbucks barista asks you for it is a small powerful act. It won’t do much to defeat surveillance capitalism, but it’s very good for personal bravery-building. “I am, today, who I say I am, today.”

Today at the Starbucks in Stratford I was Flambeaux. Except that, despite spelling it several times, I came out as Falmeeaus.

All hail Falmeeaus.

From left to right:

• “Let us meet where you and I will be at home” card from Fenix.
• Postcard of The Old Gardener (De Oude Tuinman) by Belgian painter Emile Claus.
• A postcard with a poem by Filipa César, gift of our friend Brandon, from Serralves in Porto.
• Postcard of a painting by April Bey, from the exhibition In-between: Ten women artists on migration
• Catalog from the In-between: Ten women artists on migration exhibition.

Serralves is wonderful; I have fond memories of a visit 20 years ago.

From How to Travel:

These problems would seem to be very much of today, a consequence of the tiny phones in our pockets. But they were noticed right at the beginning of the history of photography, when the average camera was the size of a grandfather clock. The first person to notice them was the English art critic, John Ruskin. He was a keen traveller who realised that most tourists make a dismal job of noticing or remembering the beautiful things they see. He argued that humans have an innate tendency to respond to beauty and a desire to possess it, but that there are better and worse expressions of this desire. At worst, we get into buying souvenirs or taking photographs. But, in Ruskin’s eyes, there’s one thing we should do and that is attempt to draw the interesting things we see, irrespective of whether we happen to have any talent for doing so.

You may recall that there is a place on PEI named after (or not) John Ruskin. 

From How about Free? Is that affordable enough for you? by Bill McKibben:

Beginning next week, Australians across a huge swath of the continent will begin getting three free hours of electricity every afternoon—to charge their cars, runs their dishwashers, fill up a storage battery to run the house at night. I’ve written about this before, so I won’t belabor it here, except to say that humans have spent the last 1.79 million years (according to new research last week) working hard for energy: spending time gathering firewood, spending time working to pay the power bill. Now, in one large part of the earth, for one large part of the day, electricity will be too cheap to meter. You want some abundance? Here you go.

From The Flamborough Review, January 5, 1983, by E.B. Kennedy:

“This little business developed out of difficulties we encountered in trying to find the most suitable computer for our use at home,” explained Norm Rukavina of Carlisle, in a recent interview about “Cellar Door Software” and its, “Have Computer, Will Travel” service.

‘My son Peter and I had to do so much homework and digging out of information,” he continued, “that we thought we might be able, by sharing what we had learned, to save other people the time and effort of going through a similar difficult experience.”

It was in July of 1982 that the father and son set up the small firm to provide information and education about personal and home computers.

Peter, a Grade XI student at Waterdown District High School, is President of the very active Computer Club at the School, a Club which has 25 regular members and about as many more who attend when they can.

His father, a geologist research scientist on the staff of the Canadian Centre for Inland Waters, developed an eight-week course, “An Introduction to Programming”, which he and Peter began giving at the Hamilton YMCA two evenings a week last September.

“It provides the rudiments of working with ‘Basics’, a language of computers, and includes learning how to write programmes in that language,” our informant explained.

“Since most of those taking the course range in age from nine to 15 years and are interested in video games, our course enables them to reach the point of competence where they can work out programmes for complicated games. That gives them what they need for writing programmes for many practical purposes as well.

“The first course finished and we are now half-way through the course with a second group.”

“The “Have Computer, Will Travel” service is the part of the new little business that more nearly carries out its original objectives. It brings a small computer into one’s own home (or small business) and demonstrates what can be done with computer files, word processing, music and graphics.

It was interesting to see how, with proper daily recording of household expenditures, the totals of what was spent for food, education, etc. could be called up in seconds.

The home service for those who want to know how to write programmes that could be most useful for their home or business purposes includes instruction in writing such programmes in Basic, and the experience of actually working with the computer.

For those interested in owning a computer and who want to know about various types and their particular uses, the service provides helpful information.

“We don’t sell or endorse any particular brand of computer,” Norm Rukavina stated emphatically. “We can provide lists of local sources of computer products, of useful books and magazines, and of reports on home computers, all of which could be useful to a prospective buyer.”

The magic of the computer as word processor was demonstrated by its ability to replace immediately a wrong letter or word with the correct one, to insert a word, and other such operations which are laborious and time-consuming when using a typewriter.

In the realm of graphics, the possibilities seemed almost limitless. Our guide and mentor showed the results of his carefully planned effort to portray, in colour and movement on the screen, the changes wrought upon beaches by wind and wave action. What could have taken many words to convey was unmistakably evident to the viewer in the four-minute sequence resulting from the imaginative use of the computer’s possibilities.

“The average homeowner investing in a computer would use it for the other helpful capabilities we’ve been demonstrating,” the demonstrator admitted with a smile. “I just wanted to give some idea of the range of uses, not only for storing and recalling information, but for helping to present information in an effective way.”

Because the Rukavina father and son enjoy sharing their knowledge of what this relatively new tool can do, they are pleased to respond to any inquiry directed to their “Cellar Door Software” or “Have Computer, Will Travel” service.

As I wrote earlier, it was fortuitous that among Catherine Hennessey’s collection of things was a line rule box from The Guardian. I happened to need one. I filled it up this morning with leading, transforming a messy drawer into something organized.

My longtime friend Catherine Hennessey died in March at the age of 92. 

Catherine was an inveterate collector of things: books, scissors, art, bells, building materials for a house she planned to build herself.

As she aged, contracted, downsized, she moved this archive of interesting things from place to place, home to home, storage locker to storage locker. At one point she occupied 13 lockers in the parking garage at Harbourside, despite being only entitled to one.

In an effort to consolidate, Catherine held a series of sales, starting on her 80th birthday with a silent auction (I ran the online part of this), and continuing on through to a sale that took up most of the old Campbell Lea building.

On Sunday was the posthumous final sale, and Catherine’s friends and familiars gathered on a farm in Emyvale to see what was left. It was an eerie experience seeing things I knew so well—paintings, furniture, photos, bins of scissors—out of their home context. It was made less eerie by the presence of so many people who loved Catherine.

Here’s what I emerged with, a kind of “Museum of Catherine Hennessey” in the same spirit as The Museum of Norm.

Dorchester Street Enameled Sign

Of the type affixed to the side of houses, rather than on a pole on the street. Provenance unknown. Catherine lived on 145 Dorchester Street when I first met her in the early 1990s, in a house she called “Pidwell Lane.”

Playground Sign

This small metal bar, engraved with “Playground,” has “Klassen Bronze Ltd., April/72” written on the back. Klassen Bronze is a Toronto company:

Established in 1950, many years of exceptional service and experience have made Klassen Bronze a world leader in the manufacture, distribution, import and export of letters, numbers and signs.

Leading Box

Labelled as being from The Guardian’s composing room, this is a box designed to hold different lengths of leading (thin lead rules used between lines of metal type). It just so happens that I need a box for my leading, so this was heaven-sent (thank you, Catherine).

Lino Cutters

Why did Catherine have lino cutters? I don’t know. But the box is beautiful, as are the wooden handles. And we’re printmakers.

Island Identity Sign

Catherine worked under the “Island Identity” banner for a time. Others will know more about it; it predated me, I believe. It’s a beautiful hand-painted sign from Custom Signworks.

Cowbell

Catherine loved bells. To own one of hers is an honour.

Dr. Smith Sign

Catherine Hennessey was born Catherine Smith. Her father was Dr. Smith. I love this sign.

Ceramic Pig

Catherine collected pigs. So many that there was a hutch filled with them that sale-goers were invited to choose from. This is the one I chose.

Marble Cutting Board

In an earlier life this piece of marble lined the doctors’ showers at the old Charlottetown Hospital, a fact that delighted Catherine.

Her countertops at 222 Sydney Street were from the same showers; this piece travelled with her to Rankin House at Harbourside.

Tonight I baked molasses bread, from her recipe, and kneaded the dough on it, as she had.

I’m still coming to terms with the role Catherine played in my life (and the role I played in hers). Owning some of her much-loved objects is a small help to that. I will treasure them.

From Eat This Newsletter 305: Hot:

It has been a funny week, with temperatures up in brain-scrambling territory. If this issue is late, which it may well be, that’s because I spent yesterday morning in the cool of a cinema enjoying a glorious restoration of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times. If you can, I highly recommend it.

Jeremy’s newsletter, focusing on food and where it comes from, is always a good read. This issue is a particularly good one: mushrooms, coffee, hot sauce—it has it all.