Spent Sunday morning hovering on the fringes of the Writer’s Festival Sunday Brunch, where Douglas Coupland was one of the featured authors. He read briefly from his new novel, Hey, Nostradamus, but before beginning he apologized for his lack of frivolity that day, this traditionally being a light-hearted, quite casual event: the audience arrayed before him in a sea of chatty foursomes at small tables, each table holding four flutes of orange juice and champagne, four cups of coffee, two plates of paté, and a pastry-filled basket fashioned artfully from poultry-mesh.

We listened respectfully while he explained that a good friend of his, Mac Parry, was undergoing additional surgery that day, and that his friends were worried for him; and if we could spare a prayer for him this Sunday morning, then he was sure that Mac would appreciate it.

Coupland then asked if we had seen the Northern Lights the night before: they were marvellous, he said, and it was the first time that he’d ever seen them this far south. Most of us hadn’t, and I particularly regreted having missed them, since it has been a goal of mine to witness the aurora borealis one day before I die.

But by an odd coincidence, and serving as reminder, today’s Vancouver Sun displays a colour photograph of some spectacular Northern Lights: hanging like a sheet of light above the trees. The sun is in spasm, apparently, disgorging furious gouts of cosmic energy into space, raining its radiance across the night and down upon us.

The local forecast for tonight — and for All Hallow’s Eve as well — is clear and dry. So I’m hoping that the aurora borealis has decided to hang around here for a few more evenings, and that we will all be given one more chance.