A selection of tantalizing excerpts from the current (July/August) issue of The Walrus magazine, personally selected for you, our gentle readers, by the t&p editorial collective in the fervent hope that these will fill some obscure and previously unoccupied corner of your inquiring mind. This issue of The Walrus is unusually rich in interesting material — perhaps to underline their having won 50 awards (including magazine of the year) at the recent National Magazine Awards.

• Technology has succeeded where centuries of work have failed in keeping us chained to the workplace 24/7, 365 days of the year. Mobile devices like the BlackBerry are contributing to the work pandemic that is running rampant in our society. The false sense of urgency — and self-importance — conveyed by these devices is driving us nuts. We must keep them in their place.
  — from a letter sent in by Scott Kroeker, Winnipeg, Manitoba

• That rappers (“Two trailer park girls go round the outside…”) and teenagers (“my bad”) are the new grammarians is widely known, but not appreciated.
  — from the editorial, “Generation WWW”

• On the first morning of [equitation] instruction, I arrived wearing a pair of boots I had bought in Dallas fifteen years before and worn only once or twice since. My middle-aged feet had spread like the rest of me, forcing me to mince about camp in a most unmanly fashion.
  — from a Field Note by Guy Vanderhaeghe

• Tree planting is fine, but saplings take years to grow into effective carbon sinks.
  — from “Extraction,” an essay by Edward Burtynsky

• The shaggy silhouettes of the local high school band, Rock Toxique, emerge on stage. Guitars are plugged in. Thud. Thud. Everyone knows the sound. The drummer bangs out a few notes, and the crowd — 500 or more — inches forward, necks craning. Canned music is one thing, but live rock ’n’ roll reaches into the soul. The big man’s arrival is imminent. Slowly the lights rise, and there he is: from the bottom up, freshly polished loafers, pressed pants, button-down shirt, hair the same as it ever was. Ladies and gentlemen, your sexagenarian rock star, Paul Martin. The crowd, myopic as any group in such circumstances must be, roars. Martin, smiling like no rocker ever smiles, strums his guitar. Can it be? Yes, it can. He is playing air guitar, looking for all the world like a cross between a former finance minister, a wax figure from Madame Tussauds, and a dad laying it on thick for his son’s girlfriend. The band hammers out “Takin’ Care of Business.” Thud. Everyone knows that sound too, but no one admits it.
  — from “Charisma,” an essay by Jeff Ryan

• Bob Dylan — no question now, it was him — rolled off the [air] mattress, careful to keep the brim of his hat dry. He slung the mattress up on the diving raft and did a credible breaststroke to the end of the dock, where he held on to the edge with thin white fingers.
  “No ladder?” he asked.
  The nails on the baby finger of each hand were extra long, and filed square.
  “Let me give you a hand.”
  I leaned over, careful to keep my scoop-neck shirt from gaping, and Dylan grabbed hold of me like a big ropey eight-year-old. He was as pale as a grub, with a dot of chin hair and that riverboat-gambler moustache he started wearing around Love and Theft. But his blue eyes were still strong and clear, and met mine. He whisked the water off his arms with his hands.
  “Water’s real nice, once you get in.”
  — from “Bob Dylan Goes Tubing,” a short story by Marni Jackson