Kendall Defoe
Bio
Teacher, reader, writer, dreamer... I am a college instructor who cannot stop letting his thoughts end up on the page. No AI. No Fake Work. It's all me...
And I did this:
Stories (824)
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Nesta at 80
80 years... I am pretty much astonished that I grew up hearing his music the way I did, or lived with his legacy. I have the t-shirts, albums, biography - through my brother's early interest - certain expired drinks and have even seen headphones and other technology with his face and name imprinted on them. He is as much a part of our pop culture as Charlie Chaplin, the Beatles, and Taylor Swift. His fingerprints are all over our understanding of what music from the Third World actually means.
By Kendall Defoe 12 months ago in Beat
The Many Errands of Hercules
Bill “Hercules” Thompson was no longer the same man who earned the nickname, but no one would let him forget it. He had once been a violent man, determined to have his way at work, on the road to work, at hockey games where he tried to forget about work or at any other event where he had to deal with the public. Unfortunately, he was not allowed to forget who he once was. A court case involving an elderly driver, his walking cane, and serious damage to a Honda Civic were enough to have the name stick. And so, he lived his life with as much peace and quiet as he could sustain and stomach.
By Kendall Defoe 12 months ago in Fiction
Lapdogs vs. Watchdogs
What a week. I am up in Montréal, safely across the border from those nasty Americans and their wicked ways. The groundhogs have spoken...and we cannot make up our minds about it. The tariffs were dropped this weekend and officially, we are in the middle of a trade war. This feels like it will continue for some time since the chief occupier of the Oval Office only has two modes: you either win or you lose (his multiple bankruptcies seem to confirm this theory). And he does not want to face the truth: one of the countries he decided to hit over the nose with a newspaper is not as kind as he proposed.
By Kendall Defoe 12 months ago in The Swamp
Februarianism
Black History Month? Does anyone remember? Too lost in the noise... Well? * Thank you for reading! If you liked this, you can add your Insights, Comment, leave a Heart, Tip, Pledge, or Subscribe. I will appreciate any support you have shown for my work.
By Kendall Defoe 12 months ago in Poets
Ode to the woman on Marketplace who left me out in the cold because she had a Zoom call and did not tell me about it until I was in front of her place and almost froze my toes
Note: I was supposed to pick up a book today from a woman I wrote to on Marketplace, but I arrived at the home just to be told by text that she had a Zoom meeting. This information had been unshared with me, and I was out in the cold for quite some time (she never wrote back to apologize and I blocked her). And this came out.
By Kendall Defoe 12 months ago in Poets
The Year of the Snake
And what do you believe? Today, Wednesday, January 29, 2025 is the beginning of the Lunar Chinese New Year. Officially, it is the Year of the Snake, an animal I found defined with the traits of “wisdom, intuition and charm,” while the people born in such a year – 2013, 2001, 1989, 1977, 1965, 1953, 1941 or 1929, anyone? – are “perceptive, intelligent and graceful” (thank you Google, although that online game is rather irritating), just as their traits connected to all the other symbols of the zodiac.
By Kendall Defoe 12 months ago in Geeks
In the Hall of Crosses
Where was my head at when I headed down to my hometown’s art gallery? It was the day after the New Year rolled in, and I was aware that I would be leaving in less than a week. I had been spending most of the time with my family and noting the frailty in my mother and stepfather, more so in my mom (she will not be stopped when her home has to be clean and meals prepared). I went over to visit relatives during the holidays, but I felt like I was looking at something from a distance. Most of the people I know are all working in the same soul-deadening spots I managed to avoid, and I cannot really explain why I see their lives as sadder and more limited now. My neighbourhood has not changed at all (perhaps there are more people buying some of the newish homes around us; perhaps more people are retired and keeping to themselves – no change there, either). I had gone for a walk on the Bruce Trail on the birth of the new year, and there were the usual friendly faces and greetings, but it felt like I was stuck in a terrible pattern that I built for myself since I first discovered that path through nature. I had less than a week left, and I wanted something unique that spoke to me, and lifted me out of the deep funk I felt seeing where I came from (it also did not hurt that the day after New Year’s Day was a free day at the gallery; you take what you can get). So, on a Thursday, I caught a bus – could not get anyone interested in heading down with me and a bus seemed to be the right method of entering the downtown core – and with a new stop that put me a little too far from my destination, I went into the brown, brutalist structure that is our municipal gallery.
By Kendall Defoe 12 months ago in Photography
Choose Your Own
It was an honest mistake. Michael Modlum, long-time bachelor and full-time Central Branch patron, had not paid attention to the buttons on the elevator when he stepped aboard the already opened space. And then it dropped. Usually, he would have walked up the single flight of stairs to the fiction section, found a chair in an area not too hot or bright with sunlight (difficult on that day), and tried to read whatever had been left behind on a table or shelf nearby. But it was a much more tiring day and he felt he deserved the elevator. He was heavy in the waist and did not have any habits that would have taken care of that problem. He deserved this.
By Kendall Defoe 12 months ago in Fiction
David Lynch (January 20, 1946 - January 16, 2025)
“WHAT?” That was my reaction to the death of David Keith Lynch. I was at home on the one real day off I had this week between recovering from a very bad cold, teaching, prepping and cleaning up after the vacation that was time spent with my family. I was about to take the laundry out of the washer when I saw the message on Facebook that he had died and all I could think to say (or at least type) was one loud blurt from the heart. And it seems appropriate now that the person who put that notice up happened to be one of my former media students. She seemed to understand his importance not just to me, but to a host of us suburban weirdos who could see what was bubbling under the surface of all that brown and grey.
By Kendall Defoe about a year ago in Geeks
