Derek Neal lives in Hamilton, Ontario where he teaches English to international students as part of the English Language Development program at McMaster University. Prior to this he lived in Italy, France, and Montreal, where he also taught English in various capacities. He holds a B.A. in both English and French from the University of Vermont and wrote his honors thesis on Albert Camus (Grace, Play, and the Body in the Writings of Albert Camus). His other writing is available on Substack: https://derekneal.substack.com/ Email: drock1237 [at] gmail.com
by Derek Neal We have many choices when deciding what to eat. For most of human history, however, there has likely been little to no choice at all: people ate what was available to them or what their culture led them to eat. Now things are not so simple. As I mentioned in Part 1,…
by Derek Neal What to eat? A seemingly simple question, but one that has become increasingly difficult to answer. And why is that? My initial hypothesis is that as modern society becomes more and more distanced from traditional and local cuisines, people have less guidance as to what to eat; this puts increased pressure on…
by Derek Neal It’s the time of year end lists: Best Movies of 2021, Best TV Shows, Best Fiction. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen many movies that came out this past year, haven’t streamed many TV shows, haven’t read many books. I’m not saying I haven’t seen any movies, or watched any shows, or read any…
by Derek Neal One of those mysterious concepts that we use as a criterion for judging a novel or film is a “sense of place.” I call it mysterious because it’s so often poorly defined—we recognize it because we can feel it, but what goes into creating it? How can one go about transporting a…
by Derek Neal I’m a bit surprised to see that all my previous columns for this website are about language in some way. I didn’t set out for this to be the case, but a clear pattern has emerged, although through no design of my own. When planning this Monday’s column, I decided that I…
by Derek Neal I went to France to study abroad as a 20-year-old in my third year of university. At the time, I had been studying French for eight years, but when I arrived in France, I found I was unable to express myself beyond the most rudimentary statements, and I couldn’t understand the rapid-fire…
by Derek Neal According to the website Rotten Tomatoes, there are four types of movies: good-good movies, good-bad movies, bad-good movies, and bad-bad movies. These types can be identified using the Rotten Tomatoes score for each movie, particularly the relationship between the critics’ score and the audience’s score. Let me explain. Rotten Tomatoes is a…
by Derek Neal As far as I know, Bret Easton Ellis is the only person with the audacity to charge money for a podcast. Every other podcast I listen to is free or at least becomes free shortly after an exclusive period for subscribers. While Ellis’s podcast used to function in this way, a couple…
by Derek Neal As an aspiring writer of fiction, I like to try and understand the mechanics of what I’m reading. I attempt to ascertain how a writer achieves a certain effect through the manipulation of language. What must happen for us to get “wrapped up” in a story, to lose track of time, to…