Amy Spurway

Did you have a mid-life epiphany inspired by a comedy icon on your 2026 bingo card? No? Me neither. But as a forty-nine-year-old woman deep in the miseries of perimenopause and other half-century horrors, I’ve been seeking a clearer vision of myself and where I might want to go in the coming decades — and my progressive lenses certainly aren’t cutting…

Forgive me, Canadian comedy fans, for I have sinned. It has been a dog’s age since my last confession, and I’m also not Catholic. Still, here are a couple of things to get the ball rolling: I am a cynic. Bone-deep Gen‑X cynicism. As such, the moment I laid eyes on the cover of Paul Myers’s John Candy: A Life in Comedy — with its cotton candy pink text and black and white headshot of the baby-faced actor — I was…

First, a confession: I am a donair heretic here in Halifax. My fondest (albeit fuzziest) memories of this town’s iconic meat ’n’ pita mess-fest were actually made in Fredericton, circa 1995, and involved the highly dubious donair submarine sandwiches peddled by the equally dubious campus character known as Rog the Sub Guy. I also believe that lettuce absolutely does belong on…