Watching Robert Lepage perform his seminal work The Far Side of the Moon in Vancouver last night, was an exercise in nostalgia. The play, that eloquently poses the question "are we alone?" by juxtaposing the space race with one man's quiet individual and familial struggles, pits the vastness of the cosmos against the smallness of the mundane. In the end there is an uneasy, but graceful reconciliation.

Canadian playwright (screenwriter and director and producer) extraordinaire Brad Fraser has been lighting up Canada's literary scene for many years. Outside of his stage projects, he shares his blunt take on politics and other hot topics in Xtra Magazine every month in his Fraser's Edge column. Like the man himself, his columns are reasoned, outspoken, often witty, and never boring.