The Tinderbox: MARK HARRIS: 20 Questions

Mark, you’re always a busy guy.

Please tell me about your current projects.

I'm currently rehearsing a new band,

we've yet to pick a band name or decide on songs,

but it's promising.

What else?

I’ve been writing an autobiographical comic book,

“Therapeutic Narcissism”,

as a way of exploring self-deprecating concepts

in my attempt to come to terms with the divine banality of life.

I have a couple pages left to finish before I publish it.

Are you in school right now?

You’re always in school.

What are you studying?

Religion, focusing on Himalayan religion

and the issue of religion in the Public Sphere

Political commitments?

I ran as to be a Member of Provincial Parliament in the

last Ontario election with the Freedom Party, a fringe libertarian party.

I'm currently apathetic.

Very busy guy. Do you feel like a machine sometimes?

Yes.

How do you bring calm into your daily life?

I try to meditate every morning before setting out a list of things to do in a day

How do you bring sustainability and environmental consciousness

into your daily life?

I compost

Are calm and connection to nature difficult to find in the city?

There is a pretty vibrant community of conscious people

creating sustainable space in the city,

running small gardens and such, but you need to seek them out.

I currently live in a U of T Frat House, so

I have really no direct connection to sustainability or silence.

What are your favourite times of day?

I’m a morning person but also an insomniac.

My favorite time of day is between 4 and 10am

Favourite TTC route?

Dufferin Bus.

If the highway was removed from Toronto's waterfront, would you opt for more condos or for more public beaches?

I would opt for more condos. As it is, Toronto's waterfront is a desolate tourist attraction with very little to offer residents like me. The more condos we build there, the longer we can keep other neighborhoods yuppie-free and affordable. Better we stack them all there.

If time travel could help you escape the city,

what period of history would you flee to?

I would escape too Greece 500 BCE to study under Pythagoras. He ran a commune of vegetarian magician philosophers who studied math and music.

We need to remember the beautiful crazies like Pythagoras.

Who would you like to see sainted and why?

I think Christopher Hitchens should be sainted

because the irony would piss a lot of people off,

atheists and religious folk alike.