Racism often connotes an underlying fear or ignorance.

But what is a Gam? You might wear out your index-finger running up and down the columns of dictionaries, and never find the word, Dr. Johnson never attained to that erudition; Noah Webster’s ark does not hold it. Nevertheless, this same expressive word has now for many years been in constant use among some fifteen thousand true born Yankees. Certainly, it needs a definition, and should be incorporated into the Lexicon. With that view, let me learnedly define it. Gam. NOUN—A social meeting of two (or more) Whaleships, generally on a cruising-ground; when, after exchanging hails, they exchange visits by boats’ crews, the two captains remaining, for the time, on board of one ship, and the two chief mates on the other.

I have only the one body, in which I feel comfortable, but by rights, I should be a hermafrodite.

Funny, faux-naïve paintings by this Toronto artist resemble the works of a semitalented high school stoner steeped in heavy metal music, fantasy novels and French Symbolism. Mr. Ethier paints on easel-size panels in oleaginous glazes, creating an oozy, finger-painting-like luminosity.