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peter

@peterhemminger.com
107 followers 26 following 138 posts

Comms professional in non-profit world. Former arts administrator. Increasingly skeptical of social media. he/him/they. Host of @theam.ca

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peter @peterhemminger.com · 03/09/2026
I spent a lot of time this spring talking to folks about arts funding in Alberta. Glad this piece is finally out — thanks to all the artists, arts admins, funders, foundations, and others who helped this all come together. albertaviews.ca/rewilding-th...
albertaviews.ca
Rewilding the Arts - Alberta Views
Reducing the Werklund Centre’s reliance on grant funding played a significant role in securing provincial support for its expansion.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 20/07/2026
My midlife crisis is apparently just rereading all the graphic novels I liked as a 20-year-old and also being really tired all the time. Re-read Lucifer this winter and Invisibles last year and the universe just gave me all of Transmet in a little free library outside a church, so how could I not?
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 13/07/2026
Spent the birthday weekend investigating roof leaks and wasp nesting, arranging car towing, and tracking down mice entryways. But I also managed some nice moments visiting friends, listening to music, and at least briefly wandering near nature. Here’s hoping the good bits are what I’ll remember.
Close-up of Musk Thistle flower: a muppet-like fuzzy pink and white core surrounded by a crown of radiant pink-gold petals.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 29/06/2026
Too much time reading people’s off-the-cuff half-thoughts, not enough on the long-form stuff they spent years working through. No wonder thinking deeply is getting harder.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 21/06/2026
This province is going to break me one day.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 14/06/2026
Nothing like taking a couple stabs at freelancing again to reinforce my respect for the profession/wonder how anyone can look at a piece they wrote without hurling their laptop into the nearest ocean.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 12/06/2026
Imagine if people took the same principles they use in AI prompting—clear instructions, tons of context, generosity around mistakes and iteration—and applied them to their working relationships with actual humans.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 03/06/2026
My hot event take: Two-person panel with a moderator who can ask good follow-ups > keynote >>> four-person panel. Depth + spontaneity is the best use of live events. Lectures at least have enough depth to generate insight. Panels aspire to diversity of thought but end up just giving a gloss.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 17/05/2026
Hidden surprise at the Montreal botanical gardens.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 09/05/2026
Great piece here on Council's looming decision to scrap the free fare zone. This quote is especially frustrating. Even if the zone was a (40+ year) pilot, a successful pilot doesn't mean "end and try something new," it means turn it into a permanent program and expand it.
“I think it’s a pilot project that has served well since 1981,” said Ward 6 Councillor Pantazopoulos at committee. “A pilot by design needs to end and try something new.”

But the CTrain free fare zone isn’t—and wasn’t—a pilot project.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 01/05/2026
What fun things are happening in Montreal in the next two weeks?
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 01/05/2026
I still haven’t figured out how I want to use Bluesky.
UBI is a start on the path to letting people be people first and economic actors second. It would enable C following passions, taking creative risks, and spending more time simply being.

Al is a continuation of a path that outsources the things that make us human, reducing people to consumers, drowning out legitimate human voices, and making it so e culture is a hyper-optimized form of economic output.

One of these is considered radical.
The other is considered inevitable.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 30/04/2026
I want to host a podcast, but without having to keep to a specific theme, or build an audience, or edit anything, or publish it, or even record it. Just interesting conversations for their own sake. Just friends, I guess. What I want is friends.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 10/04/2026
I feel like the key to looking competent is understanding jargon while also thinking that it's stupid.
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CJSW 90.9FM @cjsw.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
CJSW Live! Check out the live sessions of Jed Arbour, Shoplifting, and Jairus Sharif with Malcolm Mooney. Every Friday, we'll be dropping a batch of live sessions recorded in the CJSW studios. Check out more sessions @ youtube.com/@CJSWRadio
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 08/03/2026
I'm sure there's a hacky joke to be made from the fact that International Women's Day gets one fewer hour than all the other days this year.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 07/03/2026
Spending my free time listening to multi-part podcasts on nuclear annihilation and societal collapse and reading about the dangerous delusions of tech billionaires is somehow not as relaxing as I’d hoped.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 05/02/2026
It's not that I'm not paying attention. I just don't have the words.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 14/01/2026
Spending my free time in 2026 so far reading Lucifer and playing Hades II and no I don’t see a theme here.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 12/01/2026
This was the most popular thing I've ever posted, and seems even more relevant now than it did seven years ago. Maintenance isn't glamorous, but skipping it to keep the budget down isn't fiscal responsibility, it's taking on a loan where you don't know the interest rate or when it'll be called in.
Tweet from April 3, 2019. Text reads Fiscal debt is only one kind of debt.
Not building and maintaining infrastructure creates a debt. Sacrificing the quality of education for a generation creates a debt. Failing to address climate change creates a debt.
Social debts are real, and ignoring that is irresponsible.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 06/01/2026
Opened a soda bottle by popping the cap against a picnic table. Cap flew straight into my eye and scratched my cornea.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 04/01/2026
At least this winter has the decency to be pretty.
Residential street at night, with hoar frost on all the trees, illuminated by a street light.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 02/01/2026
View of Calgary’s skyline over the bow river, Jan. 2, 2026.
View of the downtown Calgary skyline in the far distance on a foggy, cloudy day. Bottom two thirds of the image is a frozen Bow River, with chunks of jagged ice and small patches where the river is more visible.
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The AM @theam.ca · 02/01/2026
A new year's reintroduction: The AM is a weekly radio show on @cjsw.bsky.social in Calgary, AB, airing live on Monday mornings at cjsw.com and 90.9FM locally. Each episode is three hours of music to help find your footing for the week. Electronic, jazz, psych, shoegaze, mostly new, but not always.
cjsw.com
The A.M. – CJSW Radio
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 02/01/2026
The medium that defines the 21st century so far is the feed. A boundless, contextless present, no beginning and no end. Hypertext promised connection between every idea, rabbit holes leading to deeper insights and new understanding. The feed is the opposite: fragmented, shallow, distracted.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 31/12/2025
I would've thought an environment minister would have had something to say about the environment in their resignation letter, but what do I know.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 22/12/2025
Anyone seen any good essays on the first quarter of the 21st century? I'm trying to put together some of my own thoughts but would love to see the arc of the last 25 years as interpreted by people who are smarter than me.
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The AM @theam.ca · 19/12/2025
AM Gold 2025: 50 favourite albums from the past year, and 150+ others that are also very much worth a listen. Ambient, psychedelic, modular synth, jazz, library grooves, jangle pop, and other sounds suited to early mornings and contemplative moments. wanderlines.ca/2025/12/18/a...
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 07/12/2025
This seems like blasphemy but I think I spent too much time this year watching movies and listening to music? I think in 2026 I need to spend more time having conversations and eating food with people and taking part in things that aren't scripted or recorded. 100+ movies is too much.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 06/12/2025
Just saw the first episode of Welcome to Derry. Does it get any better from there? Will I get to see any space turtles? I need the answer to at least one of those to be yes if I'm going to keep watching.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 01/12/2025
Anything you believe that I disagree with: Divisive rhetoric Anything I believe that you disagree with: Common sense
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 28/11/2025
People know you can make smart moves in 2D chess, too, right? Doing something strategic doesn't always imply access to whole other planes of existence.
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Drew Anderson @drewanderson.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
A national project list that doesn't do anything (yet) and a pipeline that doesn't exist. It's amazing how much debate nothing can stir up. #ableg #cdnpoli thenarwhal.ca/alberta-pipe...
thenarwhal.ca
The real major project is politics, not pipelines | The Narwhal
Carney’s major projects push has angered many in Alberta over perceived lack of support for a pipeline project that doesn’t exist
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 23/11/2025
Is there a piece of fiction that describes our current moment as well as something like 1984 and Dr. Strangelove did for theirs?
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 14/11/2025
Huh. Cold November rain.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 10/11/2025
The days don’t last long this time of year but they sure can be pretty.
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The AM @theam.ca · 31/10/2025
No one does Halloween mixes better than @vintageobscura.net. Here's a decade-worth of their playlists to set the right mood for today.
youtube.com
Halloween Mixes (2014 - Present) - YouTube
Every October, Vintage Halloween Mixes.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 28/10/2025
Interesting seeing conservatives arguing for restoring faith in capitalism by giving workers ownership of the means of production and access to the surplus value of their labour. thehub.ca/2025/10/28/c...
thehub.ca
Could increased employee ownership restore confidence in Canada’s economy?
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 28/10/2025
I knew about the federal notwithstanding clause. I didn't know we also had one in our provincial bill of rights and human rights act. If the reasoning federally was to get provinces to sign on to the constitution, what was the reasoning provincially?
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 23/10/2025
Anyway, why can’t we all be more like this guy?
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 23/10/2025
A whole lot of people make it their mission in life to read everything in the least charitable way possible, and to make sure you know it.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 23/10/2025
My friends are getting elected to public office and I’m sharing songs I like on campus radio. Pretty much equal, right?
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 23/10/2025
Is there a word for when you see your Lyft driver getting farther away every time you check?
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 22/10/2025
I was pretty uninspired going into the election but I’m settling into a quiet optimism? We have the most new councillors we’ve had in over a century, heading basically straight into budgeting. Seems like as good a time as any to reach out and make your voice heard, before positions get entrenched.
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CJSW 90.9FM @cjsw.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
If you missed any episodes, you can catch them online! The Funding Drive goes until this Friday OCT24th cjsw.com/donate/
cjsw.com
Donate – CJSW Radio
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 09/10/2025
I’m being pandered to, and I like it.
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CJSW 90.9FM @cjsw.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
Funding Drive is back! Get ready for a full month of events, followed by a week long radiothon from OCT 17-24. Get ready to Play/Connect/Discover with CJSW! Check out CJSW.COM/DONATE to support independent radio! This year's art provided by Daniel Bejarano.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 08/10/2025
90% of this article is calling Carney arrogant, thin skinned, short tempered, dismissive, and maybe borderline manipulative. One paragraph says he put in a dress code and wants people to be punctual. “Demanding boss” is by far the most flattering framing a headline could give.
macleans.ca
Mark Carney Is a Very Demanding Boss - Macleans.ca
His elbows-up enthusiasm won him the election. Now he’s governing like a Bay Street exec.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 08/10/2025
I’m trying to internalize the idea that you can be a goofball who does silly dances and also sing in four languages, quote 13th century poetry and drop life lessons in deceptively deep but also sometimes just plain silly songs. But “The wine is for tasting, not discussing,” so I’ll be quiet.
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peter @peterhemminger.com · 30/09/2025
I’m a little surprised how rusty I could feel after just three weeks off? Still a great mix of music, though. Despite everything, people are putting out great tunes these days.
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