Brianland

. on the Hunter Thompson & The Beat Generation panel at GonzoFest July, 17, 2026 — photo by Erin Hemmer . On my recent July return to my beloved NYC, I stayed in the old hotel next door to where I basically grew up in New York — the north-west corner of Washington Square Park […]

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Art Is My God   Late on election night November 2024 as the nightmare of America’s choice of ugly over decent became clear, I wrote in my notes — “spend every minute in the world of art.”  And that’s what I’ve done ever since. You can’t control elections — like you can’t control sports.  I […]

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Traversing the Impossible . Fifty years ago this month my life changed forever and for the better. I had transferred a couple years earlier from a private boys school in Winnipeg into the public school system because, frankly, I wanted to be around girls . . . and out of the almost military-school-like life I’d […]

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On this weekend 17 years ago — in the heat of the Democratic primary of 2008 between Hillary & Obama — I started BrianHassett.com. Every month since then for 17 years I’ve written at least one new piece for the site. “17” has been a weird number that’s followed me around my whole life from […]

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The Day I Thanked Arthur Miller   One of the nice things about living in Manhattan — you often bump into and sometimes get to talk to really smart people on the sidewalk.  When they’re famous, mostly you just nod acknowledgment and smile — like seeing Robin Williams walking and playing with his son on […]

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The Art of Glass, the Art of Business, and the Art of Love . One day a hundred years ago, or maybe it was five, I noticed this store called the Squisha House opened around the corner with insanely cool glass pipes!  What the hell?!  In little Bronte Village?!  I had to investigate! After keeping […]

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You wake up one day and your whole life changes just by the chance seeing of a picture. Much the way it might with a chance spotting of a poster on a bookstore wall. As Jack says, “My books are my children.”  And as Mama always preached — pregnancy can happen in an instant. Unlike […]

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The Beats, The Beatles & The Brotherhood . . This month I met a fellow Toronto-area author, John Arnone, who’s just written a book about The Beatles and Canada — Us and Them: Canada, Canadians and The Beatles.  In fact, in keeping with our Canadian heritage, we met after a ball hockey game and then […]

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The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel – The Greatest Show in Television History THIS IS A ROUGH DRAFT — MUCH MORE TO COME NEED SCREEN-GRAB LENNY BRUCE  I know I’m a few years late on this, but — √ season one — 8 episodes √ two — 10 episodes √ three — 8 episodes √. four — […]

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The Power of Recycling . I inherited a bunch of stuff when my dear friend Uta passed away a few years ago.  One thing was her old laptop.  I wiped it clean of her personal files, and always thought I might use it, but it’s a PC and I’m a Mac guy, and “once you […]

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