Advice for anxious times from the FT’s management columnist, a French children’s newspaper, and a former commander of the Israeli Defense Force. On a practical level, they all boil down to the same thing: carry on as normal. I must remember to do this. After Britain’s EU referendum, Lucy Kellaway didn’t do any work either, butContinue reading “Advice for anxious times: a compilation”
Category Archives: Living
Forms of Meditation That Are Not Mediation: Lessons from New York
A character in Jonathan Letham’s Motherless Brooklyn describes mediation as sitting and thinking about nothing without falling asleep. Awake is a higher form of consciousness than asleep, but thinking about nothing is a challenge. I have attempted it on the metro and each time ended in failure; like an infant in a car or an elevator,Continue reading “Forms of Meditation That Are Not Mediation: Lessons from New York”
Coney Island and the Occulus, New York
How To Make a Mountain Disappear, or Montreal Spring Watch Continued
In my last post I said I was keeping a deliberate eye on spring, it being so crazy here that it can induce that feeling that one may have blacked-out for the duration. Then the view was rather grim: no snow and no leaves. At the time, I suspected that the tree outside my windowContinue reading “How To Make a Mountain Disappear, or Montreal Spring Watch Continued”
“A Hobbling Wight” and Details from the Rijksmuseum
Following a frisbee related injury, I have received intimations of my own fragility and, at least for today, am unable to walk. Appropriate then that I am reading Moby Dick, and while my condition renders the mad, one-legged captain Ahab unusually sympathetic, the narrator, Ishmael reminds me that this fragility is a more usual conditionContinue reading ““A Hobbling Wight” and Details from the Rijksmuseum”
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace: a review
Just watched Adam Curtis’s documentary, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, which, elegant graphics and poetic title aside, seems to be selling the audience short. (The title really is poetry and is from Richard Brautigan’s fifth collection.)
“Red Chardonnay”
A good day’s work done, marking and preparing lessons. After lunch, I found time for a walk, but it’s my day off so after dinner a glass of wine is in order. To the piano bar at the Glenmoriston, taking in the islands and the birch trees with another short walk. It’s quiet when IContinue reading ““Red Chardonnay””
Parisian Elegance, or How To Sell With Rats
On a recent trip to Paris, my phone was stolen, depriving me not only of my photographs but also my pruneaux en armangac at Louis-Phillipe. They were exchanged for a trip to the Commissariat de la Police in the cinquiéme. As consolation my old phone yielded up this delightful proof of the enduring French artContinue reading “Parisian Elegance, or How To Sell With Rats”
The Rememberance of Things Fast (July to December 2009)
14th July 2009: On this day, of all days, I burn my boats and storm the Bastille. When there’s nothing left to burn you have to set yourself on fire so, sans appartement, sans emploi, I am moving to Paris. 14th August 2009: I am dispossessed. My worldly goods are variously at my mother’s, withContinue reading “The Rememberance of Things Fast (July to December 2009)”
