The end of the year is not quite here, but we have that Solstice feeling already, simultaneously looking backwards and forwards by grand increments in time, not just the moment of every moment, but the big round milestones which tell us for certain that time is passing and the world is definitely growing older. Happy anniversary ...
It's been winding down for some time now, the season of finality, in the outdoors at least, in which what has been done is done, and what has not been done won't get done until at least next year. Our September and October were quietly filled with canning, cleaning, and not a few indulgences - all ...
The virtue of pushiness When D suggested we had time to visit a "small nearby museum on the history of steam power" I nearly spit out my beer on the boatdeck. Yes, yes, yes, and please yes. But I sensed immediately some disinterest among certain shipmates. There was a bit of inexplicable lollygagging on board, wasting time ...
Holland is a mass of contradictions. It is a straightforward-complicated, innovative-traditional, conformist-iconoclastic, supple-rigid, and altogether miraculous culture, a place of tolerated extremes, ancient trade, great learning, and surprising architecture. The oversized, perpetually open, and unadorned windows with a perfect view of everyone's private life within seem in opposition to the high and massive (and one hopes ...
One of the more marvelous parts of a summer full of marvels was spending a few days on a sailboat with old friends in the Netherlands during the last week of August.
In no particular order, because I am on mobile phone only these days and have not kept all the files in one place. The camera broke our first day in Naples! Dommage. But beauty requires no dateline. Enjoy.
Paris never appealed to me. It struck me as sprawling, expensive, pretentious, hard to enter, and even harder to leave. I don't even appreciate Beaux-Arts! (or so I thought) But this summer I must have been ready for the magic. I finally clicked with Paris. Some highlights from five days in the City of Lights: A palatial ...
A city so alluring - so filthy and pious and rude and storied and coastal and sweaty and ancient and delicious - that I don't want to share it. I just want to go back!
The end of the year is not quite here, but we have that Solstice feeling ...
It's been winding down for some time now, the season of finality, in the outdoors ...
The virtue of pushiness When D suggested we had time to visit a "small nearby museum ...