Canada Slim and the Vienna Waltz

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 9 December 2017 There are moments when one has to accept one´s limitations. For example, the wife and I were asked to attend her employer´s Christmas Party yesterday evening, but neither one of us was healthy (or motivated) enough to attend. I have been home all week when I would have rather been working, but… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Vienna Waltz

Canada Slim and the City of the Thousand

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 7 December 2017 First impressions are lasting. And one rarely gets a second chance to make a “first” impression. Today, despite my desire to remain abed at home and nurse my damnably durable cold – with all its joyless aspects of stuffed nose, scratchy throat, hoarse voice, congested chest, sinus headaches and resulting… Continue reading Canada Slim and the City of the Thousand

Canada Slim and the Right Man

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 6 December 2017 Is there such a thing as an indispensable man? This is a question I have often asked myself when considering both my life and the lives of the famous. I ask myself this question recently as I am, once again, forced to remain at home in bed with, yet another cold… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Right Man

Canada Slim and the Basel Butterfly Effect

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 3 December 2017 I want to run away. As work increases and pressure mounts to accomplish as much as possible in this last month of the calendar year…. I want to run away. And though employers try to distract us through Christmas parties from the pressure they themselves create, I find myself nostalgic, almost homesick,… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Basel Butterfly Effect

Canada Slim and the Unremarkable Town

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 1 December 2017 Soon, thoughts of expatriates will turn to thoughts of home as Christmas draws ever closer. My American friends will wish to fly back to California and Florida, Boston and Philadelphia. My Canadian friend will wish to fly to Nova Scotia to proudly show off her new daughter, while my Indian… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Unremarkable Town

Canada Slim and the Calculated Cathedral

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 29 November 2017 It is a season of grey days and black, almost eternal, nights. As much as I comprehend why Canadians celebrate their Thanksgiving in October rather than November because the growing seasons are shorter up there, I occasionally wonder if the Americans might not be onto something by celebrating life at… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Calculated Cathedral

Canada Slim and the Thundering Hollows

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 26 November 2017 Where is the line between insanity and sanity? What does it actually mean to be sane? Sanity involves wholeness, whereas insanity implies brokenness? One theory suggests that sanity is tied to how we fit with what is actually going on in the world. Psychologist Erich Fromm proposed that, not just… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Thundering Hollows

Canada Slim and the Voyageur´s Album

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 22 November 2017 I have just returned home from the dentist (one more tooth less) and I find that listening to Franz Liszt´s Hungarian Rhapsodies seems to keep pace with the throbbing pain experienced inside my mouth, as if each tooth is an ivory piano key pressed upon in tempo with the music being produced by… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Voyageur´s Album

Canada Slim and the Wonders on the Wall

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 21 November 2017 I just had my first viewing of a DVD I had never seen before last evening: The Lady in the Van, starring Dame Maggie Smith as “The Lady in the Van Miss Mary “Margaret ” Theresa Shepherd” and Alex Jennings as “Alan Bennett” upon whose memoirs the story is taken. This is a… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Wonders on the Wall

Canada Slim and the Wild Child of Toggenburg

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 20 November 2017 Last week ago I began to tell a story. (See Canada Slim and the Road to Reformation of this blog.) A story of how a religion and a continent tore itself apart over questions of how to worship a God who cannot be proven to exist. Ah, the folly of man! My… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Wild Child of Toggenburg