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
Category: History
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 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
Canada Slim and the Holiday Chronicles
Landschlacht, Switzerland, 16 November 2017 I hate November: shorter days (dawn still incomplete after 6 am, dusk already started at 1600), grey clouds ever threatening rain, blocking the sun by day and the stars by night. November with its month flower, the chrysanthemum, a symbol of adversity, grief and death. And I miss seeing the Lake under blue skies… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Holiday Chronicles
Canada Slim and the Outcast
Landschlacht, Switzerland, 13 November 2017 Maybe it´s the endless days of grey skies outside or being restless with being confined indoors by illness that has got me feeling morbid of late. Perhaps my ghastly mood has been affected by the topics I have written about recently: ghosts and corpses on the London Tube (Canada Slim Underground) and the… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Outcast