According to NASA scientists, an asteroid will do a fly-by in the skies above ol’ Earth next week. These good folks, who have spent decades studying the skies and the stars and everything in between, assure us that there is nothing to worry about and that we are completely safe. Of course, why should we… Continue reading The end of the world as we know it?
Thus endeth the lesson
This coming Monday I will be thinking about a woman I have never met who will teach for the first time my last student whom she has never met. Final lesson of my teaching career until October (and maybe final one of all?) took place yesterday evening. My private student in Weinfelden (See: No smile… Continue reading Thus endeth the lesson
Taming the black dog
Today is the Ides of September and clearly it is an excuse of a day to make some changes. Of late, I have been plunged into a state of gloom. A heavy black cloud has descended without warning, for no particular reason, and illogically and irrationally I have been unable to see my way out.… Continue reading Taming the black dog
The sounds of silence
First thoughts upon first awakening are sometimes strange and wonderful things…. (After all, there must be something positive about getting up at 0400 in the morning to be ready to do a 0630 shift at Starbucks St. Gallen, an hour’s distance from my home.) I remember snatches of dreams that have somehow drifted over from… Continue reading The sounds of silence
Love thine enemy?
On 6 February 1998, Season 4, Episode 3, (Hearts and Minds), of the TV show The Outer Limits, was broadcast. “In order to survive, a soldier must fight many battles, physical as well as mental. But in the heat of the struggle, reality can sometimes fade, like memory, until only one thing remains certain…the first… Continue reading Love thine enemy?
Only a cup of coffee?
“Not that many consumers care to dwell on where their fruit has come from, much less where their shirts were made or who fashioned the rings which connect their shower hose to the basin. The origins and travels of our purchases remain matters of indifference…. Why, then, endowed as they are with both practical importance… Continue reading Only a cup of coffee?
The other side of Wonderland
US Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump proposes a wall along the US-Mexico border, funded by Mexico, to keep illegal immigrants out of the US. Greece is uneasy about the recent flood of refugees from the civil unrest happening in neighbouring Macedonia. Syrian and Iraqi borders are porous and leaking escapees from the ISIS caliphate conquest… Continue reading The other side of Wonderland
Sunshine Sketches of the Wild, Wild East
“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.” This was the catchphrase for the 1930s US radio show, “The Shadow“, as well for the 1994 film of the same name, starring Alec Baldwin and Penelope Ann Miller. I was reminded of this phrase when driving back to Landschlacht yesterday after… Continue reading Sunshine Sketches of the Wild, Wild East
An artistic temperament?
It seems at times that all kinds of odd characteristics and behaviour go with the job of being an artist… French Impressionist painter Claude Monet (1840 – 1926) was working on a group of winter landscapes. The pictures were set in very beautiful and spectacular mountainous countryside and featured an oak tree and a river.… Continue reading An artistic temperament?
The Emperor’s New Culture
Fort Worth, Texas, 1989: We are driving at a furious pace on the interstate. Another argument ensues between ex-fiancee sculptress Susan and I over artistic responsibility. I express disgust that one painting, American Barnett Newman’s Voice of Fire, an abstract painting of three vertical stripes – the outer two blue, the inner one red –… Continue reading The Emperor’s New Culture