Sunday 26 October 2025 Ankara, Türkiye The night is still heavy over Ankara when you wake, not to the call of inspiration, but to the high-pitched drone of a mosquito. It is 3:30 a.m. Outside, the world sleeps. Inside, something stirs — part irritation, part calling. The kind that brings a man to lace his… Continue reading Café de la Paix
Tag: literature
The Death of Time
Tuesday 21 October 2025 Ankara, Türkiye Above: View from the mall at the base of Atakule TV tower in Ankara, Türkiye Time was wheeled onto the operating table at 3:47 PM. Its pulse fluttering like a bird trapped in a glass cage. Breath shallow, heart laboring beneath the harsh fluorescent glare of endless screens. The… Continue reading The Death of Time
The ostrich in the room
Sunday 5 October 2025 Ankara, Türkiye Above: Başkent Millet Bahçesi Park, Ankara, Türkiye There is an old story about the ostrich, repeated since the days of Pliny the Elder, that when danger approaches the bird buries its head in the sand, imagining that what it cannot see cannot see it. In Natural History, Pliny the… Continue reading The ostrich in the room
The cheese transporter
“Inside every human being, there is a loneliness greater than any storm. Some try to fill it with people, others with dreams. And a few, poor souls, only ever find the silence inside growing louder.” Sabahattin Ali, Kürk Mantolu Madonna (Madonna in a Fur Coat) Above: Turkish writer Sabahattin Ali Spring arrived this week, with… Continue reading The cheese transporter
Floréal 1, Year 233
UNIVERSITY LECTURE HALL – DAYGeneva, Switzerland He walked resolutely from his dusty, book-lined office. Faint rays of afternoon sun sliced through motes in the air. PROFESSOR LINTON MARCH stood at the front of the lecture hall, the chalk in his hand a small but heavy weapon. He wrote “FRENCH REVOLUTION” across the blackboard, the squeak… Continue reading Floréal 1, Year 233
Candle in the wind
Friday 18 April 2025 (Good Friday) Landschlacht, Canton Thurgau, Switzerland On this day in the predominantly Christian nation of Switzerland there is little that anyone can do today. Above: Flag of Switzerland Shops and businesses and cinemas are all closed to commemorate the execution of Christ by crucifixion on Golgotha (Calvary) outside the walls of… Continue reading Candle in the wind
Seeing red
Part Three of Peace of Mind / Part Two of The Road to Rorschach Sunday 6 April 2025 Landschlacht, Canton Thurgau, Schweiz Above: St. Leonhard’s Chapel, Landschlacht, Canton Thurgau, Schweiz I returned yesterday evening from a five-day mini-vacation in Bologna, Italy. Memory, at least mine, is much like a pot of tea. It needs time… Continue reading Seeing red
The invisible man
Eskişehir, Türkiye Wednesday (Çarşamba) 25 December (Aralık) 2024 “There is such a sameness in my life at present it is not worthwhile to keep a journal.“ Nicholas Cresswell, Monday 13 October 1777 Above: British diarist Nicholas Cresswell (1750 – 1804) Cresswell was the son of a landowner and sheep farmer in Crowden-le-Booth, Edale, Derbyshire. Above: Holy Trinity Parish… Continue reading The invisible man
The one with two lives
Poetry consists of “making notes in the margins of that photo album that is life”. Emilio Quintana Above: Archidona, Málaga Province, España Sunday 1 September 2024 Eskişehir, Türkiye In a sense, the poet lives not one life, but two: The life of he who holds the pen that makes the poem and the poem which… Continue reading The one with two lives
The recumbent lion
Above: The natural phenomenon of the karst erosion in El Torcal de Antequera, Andalusia, España “Throw the lumber over, man! Let your Boat of Life be light, packed with only what you need – a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a… Continue reading The recumbent lion