Sunday 8 April 2024 Beyoğlu, İstanbul, Türkiye “What are the odds so long as the fire of soul is kindled at the taper of conviviality and the wing of friendship never moults a feather? What are the odds so long as the spirit is expanded by means of rosy wine and the present moment is… Continue reading Along the avenue
Tag: Russian Revolution
Canada Slim and the Sealed Train
Landschlacht, Switzerland, 4 November 2017 Three thoughts come to my mind when associated with the words “sealed train”: Easter Monday, 9 April 1917, when Lenin boarded a sealed train in Zürich bound for Petrograd (today´s St. Petersburg), which Winston Churchill described: “The Germans transported Lenin in a sealed train like a plague bacillus from Switzerland into… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Sealed Train
Canada Slim and the Undiscovered Country
Landschlacht, Switzerland, 20 October 2017 Captain Spock: Nature abhors a vacuum. I intend for you to replace me. Lt. Valerus: I could never replace you. I could only succeed you. (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country) Above: Poster for Star Trek VI It is a legitimate question. When we are gone, who replaces us? I know… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Undiscovered Country
Canada Slim and the Coming of the Fall
Landschlacht, Switzerland, 13 October 2017 There are some things that I don´t enjoy about working at Starbucks: shift work, impolite customers, how horribly messy the customers can be, how terrible things can become when things get insanely busy, especially with the arrival of autumn and the annual St. Gallen OLMA fair on now. No job is perfect. As… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Coming of the Fall
Canada Slim and the Birth of a Nation
Landschlacht, Switzerland, 9 October 2017 I was 24 and living in Ottawa, Canada, in 1989, when I read the news about the fall of the Berlin Wall that had separated West Germany from East Germany for a generation. Above: Centre Block, Parliament Buildings, Ottawa, Canada I would see remnants of this wall in subsequent visits to… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Birth of a Nation
Canada Slim and the High Road to Anarchy
Landschalacht, Switzerland, 7 September 2017 Six nights ago the world was shocked and saddened when a lone gunman in a hotel room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Resort and Casino on Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, shot into a crowd of more than 20,000 people, killing 60 and injuring hundreds. The world has learned that… Continue reading Canada Slim and the High Road to Anarchy
Canada Slim and the Bloodstained Ground
Landschlacht, Switzerland, 2 October 2017 I have returned, refreshed and revitalised, from a weekend away in Freiburg im Breisgau, in Germany´s Black Forest, ready to write. Above: Freiburg City Hall I had forgotten some of my own rules, some of my own motivations, for writing, which two of my best friends in Freiburg reminded me… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Bloodstained Ground
Canada Slim and the Dawn of a Revolution
20 September 2017, Landschlacht, Switzerland Let´s be blunt. Things are truly horrible in many countries on the planet these days. Especially in America. And there are some folks who suggest that a second US Civil War is coming. Which raises two important questions…. Could it happen? Should it happen? In political philosophy, the right of revolution… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Dawn of a Revolution
Canada Slim and the Forces of Darkness
Landschlacht, Switzerland, 10 September 2017 Sometimes you have to borrow from the best, to raise yourself up from the shoulders of the great. Being the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, with much focus paid on this event and Swiss connections to it, I have found too much too interesting to ignore. What follows is a… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Forces of Darkness
Canada Slim and the Zimmerwald Movement
Landschlacht, Switzerland, 7 September 2017 “I have come not to praise Caesar but to bury him.” (William Shakespeare) “One hundred years after the Revolution took Russia by storm, it might be the right time to re-examine why it happened, how it developed and why its lessons can still shape our vision and understanding of the world… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Zimmerwald Movement