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
Tag: travel
Canada Slim and the Lure of Italian Journeys
Landschlacht, Switzerland, 4 September 2017 It´s not that Switzerland isn´t inspirational. It is. It has inspired Anita Brookner’s Hotel du Lac and Albert Cohen’s Her Lover. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein here and Lord Byron The Prisoner of Chillon. From Julius Caesar to Jean Jacques Rousseau, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and John Le Carré, Hermann Hesse and Patricia Highsmith… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Lure of Italian Journeys
Canada Slim and the Great Explorer
Landschlacht, Switzerland, 24 August 2017 Let me begin with an apology or two. Much time has gone by since I started this blog and I feel like a negligent parent towards this activity and the few folks who read this blog. Life has been busy and it has been complicated, but let´s try to recapture the muse… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Great Explorer
Big Yellow Taxi
Landschlacht, Switzerland, Ides of March 2017 These are interesting times we live in, where nothing seems as certain as it once was. Uncertainty as to whether foreign governments can determine other national elections… Increased irrationality and xenophobia and hate crimes against folks whose only offence is the appearance of being different… Wars that never end,… Continue reading Big Yellow Taxi
Slave to the Machine / One Flew Over the Internet
Landschlacht, Switzerland, 12 March 2017 I like Facebook. There I said it. I like the variety of news items that appear, the exchange of ideas, the casual contact with friends and family close or far away, and I find Facebook gives me a forum to share my thoughts. But a few days ago I began to notice… Continue reading Slave to the Machine / One Flew Over the Internet
Bleeding Beautiful
Landschlacht, Switzerland, 28 February 2017 There are friends and stories that remain in the back of your mind that sometimes require some dramatic moment to have their memory come rushing to your forethoughts. Such is the case of my Indian friend Sumit, originally of Orissa Province, India, and now Canadian resident of Ontario. I have known… Continue reading Bleeding Beautiful
The fashionable dead
Landschlacht, Switzerland, 3 January 2017 The scene outside my window seems worlds apart and away for the world I am about to describe…for the streets here in this wee Swiss hamlet by the Lake of Constance are covered in snow both magical and mysterious. You could spend days explaining to me the science behind snowfall… Continue reading The fashionable dead
Take me back to Constantinople
Romanshorn, Switzerland, 2 January 2017 Slow start to the day and to the week finds us, the wife and I, having a late breakfast, then walking along the shores of the Lake of Constance. Here at least it has been a green Christmas season. In fact, yesterday´s Sonntag Zeitung remarks that Switzerland had never seen a… Continue reading Take me back to Constantinople
Walks of Life: The Apple and the Grape
Landschlacht, Canton Thurgau, Switzerland, 6 November 2016 It is true. I often feel quite critical of this country in which I have resided in these past six years. I criticize its government and its xenophobic policies. I criticize its people and their parochial ways. I criticize its economy with its soulless greed. But what I cannot find… Continue reading Walks of Life: The Apple and the Grape
Canada Slim behind bars 2: Punishment preserved
Landschlacht, Switzerland, 2 July 2016 Brexit and the European Championship seem all anyone can talk about these days, whether in the classes where I teach or at the Starbucks stores where I work as a barista. As I don´t have a stake in either event, my thoughts are more preoccupied with my duties at hand, plans… Continue reading Canada Slim behind bars 2: Punishment preserved