Kid’s Books
Or the Meretricious Merits of the Mists of Yesteryear I practically had an epiphany the other day. Or rather, I would have, except I was too busy watching my childhood flash before my eyes. (It was mercifully brief, but very vivid; so Mike Horvath, if you’re out...
Carcassonne
APRIL 17 TO 19, 2006 Astonishingly enough, I have never been to Carcassonne. “What?! You’ve never been to Carcassonne!?” my French acquaintances always exclaim, with circumflexèd brows as if to emphasize the incredulity written on their faces. (Eyebrows are the...
A Letter from Xipangu
Or: Thoughts From Afar, Thoughts Close to Home In the early morning of October 12, 1492, Columbus stepped ashore on the low beach of Samana Cay in the New World. (Or any one of a dozen other locations in the Caribbean, all ardently defended by their partisans, take...
Moving Pictures
Or Films Do Get Around. THERE AND BACK AGAIN” AND “LORD OF THE BRUSH” are putting in appearances in several festivals this year. Here is a partial list of venues. I will do my best to get the two films properly integrated in the site somewhere, with a regularly...
Carcassonne
Or Sketching in Stone Carcassonne is a dream location for visiting illustrators. Walking about Carcassonne is like wandering inside a vast sketch. Carcassonne is done in broad strokes, with that ambivalence of line that all sketches have. Viollet-le-Duc, undoubtedly...
A Darker Shade of Pale
Or Colours for the Season Every year it’s the same thing. Spring has sprung, flowers flowered, buds budded and the new season is tugging on the curtain cord to usher in the cast for summer - t-shirts, shorts and general getting out of doors again. It’s about the time...
Live on Line
I think microphones are to most people what lures are to fish… terribly hard to resist… The following mp3 file was recorded at the press conference for the exhibition in Tokyo on Tuesday February 28th 2006. Go to: http://englishzone.seesaa.net/article/14496154.html...
Tokyo
February 27 – March 31, 2006 Every journey begins with a single step, or at least so the saying goes. Well, that’s a cinch, thought I. Let’s do it. In this case however, it involved a LOT more wrapping, packing, carpentry and heavy lifting… It seems this last week...
Doodling in Transit
Of Nomadism and Pencil Lead I cannot recall if my parents resorted to that all-too-familiar subterfuge to keep me occupied during trips: a pencil and a cheap block of paper. I know we certainly did with our son - the result: at least dozen weighty cardboard boxes full...
Heraldry
Or Saying What You Mean and Wearing It Too Although our modern-day yearning for heraldry is now mostly limited to brand-name endorsement (and to being different, just like everybody else), there is something curiously appealing about becoming a willing and walking...
A First Time for Everything
Or What Was That Question Again? Journalists seem to love what they call the “Questionnaire de Proust”, a mix-and-match potpourri of short and unanswerable questions designed to… to what? Actually, come to think of it, I cannot see any real purpose to being asked...
Drawing the Line Somewhere
Or (Ill-)Applied Commuter Skills I used to be a great commuter. Admittedly, given that I work at home, commuting in the classical sense is always limited to going from one room to another, but I also had the same attitude to my work. Dedication to efficiency,...