Sailing against the tide
We live in an age that, for the most part, doesn’t believe in miracles or in any form of transcendence from the material world. Some believe in the miracles of “science” — although I suppose that has also taken a hit in the recent “Covid” years — but, other than that, I think most people…
I haven’t written so much about Germany, even though I have been living here for the past three years, for several reasons. The main one is that I never expected this country to be my permanent home, but just a place in which I accidentally and temporarily ended up for a while before moving to…
I am currently reading the souvenirs of Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, or, rather, a part of it focusing on her travels in Italy after having escaped the French Revolution. Madame Le Brun was no Raphael or Rembrandt, but she was a talented painter, mostly famous for her portraits, in particular for the several portraits she…
An investigation into Caravaggio’s earnings And now for something completely different. According to historical records, the painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio signed a contract in 1600 to create two paintings (which ended up being “The conversion of Saint Paul” and “The martyrdom of Saint Peter”) during a period of eight months, for 400 scudi —…
Perfect Days “Perfect Days”, Wim Wenders’ latest movie set in Tokyo, is a very poetic, minimalistic film about finding joy in the simple things of life. (I am usually not a great fan of Wenders, but this is a good one). In the film, the main character works as a public toilet cleaner, although his…
There are still ongoing protests by farmers in Germany. Just two days ago there was a big crowd protesting in Berlin. While they caused some traffic interruption, and for three days the railway workers also joined the strike, causing even more confusion, most people seem to support the farmers. Apparently the workers of big companies…
Sometimes I’m not completely sure if “they don’t make movies like they used to” or I am just getting old and grumpy. Probably a combination of both. Yesterday I started watching “Everything Everywhere at the Same Time”, or however it’s called — you know what I’m talking about, as it won the previous Oscar and…
So let’s conclude with our end-of-the-year report. The posts with most viewers here were the ones about politics, AI and immigration. The least viewed ones were the ones about travel or obscure movies. I am not sure what it means. I normally prefer to write about travel or obscure movies, but most people obviously prefer…
Getting a flu with heavy cough just as I was preparing to travel from Italy to Spain, I bought a pot of delicious “linden honey from the tuscan hills” to sooth my throat, but it was confiscated at the Amerigo Vespucci airport on Uncle Sam’s orders. Apparently, even solid-type honey counts as a “liquid” and…
Gemma Saint Gemma Galgani was born in 1878 into a poor family in a small village near Lucca, but they soon moved to Lucca as her father, a pharmacist, found work there. She was the fifth of eight siblings, only two females, the rest males. As it happened to other poor people at the time,…