A visit to the iconic city sparks some thoughts What can be said of Paris that hasn’t been said before? It is one of those few cities, like London, or Rome, or Chicago — well maybe not that last one — that live in the world’s imagination, so much that even those who have never…

“In the Bleak Midwinter” in animation

Messi, Borges and the World Cup win Yes! Argentina won the World Cup after a nail-biting game that seemed it would never end, and Messi got his dreamed and well-deserved prize. Fantastic! I didn’t realize that Argentina had last won in 1986, because it got really close other times: it was two times vice-champion since…

From Argentina to Peru to Brazil, things are not very quiet Argentina may — hopefully! — win the World Cup this Sunday, but the situation in Messis’s home country is far from idyllic. The current vice-president, Cristina Kirchner, is facing arrest on corruption charges. I suppose it’s good that the old thief is finally facing…

Commenting on the recent Sight and Sound list Sight and Sound, the magazine of the British Film Institute, recently released their annual poll of “100 best films of all time”, as voted by a group of film critics, as they’ve been doing since 1952. For many years they used to put “Citizen Kane” (Orson Welles,…

But the Covid menace is now replaced by inflation and an “energy crisis” After two years of pause, Christmas markets are back in town all over Germany. “Stille Nacht” and “O Tannenbaum” are heard once again out in the open, and people can buy nutcracker figurines and drink Glühwein. No masks are needed anywhere, except,…

Why some animals have funny names and others don’t The other day my mother went to the theatre and, during the play, a bat appeared out of nowhere and started flying all over people’s heads, distracting both the cast and the audience. The play had to be interrupted for several minutes, until eventually the animal…

Some women appear to be getting crazier than average. I was wondering the other day if the slow disappearance of Christianity from public life has been bad in particular for women. Women were and are always more emotional than men, but, years ago, it seems that they could canalize those excessive emotions into more productive…

It may not be the end of the West, but it may be the end of something When I was a child, my mom still used to darn socks that had holes in them. She would also sew old sweaters. Old shoes were taken to the shoemaker to be mended or have their soles changed….

Reflections on beauty, handwriting and a new fountain pen I haven’t been writing here so much, perhaps because I wanted this space to be a more personal blog, not so concerned with political or social issues, even if those are increasingly hard to avoid in the complicated times we live. But even as we patiently…