In my mind exists a temple; a museum of the works of art that helped shape my inner world. Some works are on loan and some are part of the permanent collection. The permanent works that name and sustain me are existentialist: Solomon’s Ecclesiastes, Aurelius’ Meditations, Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, Hendrix’ Axis: Bold as Love, Dylan’s electric Manchester performance, Rippel-Ronai’s Park at Night, the Bhagavad Gita. These are useful for determining how to live authentically and courageously in an unknowable universe. A less obvious […]
No Reservations. And no novel structure, but still good.
I have been a Bourdain fan for a while and really enjoyed Kitchen Confidential so when I came across this book for less than $2, and had an upcoming vacation, I snagged it because I thought it would be a good vacay read, and I was validated, though I wouldn’t say the book was a total success. This novel follows the adventures of Bourdain during his first television series of the same name and we travel with him to exotic locales, and even more exotic […]
Coming of Age: Finding Direction in Lucy Knisley’s “An Age of License”
After an invitation to speak at Raptus Comic Fest in Bergen, Norway, Knisley takes the opportunity to plan a trip around Europe to visit friends and family. Over the course of her travels she struggles with past relationships, work, and an uncertain future. She spends pages analyzing her love life, both with her ex John, and her current beau Henrik. What makes this difficult for her is that she still has feelings for John that she can’t seem to move past, and yet she knows […]
The Complicated Lives of Simple People
In leaving the ground, he left all of the craziness behind. Nothing could touch him, no hatred, no rumors, no law. If only it were possible to just keep flying, on and on until the land turned into ocean and back to land again. If only he could go far enough to be certain what was left behind him never caught up. Susan Crandall’s The Flying Circus is an adventure story at heart – in true ‘running away to join the circus’ vein – […]
Get it For the Photographs
This is a book I’ve seen in a few different higher-end design stores. It seems like the kind of thing that Anthropologie would stock (shoot, maybe they do); I happened to get it at one of those houseware shops that stocks things according to color. We are lucky enough to be heading to Paris at the end of the month, so I felt justified in buying this book. Written by a journalist and photographer, this book feels more coffee table book than guide book. The […]
London, you’re a Lady
Let’s get this out of the way: I really, really love London. I duly loathe the London Eye, I have my favourite Camden Lock stands and I feel a shiver of excitement whenever I smell the tube’s musk. Other tourists ask me for directions. As soon as I win the lottery – which is only a matter of time, really – I’m moving there. Until then I’m content to take my students there every year (twice, sometimes) and when I show them around, I love […]