I am grateful to fate that my life as a journalist has never swerved from the path charted at the start, a way of looking at the world without grasping for pegs on which to hang stories. The peg for every story written today – inescapably, thunderously, deafeningly – is the result of the American election, a result unknown to me at this writing yet one, I concede, that may well decide the future of Western civilization.
I am not somebody, of all people, who would ever forget St. Luke’s admonishment that “a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth,” but when it comes to the possession of a good bottle of cognac, covetousness proves the stronger.
Webster’s defines “platitude” as “the quality or state of being dull or insipid,” which is unnecessarily judgmental and, ironically, platitudinous.
Life experience shows that causal connections do exist, though not as overtly as science would have us believe.
Chiasso, the cozy little bar I frequent in the old town, tucked away behind Piazza Borsa… But let us not be overhasty in judgment.
In Sicily they say a cat has seven lives. I am now on my seventh, and the thought of it no more perturbs me than it does the tenacious feline.
The subject of “election interference” is of late the media equivalent of tulip fever, notwithstanding that free competition of opinions and ideas, which interfere with and undermine one another, is what a proper electoral campaign ought to be all about.
A longish title today, but worth it. Nietzsche’s birthday, on October 15 exactly 180 years ago, is coming up, and what better tribute to the author of The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music than a modern update? Especially because my post a few weeks back, on the different speeds with which the arts atrophy, elicited such a lively response from the gentle reader.
Why would an American lad who probably describes himself to his friends as a pacifist want to look like a soldier of fortune? Why would an English lass who is probably vegan, or at least free of gluten, want to look like a Papuan cannibal?
My subject today is mildly unpleasant, but since it had fascinated me for quite some time I now decided to take the plunge.
