Paris, Rome, New York, London: one thing they have in common is that, regardless of their latitudes, they can knock us out. Therefore, a community spirit, under a slogan involving emotions, is what is needed to lift people’s spirits. Someone who was well aware of this was Milton Glaser, the great designer who in 1977 … Read more
The ultimate paradox for writers of tragedies is to die in an almost comical manner. Spring begins tonight, yet it’s already been a few weeks since we started orienting our antennae towards the sun. That’s what Aeschylus was doing – enjoying the seaside warmth outside his home in Gela, Sicily – on a sunny day … Read more
Tonight the waxing moon is on its way to becoming (tomorrow night, 7 March) a full moon. It is called “Worm Moon” by the Farmers’ Almanac, a name which refers to the earthworms that emerge from the soil around now, as the weather gets warmer and spring showers begin to fall. Not only is the … Read more
Tonight the waxing moon is on its way to becoming (tomorrow night, 7 March) a full moon. It is called “Worm Moon” by the Farmers’ Almanac, a name which refers to the earthworms that emerge from the soil around now, as the weather gets warmer and spring showers begin to fall. Not only is the … Read more
Shakespeare’s Hamlet famously says that “Time is out of joint” and that he was born to set it right. There was a monarch who took this literally. In 1712 King Karl XII of Sweden found himself compelled to add an extra day onto the month of February, over and beyond the 29th, owing to problems … Read more
In many countries – including Italy – Carnival is traditionally a season of excess and masquerading, of merrymaking before Lent. Anything goes, topsy-turvy becomes the new normal; and as revellers strut around in fancy dress, preening themselves like parrots, the comic, the ironic, the burlesque and the satirical become jumbled up and difficult to distinguish … Read more
Today is the day before February 14th and some silver-haired readers may remember an old adage about liking something or lumping it. But are we absolutely certain that there are no other possible alternatives to this (ahem) ‘sugary’ routine? Talking about love may imply realising that many of those things that are (or are not) … Read more
The vanishing point of a painting is the spot to which our eye is drawn and that gives us the intended perspective; but who’s to say the eye wouldn’t prefer to continue roving? A bit like Vermeer’s “Astronomer” which is now in the Louvre, but once belonged to the Rothschilds, the Jewish banking family. The … Read more
“The silence of the place was dreadful”, is how Perrault describes the Prince’s impression when he arrives at the castle, shortly before breaking the spell which had kept Beauty asleep for one hundred years. We could do with a fairy tale, even after one week; a week during which, with a great deal of effort, … Read more
December is the month we measure the year as if counting with an abacus. But no worries, at least as far as words are concerned: the newly-coined ones that get most frequently mentioned usually don’t give us too much of headache. Although they come charging through the palisades, they generally consist in the name of one’s sweetheart … Read more
