Delinquent Writer

11 May

I’ve been delinquent in my writings on here lately.
It’s because i’ve been in thought, thinking, getting a bit angry, thinking some more and trying to realize how things plan out in my head, considering how those thoughts sound on paper, in word form, and realizing that they sound terrible.  Well, sometimes you have to speak your mind — and my mind is full.  I feel like things are churning, like I told V last night, it is like a big ball of mashed potatoes.

One of the thoughts I’ve had lately, revolving around ideas of capitalism, society, money, success, failure, and the lives that we lead.  This thought is that the older I get, the more socialist I become.  Maybe it’s the time in Europe, maybe it is the complete disregard for hype but I am becoming a true socialist.

This, combined with artisan food (stay with me here) has created a huge amount of ideas and streams of thought that are currently resting in my head, in my notebook and waiting to be released when I’m not feel so angry about these things.  Here is a small part of what I’ve been thinking lately:

Artisan products, especially food, are the result of local knowledge being transmitted to a new generation by the product itself as well as the process.  Authentic is an oxymoron, it’s authentic because it is true to history, place, producer and from extension, culture.

Modern ideas of sustainability, local, etc. are by products of a free market that encourages over-consumption. A return to the true price of a product, seasonality, and value in tradition are necessary to restore artisan products to a more valid form for our now-day society.

So Much Rain

19 Apr

Today London is a mess of wet. Of rain splattered buildings, of umbrellas broken in the wind, of shoes and socks that are not resistant to the penetrating dampness of the day’s moisture.  It is a day of wet, of rain of course, but also of wetness of the soul, of the mind.  It is damp beyond compare now, when one leaves his thoughts to the clouds to pick for him.  They are muddled and tied up into balls of puffiness that don’t allow anything to seep out of them except for the dampness and melancholy feelings of the damp, cold, springtime London day.

Camus

16 Apr

LON

23 Mar

LON is the airport code for London.  It encompasses many airports including:

LHR
LGW
LCY
LTN
STN

All of these will get you to where we have just moved to.  A true foodie town, we have landed on our feet here and for the next while, we think we’ll call it home.

Kinders

5 Mar

I stayed for about a week with a South African family. They spoke Afrikaans. The children were lovely and always working on their English with me. One of the younger daughters wrote this out for my drink choices. The spelling is so cool, a mix of languages in her head.

water

Italy

5 Mar

It’s not everyone’s ideal, but sometimes it is mine.  To think of these things reminds me of Bra first of all, and how, after you’ve spent your life in other parts of the world going back to a place where this type of living is offered is a comforting thought.  I might add a good local market.

“In a small town, we don’t just want a congenial barber and a well stocked news stand.  We want professionally made coffee and a proper pizza.  We want a couple of streets to stroll down, an avenue to jog along, a pool to swim in and a cinema for a bit of entertainment.  We want a functioning courthouse, a reassuring hospital, a consoling church and an unintimidating cemetery.  We want a new university and an old theatre house.  We want football fields and town councillors we can pester in the bar.  We want to see the mountains beyond the level crossing when the weather’s good and the air is clear.  We want footsteps on cobbled streets in the night, yellow lights to tinge the mist and bell towers we can recognize from a distance.  We want doctors and lawyers who can translate abstract concepts into our dialect — my father can — and people with a kind word and a smile for everyone…We want all these things and in Crema we have them.”

By: Beppe Severgnini

Jantar

5 Mar

Sometimes, the lack of receipt paper was apparent. This, I think, was from a restaurant/bar next door to us called the Tropicana. We would go of an evening, sit on the beach, have a drink and talk about what was going on in our minds. What we were thinking.

jantar

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