As the worst pandemic in a century continues to ravage the soul of the globe mercilessly, imposing the natural order of things that man has long subverted — and is now called to reckon with — art once more comes to the rescue. Whether it is as literature, paintings, music, theater or film (to name…
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Pandemic Slavery
It might be early days, but it very much feels like something has already gone subtly awry. The globe entered a pandemic-induced recession roughly around March 2020. The first couple of months, the news was exclusively about the virus: how it transmitted and manifested, what outcomes it presented, how lethal it was. No matter whether…
The Fear We Have
When I was a student in my first year at translation school, we read a short story by Isaac Asimov called The Fun They Had. It was a futuristic story, the type Asimov was made famous for, set in 2155. It predicted the end of the physically written word and the obliteration of the standard…
Body Memory
As I have often heard, “life is a bitch and then you die”. On the whole, I subscribe to that theory. I have never been a full life advocate myself, not because I don’t want it or because I have suicidal tendencies, but because I do think there is more harm than good to be…
La Vie des Autres
La Vie des Autres is a German film by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. I think I saw it at a theater in Paris when the movie was released, back in those days when I traveled back and forth between my home country and the City of Lights. I do not recall a lot of the details…
Love of Life Past
Dante put it best than anybody: Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, che la diritta via era smarrita. Age-wise, I am somewhat past Dante’s point of reckoning as he penciled the verses of his masterpiece and bought himself a ticket to literary eternity. Maybe because I am older,…
Spanish Flu Revisited
One of the most surprising things for me when COVID-19 struck was to realize that the major global health crisis that had preceded it, the poorly called Spanish Flu, over the years and decades that followed — and throughout my long existence — had gradually become a footnote in the history books. It was hard…
The Kindness of Strangers
As the world continues to navigate the first pandemic in over a century, summer is beginning to give a glimmer of hope as some countries begin to ease or thrust themselves into opening up their doors to business after over two months of moderate to full shutdowns. The art world is all but frozen, with…
Pythonize Me
Of late I have been coming to terms with the need to educate myself in programming languages. An almost declining fad nowadays is the infamous Python, which has become the not-so-new girl in town in my work environment since a bunch of young and enthusiastic data-oriented analysts have joined. Over the past few weekends I…
Of Fountain Pens and Typewriters
Among my many weaknesses is my unrequited love for fountain pens and typewriters. After delving into some specialized websites, frequenting spaces where people go into their own soliloquies praising Clipper Smith Coronas or debating the superiority of German-made machines, I thought I’d blog about them a bit myself too. Unlike typewriters, fountain pens can offer…