Magnificent Octopus

Being the 1st-quarter progress report as it regards my attempt to meet the reading challenge I signed on for. The book: The Adventures of ...

This book is extraordinary: The Painter of Battles , by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. (It's been more than 2 months now since I read the book, a...

Yesterday Helena brought home a fabulously weird drawing: her papa battling a vampire, blood on its lips, Helena watching, terrified, from t...

I've just finished reading Seeing , by José Saramago. It starts off as a sharp political commentary, and is not heavy-handed at all, tho...

Received last week, a box, a long time coming. Weeks went into considering what should go into it, weeks more into waiting. Great Expectatio...

" . . . but old Sam's just come clean with me. You know the way he drops in every afternoon to watch the sheets roll out. Well, thi...

We've been in DC this week — me and the kid. J-F dropped us off at my sister's place on his way to Florida to watch training camp. I...

for every sweet lump of baby born that women croon over, is one vast rotten meat burning slow worms in graves of this earth — from Desolatio...

Ali Baba and 40 Thieves, starring Ricardo Monsterban and 40 thieves.

I continue (to try) to weed . Franny and Zooey , by JD Salinger — I don't remember reading it. I'm not sure why I have it; I mean, a...

(and it's driving me crazy !) My cell phone. Which I hardly ever use. Last seen on the shelf by the front door sometime during the Chris...

As I've begun to weed , inevitably covers are drawn back, pages are turned, and snippets are read. While this is mostly an act of instin...

The Taming of the Shoe "To thine own self be shoe."

I'm not sure who the madman is, and I'm still thinking about what it means to dream of Turing machines. A Madman Dreams of Turing Ma...

I've decided to weed my books. There's just not enough room. There is various shelving around the house, for the kid's books, fo...

Head -y A few weekends ago I went to the hospital. I thought my brain was going to explode. I get migraines quite regularly, and I've le...

The European Commission's "Group of Intellectuals for Intercultural Dialogue," chaired by Amin Maalouf, one of my favourite wr...

I had it in my mind for some time to post a discussion topic on a Doctor Who forum (a couple of which I follow). Finally I muster the courag...

Something to think about for the rest of the year... The Edge Annual Question — 2008 : When thinking changes your mind, that's philosoph...

Some months ago, amid casual small-talk at the office, a coworker piped up, "Hey, does anyone want my copy of Oliver Twist ? I just can...