№ 703. Dear Reader

№ 414. Books Through Square Lenses

"Read! Whether your path is to build an empire or to find the lifelong companionship of music, every path is possible with that power. It all begins with one word; the same word that was delivered to an ancient prophet on the wings of an archangel: اقرأ" --- Mohammed Fairouz, from the book "A Velocity of Being, Letters to a Young Reader".

№ 410. Books

"Books are borrowed minds, and because they capture the soul of a people, they explore and celebrate all it means to be human. Long live their indelible magic." --- Diane Ackerman

Long overdue and much anticipated,
the book arrived as promised.

№ 283. Reading for Wisdom and Folly

"Deep reading cuts into your soul and shapes you like real life experiences. Few of us have deep experiences but we can all read about them and thereby experience them; in my view better—with the wisdom of those who actually lived them and the luxury of reflection."

№ 282. Tradition and Prejudice

"The bird that would soar above the level of plain tradition and prejudice must have strong wings."

Kate Chopin

I watched Michelle Obama (FLOTUS) speak at the Democratic National Convention. Inspired, inspiring and hopeful! Just what the world needs, just about...now. 

№ 22. Minding the Gaps

I won't fall because
My steps will mind the pavement,
By peeling off illusions.



Bento Box: "Minding the Gaps" is from the reminder to London commuters, "Please mind the gaps...". When I first heard it spoken in a very English accent, in the tube, in Islington station, I thought COOL. Way cooler than the 7*C spring weather, then. I shall return.

№ 12. Love After Love

Viewing Jackson Pollack at the MOMA, New York

№ 11. Rilke at the Delta Quadrant

I stumbled upon this poem while, again, conducting a space exploration deep in the Delta Quadrant.

Thankfully, I skipped the Borg corridor. I didn’t want to be assimilated and forced another round of Talaxian beer and who knows what other nano ales.

In Celebration of Me (1909)

Rainer Maria Rilke translated by Annemarie S. Kidder

I am so afraid of people's words.

They describe so distinctly everything:

And this they call dog and that they call house,

here the start and there the end.

I worry about their mockery with words,

they know everything, what will be, what was;

no mountain is still miraculous;

and their house and yard lead right up to God.

I want to warn and object: Let the things be!

I enjoy listening to the sound they are making.

But you always touch: and they hush and stand still.

That's how you kill.

Bento Box:

"René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), better known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was a Bohemian–Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most significant poets in the German language. His haunting images focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety: themes that tend to position him as a transitional figure between the traditional and the modernist poets.

He wrote in both verse and a highly lyrical prose. Among English-language readers, his best-known work is the Duino Elegies; his two most famous prose works are the Letters to a Young Poet and the semi-autobiographicalThe Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. He also wrote more than 400 poems in French, dedicated to his homeland of choice, the canton of Valais in Switzerland."

№ 4. Why Travel?

“W. Somerset Maugham called books ‘a refuge from almost all the miseries of life’ -- and as fun as travel can be, being far from home can also be exhausting, hectic and fraught with flashes of sweet misery. For literate travelers, a good bookstore is a sanctuary.” (Trazzler)