Archive • Winter Wondering • Buttondown

January 13, 2025

It's that time of year, when the stock-taking happens, and the various reflective tools make their appearance. One year making way for another seems like a...

Lighthouses. And pirates.

November 8, 2024

A friend landed in Munich Wednesday morning, heard about the U.S election result from a dude in line for border control. The dude was thankful, because a...

I send you this shard of life

July 31, 2024

It has been an abundant week, far and wide. Daniela sent her voice, her baby's cries, and the view of mountains out of her window near Geneva. Sabine chatted...

Meaning of Life

January 6, 2024

Forget, and then remember again I describe the last year or so as a great taking on, as though I am a sponge, just as Mum described me when I turned twenty-...

Living as Read

September 21, 2022

I’ve been personal librarian to a dear friend for almost a year now (don’t worry – I think he’s been secretly seeing other book purveyors, thank goodness)....

Indolencia

July 19, 2022

At the turn of the year, I was intrigued by Nathaniel Drew's video about principles that guide his life and self-exploration. One of these that has returned...

What are these boots made for, again?

February 3, 2022

Score: The Final Frame, Michael Kiwanuka The instruments are changing I have been now ten months in my own space. Long enough to have encountered myself, to...

Time, folks

November 21, 2021

Billy Pilgrim came unstuck in time. And Louise Banks, knowing how her life would unfold, still stepped straight into it. Let’s start with Billy. In...

Holding you

November 3, 2021

Dearest readers, As the leaves are going rusty and these windows rattle with every burst of wind, I’m reflecting on the summer passed, how expansive a time...

There and there again

August 9, 2021

Mihalis Eleftheriou, in his excellent teaching podcast Language Transfer, says that when we learn another language we are permitted and obliged to perceive...

Some limits

July 22, 2021

My planned time in the wilderness has come to a close. The actual plan came to a close on the morning of the third day. When I told my Dad, as we were still...

I didn't die. I had a great adventure!

July 5, 2021

Saturday night I stayed near an idyllic village called Ravenstonedale, figuring I would make my way to Dufton early morning and walk up to Cross Fell,...

Hike your own hike

July 3, 2021

Friends, I am in the heart of the dark skies of Northumberland National Park, by Steel Rigg and Hadrian’s Wall. Last night Will Cheung, an aurora chaser,...

I fell in love with the world again

June 22, 2021

Dear beloved, These last weeks have felt like part of a cliff finally giving in to the salty air, the bruising waves. A seismic shedding that had me blinking...

Hot compost

June 18, 2021

When I signed the twelve month lease on this flat, there was a peculiar vibe - that I was stepping into a concentrated period of uncertainty. Because I’ve...

Knock knock, it's your carbon calling

May 3, 2021

There has been a guilty re-awakening in this household about my carbon emissions. Back in 2010, when 10:10 rode that gorgeous spirit of optimism about...

Wait. Build a woman.

March 23, 2021

Waiting. Waiting. It’s a refrain in Apeirogon, a novel by Colum McCann. I so rarely listen to audiobooks, but McCann reads his own novel and his accent is...

Everyone you're looking at is also you

March 7, 2021

Mubi offered up Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris. It begins with Baldwin walking along the Seine, smoking a cigarette, sporting a hat that looks...

Reclaimed love

February 18, 2021

I am returned to Scotland, back to this old house nestled in the hills. In the recent storms, I felt like we were in a snowglobe. Snow piled up, whited out...

Things we lost in lockdown

November 22, 2020

What I have understood from the myriad essays I've read about the perils of lockdown is that this period in time has helped many of us appreciate that,...

Slow words in lost time

June 3, 2020

I have learned the language of the clouds, here where there is so much sky. The birds say hi, the cock of their heads a sure plea for more fat balls....

Only 1200 miles to Marfa

March 10, 2020

08:51 Oakland, Jack London Square, CA–20:00 Santa Barbara, CA ~bus interlude~ 00:35 Palm Springs, CA–20:35 Alpine, TX A journey of moments and of sunlight....

London to Paris

February 22, 2020

19:01 London St. Pancras--Paris 22:30 I've noticed a reluctance to finish this little series of journey write-ups. I took this trip on Saturday night. After...

Brussels to London

February 13, 2020

10:52 Bruxelles--11:58 London St. Pancras An uneventful journey, save for being tricked at the station cafe. So you're returning from the continent and...

Berlin to Brussels

February 12, 2020

11:34 Berlin--15:57 Essen 16:00 Essen--16:50 Cologne 17:43 Cologne--19:45 Bruxelles Dorm buddy enters the room. "Hello, it's me again," she says. "I was...

Sprichst du Scheiße?

February 9, 2020

Berlin has been hard. I really ought to be here with Mike, who told me there was a big risk that if I came, I'd never leave. Or with Erin, who traversed the...

Budapest to Berlin

February 8, 2020

20:55 Budapest--06:10 Munich 07:42 Munich--12:02 Berlin Okay, I hold my hands up. It's a lot. Budapest was the site of a little unravelling on my part. This...

Zermatt to Budapest

February 5, 2020

08:52 Zermatt--16:38 St. Moritz 17:02 St. Moritz--19:02 Chur 21:14 Chur--21:32 Sargans 22:37 Sargans--09:02 Budapest An apex day. The train journey of all...

Barcelona to Zermatt

February 4, 2020

There is a lost email. Madrid to Barcelona didn't make it out. It's somewhere, trying to reach you. But for now, there's this. 08:20 Barcelona--13:20 Lyon...

Lisbon to Madrid

February 1, 2020

21:25 Lisbon--08:40 Madrid A farewell to Lisbon yesterday. It might have been with a heavier heart, but we ended up a lot soggy and the thought of sun......

The particular character of bookshops

January 30, 2020

I don't really feel like I've started to get to know a place until I've stepped across the threshold of a bookshop. It's like a steady handshake and a direct...

Lisbon interlude

January 30, 2020

Lovely, luscious, lofty Lisbon. All about the eyes here, what and who can be seen. And watch out for the too-near traffic. Sharing a room with this guy in...

Hendaye to Lisbon

January 29, 2020

Hendaye 18:35--Lisbon 07:30 Day time Hendaye is a land that time forgot. We searched for a cafe where I might be able to work, and laughed as all the...

London to Hendaye

January 29, 2020

08:31 London St Pancras--11:52 Paris Gare du Nord 12:52 Paris Gare de Montparnasse--17:33 Hendaye The windows of the TGV were filthy. That may have...

Redux

April 1, 2016

I saw YOUARENOWHERE again and though I said it was a show of two halves, I didn't realise just how true that was. That means that the recommendation is also...

Took those words right out of my mouth

March 14, 2016

So started the enigma of a show by Andrew Schneider, which I saw on Wednesday, the opening night of its second run in New York. Its first run left Nicole...

Fleshbags and distant grace

March 8, 2016

Last night I went to see Siri Hustvedt in conversation with A.O.Scott. Hustvedt's A Plea For Eros was the first collection of essays I ever read and it...

No sobre

February 23, 2016

When I was at art school, a guy called Mike coined the phrase 'one-liner'. It describes those works of art that you look at and 'get', those works that don't...

Alphabet City

February 19, 2016

'Are you Australian?' he asks. 'I'm from England,' I say, though I find the word unsavoury somehow. 'Do you know Jason Statham?' So begins my encounter with...

Chinese New Year

February 10, 2016

Happy year of the Monkey. We stumbled upon fireworks, launched from boats on the Hudson...

Talk about stuff you like

February 1, 2016

It is Sunday. Mum, Dad and I are having a mid afternoon beer at the Social, allowing our feet to dry off a bit from slushgate (what else do you think happens...

Going nowhere

January 25, 2016

#blizzardjonas came. It was ferocious and spectacular. The gale force winds turned the snowflakes into tiny assault weapons and in that slightly delirious...

Dirty Gibson

January 8, 2016

In completely unplanned fashion, my thirty-fourth birthday was also the occasion of my graduation to 'adult' cocktails - you know the ones: all alcohol, the...

White eggs can't break.

January 6, 2016

The eggs here are white! I can only imagine the poor diet of these chickens. I hope they're not bleached...

Resolutely irresolute

January 4, 2016

Happy New Year to you all. I hope the festive season has done you more good than harm in all respects, and that you're optimistic for the year ahead. It is...

And then it was three (almost)

December 14, 2015

Three weeks in. The dust is just settling in the apartment where we are laying our hats until the end of 2016, lacking only a mattress in the stakes to be a...

Got keys for River Place yesterday. Meet my new TV - providing a deluge of aquatic adventures.

WORD, Greenpoint

December 9, 2015

WORD. The bookshop in Greenpoint where Jami Attenberg used to work. The day of the pilgrimage, I got a bus, a ferry and the subway for the first time. Also,...

The only time she was ever wrong...

December 8, 2015

Monday night. A 'holidays' knees-up at Football Factory with free bar and scores of fans of different allegiances. It's not exactly the backdrop you'd...