Over The Wall And Into The Hills

Your Best Shot

(This piece has undergone the usual dramatic facelifts since posting on 4.5.25. A poll has been added at the bottom of the column for reader participation. The office is open.)

Covered passage between fortress and town, Prats de Mollo, 2.25. foto: JG.

First Things Come Last

To get as far as I could from the empty spaces, where the glowing white page gives me the chill of an endless, bottomless, milky solitude, I headed out and away, crossed bridges over rivers whose name I don’t remember, got lost, reported for work before 7 and hopped on the bus, saw new places, met people, grabbed a board and ran into the surf where I got knocked around but good. I’m organizing a few new pieces, keeping it short or trying to, revving the engine to see if it still goes. Everything in motion around us: Europe is like a sheath of ice in Greenland, that suddenly desirable but admit it, unknown place. Is it about to sheer off or not, is that a good thing or bad, and what happens next, where’s it floating to ? Maybe Europe isn’t going anywhere but is only turning over in its sleep. Dreams ? No one knows precisely but we all have ideas.

In my absence a fair few people signed on to the Riffs back catalogue of 160+ essays. Welcome ! Maybe I should go away more often.

I have a long list of things I’d like to talk about but why not ask

you

first. What should I write about, in Europe and elsewhere? Roumania, France, Muslims, yea or nay ? I’m traveling with a pack on my back when not pacing my tiny room in Paris, looking for a new place to live. What intrigues you about the Olde Continent, currently undergoing one of its regular-basis crises, prelude to possible regeneration ? What infuriates ? Are the Euros really going to wait at the curb for the light to change, worrying if they recycled everything correctly ? Politics, culture, some celeb on trial, an election, something in art, travel, leisure ? Questions, questions.

Today’s

Maxims

I’m not interested in readers. I want re-readers. C.S. Lewis

Politics is like Brutalist architecture. The facade is meant to terrify you into submission but like everywhere else, the service entrance is in back. Look like a worker or man on a mission and you can sometimes get in and out safely.

Ideology is an old wall at the edge of the woods. Good place for thinking but don’t lean too hard, the stones might give way.

It’s impossible to take a single step without revealing your style or the philosophy of where you’re going. You may pretend otherwise but it’s obvious to anyone watching. Your inside is out there.

Musical Interlude

‘Hit me with your rhythm stick/It’s nice to be a lunatic.’ (He also sings, ‘Three fat parsons/ Click! Click! Click!’ if I heard correctly.)

This is the place where I’m supposed to beg for subscriptions but as noted above, the pitch seems to work better when I go away and don’t say anything. You can subscribe, free or paid. There will be a few posts this month, promise. Most essays here are free. You might share them around. Likes are calories: good for you until they go viral; comments are chewy, like hard bread. Whether fascist, diehard liberal, anarchist or just plain out of it, we can all agree that coffee is a good thing, yes ? You can buy me one or two here. Be the first, for crying out loud and I’ll agree with anything you say. The pretty foto above is worth it all by itself.