Traveling is a beautiful way to open the mind to the possibilities of the self, and there is no better reflection of the self than the modern city and its boundless collage of places, people, images, and above all - ideas. It may be difficult to fathom for the cosmopolitan traveler, but the wonders of the great American cities are re-asserting themselves as front-runners in the movement of modern culture. Fresh encounters with some of the better-known cities of the United States today alerts one to the fact that "the city" has made a comeback in this preponderant country. Stay tuned to the rolling monologue of weekend city trips and work-a-day tales. The story goes from New York to Miami to San Francisco, in contrast to upcoming travels in London and Paris...
Somehow I started to read Proust. The blame goes to Alain de Botton , a writer whose witticisms deconstruct modern thinking and make intellectualism seem but a trifle and a whim. He wrote a book in 1997 called "How Proust Can Change Your Life" which distills the enigmatic French novelist into a self-help dispenser of pithy ideas. How clever I found Mr. de Botton to be when I dipped my toe into the vagaries of Proust; I picked up volume one of "In Search of Lost Time" and instantly fell into the deep end. What author dares to run sentences onward into the stratosphere that sometimes seemingly mellows behind the stars of a bright night, but never so much as an introspective person that wretches for the meaning of a simple thought, sometimes stumbling, but always emerging strongly as that same night in starry sky, almost an homage back to Van Gogh, whose rich paintings greatly represented the mood of a generation - and generations often afford a few mis-steps in l...
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