Footnotes to a Conversation, February 21, 2022
“Imagination, new and strange
In every age, can turn the year;
Can shift the poles and lightly change
The mood of men, the world’s career.” – Imagination, John Davidson
Books are Magic
We all need a little magic in our lives. My walk-in closet is really a secret passageway and I plan to add a fairy door – there’s already a brightly-coloured straw airplane flying in the doorway.
But now I’ve discovered book nooks and I absolutely must have one! “A book nook is a tiny little room that you position between your books to give the illusion that there is another world hidden behind your shelves.” You can purchase a kit or a pre-made model. There’s a skinny Japanese alley, a wizard’s reading corner, a fairy door in a forest, or a bookstore. For all of us who loved tales of magic as children (and as adults?), book nooks are a must-have addition to our homes. [The Book Family Rogerson]
Beware the Jabberwock
Boosted, anti-vaxxer, social distancing – how many new words have we added to our vocabularies in a surprisingly short space of time? Some of them, such as social distancing, are not particularly accurate, but we rarely question their usage. Instead, “hearing their repetition may induce their passive usage as a comfortable coping mechanism”.
“Will the ‘new’ language stick around? We’re now aware that going back to the way things were isn’t an option…so the terms that suggest long-term, fixed behavioral change may be more permanently embedded in our collective language (remote/hybrid work and school, return to work, Zoom fatigue). Others (virtual happy hour, triple vaxxed, quarantine and chill) may disappear as quickly as they emerged.” [JSTOR Daily]
North – South
It’s only in the last few years that I’ve begun to explore the south of France. Marseille fascinates me. It’s a multicultural city, closer to Africa than to Paris with a long history and a vibrant street life. According to a travel article, and I tend to agree,"If you come to France and you don't come to Marseille you won't see France." [BBC] Here’s a longer article about Marseille’s origins, history, and people. [Britannica]
I wrote about the books of Jean-Claude Izzo that are rooted in Marseille and my visit to the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations in earlier blog posts.
Footnotes to a Conversation is a weekly Monday feature covering an assortment of topics that I’ve come across in the preceding week – books, art, travel, food, and whatever else strikes my fancy. I also post occasional articles on other dates, including frequent book reviews and travel tales.
If you share my love of nature, check out EcoFriendly West, an online publication encouraging environmental initiatives in Western Canada, and Nature Companion, a free nature app for Canada’s four western provinces.