From Kino-e-no-komatsu Collection, 1826. Translation of the inscription by: James Heaton and Toyoshima Mizuho. Published in the Kyoto Journal, No. 18, 1992 STORY. Japan closed its borders to the world for 250 years, between 1603 and 1853. No one, foreign or Japanese, could enter or leave Japan under pain of death. All European foreigners were…
POETRY. Sean Bonney’s poems do, in the end, express a great belief in poetry. In one poem, Bonney contemplates ‘loneliness’, an effect that grows in power to encompass ‘Syria’ and ‘Templehof’, an effect that ‘destroys private property’, says Johannes Göransson in this essay.
LIFE. On October, Saturday 22nd, 1938, a 46-year-old woman wanders in Buenos Aires towards the train station; she buys a one-way ticket to Mar del Plata. She moved to a modest boarding house, having the blurry fate of committing suicide. It is said – the incident is obscure- that she is sick, tired and longs…
ART. L’Exibition(niste) – is a play of words with the English word ‘exhibition’ and the word ‘exhibitionist’. This famous French shoe creator is showing his art in the Palais de la Porte Dorée, Paris, for the first time.
LIFE. The legend says that Gregorio Fuentes is the alter ego of the old Santiago, from the novel “The Old Man and The Sea”, that he has delivered version-myths: once they were navigating through Pinar del Río and they saw an old boat with an elder and a boy.
LIFE. Ernest Hemingway presence in La Havana, Cuba, is irrefutable for any wanderer. In La Bodeguita del Medio you can drink mojitos (rum with mint and sugar) that Hemingway would drink. In El Floridita, the tourist should drink a “Daiquiri”, the drink Hemingway liked. Moreover, I’m aware nowadays there is a special Hemingway drink: a…
LIFE. “Like hundreds of visitors, I look out over the mighty ruin city of Machu Picchu in Peru. Below is the winding river Urubamba or Willcamayu, which in Quechua means “the sun’s river”. I sigh with amazement, as do hundreds of hundreds of tourists every day, at the sight of these high mountains and the…
LITERATURE. A Swedish emigrant travels back to Sweden to work on a book and ends up writing another book – about pornography, poetry, foreignness and Lars Norén. Born in Lund, Sweden, Johannes Göransson now lives in South Bend, Indiana, where he teaches at the University of Notre Dame. He’s the author of seven books, including…
LOVE. The “discovery museum”, or Palais de la Découverte, is trying to answer that question with this unusual and fun exhibition. And what a better place to show it than in Paris, the “city of love”?
