“Whenever I go to North Korea,” Immanuel Kim told an interviewer in 2017, “I see people reading.” In the metro, in elevators, in buses and restaurants. But what were they reading, in a state unrivaled in the harshness of its censorship? As a graduate student at the University of California at Riverside studying Korean literature, Kim—who is now a professor at George Washington University specializing in North Korean culture—had become curious about North Korean fiction, which was usually dismissed as mind-numbing propaganda. There was a basis for this stereotype, it turned out, but after eight months of diligent reading, Kim began to find work that he genuinely liked. One of the best novels he discovered, something different from almost all the rest, was Friend by Paek Nam-nyong.
When serious pianists tour, though, they almost never bring their own instruments, which require professional movers to transport. From their student days, pianists are compelled to develop adaptability. After practicing a piece at home, a Conrad Tao or Jeremy Denk must perform on whatever instrument a hall has to offer. And some can be pretty bad. Young pianists at the Juilliard School have long traded battle stories of having to play on a “real PSO” — a “piano-shaped object.” Very fine pianos vary enormously in terms of sound, action and responsiveness to touch. Even a superb Steinway in a concert hall may take adjusting to, and may not suit a particular pianist’s preferences.
I’d been staring at the ground too long. That’s most of what foraging is, by the way. It’s ignoring the blue sky and the trees to focus your gaze on the dirt. I was walking through cobwebs, surveying the woodland floor for almost an hour, when I finally saw one: a tiny, pale chanterelle mushroom sticking up near the trail’s edge. It looked sickly, or at the very least elderly. Perhaps it was a sign that this section of the woods was untraveled, or maybe nobody had ever thought to pluck it from its habitat.
But the psychological, or "physiopsychological," aspects of sighing are finally starting to be explored. A recent theory proposes that sighing is not just a reset for the lungs and breathing, but for our emotions too, bringing us back to stasis from big emotions, whether they be positive or negative.
Sighing might also not be just a byproduct of emotions, but could induce feelings too, like relief. Intriguingly, there may also be such a thing as too many sighs. People with anxiety disorders who sigh more than others might be dysregulating their breathing by over-relying on the soothing powers of the sigh. Ultimately, what's being uncovered is that unlike what the song "As Time Goes By" from Casablanca claimed, a sigh is not just a sigh.
Since childhood, my father had longed to stand on the spot where his father had been wounded as an American soldier in World War One. Family legend told of the weeks when my grandfather had been reported dead, followed by news of his presence in a rural French hospital, and finally the long struggle to bring him home.
It was my sister’s idea to make Dad’s dream come true. In the aftermath of my mother’s death, she felt it would draw the three of us together, and that it would keep my dad going a little longer. She had always been the organizer in the family, the listmaker, the one who barked directions at cab drivers. Now she would lead us through London, Paris, the Somme Valley, and a few square miles of wooded terrain near the Ourcq River, not far from the village of Chateau Thierry.
Barack Obama is as fine a writer as they come. It is not merely that this book avoids being ponderous, as might be expected, even forgiven, of a hefty memoir, but that it is nearly always pleasurable to read, sentence by sentence, the prose gorgeous in places, the detail granular and vivid. From Southeast Asia to a forgotten school in South Carolina, he evokes the sense of place with a light but sure hand. This is the first of two volumes, and it starts early in his life, charting his initial political campaigns, and ends with a meeting in Kentucky where he is introduced to the SEAL team involved in the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
Dehumanising technology, unimaginative city planning and austerity have made us unhappy, unhealthy and hostile. This book is a crucial call to arms: in the wake of the pandemic, Hertz argues, governments have an opportunity to rebuild along better lines. Yet I have little confidence that the British government is thinking about the importance of community. If we could issue a reading list to 10 Downing Street, I’d put this book near the top.
Cats suffer from dementia too. Did you know that?
Ours did. Not the black one, smart enough
to be neurotic and evade the vet.