The order of things is not motionless—Juan Meléndez Valdés, 1773

Perceptions received by the ears or by reflection can be most easily retained if they are also conveyed to our minds by the mediation of the eyes.— Cicero, De oratore, 55 BC

I am back in Paris after New York and before that, Amsterdam, and before that, the Sarthe and the Cévennes, none of which I’ve written about yet. What follows below, after the Four Horses of Goya, is set in Spain, which, bizarrely, I haven’t set foot in since 2014 – and that was only overnight.

In loving memory of Julie Wyn Summerfield (October 1, 1954 - May 7, 2024)

A cultural war that's about to hijack your birthright to think and say what lives in your heart. – National Rifle Association President Charlton Heston, 1999

Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as a man sees? — Job: 10.4

"Out for a walk with Robert Lowell, Just me and him and my Bell & Howell" — John Berryman

"Every man is the son of his own works."—Miguel de Cervantes

Holdback, Ep. 7: "R. v. Todd (1901)"

Nature and love and happiness have not passed through the waves.