There is a swing on the path that leads up and over the headland from the village of Nazare. This is me on that swing last month. Happy. We watched the first episode of the two-part Apple documentary on Steve Martin, which charts his early life through the development of his stand-up act, his early forays into television and movies and which ends in 1980 when he walked away from stand-up comedy, as he puts it, jumps off the train of stand up and onto the train of movies. During the 15 years in which he developed and honed his …
What our local forest looked like 4 years ago Walking this morning, the air and the light reminded me of that lockdown spring of 2020. By April that year, we were all in it together. People made art and music in their living rooms and shared it with the world. We were learning how to use Zoom and bake sourdough and Google different customs for personal hygiene from places where toilet paper is a novelty. What stays with me from that time is the fact that there was real hardship in many places, as COVID-19 outbreaks caused a lot of …
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Surfboards inside the museum at Nazaré, Portugal, all of which have ridden the biggest wave in the world. Things I have found while surfing. Have a look at these, and maybe leave a comment about which link grabbed your attention and what you learned there. (PS…the headlines are links! Click for more) John Coltrane’s ideas behind “A Love Supreme.” I adore this piece of music. I think I first heard it about 20 years after it was recorded, which was nearly 60 years ago now. It is a high form sacred music piece, as important and meaningful as anything that …
Harrison, one of the last times I saw him. I’m on holiday in Portugal about to start a six-day walking trip in the Algarve and I’ve just learned that Harrison Owen died yesterday. His son Barry posted a brief notice on Facebook today. I had a lovely talk with him a couple of weeks ago before I left on this trip. We talked about some things he was reading (he recommended a new edition of “Order out of Chaos: Man’s New Dialogue with Nature” by Ilya Prigogine and Isabell Stengers) and we talked a bit about family and time of …