seanessay.com Whenever I procrastinate, I remember Dirty Harry saying, “A man’s gotta know his limitations.” Back in the days of manual typewriters, during my early twenties, I bought a cute little portable, complete with carrying handle. The machine was so small the letter O doubled as the zero. I also bought a nice glossy Teach […]
Turning to See By Metaphor
seanessay.com “If the Russians do atomic testing above ground people stay silent, if we do so in a cavern they protest!” an idealist in Camelot, circa 1960 (from memory) … Using fiction and Metaphors of the past one may strive to discern the today of the Near East and Ukraine. Discern, yes, because writers of […]
Words for My Nice Nazi Neighbours
seanessay.com “Words build your world” a man at a party. … I respect Sir Winston Churchill, remembered as the man who warned. Remembered by me as the man who distrusted the word appease. He could see better than most, maybe because he valued words more than most. For example, during the Allied advance up Italian mountains, […]
Secrets Tourists Don’t Tell about London
seanessay.com (Dateline London) Everybody likes London—I’ve been here a half dozen times. I tell people I stay in Central London, as “90 per cent of the tourist attractions” are there: Museums and Galleries, gardens and theatres, monuments, the science place and the zoo… And of course the shopping, including the world famous Harrods department store: […]
Even Nasty Activists like to be Tourists
seanessay.com At the east edge of Banff National Park is the town of Canmore, at the east edge of which stands the Alpine Club lodge. We were “getting away from it all,” and a high school group was there too, with the smell of green nettles drifting in the open windows, the feel of earthy […]
Contemplating the Death Penalty after Leaving the National Gallery
Visiting London, I am under the spell of great art, while back in God’s own country a mother’s son is on death row… We normally regard the issue of having a legal death penalty as a binary: Yes or No. But long ago I challenged that binary: Maybe our society could protect itself by giving […]