Murder, massacres, and the meandering path of time — The murder didn’t happen here It was in St Etienne du Rouvray where teenage terrorists cut a priest’s throat. It’s a long way from there to here, long enough for the rolling green fields of northern France to give way to the wild wind and fierce sun of the South. But in Beziers, the glorious…

Without emotion, what’s the point? — Nothing scares me like the void The Wasteland. Not the void that existence depends on, the vast and sprawling emptiness between atoms that fill the heart of everyone you love. That’s the same emptiness in the dark reaches of space where the stars are born. That’s nothing to be afraid of. What scares me is to…

Sometimes, a monster is exactly what you need to be — “I was gentle as I was able and that’s the last we’ll fucking speak of it.” - Al Swerengen, Deadwood I knew it would come to this Sooner or later, it always does. I saw my wife’s face through the glass. I was in the middle of writing an article, a different article. I came downstairs to…

Ruins and ghosts on the Costa Brava — The fighting started here Hard to believe now, as the car winds its way through fields mounded with haystacks along glass-smooth roads that wobble and blur in the heat. But the Roman conquest of Spain started here. It began as a war against Carthage, and ended with the entire Iberian Peninsula brought to heel…

A flight home with Dante and Homer — You don’t want to sit next to me on the plane I’m not the worst possible neighbor. I’m quiet. I’m considerate. I won’t steal your space. I hope I don’t smell. But even my not-especially-huge physical frame sits uneasily in the cramped quarters of a budget airline. I stick to the space I pay for, but I fill every square inch…

And learn to love it anyway — Just yesterday, there was a shark in Barcares Not a big one. Not one of those white-bellied triangle-toothed monsters that’s burned onto the basal layers of my brain, the ones accompanied by deep bass notes of the cello wherever they go. This one was only about two metres long. Bigger than me, though. The tourist town of Barcares…

A national celebration in France’s forgotten South — The days are relentless Like France, like Canada, like America, I was born in the summer. But I wasn’t born here. The sun is downright hostile in the spire of July, the topmost glittering needle of summer. The ecstatic buzz of the cicadas makes it sound like the sidewalks are sizzling. In English, we…

A useless guide to Roma Termini — Devil didn’t make hell Man did it himself and he did it really fucking well. — Rodney DeCroo There’s a buzz to this place The wordless chatter of ten thousand voices. The clouds of cigarette smoke drifting in from the entrances, Northeast and Southwest. …