Author Archives: len

Oriel College, Oxford Well, the rain flowed today, and so did everything else, by which I mean we seemed to be guided as much by coincidences and mistakes as by our plans for the day. I left the Hopkins conference … Continue reading →

The Oriel College library, which we walked past this morning on our way to breakfast in the main hall. Tweet

Mices Internet Shop, Gloucester Green, Oxford, England About 60 experts and devotees of Gerard Manley Hopkins are gathered at Oriel College at Oxford to present and listen to papers on a Jesuit poet who once walked these same narrow tunnels … Continue reading →

A woman who boarded the Eurostar in Paris with a white guitar case dozes on the three-hour trip to London. Tweet

Beneath the English Channel aboard Eurostar 9031 to Waterloo Station, London My ears feel changes in air pressure as the train glides beneath the ocean at 186 miles an hour. Passengers speak quietly, as if in church. You can hear … Continue reading →

The Chronicles staff sets up shop in a Starbucks located at 70 Boulevard du Montparnasse, Paris. Tweet

I see no French tractors poised to plow over the latest encroachment of American culture, as one did to a McDonalds site in southwestern France five years ago. Instead, the fourth Starbucks store in Paris has a line of customers … Continue reading →

The view from Picasso’s window in Antibes. Tweet

Fifty-eight years ago this week, Pablo Picasso began work in a third-floor room of a chateau which the city of Antibes had converted into a museum. Until the weather turned cold in November, he arrived each afternoon to paint until … Continue reading →

Patrizia, Steve and Len on the apartment balcony this morning. Tweet