“In Patagonia, the isolation makes it easy to exaggerate the person you are: the drinker drinks; the devout prays; the lonely grows lonelier, sometimes fatally.” Bruce Chatwin, mystagogue of punchy travel writing, had a life-long interest in this remote end-of-the-world peninsular landmass. His fascination started as a young public school pom. Chatwin’s grandmother had a curiosities cabinet containing a leathery chunk of “brontosaurus hide”, allegedly from Argentina. Though an apocryphal story, this artifact aroused a firey fascination with the remote South American peninsula, climaxing in Charwin’s seminal work, In Patagonia. The experience of hiking Patagonia El Chalten, a frontier town tethered to the edge of Los Glaciares National Park, is the best access point for trekking in Argentine Patagonia. While the A-frame houses cling to the earth like their similarly-shaped geological parents, the Andes range; modern conveniences, like wifi, international cellular service, and a diverse array of eateries, dilute some of the heaviness that makes the drinker want to drink and the restless wish to wander. It is the type of environment where one feels inclined to keep on moving. Incidentally, I haven’t tacked on more mileage in one month than my time in Patagonia. Part of that was the […]
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This area is not unlike St. John’s Wood, that is, the quant leafy location on the iconic Abbey Road Beatle’s album cover. Taken opposite the Boston Common during a BLM protest, the sizable police and military contingent cordoned off a commercial area in the Downtown Crossing neighborhood. To my back is the Boston Common, a location initially used for colonial livestock fodder. St. John’s Wood is also renowned for its sweeping green spaces, including, but not limited to, Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill. Of course, Beacon Hill, also to my back, is a historical neighborhood where many of Boston’s power brokers live and circulate (the state capital building, the Massachusetts seat of power, sits atop the hill like a golden bulwark). Similarly, Primrose Hill is the watering hole for London’s minted elites. Rihanna sold her stucco villa on St. John’s Park in September for a cool £32 million. At 6,332 square feet, that’s about $7,000 per square foot, admittedly more expensive than anywhere in Boston. As the global pandemic ebbs, it will be interesting to see where the real estate tides will take humanity, but what is increasingly certain is that the rapidly changing climate will have some cascading […]
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The waiting room had a cold neoclassical appearance, with meticulously restored brass fittings and white gleaming marble. My son and I had wandered out of a windswept November afternoon in Detroit into the toasty lobby of the Church of Scientology...
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The COVID-19 outbreak was described this week by several talking heads, and the President himself, as a war on an invisible enemy, and just like a conventional war, pitched battles and entrenched interests are starting to take form. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis finally issued a stay-at-home order...
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A waterfall caused by glacier calving in Patagonia. This isolated location, along Laguna Sucia in Patagonia will be disproportionately effected by climate change. Like with COVID-19 projections, many policymakers have denied the veracity of climate-change science. Science Denialism is something that may prove to be as pernicious as COVID-19 and climate change...
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The US, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), has a high probability of becoming the new epicenter of the Coronavirus outbreak. WHO spokesperson, Dr. Margaret Harris, told reporters yesterday that 40% of the previous day's newly confirmed cases reported were in the US, and this proverbial storm...
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Humans always like to prognosticate, whether it is about political campaigns, sports betting, the market, or the weather. The problem is most professional prognosticators perennially discount (or don’t even consider) variables that may cast their predictions into a negative light...
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