Sunday, September 21, 2003

Benares: The Distilled Essence of India

September 21, 2003

I spent the academic year 1985-86 in Benares, India’s holy city on the Ganges, on the University of Wisconsin’s study abroad program. I was the only one of the group of twelve students who had previously been to India, but I was wrong in thinking that that prepared me for Benares. Benares is the concentrated [...]

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Firefly: Joss Whedon’s Space Opera

September 21, 2003

If you never saw Joss Whedon‘s short-lived series “Firefly” when it was running on US television last fall, now’s your chance. It’s, um, well, hard to explain… a science-fiction western? It takes place 500 years in the future, in a universe populated only by human beings (so far as we know), just after a civil [...]

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Seeing Beauty

September 21, 2003

Even in Places Not Famous for It (Like Milan) Rossella started high school last week, she’s going to liceo artistico (art high school). Monday was the first day of regular classes, so they’re moving through the timetable and meeting their teachers one by one. For religion class they have a Catholic priest, who nonetheless explained that his class [...]

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