Why I Journal

For the last three years I have kept a journal of my summers. The basic premise: reflecting upon any experience serves to increase it’s value.

The notebooks contain stories, fragments of prose and poetry, scripture, ideas and poorly drawn sketches. Utter nonsense and naked truths. When I take time to read through those experiences [which have kept silent in my head], suddenly they jump to life, reinvigorated by the adjectives I wrote years ago. My senses are challenged - behold a wash of colour and sounds and smells; vivid blue sky, the taste of strawberries outside that travel bookshop in the late July of London city, the sound of Augustana as I tread amongst a sea of faces and light in Boston, kisses on the jetty and yoga and the smell of winter-stored birch trees crackling on the fire beside Jumi lake.

What could journalling do for you?

iPhone: The True Cost

Pretty hard-hitting information.

"[To begin with, I carried out a study. I committed silences and darknesses to paper, I recorded the inexpressible.] I took the measure of vertigo."

- Arthur Rimbaud (tr. Jeremy Harding), Delirium II. Alchemy of the Word, 1873

I love my Aeropress.

Another superb documentary from Blurb Books.

We are the 5 percent

He began with a shot of the Konga Yirgacheffe that tasted like roasted almonds, then made a second that was like flowers and cocoa, and a third that was like Mast Brothers Chocolate. Next coffee: Fisticuffs, which he described with admiration as “aggressive.” He made the Fisticuffs taste like lemon rind, then like lemon and honey, then he said he wanted it “softer,” and made it taste like caramel pushed to its darkest limit and doused with cream. It was a good show, a parade of flavors and textures that could convert some of those in the 95 percent.

Dublin on BBC Quiet Day.

I love this.

Walked through the Botanic Gardens this afternoon with a lovely lady. O the little things that catch one’s eye.

Scandinavian coffee culture. Coming to a town near you?