What book are you reading right now?
I’m reading The Man with the Compound Eyes by Wu Ming-Yi because I try to read some literature from every place to which I travel, and this one is with respect to Taiwan.
As I’m never reading just one book, there’s also Geoffrey West’s Scale, Lukianoff & Schlott’s The Cancelling of the American Mind, Stephen Wolfram’s The Second Law, and others.
sinuous limbs
of a sprawling tree look
like wriggling squid.
the flowing river
looks still as glass, until
fallen leaf ripples.
Be kind and tender to the Frog, And do not call him names, As 'Slimy skin,' or 'Polly-wog,' Or likewise 'Ugly James,' Or 'Gape-a-grin, or 'Toad-gone-wrong,' Or 'Billy Bandy-knees': The Frog is justly sensitive To epithets like these. No animal will more repay A treatment kind and fair; At least so lonely people say Who keep a frog (and, by the way, They are extremely rare).
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
First of all, I’d say that I probably could live most places in the world, and the few I couldn’t (e.g. North Korea) have no appeal to me as a place of residence. Having lived several places in the US, a couple years in England, and now over ten years in India, I’m under no illusions that there is a Shangri-la out there, a perfect utopia. Most places are fine places to live if one is flexible-minded and can adapt to that place’s rhythms and peculiarities. There may be a honeymoon period during which some place seems better than the rest, but even the most seemingly idyllic place will lose its luster in time.
That’s why I recommend travel. Everyplace offers beauty and life lessons when taken in bite-size pieces.
the foggy valley looks like a depthless painting through fall foliage.
Tell all the truth but tell it slant -- Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind --
The Understory by Saneh Sangsuk
