the art of travel

God bless April! after a long, cold winter, nothing is nicer than the sight of little white and pink blossoms appearing on the plum trees. everything is starting to unfurl, hesistantly, like a small child waking up in a strange bedroom, opening one eye to take a quick look around before committing herself to the actual act of movement from the bed. it has been warm for a few weeks now, but a chilly wind blew through a few days ago, bringing with it some sort of nasty 24-hour-virus that has felled everyone i know except yours truly, which can only mean that any minute now i will find myself doubled over a trash can with stomach convulsions. but for now, i am fit as a fiddle and tuned to a perfect A, so to speak.

i just finished a book called "the art of travel," by alain de botton, and i am off to purchase every book the man has ever written. if any of them are half as good as this one, it will be a chunk of change well spent. the book deals with ... well, the art of traveling, which might seem like a mundane, or elitist, topic at first ... but it soon reveals itself to be a sort of instruction manual on how to get the most out of wherever you are, be you on vacation in Barbados or travelling around your bedroom. It deals with why some of us (ahem) feel a compulsive need to travel; with the inevitable let-down many feel upon arriving in paradise; with how to see commonplace things in your own life as new again. It is really quite lovely and I say to thee, get thee to a bookstore and find this book!

between the terri schiavo case and the pope passing away, it has been interesting being in italy during these last few days. schiavo (actually pronounced "sckee-ah-vo") means slave in italian. lots of discussions all around about the right-to-life and the right-to-die and what it all could have meant for the pope if he had fallen into a coma instead of dying. make yourselves a living will, each and every one of you.

show booked in Houston! more to come in Dallas, Austin, Shreveport, and beyond.

much love from the land of the little white plum blossoms,
vanessa

a nietzche excerpt from "the art of travel":
"when we observe how some people know how to manage their experiences - their insignificant, everyday experiences - so that they become an arable soil that bears fruit three times a year, while others - and how many there are! - are driven through surging waves of destiny, the most multifarious currents of the times and the nations, and yet always remain on top, bobbing like a cork, then we are in the end tempted to divide mankind into a minority (a minimality) of those who know how to make much of little, and a majority of those who know how to make little of much."