No man is an island by John von Daler

     Flying in to the #Faroe Islands through the
drifting clouds, the friendly man next to me pointed out from our window the exact spots where a few planes like ours had fallen. The runway started at the edge of a cliff.

Culture 101 for The Bad Guys by John von Daler

     There should be a course for the bad guys.

Way to go by John von Daler

        My favorite uncle grew up in Florence

but moved to the United States as a young man, when he no longer believed in God or in the Catholic faith.

     

A Blooming Shame by John von Daler

My green grocer had decided to make a bargain 

out of some incompatibles: he tried to sell me edible 

flowers.

War and Peace by John von Daler

    An old man sat down at the next table on the terrace of the little Greek cafe. In between his sips of coffee he managed to become a part of our conversation. You know, vacation stuff, weather and food.

We complimented him on his English, but he waved off our praise.

"I'm no great student. These islands have been occupied so many times that I learned without trying. I just sit here at the cafe and soak up coffee, ouzo, wine and languages. I speak French, English, Italian, German and of course Greek. Not Albanian. You count the wars." 

Later on driving up the road in our rented car we saw the bald head fringed with white as we rounded a corner by an olive grove. 

We offered to give him a ride and he got into the back seat after he had handed over a magnum bottle of Retsina to us for momentary safe-keeping.

We asked what the occasion was.

"No occasion," he answered. "Just my daily walk up to the top of the mountain. When I turned over the cafe I used to own to my son-in-law, I made an agreement with him that I could sit there as much as I wanted, 

that I could eat and drink as much as I wanted and that I could have a bottle of Retsina every afternoon."

He settled back into his seat as if his story had finished.

"But what do you do with that huge bottle?" I asked.

He waved a flat hand towards the window as if to say, See it all!

"After lunch I walk up the hill with my bottle. I go to an olive grove at the top. I find a nice tree to lie under. Then I open my bottle and drink it while I watch the Ionian Sea. Sometimes I fall asleep."

We drove him to the top. After he got out nobody said a word.

Take my book

to the top of your mountain:

A trip to inner space by John von Daler

  
    Whenever I am in Berlin, I like to walk from
Potsdamer Platz past the Berlin Philharmonie
down to the Gemäldegalerie to see #Vermeer's portrait
of a girl with a pearl necklace.

Clown noses and method acting by John von Daler

    For a musician, I've done a lot
of acting.

An unused metaphor by John von Daler

    The cloudless sky, visible all the way around
360 degrees of horizon. A bright yellow sun
almost directly overhead. The green lawn of an oil
company in south east Tulsa.

Geese and Ducks according to #Marx by John von Daler

    I used to have a special rapport with my
mother, who was a little nuttier than your
ordinary fruitcake.

Interpolation by John von Daler

I knew an old man who had traveled a
lot - by foot - through Europe in the thirties.

Rubato by John von Daler

             Symmetry leaves me cold, with the
possible exception of Michelangelo's free-hand drawing of a perfect circle.

Yond blog by John von Daler

Please let these words have a lean

Prelude without a fugue by John von Daler

    Jogging past the hotdog vendor at the end
of Frederiksberg Allé I could smell the sausages
grilling even through the closed shutters of his cart.

Cyber Alexandria by John von Daler

  
   
     I never met my grandmother. She was the
widow of an Austrian general who served under
Emperor Franz Josef.

Friday night bytes by John von Daler

Excuse me. I'm just going through a weekend phrase:

Fear of flying by John von Daler

      A flock of migrating birds has landed in a field to eat, to rest, to mingle.

Unnatural acts by John von Daler

There are no acts of nature in literature.

Where the truth lies by John von Daler

I quit reading fiction a few years ago.

Fermata by John von Daler

    Slapstick and whimsy abound in Les vacances
de Monsieur Hulot, Jacques Tati's masterwork.

Ill logic by John von Daler

My computer has just been repaired: the logic board was broken.

Burning Books by John von Daler

In Oklahoma we children used to play outside in the 100 degree (F) heat.

Out of sight, in of mind by John von Daler

My writing teacher, Philip Roth, asked us once to read a story by Chekhov.

As Slowly As Possible by John von Daler

I do not eat fast food,

The Elizabethan Rosebud by John von Daler

     Shakespeare can be exhilarating for our post-Freudian audiences, because he never fills in any psychological background.

Don't judge a book by its author. by John von Daler

I really want a good book to have been written by a good person.

Mixed metaphors by John von Daler

I was eight years old, listening to the radio in my bedroom
one sunny morning.

…can't tell a man by the song he sings. by John von Daler

I grew up with heroes.

Spellbound by John von Daler

 Isn't mice the plural of moose? mused the ambitious mouse.

A Morel Tale by John von Daler

If you think the Swedish forests are full of light-haired, cavorting Vikings with fiddles,
then think again:

Piece of Mind by John von Daler

Just a thought. by John von Daler

I love to watch the traffic from our sixth floor apartment. Everybody looks so innocent at a distance.

Empty your mind. by John von Daler

First the yoga lady says empty your mind and that only takes me a few seconds.

Sweet Basil. by John von Daler

I love basil.

Disbelief, when? by John von Daler

I've been told that you have to suspend your disbelief at an opera.