by Peter Scotchmer | Sep 16, 2025 | Essays
Irony and the human condition: Peter Scotchmer on why double vision matters more than ever. “…the ironist is caught in a boundary zone between two opposed and mutually exclusive perspectives… between the necessity to believe in the world as it ought to be, and the...
by Nigel Scotchmer | Sep 9, 2025 | Essays
Irony, #1 – Hannah Arendt, the Refugee from Königsberg – Nigel writes about a stateless thinker who made irony her weapon against totalitarianism. Hannah Arendt, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture Königsberg was a jewel on the coast of the Baltic....
by Jonathan Bennett | Aug 26, 2025 | Essays
Forget “live-to-work”. The ancients believed leisure—not work—was the highest purpose of human life. In this essay, Jonathan defends self-cultivation through art, conversation, and exploration. “One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a...
by Aashisha Chakraborty | Aug 19, 2025 | Essays
Zadie Smith has called On Beauty an “homage” to E.M. Forster’s Howards End, though not in a plot-by-plot sense. Zadie Smith has used Forster’s structure as “scaffolding” – as a way to learn to write an English novel, something that made her feel like she’d...
by Aashisha Chakraborty | Aug 12, 2025 | Essays
Zadie Smith’s On Beauty is a novel about family, art, and class but mostly, it’s about the exquisite awkwardness of believing in ideas that no longer seem to work. “The greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.” — On Beauty, Zadie Smith Have you ever...
by Nigel Scotchmer | Aug 5, 2025 | Essays
A warm, observant paean to the spirit of Port Elgin, capturing the rhythms of slow living and the Canadian summer – with touches of nostalgia and humour. This summer we had a family reunion at Port Elgin. Our daughter rented a cottage near the main beach, in an older...