Trying to escape the madness of the modern world.

 Today I am mostly trying to ignore the madness that is going on in the world. Mind you, having said that, here is a link to an article about what someone judges to be Margaret Atwood’s ten best books. 

There’s someone who definitely recognises the madness of the world.  The article puts The Handmaid’s Tale at number one in the list of her best books, and has this to say about it: 

“Atwood’s feminist dystopia has entered the popular imagination as well as the canon. Even if you’ve never read the novel or seen the TV series, you will know that it imagines America in the grip of a theocracy where women are enslaved for their fertility. Atwood wrote the novel in Berlin in 1984 – of course she did – in response to the regressive US Reagan government, but not even she could have predicted its second life post-Trump. Famously, she didn’t include anything that hadn’t happened somewhere in the world already. “If I was to create an imaginary garden, I wanted the toads in it to be real,” she wrote. Today, the pond is even murkier and the toads are bigger and uglier. All together now: “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.””

There you go! 

Today I have learnt two new words: Fredagsmys and Gluggaveður. Like “hygge” they’re probably going to become trendy words. No doubt they will feature on cushions and tasteful wooden plaques with which to decorate your home … until you remember that your are supposed to “declutter” and stop buying tat. 

Fredagsmys - frey-dags-mees (noun) A Swedish tradition of spending Friday nights at home with family and friends eating comfort food, playing games or watching TV. The term translates to “Friday coziness” or “cozy Friday”.

Gluggaveður - gloog - ahveh - thoor (noun) An Icelandic word that refers to weather that looks nice from inside but is unpleasant to be outside in, “window weather”. Ideal for describing snowy days around here in the winter. 

Today’s weather looks nice from inside and is rather nice outside as well, much better than yesterday, which turned rather cold! Our window cleaner was around earlier, surprisingly not bringing rain with him, which is something that often happens. 

Here’s a photo of Paris, but not the tourist Paris we are acquainted with. This is Clichy-Batignolles, in north-west Paris, an example of the ‘15 minute city’ approach to urban planing.

According to Wikipedia, “The 15-minute city (FMC or 15mC) is an urban planningconcept in which most daily necessities and services, such as work, shopping, education, healthcare, and leisure can be easily reached by a 15-minute walk, bike ride, or public transit ride from any point in the city. This approach aims to reduce car dependency, promote healthy and sustainable living, and improve wellbeing and quality of life for city dwellers.

Here’s a link to more photos and a bit of explanation. Another way of escaping the madness of the modern world.

And here’s a link to an article about the artist Niki de Saint Phalle and her partner in art and life Jean Tinguely. I confess to never having heard of Jean Tinguely. I find the work of Niki de Saint Phalle, however, quite splendid and uplifting. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!