Art And Artifact

by Richard Farr I read somewhere that Mexico City has more museums and art galleries than any city in the world except London. Seems plausible: two weeks wasn’t enough, and would not have been enough even without all the hours spent wandering the boulevards, exploring labyrinthine food markets, and drinking tall glasses of maracuya juice…

Who Wants?

by Richard Farr I will use this column to defend myself against the accusation, first made by my surgical assistant Mr. Alan Turing, that I was negligent in the death of an individual under my medical care. Or, as one armchair prosecutor has said, that I am “a stereotypically British sentimentalist who thinks dogs are…

Untranslated

by Richard Farr In 2001, in order to become an American citizen, I had to “absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen.”  Abjure. Prince. Potentate. That this vocabulary from the 1790s persisted…

Astronomical

by Richard Farr On a road trip once, navigating a deliberately eccentric route from Houston to El Paso, I was enjoying the emptiness — rocks, ravines, three other vehicles per hour — when I spotted something alien and odd. On a ridge to the northwest two monstrous hard-boiled eggs sat fresh-peeled and gleaming. It might…

In The Air

by Richard Farr I’m writing this 37,000 feet above Vestmannaeyjar, a chain of islands off Iceland’s south coast. Or so the screen tells me – I can’t see the view because I’m wedged into 38E, a middle seat at the back near the loos. The ambient noise and vibration are roughly what you’d experience with your…