Please see below selected recent culture-related change.
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October 2018
In the 1840s Henry David Thoreau swapped his busy schedule in Concord, Massachusetts, for a wooden hut he built himself near Walden Pond. We had the privilege to visit Walden in July 2012; it exceeded expectations in its tranquility and beauty - and the swim in the pond itself was unforgettable.
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Please see below selected recent language-related change.
See also: Halcyon Language Headlines
October 2018
Please see selected recent isolation-related change below.
See also: Halcyon Isolation Headlines
September 2018
Where did everything come from? Where are we heading? Big History tells the story of the Universe starting from the Big Bang, the formation of stars, planets, life on Earth, modern civilisation — and what might exist in the future.
Asking which shifts, in which centuries, really shaped the modern world. a historian identified 10 leading drivers of change, century by century
Meanwhile, Prospect believes that reflecting on the past can give great in sight into the present and has published accordingly The past in perspective e-book.
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According to Open Culture, Orwell's Animal Farm was almost never published. The manuscript barely survived the Nazi bombing of London during World War II, and then initially T.S. Eliot (an important editor at Faber & Faber) and other publishers rejected the book. It eventually came to see the light of day but, reportedly, Animal Farm still can’t be legally read in China, Burma and North Korea, or across large parts of the Islamic world.
However, the Internet Archive offers free access to audio versions of Animal Farm and Orwell’s other major classic, 1984.
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T.S. Eliot died over 50 years ago now. His legacy remains profound and his poetry moves me deeply.
In 2016 I had the privilege of visiting his final resting place, East Coker.
I listen to the peerless Little Gidding at least once a quarter, sometimes more often, and almost every line entrances, as if peering through a veil at something once known, but half-forgotten because not looked-for.
Would you travel across the land, in the hour of the summer solstice?
- from Ancient Dream, by Aeolian Songspell
A time for the half-remembered inner pagan to re-emerge, dancing widdershins in the pre-dawn dew around the celebrity stones, or the authentic stones, or wherever one finds oneself this solstice-time.
The veil is thin now...
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To The Globe to visit the exhibition and then watch Taming of the Shrew as a groundling. Great fun.
However, my relationship with the Bard's works has always been a complicated one. Over time, I will try to develop some of my thoughts, inspirations and reservations here.
For now, some others' more interesting observations:
