2 minute read Once you you start living for small details - the smell of a rainstorm moving in, the feeling of kismet with a stranger, the way winter light hits your favorite building - you'll start to realize how big those nuances were all along. You'll collect them in your pockets, as one might collect lucky pennies. From time to time, you'll dig your hand into your "pocket" and feel the assortment - run your finger tips over their textures, you'll feel their weight and you'll dance them in your palm, taking small joy in the tinny sound they make for you. A collection of otherwise overloo ..read more

7 minute read Tap, tap, tap... Is this thing on? Should I dust off this keyboard? Are any of you....still here? Still listening? Still occasionally poking your head in the doorway to see if anything has changed? Or is it just as I feared? An empty room where my lone voice is now echoing? Or perhaps I wanted an empty room all along? A place where I could feel less pressure and fewer eyeballs on me? Whew, there I go again. Asking a million questions before I even start. So let's do it. Let's just...start. To be honest, I've thought about drafting this post many times, months ago. And like most ..read more

3 minute read POV: You're a humble bookstore owner in New York. As much as you love summer, there's something about the crispness of fall in the city that just makes you want to buy school supplies. A backpack! A new bike perhaps? A bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils even! You always take the same route to your store, but today's a bit different. You swing by the bodega to pick up the end of the season's fresh sunflowers — they have your card on file so you keep cruising past. Down the avenue you go, to a looming intersection where a large store sign is being installed. "Who calls a b ..read more

2 minute read Normalcy is terribly overrated. Give me your quirky, your weird, your delightfully inquisitive, your left of center, your odd, your bizarre, your playful grin and your mischievous wink. Anyone can blend in — into a crowd or a social media feed — but tell me, where’s the fun in that? As for this week's playlist? Let's have some fun, shall we? I'm sure I'm not alone here when I admit I've only really been listening to Beyoncé's Renaissance album on repeat lately. And I'll throw in Maggie Roger's new album for good measure — with some Olivia Newton-John to top it all off. Hop ..read more

2 minute read I read a quote from the sculptor Isamu Noguchi the other day that read: “When an artist stops being a child, they stop being an artist.” And that stayed with me. Because here’s the thing: that child you used to be? The one you were so eager to leave behind in pursuit of adulthood? Of responsibility? Of accomplishment? Don’t be afraid to go back to them. Look with their eyes. Wonder with their heart. Seek answers and understanding with their curiosity. That child, in a beautifully ironic sense, actually knew more about living, truly living, than the years since have taught many ..read more

3 minute read There’s a Japanese form of pottery called Kintsugi — which translates to “golden joinery.” And the concept is quite simple: it’s the art of repairing broken pottery by mending the fractures with lacquer dusted in gold. Rather than disguising the imperfections, it wears them proudly, a golden traceable line of history, of character, of a life lived. What if we did the same? What if our “imperfections” aren’t something to hide away from the world as we’ve been told to do but rather something to be celebrated? To be highlighted? To be dusted in gold and admired? In the spirit o ..read more

2 minute read Plot twist: You've just spotted a little empty storefront in Montepulciano with a "Vendesi" sign in its window — "For sale?" you whisper under your breath as you saunter down the quiet pathway for a closer look. Perhaps it was an antique shop before? Or maybe that faint cheese smell is remnant of a former latteria? Whatever the case may be, it's dusty bones look good to you — its countertop you can already see yourself leaning over, deep in a book, it's shelves you've already mentally filled with books older than you, some in English, some in Italian, some in tongues you've yet ..read more

3 minute read The death of stills and stillness is here. There’s a post by Anastasia Pagonas that has been making the rounds the past few days (many of you sent it directly to me) and I think it warrants a lot of good questions, reflections and even self-culpability when it comes to how and what we share on social media, namely Instagram. It's no secret around here that I've had my fair share of complaints about the behemoth owned by Facebook, er Meta, and I realize you likely don't follow me to hear my daily frustrations with it. But I believe, whether you make a living off this ..read more

2 minute read Eccolo! he exclaimed. At the same moment the ground gave way, and with a cry she fell out of the wood. Light and beauty enveloped her. She had fallen on to a little open terrace, which was covered with violets from end to end. ‘Courage!’ cried her companion, now standing some six feet above. ‘Courage and love.’ She did not answer. From her feet the ground sloped sharply into view, and violets ran down in rivulets and streams and cataracts, irrigating the hillside with blue, eddying round the tree stems, collecting into pools in the hollows, covering the grass with spots of az ..read more

2 minute read I read a quote from the sculptor Isamu Noguchi the other day that read: “When an artist stops being a child, they stop being an artist.” And that stayed with me. Because here’s the thing: that child you used to be? The one you were so eager to leave behind in pursuit of adulthood? Of responsibility? Of accomplishment? Don’t be afraid to go back to them. Look with their eyes. Wonder with their heart. Seek answers and understanding with their curiosity. That child, in a beautifully ironic sense, actually knew more about living, truly living, than the years since have taught many ..read more