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PAUL CHRISTENSEN
SUMMERTIME
We just came through a heat wave here in southern France. It was like riding in an old-fashioned tourist bus through the lowlands around...
PIGEONS
A pigeon slowly walks up a course of roof tiles to the pitch. Its gait is deliberate, and its head is bent forward to be sure it doesn't...
WITH DANTE IN FLORENCE
My wife and I watched a documentary on French TV the other night called "The Asphyxiation of Venice," about how tourism is killing off...
HILLARY'S VICTORY
Hillary won her delegate count today. The New York Times and the Washington Post are headlining the news above the fold. She made it,...
VILLAGE DREAMS
A stone village like the one I live in here in southern France was squeezed together long ago by vanished defensive walls. Only a few...
BACK TO PROVENCE
I'm back in France after nine months in rural Vermont. I had grown used to the cold in Vermont, the hard gray skies that sagged like some...
PORTRAIT OF A MAN
When I was visiting my daughter in Seattle a few days ago, a man appeared on the sidewalk in front of her apartment building. He seemed...
RAINING IN LATE MARCH
It's raining out, a cold, soaking rain that has been mumbling in the rain gutters all morning and afternoon. The light is full of...
TURNING 73
I turned 73 today. I look it. My hair is shaggy and white as old snow, my moustache a bit rough over my upper lip from the electric...
THE MUSES I HAVE LEARNED FROM
My mother was moody; my father was not. Therein lies my emotional education. Who was right? My father was the great stone face at the...
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