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For those of you who may have been under the impression that a vomitorium was a place where Romans went to vomit in order to continue their gluttony, this is not true. Turns out a vomitorium is an architectural feature of amphitheatres that allowed spectators to enter and exit quickly (vomere: to discharge). So, next [...]

I remember, some years ago, being very intrigued by the title of a great film with Phoebe Cates (she of “Which one of you bitches is my mother?” fame). It was called Bodies, Rest & Motion, and the title intrigued me because when I first heard I thought it was called Bodies Rest in Motion, [...]

I have had the kind of week that one wishes as a template for a lifetime. The kind that, in memory, merges into one continuous and lovely experience of food, wine, friends, work, sleep, talk, dreams. And most of this in sobriety. Specific chronologies elude me, but I know that somewhere in the week I [...]

I return home after some hours of preparation for a class on the current “health” hysteria. The main text is an article by Michael Pollan (“Unhappy Meals“), in which he chronicles the rise of this thing called Nutritionism. Not to be confused with nutrition, Nutritionism is the ideology – or, collection of unquestioned assumptions – [...]

You can never go wrong with Simon and Garfunkel. If I could find their America I would go back in a second. ‘Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes together I’ve got some real estate here in my bag So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner’s pies And we walked off [...]