Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Via email from Shebar Windstone

Thank you, Bruce, for your indefatigable efforts to share your
geo-historic adventures/rambles & to broaden our cultural horizons!

Perhaps your Medium piece about Calder's life and work (discussed in
<253-258>) might best be described as "stream-of-cognizance"?

Thanks also for your riff in <103> about Branislav Nusic & for the
link to his Wikipedia listing
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branislav_Nu%C5%A1i%C4%87>. I was
surprised to find that YouTube offers several films & videos based
on his works (plays, novels, & the libretto for the first Serbian
opera), one produced as recently as 2020, & they clearly resonate
with contemporary viewers. The depth & breadth of his life & work
are amazing -- from being a  political prisoner to working for the
Foreign Ministry & clerking in three foreign consulates, director of
national theaters in three different Yugoslav countries, editor,
journalist, political activist, civil servant, & military service in
two wars between 1885 & 1916. Furthermore, most, if not all, of his
writings are still in print! But, like the videos on YouTube,
they're only in Serbian, alas. Giving me/us many more reasons to
study -- & to hope for speedy developments in AI-assisted
communications.

But first, I'll read two books that I just got from my local
library, by & about Dusan "Dusko" Popov
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du%C5%A1ko_Popov>, another amazing
Yugoslav, who was one of the models or inspirations for Ian
Fleming's creation of James Bond.

Finally, in the interests of gender equality as well as world
travel, I'd like to put in a plug for Jelena Dimitrijevic
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jelena_Dimitrijevi%C4%87>. Her life &
works also make it seem worthwhile to learn Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian
-- &/or to work on AI!
  

    
We're ready to wrap up this year's State of the World conversation.
Hope we have a world to talk about this time next year. Thanks to
Bruce and all the other folks who showed up this year. 

"What is reality? An icicle forming in fire." ~ Zen Master Eihei
Dogen
  

    
Thank you Jon for steadfastly organizing this year after year.
  

    
More thanks from here. Someone way up thread said they found this
year's conversation boring, I thoroughly disagree, thought both Jonl
and Bruces's comments useful in our collective effort to figure out
how to navigate through these pretty terrible times
  

    
Yes thank you. The world has many painful details. 

Someone elsewhere on the WELL posted this quote by James Baldwin:

 "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be
changed until it is faced." 
  

    
Thanks, folks. I hope we made some sense of the senseless.