A poem — It came to me last Tuesday Somewhere around two in the afternoon, I think, As I cursed and threatened an impassive computer How my life was not a novel With a defined arc of beginning, middle and end. It lacks resolution, with a denouement to follow Neither punctuation nor spelling await correction A…

As we drove through the forest, the road began to sing to us. The sound changed with the speed of the minibus, but it was unmistakable. We were driving on a singing road. That morning, after a few days of exploring Tokyo in the rain, I woke to clear skies…

While I struggled with braces on my teeth and conjugating the past tense in French and German, Michelangelo was carving his first works. The braces were not a pretty sight. The Madonna della Scala is. At the age of thirteen, Michelangelo was apprenticed by his father to Ghirlandaio’s studios. Two…

One quiet morning in Florence, I decided to walk to the Boboli Gardens, Staying in the Oltrarno, the way seemed a short stroll on the map. …

Whenever I visit the Art Gallery of NSW — and I’ve known this art gallery since I was a child — it’s a different painting that captures my attention. Tom Roberts’ Bailed Up (painted in 1895) remains for me an iconic Australian work. Roberts was one of the first painters…

Bohemia. Such a romantic name. A name Prague lives up to, even when the sun’s barely risen 3 degrees. Although it was spring, the morning was bitterly cold. …