Category: Food for Thought

The story of Sixto Rodriguez is one that makes me cry, every single time I watch the brilliant documentary “Searching for Sugar Man” by Malik Bendjelloul. Nothing is better than watching that Oscar-winning documentary when you want or need to feel better. I highly recommend doing just that. Sixto Rodriguez was a hopeful singer from… Continue reading Sixto Rodriguez – A Hero all the Time

Korean artist Nam June Paik’s famous quote matched nobody better than Austrian-US actress Hedy Lamarr. She was one of those few people who seemed to have everything – exquisite beauty, money, and fame. Looking closer she had even more, intelligence, indeed genius, down-to-earth realism –  and also some quite bad character traits. At times she… Continue reading “When too perfect, lieber Gott boese” – Hedy Lamarr

There is little literature on the country of Mongolia, apart from travel guides and books about Genghis Khan. Sometimes the country is mentioned in connection with Marco Polo’s travels, when China was still ruled from Mongolia. During Marco Polo’s time, Genghis Khans grandson Kublai Khan ruled the empire. Modern Mongolia, captured between the landmasses of… Continue reading Mongolia as it was in the 2000s

There is one sentence in George Orwell’s classic “Animal Farm” that summarizes human behaviour and human life: ‘ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS’. The book, published by Eric Arthur Blair under his pen name George Orwell in 1945, turned an instant success. George Orwell was born in 1903 in… Continue reading George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”

“The Great Gatsby”, like all true classics, will never be outdated. The tale F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about the self-made millionaire Jay Gatsby, who wanted his first love Daisy Buchanan back and lost everything, including his life, over this, is timeless. The heartbreaking story made abundantly clear that Jay Gatsby, the hero of the book,… Continue reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”

Some books are friendly advisers on how to do things better or with more style. Searching on amazon, I found Jennifer L. Scott’s “MADAME CHIC” books. There are 3 of them, written by a former exchange student to France who came to a family of aristocratic, very traditional people living in the centre of Paris.… Continue reading Discipline and Self-Responsibility – “MADAME CHIC” and Jennifer L. Scott

This is a rather personal article and therefore may not be interesting for everybody. I write it, because I would like to know if others made the same experiences. I have always had an exceptional good memory. Much to the annoyance of coworkers and friends, because I can become a stickler for details. With a… Continue reading Deceptive Memories

Sir David Gilmour’s wonderful biography of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa “The Last Leopard” is like a bridge between old and new, it makes the man behind the novel visible and sheds understanding on a world long gone. “The Leopard” the world bestselling novel of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, a duke and prince of very old… Continue reading Change and Adaption – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

This article revolves around a medical topic. I would like to make clear that I am not a medical doctor, but only an interested user of the techniques described in the books I have read about the vagus nerve. I had no idea that particular nerve existed before a friend, who indeed is a medical… Continue reading The Vagus Nerve: How to Support the Parasympathetic Nervous System

Some time ago I watched the 1980s movies “Working Girl” and “9 to 5” on Amazon Prime. The first movie I had had on my list for 25 years, as it came highly recommended by a friend. The second one came up when reading about Dolly Parton who wrote the title song and starred in… Continue reading Woman at Work