Always wanted to...

1. Be a DJ.

2. Sing back vocals in a band.

3. Drive a tram.

4. Have a room with walls covered with bookshelves, crammed with books.

And you?

Fiat lux

That last Sunday of October has to be the saddest day of the year. We change back the clock and suddenly we are plunged into long, dark evenings. And it gets worse by the day. Who switched off the light?

Plus, there is November: fading colors, barren trees, gray skies, lots of rain.

Novembers should be abolished by decree. We should go from October straight into the season of Christmas fairs and mulled wine, without this nuisance in between.

On the bright side, there are still so many things one can do in November: heaps of books to be read, photo courses to be tried, pancake brunches to be had with friends. Who has time to succumb to melancholic thoughts when there is enough French homework to keep one busy for a year? And of course there is salsa--great at any season, absolutely necessary in this one.

So let's create some light with frantic activity.

And plenty of red.

The old age of nostalgia

"Those hours given over to basking in the glow of an imagined future, of being carried away in streams of promise by a love or a passion so strong that one felt altered forever and convinced that the smallest particle of the surrounding world was charged with a purpose of impossible grandeur; ah yes, and one would look up into the trees and be thrilled by the wind-loosened river of pale gold foliage cascading down and by the high melodious singing of countless birds; those moments, so many and so long ago, still come back, but briefly, the fireflies in the perfumed heat of a summer night"

Mark Strand