Advanced Leisure

GOOD NEWS for Advanced Leisure fans: we are preparing to file for an LLC and will be debuting a new newsletter in the Fall. This will coincide with our trip to Seoul to visit family and buy art. The art market in South Korea is very exciting and we will be reporting on the artists, galleries, and museums that we visit, as well as the food and recipes that we encounter.  The next iteration of this publication will feature new contributors and an abundance of new content. I look forward to this exciting future.

 We just returned from an epic road trip. Over a month on the road, we briefly visited Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, and Colorado, and we got to spend some quality time in Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, and New Mexico. We left on short notice and packed in one night. We did a lot right, but I would do a few things differently.  Here are some thoughts and suggestions in no particular order: HDMI cord and ethernet cords: We brought the former and forgot the latter. For security, I recommend that you bring an ethernet cable. If you have an ultrabook like me (no Ethernet port), you can get a USB to Ethernet converter. As for the HDMI cable, most hotels have TVs with accessible HDMI ports; just connect your laptop and stream away. Binoculars: We visited a lot of National and State Parks during the migratory season for many animals. We forgot to bring binoculars! I picked some up at the Yellowstone General Store and boy was I glad. Still, I am sure that it would have been a lot cheaper if I had g...

I am never less at leisure than when at leisure, nor less alone than when I am alone.  -Scipio Africanus It occurred to me that it might be well worthwhile to define what I mean by leisure . First and foremost, I think of the quote above. This sense of leisure reaches back to the Greeks and the concept of schole , as in school . Leisure, or schole, is associated with learning, self-cultivation, philosophy, and freedom. In this sense, " Leisure is not the cessation of work, but work of another kind, work restored to its human meaning, as a celebration and a festival ."  This conception of schole is represented in the notion of a Sabbath, a time set aside for contemplation and reflection. In an article titled, "Learning and Leisure: Developing a School of Schole," Christopher Perrin writes:  " In 1948 the German philosopher Josef Pieper wrote a small book (about 130 pages) entitled Leisure the Basis for Culture .  Classical educators need this book.  Pieper does ...

What defines a collection? A collection is cumulative and consists of objects that have been systematically obtained. A good collection is more than the sum of its parts. The interrelationships of the objects is mutually informing. It is all a matter of harmony. It keeps one busy!  I think of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Pumping Iron , working out for him was a constant pursuit of harmony. When he exercised one part of his body, he had to compensate for it. This need for balance is present in many collectors too. They want to achieve a representative sample of a given series. Oftentimes, they want to focus on something that they perceive as underappreciated.  At other times, collecting is less about achieving totality than variety. This is the aspect that I find to be most fruitful. It is not a matter of "catching them all" but of circulation. The desire to collect can easily arrive on the tails of boredom. On the other hand, a good collection can ward it off and inspires a degre...