Encounters · No. 1 The Art of Following Someone Sophie Calle has spent forty years turning other people’s lives — and her own grief — into something that looks, uncomfortably, like art. By Bergotte In January 1980, Sophie Calle followed a stranger to Venice. She had met him briefly at a party in Paris, notContinue reading “Sophie Calle”
Category Archives: Blog
Affordable Style: Inns and Guesthouses of Hungary’s Wine Villages
Hungary’s wine regions are among Europe’s best-kept secrets. Beyond Budapest, the hills of Tokaj and Eger are dotted with vineyards, baroque towns, and family-run cellars. Instead of polished resorts, travellers here are welcomed into small pensions, rustic guesthouses, and vineyard inns where tasting a glass of local Furmint or Egri Bikavér feels like slipping intoContinue reading “Affordable Style: Inns and Guesthouses of Hungary’s Wine Villages”
Who Are You at the Dinner Table? The Invite — Review
Director: Olivia WildeScreenplay: Rashida Jones and Will McCormackStarring: Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde, Penélope Cruz, Edward NortonYear: 2026Country: United StatesGenre: Comedy-drama / chamber comedyRunning time: 107 minutesBased on: Cesc Gay’s Sentimental (2020), released internationally as The People UpstairsRating: ★★★★☆ What It Is Joe and Angela are a long-married San Francisco couple whose relationship has calcified intoContinue reading “Who Are You at the Dinner Table? The Invite — Review”
The Reel Argument: Ingmar Bergman
By Bergotte Ingmar Bergman made films about the things we cannot say to each other, and he made them with a directness that is almost unbearable. He is routinely described as a difficult filmmaker — demanding, austere, heavy — and this reputation has kept more people from him than it has drawn in, which isContinue reading “The Reel Argument: Ingmar Bergman”
The Beginning of the End of the Story: Departure(s) — Review
Author: Julian BarnesTitle: Departure(s)Year: 2026Genre: Literary fictionForm: A late novel / elegiac fictionRating: ★★★★★ What It Is Departure(s) is Julian Barnes’s declared final book: a brief, formally elusive work that moves between fiction, memoir, literary essay and autobiography while refusing to settle comfortably into any one of them. Barnes’s own website describes it as fictionContinue reading “The Beginning of the End of the Story: Departure(s) — Review”
Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World
Director: Sasha WatersTitle: Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the WorldYear: 2026Country: United StatesGenre: Documentary / BiographyRunning time: 91 minutesRating: ★★★★☆ What It Is Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World is Sasha Waters’s documentary portrait of the Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet Mary Oliver, whose deceptively simple poems about nature, solitude, mortality,Continue reading “Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World”
The Human Condition According to Tolstoy
By Bergotte Leo Tolstoy is the writer who makes other great writers feel provincial. Not because his books are the longest, though two of them are among the longest ever written, and not because his range is the widest, though it extends from the ballrooms of Moscow to the battlefields of Austerlitz to the peasantContinue reading “The Human Condition According to Tolstoy”
Letter From The Editor #9
Things have changed around here. As of this week, there will be much more structure to our posts. I’ve always likened this website to a kind of open notebook, but even open notebooks need a spine — so from now on, each day will have its own focus, giving you something to look forward toContinue reading “Letter From The Editor #9”
Issey Miyake
Encounters · No. 6 A Piece of Cloth Issey Miyake survived the atomic bomb at seven years old and spent the rest of his life making clothes that felt like freedom. These two facts are not unrelated. By Bergotte On the morning of August 6, 1945, Issey Miyake was seven years old and standing closeContinue reading “Issey Miyake”
Outline by Rachel Cusk — Review
Author: Rachel CuskTitle: OutlineFirst published: 2014Genre: Literary fictionLength: approximately 250 pages (256 pages in the Picador paperback edition)Series: Outline Trilogy, Book OneRating: ★★☆☆☆ What It Is Rachel Cusk’s Outline is a novel constructed largely through ten conversations. Its narrator, Faye, is a writer who travels to Athens to teach a summer creative-writing course. During herContinue reading “Outline by Rachel Cusk — Review”
My World of Interiors 