Good morning!

         The collection of things that caught my interest over the past couple of weeks has grown so large that once again, there are at least a dozen open tabs on my browser. I will parcel them out week by week for ease of digestion.

    Number one is my sister Flynn's brand new venture: she's started a Substack column and I hope you'll join me in following along as she posts more. As you might remember from earlier mentions in this newsletter, Flynn's a photographer by profession, but she's also an introvert (like me), a analytical observer, a dancer, a writer, a teacher, and much more. An all-around creative soul.

    When we were kids, like many others in the late '70s and into the mid-'80s, we devoured the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. We read the books cover to cover, over and over, watched the TV show religiously, and went through a prairie skirt phase. Now, Flynn's introduced her own kids to the joys and mysteries and marvelous worlds of Little House In The Big Woods and all the others in the collection, and in the process, got to relive them all herself, but with the interesting sense of watching one's own childhood mind at work that comes from re-experiencing something from decades ago as an adult. I'm envious and keep meaning to make the time to get a copy of one of the books to take myself on a trip back in time, too.

        Flynn's first Substack post was about what it felt like to revisit those books, their new-oldness and the different shades of meaning she found in them as an adult. Here it is. Please read, enjoy, and follow! I got a sneak preview of her second post, which is also literature related, and similarly thoughtful, and if it's not already published, will be soon.

        On a completely different subject, did you know you could own Margot Fonteyn's former home in London? It's where she lived in the 1950s and '60s with her husband, Roberto Emilio Arias, who was at that time the ambassador to Panama. I love picturing Dame Margot resting by the pool, soaking in the spa tub, entertaining in the salons with her elegance matching the decor.

    Six bedrooms, movie theater, pool, spa, many entertainment and dining areas, gardens... 

    A steal (?) at $85.5 million.

        Finally for today, it's been announced that the Paris Opera Ballet's Swan Lake is soon to open in Imax theaters worldwide.

        The last time I saw an Imax movie was Everest, based on the disaster chronicled in John Krakauer's book, Into Thin Air. I remember feeling like I was so close-- too close for comfort, really-- to the climbers that I kept squishing myself further back into my seat, trying to get away.

    If a film of Swan Lake can put the audience that close to the dancers, I can't imagine much more that could be done to impress on them the physicality of ballet.