c.c. o'hanlon

@ccohanlon

vagabond. mendicant. diarist. wreck. Un de ces féroces infirmes retour des pays chauds. "So here is us, on the raggedy edge..." (from the film 'Serenity', 2005)

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c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· 22d

We had hoped to be able to gift our stalwart old sailboat to a new custodian who might voyage further with her, but organising the necessary paperwork has proven to be...a challenge. So we are offering her for sale, 'as is where is', at a significant discount. www.apolloduck.com/boat.phtml?i...

A blue-hulled, sloop-rigged yacht named Wrack, lying on a narrow pontoon in a marina.

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· 28d

The next 24 hours. [sigh]

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· Jul 2

"Six scientists and six crew will travel next month to Kirkenes, a remote Arctic town in Norway near the Russian border...there, they will climb onboard a futuristic, floating laboratory – the French-built Tara polar station." www.theguardian.com/environment/...

The Tara polar station silhouetted by the aurora borealis in Vassa, Finland. Photo by Maéva Bardy/Fondation Tara Ocean.

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· Jun 29

We are *this close* to finalising a long-term lease on an apartment for the first time in eight years (not counting our ill-fated attempt to restore a 16th century stone cottage in Puglia, five years ago). Please, please read our update and if you can, help us. www.gofundme.com/f/a-voyage-i...

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· Jun 28

"So many things lost in a life, my life, yours. So much left to articulate yearning." – Roger Rosenblatt, from Why Old People Cry www.nytimes.com/2026/06/27/o...

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· Jun 25

"Some of humanity’s largest emergencies unfold in relative obscurity. History is full of such examples. Entire populations suffer while the rest of us scroll past." Bring Me Your Neglected Crises by Peter Bach (@lyst.bsky.social) www.counterpunch.org/2026/06/25/b...

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· Jun 24

"Ask yourself who benefits from the encouraging the idea that people cannot have expectations that society is capable of managing diverse and complex needs but has to default to corporate and police power in order to survive..." – @andreapitzer.bsky.social degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/turning-th...

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· Jun 22

Our latest update to @liznangel3.bsky.social's appeal for us: We have found an affordable apartment, with rooms that, for old people used to the narrow confines of a small, vintage sailboat, feel almost palatial. We just need help and a little luck to secure it. www.gofundme.com/f/a-voyage-i...

An engraved 19th century nautical chart of the Bay of Palermo, on the north-west coast of Sicily..

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· Jun 19

Our darling friend @liznangel3.bsky.social lit candles for us in a church in Newport, Co. Mayo, close by the gorgeous stained glass windows designed by the Irish artist and illustrator Harry Clarke (1889-1931). Photos by @liznangel3.bsky.social.

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· Jun 12

A dear friend — superstitious in that way that a lot of lapsed Catholics (like me) are — lit two candles for Given and me in a church in Belfast. We need all the help we can get.

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· Jun 12

#RIP David Hockney, aged 88.

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· Jun 8

Yes!

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· Jun 6

From left: Timothy Behrens, Lucien Freud, Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach and Michael Andrews at Wheeler’s, in Soho, London, 1962. Photo by John Deakin.

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· Jun 1

AI and the Rise of Mediocrity by Ray Nayler — a bloody huge and timely caveat. [thanks to @greatdismal.bsky.social] time.com/6337835/ai-m...

The problem for AI is that creative work is not predictable. It is not about statistical likelihood or simply mashing up the familiar—it is about leaps in logic and counterintuitive juxtapositions. It is about the unique experience of the individual, and seeking to do what has never been done before. It is about the least predictable next word or pixel. So the danger is not that AI programs will write the next great novel or create the next great painting, successfully replacing human inventiveness: they never will. The greater danger is that they won’t need to create great writing or art.

Because they cannot truly innovate, everything that predictive language and image models will produce will be a sequel to what came before: not an original idea, but a mash-up of our old tropes, repackaged for our consumption. This was already a dominant tendency in our commercial industries—to simply take what has been done before, tweak it a little, rebrand it, and call it new. As a result, AI will fill the world with grindingly average texts, passable but derivative illustration and video, and unoriginal but functional new product designs.

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· May 28

"Democrats are getting it wrong again." Tina Brown's caustic, cautionary take on Trump and the looming mid-terms: not waning, winning. [sigh] tinabrown.substack.com/p/trumps-swe...

If there is any message that crystalizes the 250th anniversary of the U.S., it is not that America has changed but that Trump has changed America. There will be no snapback when he’s gone. Even as his approval ratings tank and the country is hurting, it feels as if his base has become wider and deeper and represents a new national state of mind. Tuned out on our phones, mesmerized by money porn, high on the idolatry of the big flashy win, we are getting used to the erosion of the rule of law, the threats to free speech, the banishment of government watchdogs, and the chasm of inequality. After ten years of Trump bludgeoning the first principles of the American experiment (ten because I don’t count the disappearing ink of Biden’s lame tenure when every headline was a new Trump indictment, scandal, or toxic blast from exile in Mar-a-Lago), Trump has refashioned the country in his image.

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· May 22

After a few days of low-calorie rations, no fruit, no veg, an unexpected windfall allowed Given to shop for fresh groceries today and prepare a 'proper' lunch. Our metabolisms were unprepared — we've spent the afternoon laid out on our bunks, in 'food comas'. Photo by Finn O'Hanlon.

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· May 21

Watchman, Cinecittà, Rome, 1956. Photo by William Klein.

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· May 21

A morning lost in 'Irwin Klein and the New Settlers' by Bernard Klein (2016) and the late Irwin Klein's haunting b&w photographs of 'hippy' communities and homesteads in New Mexico between 1967 and 1971.

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· May 11

"Jim Brodey was a messenger of chaos who blazed through the rock music and experimental poetry scenes of New York. What happened to him?" Differing Freak Wonder: a 2021 profile by Nick Sturm (@nicksturm.bsky.social) www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/155...

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· May 2

We Live in a Time of Monsters, a powerful essay (from March, 2026) by my friend Lina Mounzer @warghetti.bsky.social, senior editor at The Markaz Review, in Lebanon. themarkaz.org/we-live-in-a...

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· Apr 26

"The United States is being murdered, and it’s an inside job. Every department, every branch, every bureau and function of the federal government is being fatally corrupted or altogether dismantled or disabled." – Rebecca Solnit www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· Apr 20

Watermelon traders at a floating wholesale market along the Sandha River in Pirojpur, Bangladesh. Photo by Syed Mahabubul Kader.

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· Apr 20

I tried to stand up, with the help of three 'marineros' (marina workers, but couldn't so I lay on the dock for 15 minutes, to regain my stability — and, it has to be said, my sodden dignity. Below, the livid souvenirs:

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· Apr 19

When the then best-selling novelist Jay McInerney visited Paul Bowles in Tangier, 1985, for Vanity Fair, one of his most intriguing observations was that, "Bowles makes his way around town in a bronze 1967 Mustang." Photos by Mary Ellen Mark www.maryellenmark.com/bibliography...

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· Apr 8

A long update posted to @liznangel3.bsky.social's appeal for us, about our efforts to settle ashore, repair Wrack, find regular income, and overcome the risk not just of being homeless but shelterless. Please read and if you can, help us. The appeal closes soon. www.gofundme.com/f/a-voyage-i...

Portrait of an elderly couple, C.C. and Given, sitting in front of a frayed wall hanging in a Tangier café, 2023.

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· Mar 20

If you're thinking about what to do with your summer, my friend Peter Stridh (@pinoseed-connect.bsky.social) is offering berths aboard his engineless 10-metre sailboat/home on a series of daytrips and longer passages off the coast of Sardinia, between April and October. pinoseed.com

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· Mar 19

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· Mar 18

The train ferry, aboard which our entire train was sailed across the Strait of Messina, from mainland Italy to Sicily, while we were still in our bunks.

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· Mar 18

A snapshot from a carriage window on the Rome-Palermo night train: approaching the Straits of Messina, with the smallest of the Aeolian Islands, Panarea, on the horizon.

c.c. o'hanlon@ccohanlon· Feb 27

On the road across America with Ken Kesey and The Merry Pranksters, 1964: "It’s all a myth now, anyway. Tell it however you want." – Ken Babbs, one of the original Merry Pranksters ccohanlon.tumblr.com/post/6832138... Below: The Pranksters aboard the modified school bus, Furthur, and Ken Kesey