New World Pope
"Let's Drink to That!' Don Merlot of the Writers Clearinghouse News Service reports from New Orleans
Once I left the New World and started travelling to the Old World, seeing what existed before our culture was even created made me understand the old saying that was created by Rudyard Kipling – “East is east and west is west and never the Twain shall meet.” Because Columbus sailed west and he thought he found the Indies, the Caribbean became the West Indies. Once it was figured out that the West Indies are really not India, China or Japan as known in the Old World going east, what had been found was the New World, which was untouched by the old World Civilizations & which comprised of Western Europe the Middle East Africa and Asia (to the Pacific), where the Spice World had already been carved up by the Portuguese and Dutch. Western Europe, the old World, had only started at the height of the Roman Empire, which moved west to bring in the new order of Western Civilization. I love my mentor's rule: 'Aloncito, can send you to Paris for two weeks and you will come back and write a book. I can send you to Paris for two months and maybe you can come back and write ten pages; and I can send you to Paris for two years and you will come back and not be able to write anything because you are confused!'
It's tiny, but as one reviewer noted, "The people who work there really love books. It kind of oozes out of their pores in an almost intangible way, and I get the sense they become friends with the regulars."