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There are museums where we go to see paintings. And then there are places where we go to meet the painter. Cézanne’s atelier in Aix-en-Provence is one of those places. It sits above the city on the hill of Les Lauves, a modest building surrounded by trees and an overgrown Provençal garden. Paul Cézanne bought the land in 1901 and had the studio built for himself. From 1902 until his death in 1906, this was where he came to work, particularly in the mornings. It became the set

There are addresses that tell you where you are, and addresses that seem to tell you where you have been. 17 Rue Saint-Joseph is one of the latter. It is not one of the grand addresses of Aix-en-Provence. There is no sweeping staircase, no fountain splashing in a courtyard, no imposing façade announcing centuries of wealth. It is a small house on a narrow street in the old city, the sort of place you might walk past without noticing if you were hurrying somewhere else. But Ai

The Musée de l’Orangerie, at the western end of the Tuileries Garden, began not as a museum but as a winter shelter for the garden’s orange trees - hence its name. Built in 1852, the long, light-filled building eventually found a very different purpose when Claude Monet offered a monumental group of his Nymphéas (Water Lilies) to the French nation following the First World War. Monet was closely involved in planning how the paintings would be displayed, envisioning great pano

There is a particular kind of walking one does in Paris that has very little to do with getting anywhere. You begin with a destination, or at least the pretense of one, and then Paris interferes. A café catches your eye. A dog trots past with the confidence of a regular. Someone emerges from a boulangerie carrying a baguette under one arm. A narrow street seems more interesting than the broad one you are following, so you turn down it. And before long you have forgotten where

There are moments when you go to a museum to look at the paintings. And there are moments when the people looking at the paintings become every bit as interesting as the paintings themselves. This was one of those moments. We were in the Musée d’Orsay, in the Impressionist galleries, along with what appeared to be half the population of Paris and a substantial proportion of the tourists visiting Europe. The galleries were packed. People moved slowly from room to room in a gre

At a restaurant on the edge of the Place Saint-Sulpice, I noticed a family having lunch. There were six of them. Mother and father. Grandmother. Three children. The oldest was a boy with tousled hair. The middle child was a girl. The youngest was another boy, distinguished - at least in my memory - by a particularly unfortunate haircut. They were having a wonderful time. They talked. They laughed. They smiled. The children participated in the conversation. The adults listened

Your Turn by Alison Aubrey is scheduled for publication on September 8, 2026. In this blog I have treated Aubrey's published description and third turn framework as inspiration rather than implying that this four-part blog series is a review of the complete published book. Part 1 - Identity: The Third Act and the Third Turn: When the Career Ends but the Story Doesn't. Part 2 - Flow: The Flow State: When You Forget to Look at the Clock. Part 3 - Curiosity: Curiosity: The Fuel

Some time ago, I wrote about what I called the Third Act. The idea seemed straightforward. If life were a play, perhaps it could be divided - very approximately - into three acts. Blog At A Glance Retirement is not necessarily an ending. Leaving a career may close an important chapter without ending the larger story of a productive and interesting life. Allison Aubrey calls this the Third Turn. In Your Turn, Aubrey explores the possibility that midlife and beyond can be

There is something about a cat that seems to defy ordinary anatomy. A dog runs. A horse gallops. A human being walks. Their movements may be graceful and athletic, but we can usually understand what we are watching. Then there is the cat ... Blog At A Glance Key Point What It Tells Us About Cats Cats are built to right themselves in midair Their remarkable ability to land on their feet depends on a highly specialized combination of spinal flexibility, body movement and mass d

We spend a great deal of time trying to understand dogs. Perhaps we should spend a little more time appreciating how extraordinarily dogs have become at understanding us. Blog At A Glance Point Key Idea Take-Home Message 1. Domestication changed the dog brain Over roughly 15,000 years, humans selected dogs not only for physical traits and useful behaviors, but indirectly for neural systems that helped them live successfully with us. We did not simply change what dogs look l

Universities are filled with intelligent people. That is what makes one of their most persistent problems so interesting. How can institutions populated by scholars trained to question assumptions, challenge evidence, expose weak arguments, and demand intellectual rigor sometimes make enormous decisions with remarkably little visible dissent? Quick Read: Five-Point Blog Summary Point Key Idea Take-Home Message 1. Silence is not the same as agreement Universities can make majo

In a previous blog, AI Detection, Authorship and Academic Integrity: The Strange New Science of Detecting AI, I considered an increasingly uncomfortable problem. (https://www.ricklecouteur.com/post/ai-detection-authorship-and-academic-integrity-the-strange-new-science-of-detecting-ai-685) Universities want to know whether students are using artificial intelligence to produce academic work. So, they have turned to artificial intelligence to detect artificial intelligence. The

I recently did something that, a few years ago, would have made absolutely no sense. I took one of my own blog posts and submitted it to an AI-detection program. The result came back: 7% of this text appears to be AI-generated. The accompanying graphic was reassuringly precise. Seven percent of the text resembles AI text. Ninety-three percent showed no AI text patterns. My first reaction was amusement. My second was curiosity. What exactly does 7 percent mean? Did artificial

Accreditation matters. It matters enormously. When a student graduates with a veterinary degree, the public has every right to assume that the graduate has received an education that meets rigorous professional standards. Employers need that assurance. Licensing authorities need it. Students investing years of their lives and hundreds of thousands of dollars need it. And, most importantly, our patients need it. Few would seriously argue that veterinary schools should simply b

The $327 Million Question Facing the UC Davis Veterinary Medical Complex This is the third essay in this three part series: Bigger, Better & Already Outdated? What If the Future of Veterinary Medicine Isn't a Building? (https://www.ricklecouteur.com/post/bigger-better-already-outdated-what-if-the-future-of-veterinary-medicine-isn-t-a-building) The Modern University: Who Decided to Build the Future? Consultation, stakeholders and the decision before the decision. (https://www.

This essay follows the earlier blog titled Bigger, Better & Already Outdated? What If the Future of Veterinary Medicine Isn't a Building? (https://www.ricklecouteur.com/post/bigger-better-already-outdated-what-if-the-future-of-veterinary-medicine-isn-t-a-building) UC Davis is building an extraordinary new veterinary medical complex. Its planned Small Animal Hospital alone is projected to cost $327 million. It will expand clinical capacity, incorporate sophisticated technology

Is the New Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital being built for yesterday's veterinary medicine? UC Davis is planning an extraordinary new veterinary hospital. The proposed Small Animal Hospital will be large, technologically sophisticated and expensive. Current university plans put the project cost at $327 million, with completion anticipated in 2029. It is intended to increase annual patient capacity dramatically while expanding specialty medicine, emergency and critical ca

I came to America in 1978. I did not come as an American. I came as a young Australian who had grown up in Australia, spent the previous few years in Canada, graduated with a veterinary degree from the University of Sydney, had some ambition, and possessed no particular claim upon the country that was about to become such an important part of my life. America owed me nothing. And yet America gave me almost everything. America educated me as a veterinary neurologist and neuros

Every so often, an issue arises that reminds us of a simple but profound truth: Possessing legal authority does not eliminate the need to listen. Consider energy. Canada supplies a substantial proportion of the crude oil refined in America's Midwest. Pipelines, refineries, governments, manufacturers, transport companies, farmers, and millions of consumers form an interconnected system. No single participant operates in isolation. Canada may own the resource. American companie

Last week, I attended the annual Prize Night at the University of Sydney School of Veterinary Medicine. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening. I was invited to the event as a donor, having contributed a scholarship in 2016 (The LeCouteur Family Scholarship - https://www.sydney.edu.au/scholarships/d/lecouteur-family-scholarship.html). Scholarships and prizes were presented to students who had distinguished themselves through academic achievement, leadership and service. Of the