Rare books, together again
The Library of Congress holds many treasures:
Continue reading →Category Archives: Literature and writing
Christ in the stranger’s guise
Recently something reminded me of a book I had first read back in the 1980s, one I would recommend to everyone. It’s called Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust, and it’s quite different from most Holocaust literature: An important work of … Continue reading →
Cloud cuckoo land
Recently a commenter used the phrase “cloud cuckoo land” to refer to something outlandish in the political realm. I’d heard the phrase before, and always had thought it was of relatively recent vintage—sort of like “la-la land” or “tinfoil hats.” … Continue reading →
Orwell on Tolstoy vs. Shakespeare: the theme and variations vs. the symphony
[NOTE: I’m not becoming Tolstoy-obsessed, although I’ve written two days in a row on him. However, I think that the topic of both posts is not really Tolstoy per se, but larger philosophical questions about the good life, politics, and … Continue reading →
Tolstoy on Communism—and a lot of other things
Leo Tolstoy lived from 1828 to 1910, and was probably just as famous for his political and religious/social beliefs as he was for his writing (maybe even more so). Tolstoy was a Titan of energy and creativity who later in … Continue reading →
Greenland sharks live 400 years
Yes, you read that right: 400 years. If you call that “living.” We actually don’t know all that much about shark behavior. But here’s my first introduction to it, courtesy of Herman Melville in a Moby Dick passage that made … Continue reading →
Predicting the future: another post from your friendly Trump-hating media shill
There’s a trend I’ve noticed in the comments section here and also in some of the emails I’ve been getting: quite a few people admonishing me that I should shut up like a good apparatchik and take one for the … Continue reading →
The Rubaiyat: translation and inspiration
Edward FitzGerald’s translation of “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam” is justly famous and justly beloved. I studied the poem in high school, and it was one of my favorite assignments—really, a revelation. But FitzGerald was very free with his translation, … Continue reading →
Things fall apart…
That quote that I used for the title of this post is from Yeats’ famous poem “The Second Coming.” It’s one I’ve quoted many times on this blog, because it’s not only a great, great poem, but also because it … Continue reading →
Snowball Earth
I have no idea whether this theory known as “Snowball Earth” has any validity at all, but it’s fascinating to contemplate it: The Snowball Earth hypothesis proposes that the Earth’s surface became entirely or nearly entirely frozen at least once, … Continue reading →
Day Two of the RNC (plus, the continuing furor over Melania’s speech)
I didn’t watch the convention yesterday. Mega-busy—and also there’s a limit to the number of political speeches I can stomach, and that limit has always been set very very low. But other people did watch, and if you want to … Continue reading →
Can there be a more important issue than Melania Trump’s plagiarism?
I usually don’t watch convention speeches or speeches in general, but I was curious about two last night and decided to watch them. Neither was so very long, and both were interesting. The first was Guiliani’s fiery anti-Hillary pro-Trump shoutfest, … Continue reading →