I’ve written before about Allan Bloom’s masterful The Closing of the American Mind, published in 1987, here and here. And I probably will again. It is so richly loaded with thought that almost every sentence might cause the reader to … Continue reading →
Amity Shlaes, author of the highly-praised (by conservatives, anyway) The Forgotten Man, about the Great Depression, has just put out a biography of Calvin Coolidge called—simply and appropriately enough, since he was known as a man who didn’t waste words—Coolidge. … Continue reading →
[NOTE: I thought this post, first published here in November of 2010, could bear repeating. I had forgotten the Jarrett quote with which it begins. But on looking at it again, it seems even more chilling than ever—and it was … Continue reading →
I was introduced to Gregory Corso’s poem “Marriage” by a boyfriend long ago, and it stuck in my mind because it was one of the few poems I’ve ever read that is genuinely funny; more a comedy monologue than a … Continue reading →
On one of the recent art threads, commenter “Smock Puppet” offered a link to a sculpture by Rodin entitled “She who Used to Be the Beautiful Heaulmiere”: The sculpture ‘Celle qui fut la belle heaulmié¨re’ is also known as ‘The … Continue reading →
Actor and world celebrity, twice husband of Liz Taylor, Richard Burton was also a prolific diarist. His diaries were published this past fall, and I recently got the book out of the library. It makes for interesting intermittent (or intermittently … Continue reading →
Several years ago I read the first third of Allan Bloom’s great work The Closing of the American Mind. The other day I picked it up where I had left off, and was struck simultaneously by how relevant it still … Continue reading →
Here’s what Fernandez has to say about that Seidman op-ed (the one I previously wrote about here): The United States was founded on an extraordinary wager upon the nature of the human spirit; predicated on the belief that men valued … Continue reading →
…in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy: The Milky Way contains at least 100 billion planets, or enough to have one for each of its stars, and many of them are likely to be capable … Continue reading →
[NOTE: This small poetic effort of mine has become somewhat of a holiday tradition. So here (with a few words changed for the sake of meter) it comes again—just like the holiday itself. Merry Christmas Eve!] ‘TWAS THE BLOGGER’S NIGHT … Continue reading →
In my mental image of poet Emily Dickinson, dog ownership was never part of the picture. I imagined her dressed all in flowing white, flitting about the upstairs rooms of her family’s spacious Amherst home, sitting down to write amazing … Continue reading →
It’s a topic you hear a lot about these days, especially from the left: the growing gap in income inequality, and what it means for the country. If you’re interested in reading a fascinating perspective on the concept from the … Continue reading →