Reluctance
I’ve been touched by how many people seem to have empathized with the difficulty of letting go and the sadness over the passing of time that I expressed in the post “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” … Continue reading →
Category Archives: Arts
Holocaust stories: temperament and trauma [Part II]
[NOTE: Part I can be found here.] I can’t find the quote right now, but Holocaust survivor and author Primo Levi—who wrote Survival In Auschwitz, which I consider the single most definitive and brilliant book on the camps from the … Continue reading →
Holocaust stories: temperament and trauma [Part I]
[Hat tip: Open Blogger at Ace’s.] [NOTE: Part II can be found here.] Here is a fascinating interview with an elderly concentration camp survivor. If you’ve read or heard many camp survivors’ tales, the horrors he faced will not surprise … Continue reading →
Europe and the Sea of Faith
When I was in college, I took a year-long survey course in art history. We began with a deep dive into Greek and Roman art, and then lingered long and hard on the cathedrals of Europe, particularly the Gothic variety. … Continue reading →
Which comes first, the duck or the chicken?
On the “literally” thread, commenter expat asked a burning question: Maybe you can help me figure out whether the duck who lives with my cousin’s chickens is literally transspecies. His egg was abandoned by his mother in the creek that … Continue reading →
Rare books, together again
The Library of Congress holds many treasures:
Continue reading →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 →
Bachelor in Paradise meets A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Some read detective novels for escape, but I’ve never cared for them. Some gamble, some drink, some look at porn online. My vice is a bit different: every now and then I follow a reality TV show. I’ve written about … Continue reading →
10 disgusting facts about ancient Rome
The facts listed are mostly about lack of hygiene, and those really are pretty disgusting. I already knew about numbers five and two. Re number five, I remember when I was a teenager and went to Europe with a large … Continue reading →