In Greece in the mid-90s when I was there, plumbing lacked pressure and one could not as a rule flush tissue paper. Because of this the bidet was common. Paper was for drying, not for…
Browsing Category Literature/Arts
The Egalitarian Eagerness of Promethean Fire: The One Story
Here’s my take on the how the world unfolds. We are moving toward climate disaster. We are moving toward global cultural “synchronization.” We are moving toward global mercenary militarization. We are moving toward a “burning”…
Bear Grylls, a 5th Grader, and Friday? What is Robinson Crusue
I sent the following to my local paper today–bear in mind there is a 200-word-limit. To the Editor: We like to believe that people who want to be elected for particular offices of government have…
Hazlitt on Coriolanus: Poetry of Power
As there is a movie staring Ralph Fiennes, or Voldemort to you youngsters, (who also directs) coming out based on Coriolanus I thought I’d share what is perhaps the greatest English essayist, William Hazlitt, on…
Clare-ity on Enclosure
From “The Mores,” by John Clare These paths are stopt–the rude philistines thrall Is laid upon that and destroyed them all Each little tyrant with his little sign Shows where man claims earth glows no…
Watching Jonathan Franzen Dance on HBO
Below is from an essay by Denis Donoghue in the New York Review of Books, “Coming in from the Cold,” (2006) discussing the work of Jonathan Franzen. This, from the excerpt below, seems incisive and…
Logic is what he valued, and not metaphor…
Speaking out of Charles Simic’s mouth. Ask me in a hundred years. Aided by Augustine of Hippo (Sources below) The natural order, which would have peace amongst men, requires that the decision and power to…
The Art of Remembering and the Act of Forgetting
Alice Walmart is buying Art to put into her Alice Dollhouse. The wealthy, the rulers, used to commission art not just buy it. I guess the only “art” that is commissioned anymore is the…
Love Alters Not, but Chemistry Does
SONNET 116 Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an…
The Birthday of Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain
Honestly, this one passed without recognition until a good friend asked me if I might post something today about it. I was somewhat surprised to be reminded how much of his life was lived in…