All Purls. No Swine.
About 2 1/2 years ago, I wrote a post mentioning John Higgs's biography of William Blake, saying that I couldn't call my post a "book review" because I hadn't read it yet. I have read it since, and it's a wonderful book. I highly recommend this book for anyone who's interested in exploring the roots… Continue reading A Book Review: William Blake Verus The World, by John Higgs
To be clear, I rarely think about feet. Especially poets' feet. They're just not that attractive. But I make an exception for Pablo Neruda's feet for reasons I'll explain, if you'll grant me a minute or two of your time, and allow me to get there in my usual roundaboutatious sort of way. Today is… Continue reading Why I Dream About Pablo Neruda’s Socks
One of the most delightful parts of my weekend is opening my email (yes, really, I know how sad that sounds) on Sunday sometime and discovering Douglas Murray’s latest “Things Worth Remembering” installment for The Free Press. I’m a basic (paid) subscriber to the site, so I get all the links and can read the… Continue reading For I Will Consider Christopher Smart, Who Died 253 Years Ago Today. And, Also, Our Penny
So sue me. I've never really pretended to a deep acquaintance with, nor understanding of, mid twentieth-century American playwrights and screenwriters. And so we have Days of Wine and Roses, a 1958 teleplay by JP Miller with Cliff Robertson and Piper Laurie , which I've always gotten spectacularly mixed up with Splendor in the Grass,… Continue reading The Brief Sum of Life–In Praise of the Liberal Arts
Let us be thankful, Lord, for little things - The song of birds, the rapture of the rose; Cloud-dappled skies, the laugh of limpid springs, Drowned sunbeams and the perfume April blows; Bronze wheat a-shimmer, purple shade of trees - Let us be thankful, Lord of Life, for these! Let us be praiseful, Sire, for… Continue reading Quote of the Day: A Little (April) Prayer
A man who is often dubbed "America's favorite poet," Robert Lee Frost, was born 150 years ago today, on March 26, 1874.* Those who've stuck with me for a bit may know that modern American poetry isn't really my wheelhouse, but Robert Frost has some merit, never more so than with his poem, "The Road… Continue reading Plain Speaking: Robert Frost
“If we had no winter the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.” — Anne Bradstreet, Meditations Divine and Moral So, there I was, looking for a quote about Spring, about how glad I am that the cycles go on, and that this… Continue reading Quote of the Day: By a Gentlewoman of Those Parts
Cannot believe it's here already. Where has January gone? And February almost half-over! (That it isn't quite, in about 23 hours--in my time zone--can only be attributed to the fact that this is a leap year.) Ubi sunt? (The Latinistas among us (the one or two that I know of) will understand this.) It's a… Continue reading Pancake Tuesday, 2024
Thirty-six years ago this month, Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera opened in New York, and went on to become the longest-running show in Broadway history. I've never seen it. I don't hold much brief for ALW, and I've only seen two of his musicals over the past fifty-three years. The first was… Continue reading From Andrew Lloyd Webber to Angora Goats
One hundred six years ago today, on December 4, 1917, the Scottish psychiatrist W.H. Rivers first delivered his report titled The Repression of War Experience. It wasn't published until several months later, by which time the title had been "borrowed" by WWI poet Siegfried Sassoon, in his poem of the same name: Repression of War… Continue reading “These are the men whose minds the dead have ravished”