All Purls. No Swine.
A popular modification (so my mother told me) of perhaps the world's most ubiquitous Christmas hymn, from the year 1936. And a replay (mostly) of a post from some years ago, both here and on Ricochet: I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King… Continue reading “Hark the Herald Angels Sing…Mrs Simpson’s Got Our King!”
My subject is War and the pity of War. The poetry is in the pity"--Wilfred Owen Wilfred Edward Salter Owen, beloved son, accomplished poet, and soldier of The Great War, was born on March 18, 1893 in Oswestry, a Welsh border town, in the county of Shropshire. Readers of Ellis Peters's Brother Cadfael chronicles, or… Continue reading “He is all blood, dirt, and sucked sugar-stick”–Revisiting William Butler Yeats vs Wilfred Owen
Anyone who reads at all diversely during these bizarre 1920s cannot escape the conclusion that a number of crazy men and women are writing stuff which remarkably passes for important composition among certain persons who should know better--James Thurber on Gertrude Stein Bless. I last wrote about Thurber several years ago, on the anniversary of… Continue reading In Memoriam, James Thurber
Mitzi Gaynor, star of stage and screen for over seventy years, died today at the age of 93. She's an inextricable part of my childhood, and the female lead in the first movie I ever saw. Here's a reflection from a couple of years ago: I saw my first movie, ever, in the UK, when… Continue reading “Get a Load of Honeybun Tonight!” Rest in Peace, Mitzi Gaynor.
Somehow (I’m still not quite sure how), a long-ago conversation with a friend turned to the topic of Oscar Wilde. You know, the guy who said “I can resist anything except temptation,” and “A man’s face is his autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction.” That Oscar Wilde. But the quote that my friend… Continue reading Oscar Wilde on What Suffering Teaches Us
William the Conqeror WILLIAM THE FIRST was the first of our kings, Not counting Ethelreds, Egberts and things, And he had himself crowned and anointed and blest In Ten-Sixty-I-Needn’t Tell-You-The-Rest But being a Norman, King William the First By the Saxons he conquered was hated and cursed, And they planned and they plotted far into… Continue reading On the 958th Anniversary of the Battle of Hastings
Blood had run down into the fella's face and eyes. He was laying there just groaning and calling for a medic. I took water from my canteen, got some bandages, and I washed his face. And when that blood was washed from his eyes, his eyes came open. Man, he just lit up. He says,… Continue reading QOTD: “I felt it an honor to serve my country, God and country, same as the rest of them. The only thing, I just didn’t want to take life.”
...Pearls before swine." Wealthy socialite, well-known conservative, staunch anti-Communist, former U.S. Ambassador, playwright, politician and all-round doyenne (a word much underused these days) of all things mid-twentieth century and American, Clare Boothe Luce died thirty-seven years ago today, on October 9, 1987. She was eighty-four years old. Her extraordinary life, which began under the stigma… Continue reading Quote of the Day: “Age before beauty…
But--of course--it always does. This has been a hell of a week. First there was all the fallout from Hurricane Helene, some of which has gravely affected those I love. Followed by the death of Maggie Smith. And now, that of Kris Kristofferson. https://youtu.be/mtQOY-0sViQ https://youtu.be/vHReBUA8cH4 https://youtu.be/HCgnbRWVvU8 The last is one of the very few great… Continue reading “Dreaming was as easy as believing in was never going to end”
The lease said about me and my father’s trip from the Bureau of Manhattan to our new home the soonest mended. In some way either I or he got balled up on the grand concorpse and next thing you know we was thretning to swoop down on Pittsfield. Are you lost daddy I arsked tenderly.… Continue reading Quote of the Day: “‘Shut up, he explained”