What About Paris?

March 29, 2024

Jack London on Writing

You can’t wait for inspiration; you have to go after it with a club.

— Jack London

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March 03, 2024

We do love books: Les Bouquinistes.

Those now green Paris book stands lining the Seine go back. 500 years at least. You don't read? Go there alone. Any time of day. You'll meet women named Belle, Luz or Anelise. They'll make you see Jesus by the end of the week.

Below: Jean Henry Marlet, "Bouquiniste quai Voltaire 1821"

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March 02, 2024

Speakers Corner, Hyde Park, London

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February 27, 2024

Print of Sonning Bridge, River Thames, England. Charles Rosenberg. Published for S. Ireland, 2 May 1799.

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February 20, 2024

Tavern Scene, David Teniers, c. 1658

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February 19, 2024

Wordsworth

We no longer require humor in poets. We demand salvation.

— Mark Van Doren, 1950, commenting on the subtle graduation of William Wordsworth (1770-1850) from his role as "nature poet" to one of philosopher who offered hope and reassurance to troubled Europe.

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February 18, 2024

Work-Life Sir Thomas Malory

No one really knows who wrote “Le Morte d’Arthur.“ The best bet is Sir Thomas Malory, a mid-15th century knight and rogue’s rogue. I won’t summarize his crimes and exuberances here but an English nobleman and knight named Malory who died in 1471 was jailed frequently and certainly had time to write. My version (Modern Library, 1999) is nearly 1000 pages long. Its editor Elizabeth Bryan wrote in the introduction that though he “may have been a scoundrel, Malory was also, it seems clear, a man of ideals who believed in courage and loyalty, and who mourned the passing of chivalry.”

Below: Page one from the original manuscript of ‘Le Morte d’Arthur’ published in 1485.

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February 14, 2024

“Romeo and Juliet" by Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893)

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January 24, 2024

J. London, honorary Boomer

"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." - J.L.

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January 11, 2024

Hail Charlotte.

My 2nd favorite Tom Wolfe book. "I am Charlotte Simmons." Plot: Hillbilly Mensa babe cracks Duke University.

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November 02, 2023

November 2, 1939

Best book ever written about November 2.

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November 01, 2023

‘The Forerunners of Christ with Saints and Martyrs’

Fra Angelico, 1424, The National Gallery, London

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October 18, 2023

Shannon on Irish Ambition

“Supreme egotism and utter seriousness are necessary for the greatest accomplishment, and these the Irish find hard to sustain; at some point, the instinct to see life in a comic light becomes irresistible, and ambition falls before it.”

~ William V. Shannon

Great book with misnomer title. Thomas Cahill. 246 pages. Nan A. Talese, 1995

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October 11, 2023

Getting It Right: The Alcoholic Glories of Lowry

“He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.”

--Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784 London

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October 08, 2023

Cummer Gallery: Rombouts's "The Concert" 1620

The Concert, c. 1620, Theodoor Rombouts (Flemish, 1597-1637)

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October 04, 2023

Proud Boys: Coleman and Hull nail J6 again. Alert the media, please...

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2121 Massachusetts Avenue, Northwest, Washington, D.C.

Cosmos Club. Since 1878.

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September 25, 2023

Kudos Prof. Ronald Takaki

Here’s a gem on American immigration since 1607 written by UC Berkeley prof and progressive Ronald Takaki. Not a hateful anti-racism book by an affirmative action nut job or MAGA propaganda by some low-info right wing dink. Won an American Book Award. First released 1993 and sporadically updated. Even Howard Zinn liked it. Kudos Prof. Takaki. Just finished it. Buy and read this book. 530 pages. Non-activist scholarship.

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September 20, 2023

Low income Duke students

NYT is worried Duke is running out of these. When I was at Duke, low-income students were always willing to do errands and laundry and deliver handwritten apologies to coeds you'd insulted the night before and what not. Make beds. Get cigarettes. Beer runs on foot to Durham. By all means, let's keep them coming.

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September 12, 2023

Thomas Cole, The Consummation of Empire: Destruction, 1836

New York Historical Society

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September 11, 2023

3rd and East Capitol SE

Reading Room at the Folger Shakespeare Library

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September 05, 2023

Albert Bierstadt, 1861, “Indian Summer on the Hudson River”

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August 25, 2023

Ozark Lit begins here

The Shepherd of the Hills, by Harold Bell Wright, 1907, 1st edition cover

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July 25, 2023

Folger

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July 17, 2023

2121 Massachusetts Avenue, Northwest

Cosmos Club. Since 1878. Library.

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July 14, 2023

Bastille I

“The Storming of the Bastille, July 14, 1789.” Jean-Pierre Houël, 1789.

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July 06, 2023

Prince Hal with Falstaff at Boar’s Head Tavern. Henry IV, Part 1. 1840

Hal listens to Falstaff's lies in Henry IV, Part 1. Folger Shakespeare library. Unknown artist, c.1840

Peto, Bardolph and Gadshill at left; Falstaff in the centre; Hal and Poins at right in the Boar's Head Tavern. Illustration to Henry IV, Part 1, Act 2, scene 4.

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May 28, 2023

I remember…

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May 04, 2023

Caravaggio's The Cardsharps (c. 1594)

Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth

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April 26, 2023

Spring 1597. Legal London. Consider Love's Labour's Lost.

Here is the complete text of a circa-1595 comedy by Shakespeare, Inns of Court in still over-percolating Legal London. And, most certainly, it was performed before law students at Gray's Inn, where Elizabeth was the "patron". Interestingly, the play begins with a vow by several men to forswear pleasures of the flesh and the company of fast women during a three-year period of study and reflection. And to "train our intellects to vain delight".

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April 20, 2023

Read Fischer’s Albion’s Seed

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April 01, 2023

Cummer.

I've mentioned the small but elegant Cummer Art Museum and Gardens here sporadically, usually in connection with a particularly famous piece in its admired collection. Other times you saw older photos of its founders taken in the early 1900s. I'll give the Cummer its due at some point.

For now? The Cummer was once the home of my mother's Aunt Nina Holden Cummer in central Jacksonville, Florida. It was built in 1904 by Nina and her husband Arthur on 2.5 acres on the St. Johns River. The couple began buying art almost immediately after moving in. Arthur died in 1943. After his death, Nina continued the acquisitions, slowly and studiously expanding and diversifying the collection. Parts of it now date back to 2000 BC.

"Aunt Nina" lived at what is now the Museum until her death in 1957. My parents spent the night before their wedding here in July 1950. There are now some 6000 objects in the collection. The gardens date back to the original gardens built to complement the house. The Cummer continues to grow its collection. It attracts about 130,000 visitors a year.

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February 26, 2023

Digital in the next life.

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December 25, 2022

Saturnalia (1783) by Antoine-François Callet

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December 24, 2022

Adoration of the Magi, Giotto, 1310s

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November 05, 2022

Gustave Courbet, Chillon Castle, 1874

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November 02, 2022

William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Day of the Dead, 1859

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November 01, 2022

Allhallowtide Day 2: All Saints’ Day

Allhallowtide is a big deal. Celtic. Pagan. Catholic. A celebration-observance of Everything. Seasons. Fear, Harvest. Having enough food. Druids in the moonlight. Changes. The love of family. The Cosmos. Turning your enemies into newts. This is Day 2 of 3. Modernly, All Saints’ Day, a Christian observance begun in the 4th century to honor the lives of saints, most of them famous, and quite a few martyrs. The day however is not just for Roman Catholics. Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists and a few other quasi-civilized Protestant groups at least recognize. All Saints’ Day on November 1 comes the day after All Hallows’ Eve or All Saints’ Eve, aka Halloween. Tomorrow, Day 3 of Allhallowtide, is All Souls’ Day. We turn our thoughts and prays to the regular people who’ve died.

“The Church Militant and the Church Triumphant,” Andrea da Firenze, at the Santa Maria Novella church, Florence, Italy, fresco, 1365.

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October 30, 2022

Job and His Friends, Vladimir Borovikovsky, 1810s.

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June 20, 2022

The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew (from the Maestà), Duccio, 1311

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May 01, 2022

The Governess, 1739, Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin (1699-1779)

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November 27, 2021

Shortridge

Shortridge High School, Indianapolis, est. 1864. Indiana’s first free public high school. Kurt Vonnegut, Class of ‘40, wrote:

“... my dream of an America with great public schools. I thought we should be the envy of the world with our public schools. And I went to such a public school. So I knew that such a school was possible. Shortridge High School in Indianapolis produced not only me, but [writer Madelyn Pugh, Sen. Dick Luger, Dan Wakefield, Rep. Dan Burton, historian Mary Ritter Beard, Rep. Andy Jacobs, Booth Tarkington, Vikings/Rams standout Marcellus Greene, and scores more]. And, my God, we had a daily paper, we had a debating team, had a fencing team. We had a chorus, a jazz band, a serious orchestra. And all this with a Great Depression going on. And I wanted everybody to have such a school."

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October 31, 2021

All Saints’ Eve

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October 28, 2021

Return from the Harvest, William-Adolphe Bouguereau,1878

“Return from the Harvest,” William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1878
Cummer Museum and Gardens
Jacksonville, Florida

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October 07, 2021

The Proud Boys, Western Civ and Real Life

The Proud Boys are an all-male group that refuses to apologize for Western civilization “which built the modern world.” What in God’s name is neo-fascist, white nationalist or racist about that, Southern Poverty Law Center?

Below: Raphael, The School of Athens (1511)

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July 03, 2020

Pickett’s March

157 years. July 3, 1863. 2:05 to 2:30 PM. Gettysburg. Mainly a march. Not a charge. A hot day. Over 1100 CSA men died in that cornfield alone headed toward Emmitsburg Rd. 1,123 to be exact. In 25 minutes. They don’t know what love is. They’ve no idea. I love you all.

Below: Pickett's march from the Confederate line looking toward the Union lines. Ziegler's Grove on the left; clump of trees on right. By Edwin Forbes (1839-1895)

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June 28, 2020

All words have value.

“‘Tis needful that the most immodest word/Be look'd upon and learn'd.”

— Wild Bill Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part II

Image: HST at Duke University, Page Auditorium, October 1974

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November 01, 2019

Cosmos

‪The Cosmos Club. My grandfather’s retreat. The scene of my wedding. The place of definitions. You needed way more than money to get in here. Way. Thanks, Grandpop. I still miss you. I’m still trying to get it right. I will. ‬

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October 30, 2019

John Quidor, 1858: Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane.

The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane, 1858, by John Quidor (1801-1881) Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.

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August 27, 2017

Does Religion Oversimplify Real Life?

Good Sunday morning--and Query:

1. I believe in a God or gods or some "oversoul" and that there is something eternal and infinite about each human being. I always have.

2. But I don't believe in organized faith or religion. In the case of many--no, not all--people, I think faith keeps them from observing, thinking and learning, and often gets used to sidestep and avoid the marvelous/awful complexity of the Real World.

3. Do some--no, not all--followers of established religions (any religion) either consciously or unconsciously use their religion or faith and its teachings as a way to prevent real growing "first-hand" as a human being?

4. Does organized religion and faith--again, for some, not all--not only simplify things and bring order to life but also serve as a kind of default substitute for exploring, thinking and learning about the actual world around them so that they no longer need to explore, think and learn on their own? So that life is more "scripted" and easier for them?

Do religion and faith oversimplify Real Life and make us lazy and not curious?

Saint Jerome translating Latin Bible, late 4th century. Leonello Spada, 1610. Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome. In memory of my late Aldeburgh friend poet, author, professor and translator Herbert "Bertie" Lomas (1924-2011).

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March 20, 2016

Happy Spring, all you Druids out there.

Today, Sunday March 20th, is the Spring Equinox for 2016. Also called the Vernal Equinox, it's an astronomical event in which the plane of Earth's equator passes through the center of the earth's Sun. On this date, day and night are of approximately equal duration all over the planet. The Equinox also marks the first day of Spring, and the start of the time of year to revel in and celebrate Rebirth and Renewal, observed in most Western religions and cultures this time of year. Christianity, Judaism and a number of forms of Paganism of course have their own versions of celebrating Spring. See in todays' Sunday Express (UK) all ye need to know about the Equinox. Below: Shooting cherry blossoms, Washington, D.C., April 7, 1922 (LOC photo). Peak blossom time in 2016 will occur this week, March 23-24.

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