Before I return to posting on recent reading, I wanted to post a continuation of sorts to my early 2025 live music post. The second half of the year proved to be a bit more challenging to see groups in the area. I ended up seeing some acts I’m not necessarily a big fan of […]
My apologies for the radio silence. I just stumbled across the University of California Press’ Luminos publishing project. From their FAQ page: “Luminos is UC Press’ new Open Access (OA) monograph publishing program. It will make a version of the digital edition of scholarly monographs available free of charge to anyone around the world. In […]
Update: I didn’t realize my post had been made with an early draft I had made before I finished the book. I’ve added my comments on the last section of the book at the bottom of the post. It doesn’t make for a good flow, but wanted to include all the notes I wrote on […]
Menus, by definition, promise to serve as guides for diners, presenting or at times clarifying food choices. But in Tastes and Traditions I have argued that menus are also—and even more so—strategic documents: they shape diners’ choices, guide diners towards particular decisions and enhance their dining experiences. … This exploration was driven by four central […]
I have some projects I have been wanting to start but first I’ll share a few books I’ve recently enjoyed, starting with this book. When I was homeschooling my kids I thoroughly enjoyed going through Holes by Louis Sachar with them. The writing was fun, plus the book lent itself to additional assignments tangential to […]
This production, a unique collaborative project led by the Oxford Ancient Languages Society, will stage a complete dramatic recreation of Euripides’ play, demonstrating the vivid dramatic fruits of meticulous, interdisciplinary scholarship.It will be performed entirely in the original Ancient Greek (with English surtitles), with authentic costumes and masks. Crucially, it will restore Euripides’ drama to […]
Radio Prague International dedicated a podcast to a short story by Karel Čapek titled “On the Decline of the Times.” Čapek’s Apocryphal Tales (1932) is a collection of short pieces such as this that he composed in the 1920s and early 1930s. The translation is by Vít Pohanka, who reads the story, and is followed […]
One can learn a lot about a society from its legends—and every society has them, whether it is King Alfred burning the cakes or George Washington vandalizing cherry trees. The protagonists of these legends often embody the qualities which a society believes its best members once had, and which they should strive to have again. […]
Most of the Athenians perished in the stone quarries of disease and evil fare, their daily rations being a pint of barley meal and a half-pint of water; but not a few were stolen away and sold into slavery, or succeeded in passing themselves off for serving men. These, when they were sold, were branded in the […]
The day was losing shape. It was bleeding at the edges, hemorrhaging purpose. Subchapter 1.4 of the SDP Manual: “Demoralization and Disintegration Procedures—Goals.” His life’s work: planting rumors of infidelities, rumors of sexual deviance, rumors of unknown origin. Origin unknown—that’s how thankless the job had been. Forged photographs depicting the subject in a questionable embrace with children, […]
Despite over 20 books published, mostly collections of essays and articles, I believe this to be Karl-Markus Gauß’s first book translated into English. Originally published in German in 2010, this book collects essays and musings of towns and districts in a part of Europe that remain off the beaten path. His wanderings along the stray […]
[Peter Case writing] One night I was over at Jeffrey [Lee Pierce]’s house, writing songs and drinking, and we decided to go get some more of everything up at Turner’s on the strip. We stumbled out to my car and headed to Sunset, where the light was red, so we made a right on the […]
I’ve been uninspired by many of the books I’ve read lately, although the non-fiction choices have been top notch. While I’m getting around to posting on those books… Since I posted on live music I attended in 2024, I had planned to write a recap of my favorite 2025 shows. Since most of the shows […]
From The Film Stage press release: We’re delighted to exclusively announce that KimStim has acquired all North American rights to the Quay Brothers’ Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass. A stop-motion/live-action masterpiece inspired by the works of Jewish-Polish author and artist Bruno Schulz, this personal passion project is their first feature since 2005’s The Piano Tuner of […]
The other day I wanted to look up something in Shakespeare in Swahililand by Edward Wilson-Lee but couldn’t find my copy of the book. Searching online, I stumbled across the podcast of Shakespeare Unlimited’s Episode 83: Shakespeare in Swahililand from October 2017, with Edward Wilson-Lee and Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o as guests. From the episode: Edward […]
The War on the Poor by Éric VuillardTranslation by Mark PolizzottiOther Press, 2020 I have been reading a few books about the Peasants’ War of 1524-25, a somewhat timely endeavor since we’re at the 500 year mark of the war’s culmination. I was going to post on one book I thought extremely well done and […]
At the risk of sounding like I’m shilling for yet another PBS show, I highly recommend Jacqueline du Pré: Genius and Tragedy currently on PBS. Narrator Yo-Yo Ma describes du Pré as the “greatest instrumentalist of the 20th century.” While obviously a debatable opinion, her virtuosity on the cello is not. Some of the descriptions […]
This book tells the story of Cicero and his rise to prominence as a trial lawyer, from his debut in the courts in the late 80s BC to his death nearly four decades later. Cicero’s successful defense of many influential men accused of murder, extortion, and other crimes earned him wealth, favors to call in, […]
Phocion (402–318 BCE) won Athens’s highest public office by direct democratic election an unmatched forty-five times and was officially honored as a “Useful Citizen.” A student at Plato’s Academy, Phocion gained influence and power during a time when Athens faced multiple crises stemming from Macedonia’s emergence as an international power under Philip II and his […]
Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light premieres Sunday, March 23, 2025 on PBS. More about the show can be found here. I thought the first season of Wolf Hall, which covered Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, extremely well done. I didn’t read those books until after seeing the show and […]