Please note: I was trying out different themes for the site and a few recent comments got deleted. My apologies for this mistake.
I’m finally able to access my account and post. The “upgrade” to Blogger was enough to give me the push I needed to want to move to a different platform. I’ll need to finish getting ready for the school year first, which will take a couple more weeks. Hopefully I’ll have something in place before […]
I’m almost over a case of food poisoning so I’ll get back to posting soon. Funny thing when I’m sick…I have all this time to read but never feel like doing it when I feel bad. Fortunately that’s not as much of an issue now.
I’m going to post about a film before posting about the book for a change. Not that it matters…I’m not sure if it is harder to find the novel in the decent English translation or this film with English subtitles, but then I seem to excel in posting about things no one will ever read […]
Paine found himself carried forward by the immense wave of his book’s popularity into the heart of New World society. If Common Sense isolated the fears and the angers of the average colonist and focused them into a strategy for the future, its impact was tenfold for the men who would face charges of treason […]
At his print shop here, Robert Bell published the first edition of Thomas Paine’s revolutionary pamphlet in January 1776. Arguing for a republican form of government under a written constitution, it played a key role in rallying American support for independence. Picture source at The Historical Marker Database We have it in our power to […]
Picture source at Wikipedia For the Fourth of July I thought I would do something different. The obvious choice would be to look at the Declaration of Independence or its philosophical history and background, but I wanted to re-read Common Sense and look at on one of America’s most problematic founding fathers, Thomas Paine. I […]
Thanks to Anthony @timesflow for tweeting about the planned reissue by Dalkey Archive of Gnomon: Essays on Contemporary Literature by Hugh Kenner. Unfortunately it’s not scheduled to be released until next summer, but it’s a chance to set aside some money for wonderful essays written in the 1950s about 20th century literature. From the bookflap […]
Ivan Mosjoukine (Mozzhukhin) as Edmund KeanI thought I was through with my Kean project, but Sunday evening I checked to see what was on TCM and the onscreen guide promised Kean with Anthony Hopkins, the version I had blegged about a while back! Knowing this slot was usually reserved for silent movies I had my […]
B O D Y literature has the short story “Melancholy Leaves from Democracy’s Autumn Trees” by Jiří Hájíček, translated from the Czech by Gale A. Kirking. The story was originally in the collection The Wooden Knife and included in the English translation of Rustic Baroque. My post on this story and three others included with […]
Winstonsdad’s Blog is hosting Polish Literature month in October and since I’m not very good at posting in a timely fashion with others I thought I would read and post about these books over the next few months. I’m sure there will be more to add to this list. I’m also including a list of […]
I will be occupied for a few days with my Father’s Day presents. Perfect car-centric gifts for this redneck…NASCAR tickets and a Ford (Madox Ford). See y’all in a few days.
Honduran archaeologist Ricardo Agurcia Fasquelle, Executive Director of the Copán Association, presents this inaugural lecture in the Great Battles Series. Until recently scholars depicted the ancient Maya as a peaceful civilization devoid of warfare. This somewhat romantic notion has been overturned by evidence of a starker reality: during the Classic period (ca. 250—900 CE) an […]
Edmund Kean: or, The Life of an Actor by Alexander Dumas The English adaptation by G. H. Jessop and J. St. Maur (published 1881) Note: I’m not sure what happened but this post returned to draft status after being posted. There have been no changes since the original post yesterday. After I read the pictured […]
Kean by Jean-Paul Sartre (1953) Based on the play by Alexander Dumas Translated from the French by Kitty Black The Devil and the Good Lord and Two Other Plays by Jean-Paul Sartre (New York: Vintage, 1960)Related posts: See this post for an introduction to Edmund Kean and some history on Dumas’ and Sartre’s plays. This […]
Another historical drama, but this one is less like a soap opera than last week’s recommendation. A Royal Affair, directed by Nikolaj Arcel, is “set in the 18th century, at the court of the mentally ill King Christian VII of Denmark, and focuses on the romance between his wife, Caroline Matilda of Great Britain, and […]
Dr. Patrick Hunt, Stanford University, speaks. Hannibal, a Carthaginian commander who lived ca. 200 BCE, is considered one of the greatest military commanders in history. His use of the environment in his warfare against Rome in the Second Punic War—often called the Hannibalic War—set precedents in military history, utilizing nature and weather conditions as weapons […]
Edmund Kean by James Northcote (1819) Picture source at the National Portrait GalleryEdmund Kean (1787 – 1833), an English actor noted for his leading roles in Shakespeare, was as famous for his personal life as for his professional one. His messy divorce, many affairs, adultery trial, and riotous excesses were fodder for gossip. His stage […]
A link to my post on the novel IMDb.com link From The New York Times: a review of the movie and an article on Kertész and the movie (both of which I’ll reference in the post) Since I posted so much about the book in the link above I’ll try and keep this post short. […]
“But who can judge what is possible or believable in a concentration camp? Who could explore, exhaust all those countless ideas, inventions, games, jokes, and ponderable theories, which are easily accessible and transferable from a make-believe world of fantasy into a concentration-camp reality? You couldn’t, even if you mustered the totality of your knowledge.” (148) […]
This 2008 TV miniseries covers parts of the English Civil War, using the fictional Angelica Fanshawe and historical Edward Sexby as focal points (although there is some historical basis for her character). Peter Flannery wrote the screenplay. Parts of the series are cartoonish and skip over major events, but overall I enjoyed it. I wish […]