Please note: I was trying out different themes for the site and a few recent comments got deleted. My apologies for this mistake.
Vasily Grossman, with mother and daughter Katya Picture sourceFrom Robert Chandler’s Facebook page earlier today: A few minutes ago I received the sad news of the death of Yekaterina Vasilievna Korotkova-Grossman, the daughter of Vasily Grossman. She was someone unusually sensitive, perceptive and witty. We got on well from our very first meeting and I […]
Happy anniversary to this tweet! It couldn’t have been me judging from where Mr. Gay lives and writes. Not to mention I don’t like coffee and never drink it. I’m sure, though, I have engendered the same respone from others in coffeeshops that I have patronized for other caffeine delivery methods. Well, all that plus […]
I was extremely sad to see a post from hlo.hu on the passing of Tim Wilkinson, “One of Hungarian literature’s most prominent translators, known best for his work with Imre Kertész and Miklós Szentkuthy.” I’ve read quite a few books translated by him and have posted on some of them. Wilkinson translated many academic books, […]
I’m a little late in posting this, but here is the 2020 Fall Semester Dean’s Lecture Series at St. John’s College. There have been two lectures already, one on Hesiod and one on Montaigne. Hopefully the transcripts for these will be available soon at their archives site (link on the Lecture list page). Speaking of […]
It’s easy to get bogged down in negative things right now (well, at any time, really), so I thought I would share a few pictures of things that make me smile when I’m walking our dog. On a nearby trail it appears kids have painted rocks and set up a “fairy inn” to house them. […]
The Proving Grounds: Charley Crockett and the Story of Deep Ellum is a fun article that covers Crockett’s career as well as the long history of Dallas’ Deep Ellum story. It also caught my eye since I wanted to see if it covered the time I spent there in the mid/late 1980s. I was happy […]
I don’t think I have mentioned I have been receiving material from several universities’ and colleges’ admissions departments, marketing their college to names of people that do not live at our house. At first I laughed at them, but then I was concerned. What if there really was a kid out there that wasn’t […]
The New Criterion September 2020 edition (link will go to the current edition at the time of your visit) is available online. I want to highlight four articles, the first two behind a paywall, alas. If you’re interested in those articles, be sure to find access to a copy of the magazine. Also note, the other […]
I want to highlight the enrollment period of Stanford University’s Continuing Studies fall courses (link will take you to their current offerings). I took Christopher Krebs’ spring 2020 course on Tacitus and enjoyed it. I wanted to take several courses over the years, but the money hurdle and the commute time (when I was living […]
If you enjoy watching out of the ordinary movies and haven’t watched the MUBI streaming service, I highly recommend checking it out. I really enjoyed watching Werner Herzog’s Family Romance, LLC and several other movies over the past couple of weeks. One film I wanted to highlight is The Portugese Woman, based on a Robert […]
2020 strikes again. We were to go rafting in Hell’s Canyon this coming week, but a rockslide closed the only direct road to it (from our direction). I’ve already been to Hell (Grand Caymans) and the Gates of Hell (Stanford campus), so I was looking forward to Hell’s Canyon. Hopefully later this year. On that […]
On Amazon Prime I stumbled across a couple of films based on Bohumil Hrabal’s writings that are available for free to Prime members. First was The Snowdrop Festival, directed by Jiří Menzel. As I mentioned in the post, it’s a quirky, fun movie with a strong undertow of poignancy. Menzel doesn’t capture the full complexity […]
I have mentioned the Summer Classics program at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico (most recently here), so I wanted to give an update in case you have been interested in the courses but were unable to travel to attend. This summer’s program has been changed to virtual seminars, so you’ll be able […]
National Theatre Live has been making some of their broadcasts available on their YouTube channel. This week’s offering is Antony and Cleopatra, directed by Simon Godwin, starring Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo in the title roles. The recording can be played for free until 7pm UK time on Thursday 14 May 2020. This is one […]
Cynthia Haven had posted on Robert Harrison’s meetings on Boccacio’s The Decameron, the book that seems to all be the rage given the situation now. Her posts can be found here and here. If, like me, you missed the meetings, you can listen to them at his Entitled Opinions website: Pandemic, Dread, and Boccaccio’s Decameron […]
Once again, many thanks to Terry Teachout for directing me to American Shakespeare Center’s online productions. From his wsj.com article: To date I’ve watched “Much Ado About Nothing” and both installments of “Henry IV, ” all of which are part of ASC’s “Actors’ Renaissance” series, which takes Elizabethan-style authenticity a radical step further. These productions, […]
Many thanks once again for Terry Teachout’s post on Houston Alley Theatre’s production of 1984, available online through April 12. More information can be found at their website [Note: link no longer available], and the playbill can be found on issuu. I’ve found Terry’s blog extremely informational and enjoyable. His posts in the last few […]
Just when I think reality can’t get any weirder, I find out it already did. Thanks (I think) to DangerousMinds.net for their article The Oddly Inappropriate Spec TV Commercial for Never-Produced Caligula Action Figures. I’ve seen a lot of strange things, and I’m happy to say the 1980 movie Caligula directed by Penthouse owner/editor Bob […]
Many thanks to Terry Teachout for the article on Syracuse Stage’s video production of the stage play Amadeus by Peter Shaffer. As Teachout notes, Syracuse Stage’s revival of Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus,” directed by Robert Hupp, is a thrilling staging of one of the best English-language plays of the 20th century, and it comes across online […]
Francisco Goya, El sueño de la razon produce monstruos, 1797–1798, Etching and Aquatint.From Wikipedia CommonsAt the risk of overwhelming you with Dostoyevsky Reads Hegel in Siberia and Bursts into Tears, I wanted to relay this complete essay by László F. Földényi at The Paris Review posted last week. I’m only about a third of the […]