The changes wrought by death are in themselves so sharp and final, and so terrible and melancholy in their consequences, that the thing stands alone in man’s experience, and has no parallel upon earth. It outdoes all other accidents because it is the last of them. Sometimes it leaps suddenly upon its victims, like a […]
We had a busy weekend, but the highlight for me was seeing “One Man Romeo and Juliet” by Shelby Bond. He has performed it at many spots around the world, and hopefully you’ll get a chance to see it live. There is a lot of audience participation, and despite the title the kids had a […]
The other major find yesterday was a “new” used copy of La Regenta, retiring the pictured copy being held together by rubber bands. While I have many fond memories of piecing together the old copy (literally) while reading it, I’m hoping this one survives re-readings. Which I hope to do soon. First, though, I’ll need […]
Yesterday I was in a used bookstore and they had several Library of America books in good shape, ranging from $8 to $12. I wanted to pick up several of them, but a few of the books were by authors that had multiple volumes in the series. A couple of them I knew I didn’t […]
There’s no way to summarize California in just one picture, but this one covers a few aspects. This picture was taken a couple of hours before sunset on August 5th at Manresa State Beach, a few miles south of Santa Cruz. There’s a church holding baptisms in the ocean while surfers are enjoying chest high […]
Later this month (at least in some locations) you can choose the form of madness you wish to see: On Thursday, September 27, 2018 in select theaters is King Lear with Ian McKellen. The blurb at National Theatre Live: Broadcast live from London’s West End, see Ian McKellen’s ‘extraordinarily moving portrayal’ (Independent) of King Lear […]
We’ve had Shout! Factory TV as a mainstay on our TV for a while but a current listing almost escaped my notice, so I wanted to pass it on to anyone else interested. Currently there are a few episodes from the Fridays TV series from their first season on ABC in 1980. I completely missed […]
In looking up something this morning I ran across the September 9, 1979 New York Times article Anthony Hopkins: ‘Acting Is Like Being in a Public Confessional’, which had been behind a paywall when I was watching and researching the actor starring in Jean-Paul Sartre’s play Kean. I had posted a ‘bleg’ for a copy […]
The O. Henry Prize Stories 2018 Edited by Laura Furman (Anchor) The O. Henry Prize Stories 2018 contains twenty prize-winning stories chosen from thousands published in literary magazines over the previous year. The winning stories come from a mix of established writers and emerging voices, and are uniformly breathtaking. They are accompanied by essays from […]
I was happy to get the perfect birthday gift this year—Vladislav Vančura’s The End of the Old Times (Konec starých časů). I have been looking for a copy to call my own since I read the book about 4½ years ago. My comments on the book are here. It’s a wonderful novel, enjoyable at both […]
The Gargoyle Hunters by John Freeman Gill Alfred A. Knopf, 2017 Hardcover, 352 pages The city had a rich, complex life long before you ever came along and started having your own personal little responses to it, Griffin. It’s bigger than you. … The lives lived by generations of New Yorkers in and around a […]
Illustration by Ragni Svensson From Platonov’s Chevengur: The Ambivalent Space by Natalia Poltavtseva The May 2018 edition of e-flux contains the Andrei Platonov story “Immortality,” translated by Lisa Hayden and Robert Chandler. It is a fairly simple but moving story of the railway station chief Emmanuil Semyonovich Levin tirelessly working to keep trains running on […]
Being There by Jerzy Kosinski Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.: 1970 A few months ago I watched one of my favorite movies, Being There (1979), and realized I had never read Kosinski’s novel on which he based his screenplay. If you’re unfamiliar with the storyline, Chance is a simple-minded man living at the townhouse of a […]
To Know a Fly by Vincent G. Dethier Foreword by N. Tinbergen Illustrated by Bill Clark and Vincent Dethier Oakland, California: Holden-Day, Inc., 1962 Although small children have taboos against stepping on ants because such actions are said to bring on rain, there has never seemed to be a taboo against pulling off the legs […]
Brutus: The Noble Conspirator by Kathryn TempestYale University Press, 2017 To a considerable extent this book will examine how Brutus’ life has been recorded and transmitted from antiquity to today: a central contention is that, to appreciate Brutus the man, we must really probe the sources we use, to understand who is speaking and shy. […]
On the Marble Cliffs by Ernst Jünger Translated from the German by Stuart Hood New Directions, 1947 Original publication in German in 1939 From The American Scholar, July 20, 2015: In 1970, the Scholar’s editors polled the literary lights of the day for their opinion on that book published in the past quarter of a […]
Nemesis: Alcibiades and the Fall of Ancient Athens by David StuttardHarvard University Press: April 2018Hardcover, 400 pages From the inside book flap: Alcibiades was one of the most dazzling figures of the Golden Age of Athens. A ward of Pericles and a friend of Socrates, he was spectacularly rich, bewitchingly handsome and charismatic, a skilled […]
Carpenter’s Gothic by William Gaddis Narrated by Nick Sullivan Published by Tantor Audio Running time 9 hrs 34 minsA few years back I posted a brief note on Nick Sullivan’s narration of two of William Gaddis’ novels. Mr. Sullivan was kind enough to email me that his narration of Gaddis’ Carpenter’s Gothic had just been […]
On Grand Strategy by John Lewis GaddisNew York: Penguin Press, 2018 John Lewis Gaddis is the Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military & Naval History at Yale University. He is best known as an author specializing in the Cold War and grand strategy (six of the ten books shown at his faculty page have “Cold […]
I finally got to see this version of Hamlet, the 2015 filming of National Theatre Live‘s production starring Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role. I had intended to see it twice before, but I had been unable to attend either time (even after buying tickets to one of them). I had a strong sense of […]