While reading Joseph Roth’s The Legend of the Holy Drinker I had this song stuck in my head and it won’t go away even after I finished the novella. So I’ll share it in hopes that it will eventually go away. Richard Thompson, Suzanne Vega, and Loudon Wainwright III perform the old Richard & Linda […]

Green: A song for someone aspiring to be an ordinary god may still strike a chord with those of us aspiring to something less. Then again, it may simply be a reminder of having to mow around a grandparent’s fig tree in the heat of an Alabama summer. And wishing I had sampled more of […]

Back home and back to work today after a week away. I avoided internet access while away so I have a lot piled up. I hope to get back to a semi-normal posting schedule next week (depending on work). The only book I read while I was away was Charles Hill’s Grand Strategies: Literature, Statecraft […]

The Cross Garden of Prattville, AL (photo by Seymour Rosen; picture source) I’ve got nothing today so I thought I would pass on a picture of the late W.C. Rice’s Cross Garden in Prattville, Alabama. I haven’t been by the cross garden in over 20 years but I’ve been following developments through its Facebook page. […]

A reading of the poem that Elizabeth Taylor asked Colin Farrell to read at her funeral…but read by Richard Burton, appropriately enough. The Leaden Echo And The Golden Echo (Maidens’ song from St. Winefred’s Well) Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89) THE LEADEN ECHO How to keep–is there any any, is there none such, nowhere known some, […]

For anyone wanting to hang onto the football season for another day, here’s an old piece by Geoffrey Colvin on the cultural implications of Super Bowl III. While overstating the impact/symbolism of the game, he may not be that far off. I remember watching part of the game while playing at a friend’s house. I […]