Thursday The polar vortex that is freezing America’s northern states gives me an excuse to rerun a post I wrote on Mary Oliver’s “Cold Poem.” If you want a silver lining for extreme cold, Oliver has one. Reprinted from January 8, 2014 Much of the United States is caught in extremely cold temperatures at the […]
Monthly Archives: January 2019
Lessons from Being Cold & Depressed
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Cold Poem", Care of the Soul, cold snap, Depression, Mary Oliver, polar vortex, Thomas Moore Comments closed
How I Make Literary Connections
Wednesday A friend the other day asked where my ideas come from, especially when I apply a passage from one century to incidents in another. Yesterday, for instance, I said that Trump confidant Roger Stone reminded me of a passage in Herman Melville’s Confidence Man. So how did that enter my head? To answer, let […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged blogging, Confidence Man, Geoffrey Chaucer, Herman Melville, Restoration comedies, Twelfth Night, Wife of Bath, William Shakespeare Comments closed
How Deep Is Roger Stone’s Act?
Tuesday What are we to make of longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone’s flamboyant behavior following his arrest by Special Counselor Robert Mueller for lying to Congress about his contacts with Wikileaks? I think back to a passage from Herman Melville’s The Confidence Man that I applied to Trump during the campaign but which applies equally […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Charles Dickens, Confidence Man, Donald Trump, Herman Melville, Oliver Twist, Roger Stone Comments closed
Reading during the Shutdown
Monday The United States has finally come to its senses and reopened the government, but while we were stumbling through our presidential temper tantrum, a couple of publications talked about the salutary effects of reading. A Washington Post article recounted stories of furloughed workers plunging into books, and a Nation article argued that fiction is […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Chang-rae Lee, Donald Trump, Giovanni's Room, Into the Beautiful North, James Baldwin, Leavers, Lisa Ko, Luis Alberto Urrea, Native Speaker, Shutdown Comments closed
Burdened by Ice
Spiritual Sunday With much of the country groaning under the weight of winter storms, I share a Robert Hayden poem in which the speaker calls out to God in his misery. I warn you the poem does not conclude with a comforting—or a facile—promise. Sounding very much like George Herbert in his inability to pray, […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Ice Storm", Birches, Depression, ice storms, Robert Frost, Robert Hayden, Winter Comments closed
Farewell to Serena’s Dominance?
Friday It was only a quarterfinal match at the Australian Open, but when Serena Williams lost a match in which she was serving at 5-1, 40-30 in the deciding third set, we had a second pillar teetering amongst those that have been supporting the tennis universe.. To borrow from A. E Housman, it felt like […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "to my last period", Lucille Clifton, Serena Williams, tennis Comments closed
Imagine Lit Characters in Reality TV
Thursday I came across this enjoyable tweet from one Ross Danniel Bullen, who imagines a Victorian version of the House Hunters television show: Host: I— Henry James: I should like a kitchen whose concept is – how shall I conceive of it – not closed, not in some way occluded, but bright, agape, unrestrained as […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Bachelor, Bachelorette, Charles Dickens, Hard Times, Henry James, House Hunters, Importance of Being Earnest, Jane Austen, Jeopardy, Lost, Oscar Wilde, Pride and Prejudice, reality television, Samuel Beckett, television shows, Waiting for Godot Comments closed
What It’s Like to Be Transgender
Wednesday While our conservative Supreme Court is not seconding all of Donald Trump’s acts of cruelty, it has just overturned (by a 5-4 vote, of course) a judge blocking Trump’s move to prevent transgender people from serving in the military. As Bloomberg News reports, “[B]y letting the ban take effect, the court gave the administration […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Donald Trump, Mokobe Lee, Supreme Court nomination, transgenders Comments closed
The L. A. Rams and Chaucer’s Miller
Tuesday I’m experiencing déjà vu after seeing the Los Angeles Rams in the playoffs. When I was a teenager and just becoming interested in football, my beloved Minnesota Vikings were always encountering the Los Angeles Rams in playoff games. Then the Rams became the St. Louis Rams, but now they’re the Los Angeles Rams again, […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Football, Geoffrey Chaucer, Los Angeles Rams, Miller's Tale, Sports, Super Bowl Comments closed
