A visit to artist friends in Assisi revealed a luminescent world and brought to mind Thomas Gray’s “Elegy on a Country Churchyard.”
Tag Archives: Thomas Gray
Art Takes Us into a Luminescent World
Affirmative Action & Lessons in Chemistry
Garmus’s “Lessons in Chemistry” indirectly exposes the ignorance of the Supreme Court striking down affirmative action.
For England, Buttercup > Melon Flower
“Oh to be in England now that April’s here”–and not in Italy, with its gaudy melon flowers!
Remembering School with Fondness
Carol Ann Duffy fondly remembers childhood school, although certain disturbances vaguely threaten the idyllic scene.
Remembering a Favorite English Teacher
My favorite English teacher just died after years of Alzheimer’s. I share the epitaph from Gray’s “Country Churchyard,” which he introduced me to.
How Dangerous Is a Little Learning?
Pope’s “a little learning” seems dangerous at first glance but the alternative is not entirely attractive.
March Madness, A Return to Innocence
Sports Saturday March Madness begins this weekend. Actually, to be exact, it begins for the big schools. Division III colleges are in the final week of their tournament. I know because my college was one step away from making the final four. For the first time ever, St. Mary’s College of Maryland sent a team […]
Doc Halladay No Longer Blushing Unseen
Sports Saturday The baseball postseason is off to an amazing start, what with Roy “Doc” Halladay pitching only the second no-hitter in playoff history to begin it. And it was his first game ever pitching in the postseason! The other no-hitter is enshrined in legend: Yankee Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World […]
Faced with Beauty, ‘Tis Folly to Be Wise
Claude Lorrain,”View of La Crescenza” (1648-50) Poetry enhances our lives in a host of little ways. It did so in a walk I took around campus with my wife last week. It was a beautiful fall day and we work at a beautiful campus. There is an incline at the edge of college that we […]