Friday, January 30, 2026
Curiouser and curiouser …
… Former CNN host Don Lemon arrested after anti-ICE protests at Minnesota church
Last time I checked, we had freedom of the press in this country.
Thursday, January 29, 2026
Denis Johnson
I don't know too much about Denis Johnson, but in my mind, at least, he's part of that cohort of novelists focused on the American West. I'm thinking, especially, about Wallace Stegner and Cormac McCarthy. If that's the case (and if Johnson is indeed part of that cohort), then Train Dreams fits the mold: this short novel -- set at the turn of the twentieth century -- captures a number of the themes made famous by the rugged Western experience. Train Dreams is about the brutality of the land, the promise of its financial fortune, and the loneliness of people who attempted to conquer it. But more than that: Johnson seems to have something to say about the temporary nature of life on the frontier. When his main character, Robert Grainier, passes away, it's as if he hasn't lived at all. He's owned few things, loved very little, and has never truly understood his past. He's the extension of a landscape indifferent to humanity. In that way, Train Dreams is a very sad novella. But then again, seen another way, it's a novel about what a person actually needs, and about how, over time, a sense of identity emerges from the limitations imposed by an unyielding environment.
Wednesday, January 28, 2026
Tuesday, January 27, 2026
I have returned.…
Ar 5 yesterday morning, I called my emergency caregivers because my catheter didn't seem to be working prooerly. it wasn't, and I spent the rest of yesterday in the hospital. AS soon as they gave me a new catheter, I felt great. the people at Jefferson Hospital were also outstanding. i would have been back last night, but I couldn't remember the number to get me into my apartment building.As Bette Davis sard< growing old ainkt for sissies.
Sunday, January 25, 2026
Saturday, January 24, 2026
Friday, January 23, 2026
Rosamond Lehmann
Apologies for my temporary absence from the blog. I've been knee-deep in Rosamond Lehmann's The Weather in the Street. Published in 1936, this novel caused something of a stir, I gather, on both sides of the Atlantic. Lehmann's focus -- on the affair between a married man and a separated woman -- featured not only an abortion, but an unyielding view of the victimization of women during this period. For a novel written a century ago, Weather packs a considerable punch: its challenges feel modern, its tropes familiar. This is a book about power and its imbalance, and about the extent to which women, in particular, confronted a range of social and economic limitations. Weather was not, perhaps, as brutal as another book which I've written about on the blog: Torborg Nedreaas's Nothing Grows by Moonlight. That said, it's close: this is an unrelenting account of one woman's awakening and the forces, throughout that process, that evolution which conspire against her. The contemporary feel of the novel -- both in its content as well as its fluid, experimental narration -- adds something poignant for the modern reader. This book may be one hundred years ago, but in its preoccupation with class, sexuality, gender, and capitalism, it feels very much of our times. The Weather in the Streets is an inter-war classic and required reading, I'd say, for those interested in British society during this complicated time.
RIP …
… Literary agent Georges Borchardt, who championed Nobel laureates, dies at 97
(Hat tip, Dave Lull)
Thursday, January 22, 2026
Tuesday, January 20, 2026
Monday, January 19, 2026
Saturday, January 17, 2026
Update …
i hope to resume serious blogging later today. i was released from the hospital yesteday, after having a substantial blood clot on my lung removed.
Thursday, January 15, 2026
Wednesday, January 14, 2026
Blogging …
i am still in the hospital, where the internet connection is not so great.
i'll post something when i can.
Monday, January 12, 2026
Back online …
I am in the hospital, and have been since yesterday. In a short while, I will be taken upstairs, my right leg wil have something inserted, and they will drain the blood clot on my lung. in a couple days i will go home. Had I take taken a sip or two of red wine the symptoms would have gone away, as they did when I did, but by then I had pushed the emergency button I have and they had come, checked me out, and took me away. Just as well. Not good to have a blood clot on your lung.
Sunday, January 11, 2026
Saturday, January 10, 2026
Wednesday, January 07, 2026
Friendship eventually prevailed …
…… C.S. Lewis and T.S. Eliot: A Tale of Two Critics ( Hat tip, Dave Lull)
Tuesday, January 06, 2026
Monday, January 05, 2026
Sunday, January 04, 2026
Saturday, January 03, 2026
Friday, January 02, 2026
Thursday, January 01, 2026
The Mummers …
… Alabama Jubilee
i grewcup down the street from Joe Kerko's drug stire. He took me to my first baseball game.
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