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Anecdotal Evidence

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Anecdotal Evidence
'Merely the joy of writing' A rare and winning combination: a serious person who seldom takes himself seriously. He keeps his...
a month ago
22

'Merely the joy of writing'

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a month ago
A rare and winning combination: a serious person who seldom takes himself seriously. He keeps his ego a little off to the side, muffled, away from the business at hand. It never disappears. It grows dormant, like some cases of tuberculosis. Jules Renard is such a man and writer,...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'The Quiet Intent of a Conscious Artist' For the observant – those who revere good prose and other accomplishments of civilization --...
2 months ago
21

'The Quiet Intent of a Conscious Artist'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
For the observant – those who revere good prose and other accomplishments of civilization -- February 12 is doubly a holy day. In 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin in Hodgenville, Ky. Across the Atlantic, on the same day, Charles Darwin was born in a Georgian-style...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'The Soul None Dare Forgive' You know what you’re in for just by reading the title and acknowledging the author: “A Love Song in...
2 months ago
20

'The Soul None Dare Forgive'

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2 months ago
You know what you’re in for just by reading the title and acknowledging the author: “A Love Song in the Modern Taste” (1733) by Jonathan Swift. For once, the excremental stuff is absent. The poem amounts to a catalog of clichés about love, a sort of anti-Valentine’s Day card....
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Anecdotal Evidence
'One Passionate Note of Victory' “The dangers for the poet in addressing so composite an audience are enormous: cuteness,...
a month ago
19

'One Passionate Note of Victory'

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a month ago
“The dangers for the poet in addressing so composite an audience are enormous: cuteness, coyness, archness and condescension are only the most obvious ones.”  In 1976, Anthony Hecht wrote the preface for a new edition of Walter de la Mare’s Songs of Childhood (1902). He doesn’t...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Read During Every Possible Free Moment' A reader asks, “How did you learn to read so fast?” The answer is simple: I didn’t. I have always...
2 weeks ago
19

'Read During Every Possible Free Moment'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 weeks ago
A reader asks, “How did you learn to read so fast?” The answer is simple: I didn’t. I have always read slowly, often taking notes, which makes it even slower. This frustrated me when I was young, and I briefly contemplated enrolling in one of Evelyn Wood’s...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Poetry Is an Art' Most bores are not aware they are boring. It’s not always their fault and the impulse to tell them...
a month ago
18

'Poetry Is an Art'

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a month ago
Most bores are not aware they are boring. It’s not always their fault and the impulse to tell them they are boring, though understandable, is almost always a waste of time. You can’t make people interesting who value their humorlessness, bad taste and stridency.  I woke the other...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'As a Token of Reverence or Humility' In 1993, I was assigned to write about the opening of a Buddhist “peace pagoda” in Grafton, about...
2 months ago
18

'As a Token of Reverence or Humility'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
In 1993, I was assigned to write about the opening of a Buddhist “peace pagoda” in Grafton, about twenty miles east of Albany, N.Y. A photographer accompanied me, a Marine Corps veteran of the Korean War and decades of work at the newspaper. We parked and approached the stupa, a...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Unforgiving and Bearish' “The writer has little control over personal temperament, none over the historical moment, and is...
a month ago
18

'Unforgiving and Bearish'

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a month ago
“The writer has little control over personal temperament, none over the historical moment, and is only partly in charge of his or her own aesthetic.”  Of the three points made by English novelist Julian Barnes, the first is dubious, the second and third inarguably true. To say...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'There Is Still So Much I Do Not Know' I have encountered the neologism “egowriting” used to describe -- with approval -- such genres as...
2 months ago
18

'There Is Still So Much I Do Not Know'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
I have encountered the neologism “egowriting” used to describe -- with approval -- such genres as memoirs, diaries, journals, letters, blog posts, commonplace books, notebooks and essays--almost anything. In other words, a broad collection of forms in which the author and his...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Like an Occupying Army' Two unrelated situations bring poems, song lyrics and old television commercial jingles to...
a month ago
18

'Like an Occupying Army'

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a month ago
Two unrelated situations bring poems, song lyrics and old television commercial jingles to mind, seemingly out of nowhere: on first waking in the morning and while preparing a meal in the kitchen. None is summoned. They blip to the surface like bubbles in a pond. Last weekend I...
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Anecdotal Evidence
"This, Books Can Do . . ." At age ten I attended the grand opening of the new public library in Parma Heights, Ohio, within...
a month ago
18

"This, Books Can Do . . ."

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a month ago
At age ten I attended the grand opening of the new public library in Parma Heights, Ohio, within easy walking distance of our house. Next door was Yorktown Lanes, the bowling alley dedicated two years earlier. Across the road was the municipal swimming pool where my mother had...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Even Belles Lettres Legitimate As Prayer' In the “Prologue” to his 1962 prose collection The Dyer’s Hand, W.H. Auden borrows a conceit...
a month ago
18

'Even Belles Lettres Legitimate As Prayer'

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a month ago
In the “Prologue” to his 1962 prose collection The Dyer’s Hand, W.H. Auden borrows a conceit from Lewis Carroll and divides all writers – “except the supreme masters who transcend all systems of classification” – into Alices and Mabels. In Alice in Wonderland, the title...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'A State of Vagary, Doubt and Indecision' There’s a tidy part of me that wants things resolved, whether a lawsuit or a differential equation....
a month ago
17

'A State of Vagary, Doubt and Indecision'

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a month ago
There’s a tidy part of me that wants things resolved, whether a lawsuit or a differential equation. No sloppy inconsistencies, no denouements hanging by a thread. I used to love IRS Form 1040EZ: subtract one number from another, sign your name and wait for the refund. I had a...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'To Show the Poetry of the Commonplace' A friend in Schenectady, N.Y. worked as a lineman for the telephone company for almost half a...
a month ago
17

'To Show the Poetry of the Commonplace'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
A friend in Schenectady, N.Y. worked as a lineman for the telephone company for almost half a century, into his seventies. He was the guy who strapped on a belt and spikes and climbed those sliver-making poles, and later showed rookie linemen the ropes. On the side, Bob was an...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Illumination of the Past' Despite the repellant spectacle of Allen Ginsburg, poetry as a career is not a guarantee of fame and...
a month ago
17

'Illumination of the Past'

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a month ago
Despite the repellant spectacle of Allen Ginsburg, poetry as a career is not a guarantee of fame and fortune. One of our finest recent poets, Herbert Morris, is forgotten and was hardly remembered even during his life. He published six collections between 1978 and 2000 and died...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'The Pebble Is a Perfect Creature' My nephew has introduced me to the practice of “pebbling,” not to be confused with “stoning.” Sorry...
2 months ago
17

'The Pebble Is a Perfect Creature'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
My nephew has introduced me to the practice of “pebbling,” not to be confused with “stoning.” Sorry to say the psychologists and sociologists got their hands on it first, but there’s nothing new about so simple a human gesture. The word is adopted from the courtship rituals of...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Shut Not Thy Purse-Strings' Unlike his friends Coleridge, Hazlitt, Wordsworth and Hunt, who often made fools of themselves as a...
a month ago
16

'Shut Not Thy Purse-Strings'

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a month ago
Unlike his friends Coleridge, Hazlitt, Wordsworth and Hunt, who often made fools of themselves as a result, Charles Lamb had little interest in the momentous events of his day. About “Boney” – Napoleon Bonaparte – he wished only to know the dictator’s height, unlike Hazlitt, who...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'I’m Less Inclined to Carp' My nephew and I have long, spontaneous telephone conversations that begin with the usual...
2 months ago
16

'I’m Less Inclined to Carp'

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2 months ago
My nephew and I have long, spontaneous telephone conversations that begin with the usual drab pleasantries: “How are you doing?” “Fine. You?” An hour later we’re saying goodbye, but not before Abe tells me he's smitten by P.G. Wodehouse. These talks usually take place Sunday...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Poetry Is Sound Before It Is Anything Else' “A word so delicious that one wishes it had cheeks, so as to kiss them.” That’s Jules...
2 months ago
16

'Poetry Is Sound Before It Is Anything Else'

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2 months ago
“A word so delicious that one wishes it had cheeks, so as to kiss them.” That’s Jules Renard, writing in his journal in February 1888. Perhaps only a certain sort of writer, one with a musical sense who is susceptible to the pure sound of words divorced from their meaning, can...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'The Secret Hidden From Yourself' Howard Nemerov was born on Leap Year Day in 1920 – February 29 -- meaning his birthday can be...
a month ago
15

'The Secret Hidden From Yourself'

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a month ago
Howard Nemerov was born on Leap Year Day in 1920 – February 29 -- meaning his birthday can be accurately observed only every fourth year – a nice metaphysical conundrum. This reminds me of a cousin who was bitter because she was born on Christmas Day and felt she was getting less...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'The Delicate, Invisible Web You Wove' Who wrote this about whose poetry?:  “For here the water buffalo may rove, The kinkajou,...
a month ago
15

'The Delicate, Invisible Web You Wove'

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a month ago
Who wrote this about whose poetry?:  “For here the water buffalo may rove, The kinkajou, the mungabey, abound In the dark jungle of a mango grove . . .”   I might have guessed Kipling or some forgotten Georgian poet. Perhaps it’s a verse omitted by Eliot from Old Possum’s Book of...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'They Will Never Seem Boring' “And my final advice is to try, every week or so, to learn something by heart. A surprising amount...
4 weeks ago
15

'They Will Never Seem Boring'

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4 weeks ago
“And my final advice is to try, every week or so, to learn something by heart. A surprising amount will remain in the memory, and more and more as you train it; and then, as you walk or work or sit in the subway, you will have something more than daily trivialities to occupy your...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'All That Is Human Slips Away' Varlam Shalamov (1907-82), who ought to know, opens a poem with this line: “Memory has veiled / much...
a month ago
15

'All That Is Human Slips Away'

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a month ago
Varlam Shalamov (1907-82), who ought to know, opens a poem with this line: “Memory has veiled / much evil . . .” Shalamov survived almost eighteen years in the Gulag, in the Arctic region known as Kolyma. His final imprisonment, from 1937 to 1951, was imposed after he referred to...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'To Think, to Read, to Meditate, to React' Often, I think of the late Adam Zagajewski urging young poets – and by extension, the rest of us --...
a month ago
15

'To Think, to Read, to Meditate, to React'

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a month ago
Often, I think of the late Adam Zagajewski urging young poets – and by extension, the rest of us -- to “read everything.” The suggestion is not dictatorial. The Pole even admits he is a “chaotic reader,” as most of us are. I’ve never been systematic about much of anything...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Rosebuds Are Rare As a Day in June' Fortune cookies no longer contain fortunes. Tucked inside the sugary shells are slips of paper...
a month ago
15

'Rosebuds Are Rare As a Day in June'

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a month ago
Fortune cookies no longer contain fortunes. Tucked inside the sugary shells are slips of paper printed with platitudes. I carry one such slip in my wallet, salvaged from a forgotten meal at least a decade ago: “Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Is It Beautiful? What Does It Mean?' Erica Light takes after her mother, the late poet Helen Pinkerton, in her thoughtfulness and...
2 months ago
15

'Is It Beautiful? What Does It Mean?'

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2 months ago
Erica Light takes after her mother, the late poet Helen Pinkerton, in her thoughtfulness and generosity. She has sent me a box of books, including four collections of poems by R.L. Barth: Looking for Peace (1981), Simonides in Vietnam (1990), Small Arms Fire (1994) and Reading...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Something Irrepressibly Celebratory' A longtime reader of Anecdotal Evidence has commented on my March 1 post:  “One of my...
a month ago
15

'Something Irrepressibly Celebratory'

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a month ago
A longtime reader of Anecdotal Evidence has commented on my March 1 post:  “One of my worst apprehensions about my son’s college education came true in his freshman English class. The professor brought up Lamb only to highlight something he said that would strike modern...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Take His Experience Along With Him' We shouldn’t be surprised that bookish tastes change across time. They mature, just as some of us...
a month ago
15

'Take His Experience Along With Him'

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a month ago
We shouldn’t be surprised that bookish tastes change across time. They mature, just as some of us do. The books we choose to read and reread follow a path parallel to our experience and maturity. This isn’t to imply “progress.” It’s not as though all of us shed bad taste and move...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Better Bread Than Is Made of Wheat' Sometimes disparate things almost announce their covert similarities and linkages, in a way...
a month ago
15

'Better Bread Than Is Made of Wheat'

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a month ago
Sometimes disparate things almost announce their covert similarities and linkages, in a way Aristotle would have understood, and it makes good sense to combine them. I was looking for something in The Poet’s Tongue, the anthology compiled by W.H. Auden and the schoolmaster John...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'And Does the Time Seem Long?' “Maurine Smith died March 8, 1919, at the age of twenty-three years. Nearly her whole life had been...
a month ago
15

'And Does the Time Seem Long?'

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a month ago
“Maurine Smith died March 8, 1919, at the age of twenty-three years. Nearly her whole life had been one of intense physical suffering, and she knew few of the usual felicities.”  Yvor Winters is introducing us to a poet whose name you likely have never encountered.  Smith and...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Gives to Airy Nothing a Local Habitation' What attracted me was the anthologist’s audacity in titling his book: 100 Best Poems in the English...
4 weeks ago
14

'Gives to Airy Nothing a Local Habitation'

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4 weeks ago
What attracted me was the anthologist’s audacity in titling his book: 100 Best Poems in the English Language (1952). In his introduction, Stephen Graham does little to impress us with his literary humility. His anthology is, he writes, “perhaps the only one of its kind,...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'The Most Noteworthy Action of Human Life' I dreamed my late brother was here in Houston, a city he never visited. He was phobic about flying...
a month ago
14

'The Most Noteworthy Action of Human Life'

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a month ago
I dreamed my late brother was here in Houston, a city he never visited. He was phobic about flying and traveled by air only twice in his life, when very young. We were seated across from each other, on the couches by the front window. What I remember of the dream is brief, little...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'His Rising and His Fading Is Most Beautiful; A librarian friend and I were talking about the similarities between library cataloguing and...
a month ago
14

'His Rising and His Fading Is Most Beautiful;

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a month ago
A librarian friend and I were talking about the similarities between library cataloguing and taxonomy in biology – the art of classification – and the sort of people such specialized disciplines attract. Formerly a piano teacher, she was attracted to library science by way of...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'What a Delight in Being a Discoverer!' The library catalogue said Walter Savage Landor’s Poems, the 1964 Centaur Press edition selected and...
3 weeks ago
14

'What a Delight in Being a Discoverer!'

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3 weeks ago
The library catalogue said Walter Savage Landor’s Poems, the 1964 Centaur Press edition selected and introduced by Geoffrey Grigson, had not been checked out by another patron (hardly surprising) and should be on the shelf. I couldn’t find it. Not a good sign. That could mean the...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Things That Might Have Been and Never Were' My middle son enjoys a genre of fiction known as “alternate history.” Among its practitioners is the...
a month ago
13

'Things That Might Have Been and Never Were'

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a month ago
My middle son enjoys a genre of fiction known as “alternate history.” Among its practitioners is the American novelist Harry Turtledove. As I understand it, the premise is simple: change an event in the past and see what happens in subsequent history. Hitler, for instance, dies...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Writers That Are Worth Anything Are Humorists' Bertie Wooster has asked if he can purchase a gift for Jeeves while he is out, and the valet...
a month ago
13

'Writers That Are Worth Anything Are Humorists'

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a month ago
Bertie Wooster has asked if he can purchase a gift for Jeeves while he is out, and the valet replies: “‘Well, sir, there has recently been published a new and authoritatively annotated edition of the works of the philosopher Spinoza. Since you are so generous, I would appreciate...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Intensely and Permanently Interested in Literature' Another request for a reading list from a young reader. Any reply will be incomplete and...
2 months ago
13

'Intensely and Permanently Interested in Literature'

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2 months ago
Another request for a reading list from a young reader. Any reply will be incomplete and risk discouraging aspiring literati. The only infallible inducement to literature is personal pleasure, a notoriously subjective criterion. I love Gibbon and Doughty, and you may find them...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'The Very Empire of Connotation' “[T]he partisan of parsimony sees prose as a vehicle for meaning and nothing more, even if...
a month ago
13

'The Very Empire of Connotation'

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a month ago
“[T]he partisan of parsimony sees prose as a vehicle for meaning and nothing more, even if their feigned rhetoric-of-no-rhetoric is in reality one of the oldest rhetorical gambits there is.”  I have a taste for two seemingly mutually exclusive schools of prose that may not be all...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'We Are Not So Full of Evil As of Inanity' Montaigne devotes a brief essay to a pair of pre-Socratic Greek thinkers, “Of Democritus and...
3 weeks ago
13

'We Are Not So Full of Evil As of Inanity'

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3 weeks ago
Montaigne devotes a brief essay to a pair of pre-Socratic Greek thinkers, “Of Democritus and Heraclitus.” The former is reputed to have been a misanthrope, perhaps a melancholic. The latter was known as “the laughing philosopher.”  The essayist begins by weighing the importance...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'To Have the Heart Partially Erased' “Hatred, suspicion, malice and madness seem to be reaching new highs everywhere. . . . Perhaps...
a month ago
13

'To Have the Heart Partially Erased'

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a month ago
“Hatred, suspicion, malice and madness seem to be reaching new highs everywhere. . . . Perhaps madness, like cancer, is a way of life trying to transcend itself.”  This might be a template for next week’s column, a pundit’s lamentation ready for copying-and-pasting. In fact,...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Pic-nic and Polka' Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) was an English theologian, a learned man who amassed a library of...
a month ago
13

'Pic-nic and Polka'

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a month ago
Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) was an English theologian, a learned man who amassed a library of more than 12,000 volumes. In 1828, Walter Savage Landor published the third volume of his Imaginary Conversations and included one titled “Archdeacon Hare and Walter Landor.” The...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'A Mystery of Language I Shall Never Solve' Quite a marvelous season after a protracted Northern winter, spring is the hoariest of subjects for...
a month ago
13

'A Mystery of Language I Shall Never Solve'

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a month ago
Quite a marvelous season after a protracted Northern winter, spring is the hoariest of subjects for a poem. How many ways are there to be jubilant or render the sensation of “cavorting with the milkmaids,” as an old friend once put it? The effort usually comes off as hackneyed or...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'But Man Is Not Born for Happiness' “[P]oets are a very worthless, wicked set of people.”  How did William Cowper, himself a fine and...
a month ago
13

'But Man Is Not Born for Happiness'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
“[P]oets are a very worthless, wicked set of people.”  How did William Cowper, himself a fine and neglected poet, come to this conclusion? In a letter to Rev. John Newton, written March 15, 1784, Cowper tells his friend he has just finished reading the eight volumes of Dr....
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Anecdotal Evidence
'To Guide Him in the Real World' In 1899, Edwin Arlington Robinson read Thoreau’s Walking, a work based on an 1851 lecture...
2 weeks ago
13

'To Guide Him in the Real World'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 weeks ago
In 1899, Edwin Arlington Robinson read Thoreau’s Walking, a work based on an 1851 lecture published posthumously in 1862. Robinson was not impressed by his fellow New Englander. He condemned Thoreau’s “glorified world-cowardice” in a letter to his friend Daniel Gregory...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'The Least Motion of Wonder in Himself' In 1968, my high-school English teacher loaned me the anthology of short stories she had used at...
3 weeks ago
13

'The Least Motion of Wonder in Himself'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

3 weeks ago
In 1968, my high-school English teacher loaned me the anthology of short stories she had used at Kent State University just a few years earlier. Included were the usual suspects -- Maupassant, Hemingway, Chekhov, Eudora Welty – but I read them because I knew nothing. Among the...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'The Earliest of My Friends Is Gone' I often speak or exchange texts with my nephew. Soon he’ll turn thirty-six, but he lives in...
3 weeks ago
13

'The Earliest of My Friends Is Gone'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

3 weeks ago
I often speak or exchange texts with my nephew. Soon he’ll turn thirty-six, but he lives in Cleveland, 1,200 miles away, and I seldom see him. Distance warps the sense of duration, so I think of him as frozen in his early twenties. We spoke on Sunday and for the first time since...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Thanks for This Fancy, Insect King' I once spent most of a day in an upstate New York marsh with a neuroethologist, a biologist who...
a month ago
12

'Thanks for This Fancy, Insect King'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
I once spent most of a day in an upstate New York marsh with a neuroethologist, a biologist who studies how an animal’s nervous system determines its behavior. His specialty was the order Odonata – dragonflies and damselflies. Like any journalist who’s paying attention, I got a...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'I Can't Quite Recall Your Name' My first high-school reunion was postponed for a year by the COVID-19 lockdown. We met in 2021 for...
2 months ago
12

'I Can't Quite Recall Your Name'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
My first high-school reunion was postponed for a year by the COVID-19 lockdown. We met in 2021 for the fifty-first at a supper club on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland. Lake Erie was a hundred yards to the north and when conversation lagged, I could watch the ore boats moving down...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Your Literary Judgments Are Not Interesting' All of us when young – readers, I mean – fancy ourselves rebels and independent thinkers but most of...
3 weeks ago
12

'Your Literary Judgments Are Not Interesting'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

3 weeks ago
All of us when young – readers, I mean – fancy ourselves rebels and independent thinkers but most of us are afflicted to varying degrees with the superego of the age. That is, we are influenced, whether we know it or not, by the critical climate, by the judgments and fashions of...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'The Moon at Times Is Hunched and Old' A few weeks after my boss hired me in 2006 to work as a science writer for Rice University, we met...
2 months ago
12

'The Moon at Times Is Hunched and Old'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
A few weeks after my boss hired me in 2006 to work as a science writer for Rice University, we met to informally talk about how things were going. Both of us were pleased and knew we had made a good choice. We already liked and trusted each other. Ann paid me an odd compliment...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Without One Wonder in the Sky!' John Partridge (1677-1715) was an English shoemaker-turned-astrologer who claimed to have refined...
2 weeks ago
12

'Without One Wonder in the Sky!'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 weeks ago
John Partridge (1677-1715) was an English shoemaker-turned-astrologer who claimed to have refined his “science.” Don’t smirk or pity our benighted forebears. Newspapers still publish astrology columns and dozens of astrological publications remain in print. See Modern Astrology...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Better to Have a Distinct Word for Each Sense' On Monday, March 23, [1772], I found him busy, preparing a fourth edition of his folio...
3 weeks ago
12

'Better to Have a Distinct Word for Each Sense'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

3 weeks ago
On Monday, March 23, [1772], I found him busy, preparing a fourth edition of his folio Dictionary.”  Dr. Johnson published the first edition of his Dictionary on April 15, 1755, two-hundred-seventy years ago. It contained some 42,000 entries and he had worked on it for...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'A Lovely Lightness of Spirit' My understanding of “deliquescing” goes back to high-school chemistry: a solid melts or becomes...
2 months ago
12

'A Lovely Lightness of Spirit'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
My understanding of “deliquescing” goes back to high-school chemistry: a solid melts or becomes liquid by absorbing moisture from the air. Kay Ryan uses the word in an unexpectedly metaphorical way in her review of This Craft of Verse (2002), a transcript of the lectures Jorge...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'The Poet Is a Noble Creature' “. . . I am under the necessity of appearing as an ancient and more or less venerable figure; others...
2 months ago
12

'The Poet Is a Noble Creature'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
“. . . I am under the necessity of appearing as an ancient and more or less venerable figure; others may come in aeroplanes, but I arrive on a boneshaker; others may give a demonstration with electric stoves, but I freeze over my doleful brazier. Side-whiskers should have been...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'A Certain Saving Humor' “Except for a certain saving humor, I should indeed have been a full monster.”  One definition of a...
2 months ago
12

'A Certain Saving Humor'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
“Except for a certain saving humor, I should indeed have been a full monster.”  One definition of a friend is someone with whom you can share any joke or other comic effort without fear of offending him. It may not be funny – the only pertinent criterion for judging humorousness...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Dust and Shadows' Here I encounter yet again the bothersome issue of major vs. minor writers. When “minor” is used as...
3 weeks ago
12

'Dust and Shadows'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

3 weeks ago
Here I encounter yet again the bothersome issue of major vs. minor writers. When “minor” is used as a purely dismissive judgment, beware. There are minor writers who write beautifully and earn our respect and even love – Max Beerbohm is the first who comes to mind – and...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'But They Are Very Bad Poems' Eugenio Montale speaking with an interviewer, American poet W.S. Di Piero, in 1973:  “Political...
2 weeks ago
11

'But They Are Very Bad Poems'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 weeks ago
Eugenio Montale speaking with an interviewer, American poet W.S. Di Piero, in 1973:  “Political ideas are best expressed in prose. Why should we express political ideas in such an abstruse language as poetry? If I were to write against the war in Viet Nam, I would write in prose,...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'And Then, Look Up!' Robert Conquest begins his poem “Nocturne” with a challenge to convention and cliché: “’Broad...
2 months ago
11

'And Then, Look Up!'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
Robert Conquest begins his poem “Nocturne” with a challenge to convention and cliché: “’Broad Daylight’ – words you speak or write / Imputing narrowness to Night?’” Seven sections follow, including the second:  “Night’s only moonlit, starlit, yet See from that...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Attempt But Little At a Time' A blog turns out to be an education undertaken in public. Its proprietor is more student than...
2 months ago
11

'Attempt But Little At a Time'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
A blog turns out to be an education undertaken in public. Its proprietor is more student than teacher, and one is fortunate to encounter numerous tutors along the way, between the covers of books and out there in the bigger world. I seldom sit down at the keyboard with the goal...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Cure Death With the Rub of a Dock Leaf' The Irish poet Michael Longley died on Wednesday at the age of eighty-five. I’ve read him sparsely...
2 months ago
11

'Cure Death With the Rub of a Dock Leaf'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
The Irish poet Michael Longley died on Wednesday at the age of eighty-five. I’ve read him sparsely but recall a devotion to the natural world and to World War I, in which his father fought. Here is “Glossary” (The Candlelight Master, 2020):   “I meet my father in the glossary Who...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Poems Can Be True in Different Ways' Something seems to be stirring out there. I’m too cautious and cynical to proclaim a renaissance in...
2 months ago
11

'Poems Can Be True in Different Ways'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
Something seems to be stirring out there. I’m too cautious and cynical to proclaim a renaissance in formalist poetry but the prognosis is promising. Clarence Caddell, an Australian, has published the second issue of The Borough: A Journal of Poetry. I wrote about the first issue...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'To Make Her Smile and Keep Her in Their Game' A friend called to chat while driving to Dallas to visit her mother. My friend is my age. Her mother...
2 weeks ago
11

'To Make Her Smile and Keep Her in Their Game'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 weeks ago
A friend called to chat while driving to Dallas to visit her mother. My friend is my age. Her mother is ninety-six years old. She lives on her own and only recently, after falling, did she agree to start using a cane. I’m not sure anyone is prepared to get old (or not get old)....
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Anecdotal Evidence
'We Must Be Continually Striving to Live' A reader asks what I hope to accomplish in retirement. I’m not one for making grand plans or...
2 months ago
11

'We Must Be Continually Striving to Live'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
A reader asks what I hope to accomplish in retirement. I’m not one for making grand plans or resolutions. No golf and little travel. It’s more likely I’ll continue what I’m already doing – writing, reading, family matters – just more of it. More Montaigne, J.V. Cunningham,...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Unceasingly Amused According to My Taste' Certain writers inspire profound ambivalence. We admire them for something – often style – and they...
2 months ago
11

'Unceasingly Amused According to My Taste'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
Certain writers inspire profound ambivalence. We admire them for something – often style – and they let us down by writing something stupid, dull or otherwise offensive. It’s easier dealing strictly with good guys (Chekhov, for instance) and bad guys (like Louis-Ferdinand...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'The Task of Doing Nothing Much at All' I’ve always thought of goofing off as one of the American fine arts, up there with western movies...
2 months ago
11

'The Task of Doing Nothing Much at All'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
I’ve always thought of goofing off as one of the American fine arts, up there with western movies and jazz. In high school, I worked summers and weekends in an aluminum casting plant owned by a friend of my father. The work was hot and dirty, and we sometimes worked twelve-hour...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'More Than One Book at a Time?' We have acquired new, smaller bedside tables. More than a third of the surface area is occupied by...
2 months ago
11

'More Than One Book at a Time?'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
We have acquired new, smaller bedside tables. More than a third of the surface area is occupied by the alarm clock and a lamp, leaving less space for reading matter. All further accumulation of books and magazines will, of necessity, be vertically arranged, a single stack, which...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'What My Mind Thinks My Pen Writes' Some books, including several of the best, defy conventional literary formulas and genres. Consider...
2 months ago
11

'What My Mind Thinks My Pen Writes'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
Some books, including several of the best, defy conventional literary formulas and genres. Consider Moby-Dick. Is it a novel in the same inarguable sense as Middlemarch, another very big book? What about Tristram Shandy, with its endlessly deferred plot, digressions within...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'He Is Not Writing a Poem' Cultural Amnesia (2007) ranks among the most enduringly entertaining books published in this...
2 months ago
10

'He Is Not Writing a Poem'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
Cultural Amnesia (2007) ranks among the most enduringly entertaining books published in this still-young century. The late Clive James read books like a scholar and wrote about them like an impossibly gifted teenager – that is, with shameless enthusiasm. He was never too cool to...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Lawn As White As Driven Snow' Houston’s terrain is geometrically flat, which is why most houses have no basements. From the warmth...
2 months ago
10

'Lawn As White As Driven Snow'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
Houston’s terrain is geometrically flat, which is why most houses have no basements. From the warmth of my living room I watched a neighborhood kid try to defy gravity, seated on a plastic sled in the middle of the ice-covered street, holding the reins and achieving...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Influential Works That Are Almost Never Read' John Ruskin would have a difficult time of it in what passes for literary culture today. First, he...
2 months ago
10

'Influential Works That Are Almost Never Read'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
John Ruskin would have a difficult time of it in what passes for literary culture today. First, he was phenomenally prolific, even by Victorian standards, and how many people would read all five volumes of Modern Painters or the idea-rich sprawl of Fors Clavigera? Second, Ruskin...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'People Who Just Love the Proximity of Books' Left in a hefty anthology titled The Faber Book of War Poetry (ed. Kenneth Baker, 1996) was...
a week ago
10

'People Who Just Love the Proximity of Books'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a week ago
Left in a hefty anthology titled The Faber Book of War Poetry (ed. Kenneth Baker, 1996) was a postcard from O’Gara & Wilson, Ltd. Booksellers in Chicago. More than forty years ago I visited that shop near the University of Chicago and purchased a partial set of Conrad for a...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'So a Fool Returneth to His Folly' Grownups seldom credit children with insight into human psychology, thus treating them as smaller,...
2 weeks ago
10

'So a Fool Returneth to His Folly'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 weeks ago
Grownups seldom credit children with insight into human psychology, thus treating them as smaller, more annoying versions of themselves. My father had an acquaintance even he knew was a fool. By admitting such knowledge, he was violating adult solidarity. His friend's customary...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'The Lonely Funeral of Your Speech' Francis Bacon’s death might have been scripted by Monty Python. It’s certainly the most unlikely...
2 months ago
10

'The Lonely Funeral of Your Speech'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
Francis Bacon’s death might have been scripted by Monty Python. It’s certainly the most unlikely in the history of English literature, at least as reported by the not-always-reliable John Aubrey. It’s absurd but if true it helps beatify the author of The Advancement of Learning...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Happiness Could Be Impartial for Once' Robert Chandler has rescued, through translation, much of Russian literature for the Anglophone...
2 months ago
10

'Happiness Could Be Impartial for Once'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
Robert Chandler has rescued, through translation, much of Russian literature for the Anglophone world – Pushkin, Andrey Plantonov, Teffi, Lev Ozerov and Vasily Grossman, among others. Most of Chandler’s own prose I've read has been in the form of brief introductions and...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Livelier in Pleasant Weather' Magazines have long been fond of asking well-known writers to recommend books appropriate to...
a week ago
9

'Livelier in Pleasant Weather'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a week ago
Magazines have long been fond of asking well-known writers to recommend books appropriate to certain times of year, usually as Christmas gifts or so-called “beach reading.” The results tend to be surprisingly conventional and unrewarding, with pleasing exceptions. Consider...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Some Bloodless Snippet of History' Since he was a little boy my middle son has been a serial enthusiast. Back then it was rocks,...
a week ago
9

'Some Bloodless Snippet of History'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a week ago
Since he was a little boy my middle son has been a serial enthusiast. Back then it was rocks, carnivorous plants, Dmitri Mendeleev and the periodic table, coins, electronics – one focus of interest after another. He wasn’t fickle or easily distracted by the next shiny thing....
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Anecdotal Evidence
'After So Many Deaths I Live and Write' One needn’t be a fetishist or even a book collector – reader is close enough -- to prize an...
2 weeks ago
8

'After So Many Deaths I Live and Write'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 weeks ago
One needn’t be a fetishist or even a book collector – reader is close enough -- to prize an “association copy,” a term neatly defined here: “A book that belonged to or was annotated by the author, someone close to the author, a famous or noteworthy person, or someone especially...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Let Us Think That We Build Forever' I’ve just learned that the English poet Clive Wilmer died on March 13 at age eighty. I knew him...
a week ago
8

'Let Us Think That We Build Forever'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a week ago
I’ve just learned that the English poet Clive Wilmer died on March 13 at age eighty. I knew him first as a friend and champion of Edgar Bowers, Thom Gunn and Dick Davis, a co-translator of the Hungarian poet Miklós Radnóti, a serious reader of John Ruskin and a fine poet in his...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Style Is the Forgetting of All Styles' “I recall admiring the calmly expository flavor and simple, nonjudgemental humanity of profile...
a week ago
7

'Style Is the Forgetting of All Styles'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a week ago
“I recall admiring the calmly expository flavor and simple, nonjudgemental humanity of profile stories Patrick Kurp contributed to the Gazette, years and years ago.”  After three decades, I’ve heard from a former newspaper colleague, a music writer, Mike Hochanadel. A...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'I Took Off My Hat to This Little Fool' “Is it not strange that the phantoms of a blood-stained period have so airy a grace and look with...
a week ago
7

'I Took Off My Hat to This Little Fool'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a week ago
“Is it not strange that the phantoms of a blood-stained period have so airy a grace and look with so tender eyes? -- that I recall with difficulty the danger and death and horrors of the time, and without effort all that was gracious and picturesque?”  The Battle of...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'The Rest Is Silence' Here I pause to remember a forgotten poet who remembered a slightly less forgotten poet – a reminder...
6 days ago
7

'The Rest Is Silence'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

6 days ago
Here I pause to remember a forgotten poet who remembered a slightly less forgotten poet – a reminder that all of us are eminently forgettable, regardless of our purported virtues. Walter de la Mare died on June 22, 1956, at age eighty-three. The journal Poetry assigned William...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Weaknesses as Good as Other People’s Virtues' “It is not easy to write essays like Montaigne, nor Maxims in the manner of the Duke de...
a week ago
6

'Weaknesses as Good as Other People’s Virtues'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a week ago
“It is not easy to write essays like Montaigne, nor Maxims in the manner of the Duke de la Rochefoucault.”  Who could think otherwise? The two Frenchmen are masters of diametrically opposed forms. In Montaigne’s hands, an essay can afford to be expansive. In fact, expansiveness –...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Yes, I'm Perfectly All Right' Had I been more clever or alert I might have heard and recorded my brother’s last words before he...
4 days ago
5

'Yes, I'm Perfectly All Right'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

4 days ago
Had I been more clever or alert I might have heard and recorded my brother’s last words before he died last August in hospice. A reader asks about this, and I admit I blew it. For the last week or so of his life, Ken was unconscious, occasionally moaning when the nurses shifted...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Nobody to Witness Its Effects Upon Me' Johnson, Boswell and friends met for dinner at the Crown and Anchor on April 12, 1776. Among...
5 days ago
5

'Nobody to Witness Its Effects Upon Me'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

5 days ago
Johnson, Boswell and friends met for dinner at the Crown and Anchor on April 12, 1776. Among the topics of conversation was the evergreen favorite “whether drinking improved conversation and benevolence.” Sir Joshua Reynolds maintained it did. Johnson replies:   “‘No, Sir: before...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'You Should Take a Book of Poetry' “The Brains Trust” was a BBC radio show popular in the nineteen-forties and -fifties. A panel of...
2 days ago
4

'You Should Take a Book of Poetry'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 days ago
“The Brains Trust” was a BBC radio show popular in the nineteen-forties and -fifties. A panel of “experts” – among them Desmond MacCarthy, Kenneth Clark and Rose Macaulay – would answer questions submitted by listeners. The U.S. had similar radio programs at the time, such as...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'You There in Your Straight Row on Row' On Sunday, a friend and I, after lunch at a favorite Mexican restaurant, visited Kaboom Books here...
3 days ago
4

'You There in Your Straight Row on Row'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

3 days ago
On Sunday, a friend and I, after lunch at a favorite Mexican restaurant, visited Kaboom Books here in Houston. He left with a stack of books. I found one: Adelaide Crapsey: On the Life and Work of an American Master (Pleiades Press and Gulf Coast, 2018). I know her thanks only to...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Chockfull of Love, Crammed With Bright Thoughts' Several years have passed since I last entered a bookstore selling new books, such as Barnes and...
yesterday
3

'Chockfull of Love, Crammed With Bright Thoughts'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

yesterday
Several years have passed since I last entered a bookstore selling new books, such as Barnes and Noble or the late Borders. Long ago they stopped feeling like home and a visit usually turned out to be a waste of time. Serendipitous discovery was rare. The portion of the goods on...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'The Familiar Hearts of Strangers' “At bottom Chekhov is a writer who has flung his soul to the side of pity, and sees into the...
15 hours ago
2

'The Familiar Hearts of Strangers'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

15 hours ago
“At bottom Chekhov is a writer who has flung his soul to the side of pity, and sees into the holiness and immaculate fragility of the hidden striver below.”  In his letters to family and friends, Chekhov can be harsh, hectoring and even smutty, though seldom in the stories except...
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