I have five stock smiles I choose from when cheesing for a photo. The Euro says I should throw the stock away. Go natural. But the truth is, my eyes are a bit boggly and it takes very little for me to look certifiably insane. Case in point – my genuine, unfeigned delight as I
Monthly Archives: May 2010
Enlarge: Pillar and Jets – Hubble Space Telescope First, click to enlarge this image. Enlarge it again. Now, imagine it the size of your house. If you get a chance to watch Hubble 3D at IMAX, do so. The Euro and I, planning strategically, showed up on Friday morning, at a ridiculously early hour, so
Coz I is dead posh, like. U know. I pay a Salma Hayek look-alike to follow me around so people will think I’m popular. The small man living inside my hat thinks she’s ace. I don’t know who this person is. But she smells real good.
Recently, I received this email. It went like this: The Anti-Inflammation Zone, Barry Sears B, Go to the library and get The Anti-Inflammation Zone. Now. I think this is the most important book I have ever read about health and wellness. I know I say every couple months that I’m going Full-Weil (and I think
“There is, after all, something eternal that lies beyond reach of the hand of fate and of all human delusions.” – Einstein There’s not a whole lot one can do with ancient Aramaic or Koine Greek except be Indiana Jones or get a diploma in theology and religion. I wanted the former. I got the
Joyce Carol Oates I’ve got a story about me and The Gravedigger’s Daughter. And a video, somewhere, of me telling it to her…to Joyce Carol Oates. She probably forgot about it as soon as I told it but it was a wow moment, in the moment. You could see it on her face.
Something that’s neither here nor there but comes to mind because it comes to mind. Whenever I think of Joyce Carol Oates I always have this image of her running through Hyde Park. Long and lean and listening. Alone, with her internal self. What conversations they must have. I’ve just finished reading The Falls. And
In one way or another, the protagonists of Wise Blood, Lolita, On the Road, Franny and Zooey, and The Crying of Lot 49 all have their sanity called into question, and various abnormal mental states (religious enthusiasm, drug hallucinations, and so forth) potentially compromise their rational faculties. Discuss the theme of madness in one of
I don’t take compliments very well. They make me feel all squirmy and uncomfortable. But Flynn doesn’t compliment lightly. Or insincerely. I received the most touching note from her the other day. And her words made me feel capable. And worthy. I like words like that.
I look awful. My face is puffy. My eyes are overlarge. My head is terribly unstable. Hubble keeps telling me my speech is slurred. He’s right. The muscles in my throat are tight and uncomfortable. But that’s not it. That’s not the cause of the slurring. I just don’t feel like opening my mouth enough
“My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.” – Wilfred Owen Wilfred Owen – Poetry of The Great War Wilfred Owen (whom I adore…exceedingly) was a British poet and soldier who signed up for the Artists’ Rifles in 1915. He was known for his shocking, realistic war poetry
In 1952 Nabokov was invited to Harvard by Professor Harry T. Levin and others as a visiting professor. He taught an undergraduate lecture course in the novel and did research on Pushkin in Widener Library. It was during this period that his son Dmitri was an undergraduate at Harvard, and that the Poetry Room recorded
