I’ve been learning a lot from reading ‘Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War’ by Edmund Wilson. All about Harriet Beecher Stowe and the ghostly apparitions that her husband Calvin saw throughout his life. About the real Lincoln, not the Carl Sandberg mashup of folksy stories. […]
In my role as literary executor of the late Bob Hay, I’ve been going through a bank box of notebooks. I’ve been thinking of publishing a selection of his poetry, especially the short pieces, with some of his sketches as illustrations. Here are three poems from a larger work called […]
Whenever I hear someone calling someone else a ‘thug,” I think of the line in ‘The Princess Bride’ when Inigo Montoya says to Fizzini: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Thugs were members of a secret criminal society called […]
I make the same two resolutions every year, even though I know I cannot keep them. The thing is to try. The first is never to be annoyed by the bad manners of others. It’s okay to deplore bad manners or even to respond with righteous anger, if that’s […]
When a family puts all their unwanted stuff out on racks and tables in the driveway, besides the bargains you might find on pillowcases and winter coats, you also get a glimpse into their lives — the Nordic Trak that Dad ordered from TV and never wound up using, the […]
I’m having a splendid time with Edmund Wilson’s book about the literature of the Civil War, with the strange title of ‘Patriotic Gore’. It comes from a song of the Confederate South, “Maryland, My Maryland”: “Avenge the patriotic gore that flecked the streets of Baltimore and be the battle queen […]
On August 13, 1837, in a sermon he preached at the Spring Creek Campground, six miles west of Springfield, Illinois, the Reverend Peter Akers predicted that a great civil war would put an end to human bondage in America. He declared there would come “a time when slave-ships, like beasts […]
Finding a book you really like is great, but finding a whole series is even better. Tony Hillerman’s Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone, Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe, Georges Simenon’s Inspector Maigret — these characters all feel like old friends, and it’s always a pleasure to crack […]
Everybody’s got a lot of reading time nowadays, and I find it’s an especially good time for me to make a decision about all these books I have kicking around. No more “Maybe I’ll read that someday.” It’s either read it now or out it goes. One of the first […]
I had fun reading my Uncle Nat’s journals, which my cousin Max thoughtfully dropped off at the nursing home where I was recuperating. It’s a chance to sit down with my beloved uncle once again and hear what he’s doing and what he’s thinking about. Except in his journals, he’s […]