4,070 words
Hungarian translation here; Czech translation here
Audio version: To listen in a player, use the one below or click here. To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save link as” or “save target as.”
If I could choose to be anyone from the twentieth century, I would not hesitate for a moment to pick Ernst Jünger. (more…)
Jewish refugees leaving the Third Reich.
Jewish refugees leaving the Third Reich.
6,951 words
Heinz Hermann Weichardt was born to a German father and a Jewish mother and spent his young adulthood in the Third Reich. In in his February 1995 memoir Under Two Flags, he gave a concise but very revealing account of his tribulations as a Mischling in the first degree. (more…)
Salvador Dalí, The Persistence of Memory
Salvador Dalí, The Persistence of Memory
5,672 words
Part 2 of 3 (Part 1 here, Part 3 here)
This excursus has prematurely broached The Gala Situation, so let’s go back to where we started, with Dalí beginning to apply his method: “For the next few years Dalí’s paranoiac process remained preoccupied with fetishist obsessions, including masturbation and his fear of heterosexual sex.”[1] (more…)
6,241 words
Part 1 of 3 (Part 2 here)
Christopher Heath Brown, Jean-Pierre Isbouts
The Dalí Legacy: How an Eccentric Genius Changed the Art World and Created a Lasting Legacy
Apollo Publishers, 2021
“The only difference between me and the Surrealists is that I am a Surrealist.” — Salvador Dalí (more…)
Battle of the ironclads, the Merrimack vs. the Monitor
Grahame Baker-Smith’s 2017 Folio illustration for War of the Worlds.
Grahame Baker-Smith’s 2017 Folio illustration for War of the Worlds.
3,882 words
Part 1 of 2 (Part 2 here)
Introduction
It was perhaps the most famous description of a (space) alien in English literature. The narrator felt an “utter terror [grip] him” as a thing from a nightmare emerged slowly, slowly from the pit that its smoking spacecraft had cratered in the Earth. As its body “bulged up and caught the light, it glistened like wet leather.” A pair of huge, fathomless dark eyes regarded him intensely, “steadfastly. (more…)
3,974 words
Hungarian translation here; Czech translation here
Audio version: To listen in a player, use the one above or click here. To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save link as” or “save target as.”
If I could choose to be anyone from the twentieth century, I would not hesitate for a moment to pick Ernst Jünger. (more…)
The 1923 Fiat Mefistofele, a revolutionary car design for its day which inspired the imaginations of motorists and designers worldwide.
The 1923 Fiat Mefistofele, a revolutionary car design for its day which inspired the imaginations of motorists and designers worldwide.
1,290 words
“We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath . . . a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.” — Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (more…)
3,280 words
Correlli Barnett
The Collapse of British Power
Frome & London: Butler & Tanner Ltd., 1972
Correlli Barnett is one of the rare British historians who views the Second World War as a disaster rather than in the usual flummery proclaiming that it was Britain’s “finest hour.” Barnett frames the scale of the calamity by illustrating Britain’s situation thusly: (more…)
Sir Alan Burns at the height of his career.
Sir Alan Burns at the height of his career.
1,994 words
Bruce Gilley
The Last Imperialist: Sir Alan Burns’ Epic Defense of the British Empire
Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway, 2021 (more…)
103 words / 2:02:43
This week’s episode of The Writers’ Bloc features two men from the nations of the former Yugoslavia, host Nick Jeelvy with guest Dr. Tomislav Sunić, discussing the breakup of the country and the lessons today’s dissidents can learn from it, and it is now available for download and online listening. (more…)
9,970 words
Miklós Horthy
A Life for Hungary: Memoirs
London: Hutchinson, 1956
Thomas L. Sakmyster
Hungary’s Admiral on Horseback: Miklós Horthy, 1918-1944
Boulder: East European Monographs, 1994
Historians of the Second World War and the events leading up to that catastrophe understandably focus on the “big powers”: Japan, Germany, Britain, the Soviet Union, the United States, and their leaders. (more…)
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin
1,328 words
I consider social media the biggest pestilence on the culture since the opioid crisis. . . and before that, the mass-dosing of the populace with antidepressants. . . and before that, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. . . but social media is good for a few things. (more…)