2,065 words
November: It’s that wonderful time of year again when my birthday reminds me of the passage of time and the inevitable progress of ageing, decrepitude, and decay. Having initially believed that the shock of turning 30 would be the worst of it, I now brace for the unenviable proposition of turning 31, which is like 30 except a year older and with still no resolution to the crisis of ageing in sight. (more…)
Edvard Munch, Melancholy (1894)
Edvard Munch, Melancholy (1894)
1,151 words
During a livestream on July 2, 2022, I was asked what advice I would give to people who are contemplating suicide. Hyacinth Bouquet transcribed my answer, which I have edited. I want to thank her and the original questioner. (more…)
2,710 words
Do not believe the poster of this 1952 film. Do not. Wait ‘Till the Sun Shines, Nellie, isn’t the pleasant, bubbly, Technicolor singfest that is promised, although the song with all its nostalgic sentiment is there. Its appearances, however, evoke sadness and regret, much like old family photos tend to.
The action begins in the 1890s aboard a train chugging to Chicago, carrying Ben Harper (David Wayne) and Nellie (Jean Peters). (more…)
3,018 words
The singer Édith Piaf famously, and throatily, regretted nothing about anything. But the poet John Betjeman wished that he’d had more sex. And the economist John Maynard Keynes that he’d drunk more champagne. Me? I regret two things much more important than recreational sex or champagne. (more…)
“Death found an author writing his life. . .” from Edward Hull’s Danse Macabre, 1827.
“Death found an author writing his life. . .” from Edward Hull’s Danse Macabre, 1827.
1,180 words
It always sounds silly to me when people tell the dead to “rest in peace.”
Practically speaking, don’t you have to disturb their rest to tell them that? It makes about as much sense as nudging someone who’s snoring to say, “Hey — HEY! Wake up and go to sleep.” (more…)
William Powell Frith (1819-1909), A May Day Celebration (private collection)
William Powell Frith (1819-1909), A May Day Celebration (private collection)
6,740 words
Throughout Europe and the United States, the chill mornings and blossoming trees of spring are giving way to summer’s warmth and abundance. As the midway point between spring and summer, the month of May has historically been a season of great importance to the peoples of Europe, a joyful time of sowing, revelry, feasting, and courtship. (more…)
N. C. Wyeth, Nightfall, 1945.
N. C. Wyeth, Nightfall, 1945.
2,289 words
Recently I had surgery. It went well, nothing serious. However, it was unexpected. I had to ask myself — what if it was serious? What if my body was riddled with stage 4 cancer and I’d better say my prayers, update my will, and buy a grave? (more…)
4,994 words
Of peasant ancestry on his father’s side and boasting aristocratic (boyar) maternal roots, the Romanian poet, prose writer, and editorialist Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889) had not put his modest inherited wealth to waste. Educated in the German language since childhood, Eminescu was culturally — if not always geopolitically — an enthusiastic Germanophile. (more…)
1,985 words
1,985 words
It would be easy to make Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 masterpiece Ikiru into something trite and hopeful — like an existential affirmation of life. But that wouldn’t be right. Despite the film’s title translating into English as “to live,” the film poignantly demonstrates how any real meaning life has is barely hanging by a thread. In fact, you would have to be a little crazy — or on death’s door — to act upon this meaning at all. You will be going against the grain, you see. Humanity is organized in such a way to impede meaning. (more…)
2,072 words
2,072 words
“I believe in the certainty of chance,” sang Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy in 1998, a wonderful songwriter musing on one of philosophy’s oldest conundrums. Are events pre-ordained or as yet unwritten? Do we live in a world of free will or determinism? All of us will look back on our lives and find at least one incident that changed (more…)
5,026 words
5,026 words
Known mostly as a novelist, memoirist, and historian, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had actually completed four plays before his first novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, was published in 1962. He composed his first two, Victory Celebrations and Prisoners, while a zek in the Soviet Gulag (more…)
Caspar David Friedrich, Wall at Dusk, 1837-40.
Caspar David Friedrich, Wall at Dusk, 1837-40.
3,000 words
My ancestors arrived in the Tidewater region of this continent around 400 years ago, and lived and died almost entirely beneath the Mason-Dixon line. As a Catholic, a Southron, and an Anglo-American, I am filled with sorrow and impotent rage at the sight of my forebears being demonized by those who are so manifestly inferior to them. (more…)