Easy Edges and Harder Ones
Twofold overture: I didn’t expect, at all, to get the kind of response I have received to my Buy Me a Coffee initiative. I don’t primarily mean the financial...
The Wordsmith on the Throne
Brazilian cover designs, from the invaluable Steven Heller. From an interview with Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood: There are scenes in “Spencer” that require...
These Hallalujous Courts
Merry Christmas to all! Right now I am especially craving light-hearted things, and “Father Christmas,” like so much else by the late and so-much-lamented...
From the Horse Library to the Centipawn
An East German Advent Calendar from 1980 In central Java, Ridwan Sururi and Luna are the Kudapustaka -- the Horse Library. I do miss Christopher Hitchens: It...
Fake! (also, Advent!)
Surely you all have enough of me, but ... micro.blog, where I keep my digital scrapbook -- photos and quotes and links, rather than full blog posts -- has...
Adventing
We have entered Advent -- that first and most curious season of the Christian church’s year, which simultaneously awaits Christ’s Second Coming and looks...
Texas, London, Wisconsin
Recently, I was able to spend a few days at my great place of refuge, and also the co-sponsor of this newsletter, Laity Lodge. What a blessing. A few more...
The Library
World’s most beautiful libraries Alix Hawley on Twitter: Library patron of the week: the fella who came in, wandered around for a good while, then asked...
Prophets and Churches and a Table of Welcome
“When London is in Ruins”: Gustave Doré’s The New Zealander Please check out all the cool new changes at the Comment website! Among them: The Welcome Table,...
Julian Laughs Heartily
“Nautilus,” by Louise V. Durham I mentioned last week that I am going through a difficult time, and several of you replied with thanks for the newsletter,...
Imagery and Contemplation
That’s a time-lapse photo of a highway (I believe U.S. Route 163 in Utah) leading to Monument Valley – with the center of the galaxy in the background. One...
Ambiguities
Jenny Holzer Thomas Mann, Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man: I do not think that it is the essence and duty of the writer to join “with great fanfare” the...
Buster, Josephine, and Autumn
Autumn is just beginning to hint at us here in central Texas, but whenever it comes I find myself thinking about this passage from C. S. Lewis’s Surprised by...
Returning in Something Almost Like Glory
If you have read The Wind in the Willows -- and let me pause here to say that if you have not read the Wind in the Willows then what are you doing with your...
Books and Chairs and Years Gone By
Breaking Bread with the Dead will be out in paperback tomorrow! Please share the news with everyone in the entire world. Vermeer before: Vermeer after: See...
Talk to the Hand
Carry Ackroyd paints the poems of John Clare Via my friend Richard Gibson, a passage from Chirologia, or, The naturall language of the hand composed of the...
The Axe, the Wood, the House
Musician, by Jim Leonard I did something very odd, for me: I wrote a short play. It’s about J. R. R. Tolkien and W. H. Auden, who were good friends -- but...
Done List
The Hartwell Memorial Window at the Art Institute of Chicago Good Monday morning! (Well, that’s what it is as I write, anyway.) As I look forward to a busy...
Architectural Thoughts
Martin Gerlach Frank Goldberg was born in Toronto and lived in Canada until he was 18, at which point his family moved to Los Angeles in search of a better...
It’s Good to Be Back
Welcome, friends, to the triumphant return of Snakes & Ladders! I trust that once more you’ll hear from me weekly, now that I’ve had a bit of a break. Two...