DAILY BLOG
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Today Americans go to the polls and again Democracy faces Lincoln’s famous question. Can our democracy or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, long endure. The choice we face today is clear. Please join with me in praying that a majority of our neighbors take up Lincoln’s spirit today. Hate, injustice, and untruth cannot… Read more
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William Butler Yeats as a poet is unique. He grew greater as he aged. He was world famous as a poet in his early 20s, but wrote many of his best poems when he was in his 70s. For this reason, he has more great poems about middle age and old age than any other… Read more
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There are books you read because of their plot and there are others you read for their tone and style. Far Bright Star by Robert Olmsted is the latter. Like All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy, it is a story of beauty and violence and horses and Mexico. And like All the Pretty Horses (and Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry),… Read more
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As book collectors know all too well, we only regret our economies, never our extravagances. ~ Michael Dirda In 1986, I had just moved to St. Paul, was sleeping on a friend’s floor, and looking for work. One day after a job interview in downtown Minneapolis, I wandered into a used bookstore that has been… Read more
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Late fall has arrived in the North Country. Experience tells us the first true snowstorm of year is not far off. Frost and cold temperatures have already arrived. In matters of metaphor, Art turns toward Nature for illumination. The laws and rhythms of creation are a teacher worth paying attention to – growth toward death,… Read more
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“A thousand years makes economics silly and a work of art endures for ever, but it is very difficult to do and now it is not fashionable.”― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa There remain hundreds of books on my reading “to do” list, yet sometimes I find myself re-reading an old favorite. With poetry this is… Read more
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“A wild and crazy weekend involves sitting on the front porch, smoking a cigar, reading a book.” —Robert M. Gates Here’s to wild weekends! Read more
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It seems like one of the things that happen as you get older is that you find yourself thinking about the past more often than you had before. The people you have known. The places you have been. The things that you have experienced. In March of this year I spent time with my brother… Read more
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Trying to define the difference between Gothic and Horror is difficult. Ann Radcliffe once said, ‘Whereas terror is a feeling of dread that takes place before an event happens, horror is a feeling of revulsion or disgust after the event has happened.’ The usual way to look at the difference is that Horror seeks to provoke… Read more
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