Martin Gardner should not have been possible
The world is less curious, reasonable, fun and awesome now that Martin Gardner has died. The Nature of Things / Martin Gardner from Wagner Brenner on Vimeo.
View ArticleLife was harder
I was listening today to a podcast of an excellent On Point program, in which Tom Ashbrook interviews Arnold Weinstein about what we can learn from literature about the stages of life. Here’s a passage...
View ArticleActing Shakespeare
I’ve been reading John Barton’s book Playing Shakespeare, which pretty much transcribes a series of televised master classes. It’s a pretty amazing book, in which Barton claims that Shakespeare’s lines...
View ArticleA September 12 poem
My friend Evelyn Walsh reminded me of a poem I wrote on September 12, 2001. I had forgotten it entirely: They dug a hole in the ordinary yesterday, And already the waves are smoothing its edges. The...
View ArticleYou Barcelona Birds
You Barcelona birds don’t know how good you have it. You give your city two stars because once a tourist left you a crust that had some mustard on it — Don’t eat the yellow bread, is that so hard to...
View ArticleEvergreen
I woke up this morning with this forming in my head. Afterwards, I realized it’s about my friend Michael O’Connor Clarke who died yesterday. Evergreen The yew that margins our yardgrew so implacably...
View ArticleMarathon
Everything happens by ones. Each step Each cobble Each mile Each leg crossing a line. Then in a moment we close our eyes and remember how the sea’s front edge paws at its shore. April 16, 2013 Please...
View ArticleReading Emily Dickinson’s metadata
There’s a terrific article by Helen Vendler in the March 24, 2014 New Republic about what can learn about Emily Dickinson by exploring her handwritten drafts. Helen is a Dickinson scholar of serious...
View ArticleDouglas Sturm, RIP
I read in my alumni magazine today that one of my old teachers, Douglas Sturm, died on May 6. The freshman seminar I took with Prof. Sturm modeled for me what intellectual discourse could be like. It...
View Article[doggerel] Great Blue
Because it’s August and I’m at a lake: The great blue is such an ungainly bird that “heron” should be an explainly word. It flaps so slow as it takes to the air I could beat it by climbing stairs. It’s...
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