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- “And that’s the other thing about [Green], by acknowledging that these feelings exist I feel like then you see it, and you recognize that in yourself.” –Sophia Takal
- “I know that for myself, what is deeper than I understand is often the most pertinent to me and the most lasting.” — Lorine Niedecker
- Substack: on All I’ve Got & Then Some (2024)
- Review: Force of Nature: The Dry 2 (2024)
- Natasha Richardson as Sally Bowles
- “To me, Martha Graham is one of America’s few authentic geniuses.” – Bette Davis
- R.I.P. Steve Albini
- News about Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof
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Tag Archives: science
Review: We Are As Gods (2022)
I reviewed the documentary about controversial countercultural “visionary” Stewart Brand – he of the Whole Earth Catalog, which I remember seeing piled around in people’s houses in my childhood – but beyond, to his spearheading of the computer revolution and … Continue reading
Happy Birthday, Galileo Galilei: “Eppur si muove.”
Sometimes I remember that pre-Paradise-Lost John Milton traveled to Italy and met with Galileo, who was under house arrest at the time, and it’s such an awe-inspiring and bizarre image I feel like I must have made it up. Milton … Continue reading
Recommended Books: Non-Fiction
I have been meaning to do a Part 2 to my Recommended Books: Fiction list – put together years ago. I wanted to recommend non-fiction, from history books to biographies to essays to whatever. Here is the Non-Fiction list. I’ve … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Founding Fathers, Theatre
Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Afghanistan, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Alexander Hamilton, Austria, Balkan Ghosts, Balkans, baseball, Belfast, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Catherine Drinker-Bowen, Central Asia, China, Crowds and Power, cults, culture, Dava Sobel, David McCullough, Edmund Burke, Elias Canetti, Elvis Presley, England, Federalist Papers, Founding Brothers, France, Germany, Group Theatre, Gulag Archipelago, history, Hitler, Hunter S. Thompson, Imperium, Ireland, Iris Chang, Isaac Newton, James Madison, Janet Malcolm, Japan, John Jay, Joseph Ellis, Mark Bowden, Michael Schmidt, Miracle at Philadelphia, Olivia Laing, Philip Gourevitch, poetry, Primo Levi, psychopaths, Rasputin, Rebecca West, Red Sox, Robert Conquest, Robert Kaplan, Roman empire, Russia, Rwanda, Ryszard Kapuściński, science, Serbia, Shakespeare, Somalia, Stalin, The Great Terror, The Soccer War, Tom Wolfe, true crime, Ukraine, Vincent Bugliosi, WWI, WWII, Yugoslavia
19 Comments
Happy Π Day
It’s 3/14, which is Π Day (naturally). A couple of things: I’d like to direct you to one of the most fascinating New Yorker profiles I’ve ever read: It’s called “The Mountains of Pi”, and it’s from 1992, a profile … Continue reading
2015 Books Read
Even I am impressed with how much I read this year. Along the course of the year, occasionally I’d think to myself, “Good job, Sheila, with your Self-Imposed Reading Plan!” I’ve read a lot of new novels (not really my … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Alexander Hamilton, Baseball A Literary Anthology, books read, Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Marlowe, Edvard Radzinsky, Elvis Presley, Fyodor Dostoevsky, George Eliot, Hannah Arendt, Hunter S. Thompson, Ireland, J.D. Salinger, Jeanette Winterson, Jincy Willett, Joan Didion, John Banville, John Wayne, Joshua Ferris, Lorrie Moore, Machiavelli, Margaret Atwood, Norman Rush, Patricia Highsmith, Paul Zindel, Rasputin, Rebecca West, Ron Chernow, Russia, science, Seamus Heaney, Shakespeare, Vietnam, W.H. Auden, William Styron
22 Comments
The Books: Isaac Newton, by James Gleick
Daily Book Excerpt: Biography Next biography on the biography shelf is Isaac Newton, by James Gleick Newton with his prism and silent face, The marble index of a mind for ever Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone. — William … Continue reading
The Books: Einstein: The Life and Times, by Ronald W. Clark
Daily Book Excerpt: Biography Next biography on this shelf is Einstein: The Life and Times, by Ronald W. Clark There were people entering late and settling down in one of the boxes in the first tier. One of them, sitting … Continue reading
The Books: The Periodic Table, by Primo Levi
Daily Book Excerpt: Memoirs: Next book on the Memoir/Letters/Journals shelf is The Periodic Table, by Primo Levi The Periodic Table, by Primo Levi, the Italian chemist, is one of the great books of the 20th century. In 2006, the Royal … Continue reading
Speaking of Pi
I knew I had read a profile in the New Yorker years ago about Pi, and then remembered that I have it in one of the New Yorker compilations that I own. It’s called “The Mountains of Pi”, and it’s … Continue reading