On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer by John Keats Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne; […]
A Piece of the Storm by Mark Strand From the shadow of domes in the city of domes,A snowflake, a blizzard of one, weightless, entered your roomAnd made its way to the arm of the chair where you, looking upFrom your book, saw it the moment it landed. That’s allThere was to it. No more […]
The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-grey, And Winter’s dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day. The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires. The land’s sharp features seemed to be […]
A history of the concession speech in America. From Radio Diaries.
Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death, read by Nate DiMeo for The Memory Palace. Full text at Project Gutenberg.
When I first read about defunding the police, I thought it referred to eliminating police budgets completely. There is certainly evidence from the United States and elsewhere in the world that more police cause more problems. Maybe no police at all would be an improvement. But I wasn’t sure. Upon further reading, I realized that […]
Each year these tiny yellow spiders emerge from beneath our outdoor table. We think they’re Araneus diadematus. arene, =a, -i (L). a spider; diadem, =a (G). a crown, turban. They’re unusually likable spiders.
Defeat by Kahlil Gibran Defeat, my Defeat, my solitude and my aloofness; You are dearer to me than a thousand triumphs, And sweeter to my heart than all world-glory. Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance, Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot And not to be […]
99% Invisible has a fun and fascinating episode this week about the origins of a (perhaps too) familiar song. It turns out that when a pop song feels like it’s one you’ve always known, it might be because it is actually a folk song. Whomst Among Us Let the Dogs Out There is a full-length […]
The Owl by Edward Thomas Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved; Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof. Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest, Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired […]
Rick and I visited Kennedy Creek this weekend to watch the chum salmon, also known as keta. It was the first time I’ve ever seen salmon spawning.
This week’s Selected Shorts podcast has a wonderful reading from George Saunders‘s sad and funny grown-up picture book Fox 8. It makes me want to read the book, which has drawings by Chelsea Cardinal. The reader is John Cameron Mitchell.
A message for my fellow Americans. This tune is from back before tax evasion was something rich people bragged about. More about the song at WFMU’s Beware of the Blog.
Why are there cars everywhere? Whose idea was it to spend our days dodging speeding, two-ton suits of armor? Isn’t that a kind of dangerous way to live? These are questions the Chawed Rosin has discussed before. And they are answered in this excellent On the Media segment about the folly of letting ignorant hucksters […]