Van Gogh – L’Arlesienne, Portrait of Madame Ginoux – 1888

An episode from 3/16/26: Tonight, I read about the eruption of the volcano Krakatoa in the year 535 CE, and the outbreak of plague in Constantinople (and elsewhere) only a few years later. It all comes from Susan Wise Bauer’s The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade, and I give a handful of reasons why her histories for adults and children are definitely worth going to.Bookending these stories are a few passages in Gershom Scholem’s (1887-1982) memoir, From Berlin to Jerusalem: Memoirs of My Youth. It turns out that the great kabbalist liked sweets, and riding around on roller-skates.The best way to support the podcast is by leaving a review on Apple or Spotify, sharing it with others, or sending me a note on what you think. You can also order any of my books: Time and the River: From Columbine to the Invention of Fire, Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone. I've also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series. I also have a YouTube channel where I share poems and excerpts from these books, mostly as YouTube shorts. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.