Many thanks to Michael Bartholomew-Biggs, for publishing my poem “Caedmon Comes to Singing” in the new issue of Londongrip. Many … Continue Reading “Caedmon Comes to Singing” – new poem at Londongrip
Laurie Sheck, “Pompeii” Covered with lapilli we crouch preserved as we were on that first day The last one of … Continue Reading Laurie Sheck, “Pompeii”
I’m stunned every time I read this: one of Wordsworth’s best short poems (& that’s saying something), & perhaps one … Continue Reading Wordsworth & Eternity at St. Paul’s
A few years ago, the great historian William H. McNeill died. I still have surprisingly endearing memories of reading his … Continue Reading William H. McNeill – History as Myth
Washington August 10 1863 Mr and Mrs Haskell, Dear friends, I thought it would be soothing to you to have … Continue Reading Walt Whitman’s Letter to Parents Whose Son Died in the Civil War
from Peter Ackroyd, at the end of his first volume of the history of England: Other forms of continuity are … Continue Reading The Past is Not Dead: There is Only Continuity
From Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the West, published just over a century ago. Our bad relationship with information and disinformation … Continue Reading The Popular Press in 1918 was Garbage Too
from Peter Ackroyd, at the end of his first volume on the history of England: When we look over the … Continue Reading History is An Accident
Manet’s 1862 painting The Old Musician is a great human riddle. Just what everybody is doing here, and why they’re … Continue Reading Manet the Mystic
Here, Erik Hornung refutes the old cliché that ancient Egyptian religion was “death obsessed,” or that constructions like the pyramids … Continue Reading Death in Ancient Egypt
The environment in which some of humanity’s first–and still best–works of art, in the cave of Lascaux nearly thirty … Continue Reading Heat & Light at Lascaux
from Steven Mithen’s The Prehistory of the Mind: The evolution of bipedalism had begun by 3.5 million years ago. Evidence … Continue Reading Walking on Two Feet: The Evolution of Bipedalism
From Mark Cohen’s Under Crescent & Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages: An aspect of Jewish-gentile sociability under Islam … Continue Reading Jews & Muslims on Pilgrimage Together in the 1300s
No matter how poor he got, and no matter what of his belongings he had to sell to get by, … Continue Reading The Melancholy of William Blake
Among the earliest photos taken of Paris were those of Eugène Atget, beginning in the late 1800s. Here is only … Continue Reading The Earliest Photographs of Paris
I first came across Claude Lorrain’s fantasies of classical Greece and Rome on the cover of an old paperback of … Continue Reading Claude Lorrain’s Nostalgia for What Never Was
