Along the subway line, there is a graveyard of newspaper boxes. The train rolls along, through a wooded stretch of track, and then, suddenly, on the south side of the track there is a fenced off area with woods all around. There, in the middle of the enclosed space, stands perhaps twenty newspaper boxes. TheyContinue reading “On a Graveyard of Boxes”
Monthly Archives: January 2009
On Evening Conversations
My grandmother was taking a nap. Dinner was ready. I needed to wake her. She was on the couch. I shook her foot, and she let out a ooh! of surprise. “Dinner’s ready,” I said. “You mean breakfast,” she said. “No, dinner.” “It’s dark,” she said. “Of course it’s dark. It’s dinner time.” “We justContinue reading “On Evening Conversations”
On The Century of the Black Ships
Recently I was given a history book on a narrow, though interesting, subject — the literature of Japanese/American warfare written between 1900 and 1940 entitled The Century of the Black Ships. It was written by a Japanese scholar, Naoki Inose, and published in Japan in 1993. Viz, a manga publisher, translated the book into EnglishContinue reading “On The Century of the Black Ships”
On New Tolkien
In May, HarperCollins is bringing out a new book by J.R.R. Tolkien. However, it’s not another Middle-Earth book, as there’s probably nothing else on the subject to publish. Instead, it’s something rather different. And for me, rather interesting. In the 1920’s, Professor Tolkien worked on a version of the Volsung Saga, The Legend of SigurdContinue reading “On New Tolkien”
On Early Morning Coding
Well, that was a frustrating two hours of working with PHP code. :-/ Our story began last week; I changed my blog’s theme to Tarski, which I ran with for a while and really liked. (To be honest, I don’t even remember why I changed.) Tarski is not easy to work with under the hood,Continue reading “On Early Morning Coding”
On Writing That’s Fun
Sometimes I feel like I spin my wheels when I write promotional articles for work. I research, I write, and I feel like the writing is… junk. Only, then it gets approved by all parties needing to approve it, and only rarely do I have any significant changes to make. It’s at that point, whenContinue reading “On Writing That’s Fun”
On the Second Season of The Tudors
Arriving today from Amazon, the second season of The Tudors. I bought the first season about a year ago on a blind buy. It looked like the kind of thing I’d like, and it turned out to be the kind of thing I do like. Oh, any resemblence between The Tudors and the reign ofContinue reading “On the Second Season of The Tudors”
On Let It Be Day by Day
Forty years ago this month the Beatles went into Twickenham Studios to film themselves as they began work on the album that was to follow up “The White Album.” Their intention was to practice a group of songs for a live performance. While that worked out, sort of, the fractures in the group broke openContinue reading “On Let It Be Day by Day”
On the Feast Day of St. Cedd
Today, the seventh of January, is celebrated in the Catholic Church as the feast day of Saint Cedd, who was built a number of monasteries and spread the Christian faith throughout Mercia and Essex in the seventh century. (Curiously, Cedd’s feast day is also celebrated on October 26th.) Cedd, of course, is the namesake forContinue reading “On the Feast Day of St. Cedd”
On the Universe We Live In
Sometimes, I really wish I could live to see the world three billion years hence. Okay, I take that back. It’s not just sometimes. I wish that all the time. In three billion years, give or take a few hundred million years, astronomers believe that the Milky Way, our home galaxy, and M-31, better knownContinue reading “On the Universe We Live In”