2020: The Year In Review

Do I need to say that 2020 was an awful year? Must I? Let’s watch a Carl Sagan video before I get to my annual review of the first post of each month. This is not the “Pale Blue Dot” video I was looking for. I went through my blog archives, I went through myContinue reading “2020: The Year In Review”

Questionnare!

Saturday I drove down to Baltimore to visit Loudon Park Cemetery. I hadn’t been since the end of January, it was a nice day, and a cemetery is a place where one can socially distance without much difficulty. I had no idea if I would be able to get into the cemetery; some cemeteries areContinue reading “Questionnare!”

A Gatsby Party

Since it’s a rainy, gross morning in Pennsylvania, I’ve spent the morning going through photographs on my phone, culling them. And that brings me to this photo. This is a painting that hung in my room in the intensive care ward at St. Joseph’s earlier this month. It’s an autumn painting, a blanket of leavesContinue reading “A Gatsby Party”

On Rereading The Great Gatsby

Last week I reread The Great Gatsby. In writing a few days ago about the trailer for Baz Luhrmann’s upcoming 3-D film adaptation starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, and Carey Mulligan, I wrote that “it’s inspired me to reread Gatsby for the first time in a few years.” This also prompted me to check myContinue reading “On Rereading The Great Gatsby”

On the Great Gatsby Trailer — and Mutant Healing Factors

Come Christmas time, there’s a new adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby coming to theaters, directed by Moulin Rouge‘s Baz Luhrmann and starring Leonardo DiCaprio as the mysterious Gatsby, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway, and Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan. I’ve read Gatsby a half-dozen times over the years, drawn as much toContinue reading “On the Great Gatsby Trailer — and Mutant Healing Factors”

On Fascinating Periods of History

At times, I think of myself as an amateur historian. It's unsurprising that I think of myself in that way; I was a history student in college, after all, and my library is filled with history books, from general histories of the world to histories of specific periods to histories of specific ideas. Among theContinue reading “On Fascinating Periods of History”

On Books I Would Like To Play

When I worked for EB Games, especially toward the end, it seemed like every major movie property, and some television properties too, was becoming a video game. James Bond, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, the Spider-Man films, etc., etc. Books, though? Actual printed books? They weren’t really game fodder. Comic books seemed easierContinue reading “On Books I Would Like To Play”

On Favorite Characters In a Book

To my chagrin, I made it through college without ever having to read F. Scott Fitzgerald in an English course. I did, however, read Fitzgerald for my American history course. I had to write a paper on "Echoes of the Jazz Age," an essay where Fitzgerald used this memorable phrase to describe the 1920s —Continue reading “On Favorite Characters In a Book”

On Fun With Slate

I love reading Slate. It’s an online magazine with eclectic content. Politics to video games, pop music to the ethics of cloning, columnists from Christopher Hitchens to Timothy Noah, Slate has insight into almost everything. Here are my two finds of today. First, a 45-minute audio discussion of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. OneContinue reading “On Fun With Slate”