So–I am the kind of person who likes to read one book at a time, and I do not like to stop in the middle, or not finish.  I make it a point to finish what I start, even if the book is not very good.  This is a habit that comes to me from…

So, there I am, looking at the comments to yesterday’s post, and flabbergasted once again at how so many people read not what’s actually written, but what they expect to hear. I’m also flabbergasted by some of the assertions, especially the one about how, if a writer wants to take in a broad and sweeping…

Okay, I’m not sure where I’m going with this, so bear with me. I have talked on this blog, several times, about the work of Henry James.  That makes sense, because I like the work of Henry James, and of the writer who modeled her own career on his, Edith Wharton. I like James and…

I saw the new issue of Reason magazine yesterday, and it contained a retrospective on Michael Harrington’s The Other America that I thought would fit right into this–but it is the new issue, and the piece isn’t up on their website yet that I can find. But let me try to address a few things…

Yes, yes. Me blithering about art essays–or even me going crazy over the attempts at mind control that now seem to be part of every enterprise, and especially of public schools–that’s not so interesting. And there’s probably a point there, so I’ll let it go. I would like to make one point before I start…

Okay, there’s also a long post, but here http://www.thenation.com/article/167936/preying-poor is an article by Barbara Ehrenreich.  And yes, I know some of you have problems with Barbara Ehrenreich, and I do, too–but this is the kind of thing I read her for. And I’ve talked about some of it–including the “send everybody to prison for everything…

Okay, I have no idea what that title means. It’s Sunday, which means that I got up and went to work and then came out and played music to myself so that I could read to it–and yes, if you’re looking at the time stamp on this, that means I get up early. Today, I…

So. I’m having a reasonably good morning. You can always tell my good mornings, because I’m not listening to Beethoven–or Yardbird–at six a.m. If I’m listening to something even less plausible at six a.m.–say, Mingus at Town Hall–the world has probably come to an end, and you can just shoot me. This morning, however, I…

Okay. I hate to sound like a complete idiot here, but I need somebody to explain something to me. Why do writers put sex scenes in novels, and why do readers like to read them? I don’t mean the sort of perfunctory “and then they went to bed” sort of throwaway thing that shows up…

Breech? I don’t know. Let me see if I can be clearer. In 1945, attendance at major league baseball games was a working class to lower middle class activity. You could get tickets for cheap, and you could get them on the day of the game just by walking up to the ticket booth. Sometime…