The Unknown Monk Meme
This pseudo-poem popped up on Facebook today. It’s been around the Net for a few years, without any source attributed to the quote, but it seems to be making its…
reading
Reflections on tumblr, facebook and social media
Going from specifics to depth and breadth, and from particularities to universals, here are some thoughts for your consideration, for anyone who may be interested. I’ve come to love the…
The Moral Compass
I have a laminated card beside me, wallet-sized so it can be carried around easily. I made it at my shop a few years ago; just a simple, two-sided business…
The Key of Keys
Egoless divine pride: the most glorious concept I have ever heard – from Tibetan Buddhism. The Uttara Tantra elaborates: There once was a prince, who lost his memory and forgot…
Of Type and Typography
Humans have remarkable ability that is shared by – as far as we know – no other animal. We can turn abstract images and symbols into meaning. Words are, of…
Empire of Illusion and the End of Literacy
I don’t know whether to feel vindicated, delighted, frightened or depressed as I read through Chris Hedges’s book, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.…
Hell 2.3
Before I carry on with my exploration of Miriam Van Scott’s Encyclopedia of Hell, I wanted to note that I just got my copy of her other book – the…
The long course of civilization
“With the collapse of totalitarian empires, we believed that living together, peace, pluralism, and human rights would gain the ascendancy and the world would leave behind holocausts, genocides, invasions, and…
Hell 2.1, a small update
I left you in my exploration of the Encyclopedia of Hell pondering which version of the Faustus story was better: with or without his final redemption. Personally, I prefer without,…
What in Hell…?
Hades, you know, isn’t a place. It’s a guy. The Greek god of the underworld. His territory consists of a bunch of domains, including the rather unpleasant Tartarus, where souls…
Reading, Writing and Memory
“Memory,” he read the headline as he settled into the armchair, resting his elbows on the wide arms to expand the National Post paper to its fullest, “declines much slower…
The Game of the Book of Thrones
No, it’s not about that heavyweight book series by George Martin, or the TV series based on it (or even about how you really need to read the books to…
If on a Summer’s Day, a Fridgularity
You are reading a blog posting about Mark A. Rayner’s most recent book, The Fridgularity. You had been hoping to find a funny picture, and maybe a microfiction that played…
More’s Speech to the Mob
The scene is a riot, on the first day of May, 1517. It would later be known as Evil May Day,or Ill May Day. An angry mob, mostly comprised of…
Marilyn Monroe Reading Ulysses
A great picture. And she appears to be reading the last page which is, quite awesome!
Mastery: Self Help or Just Opinion?
Robert Greene’s new book has me somewhat flummoxed. It’s not at all like his previous books. The other books of his I have were all ‘meta’ books – books about…
Tom Swift and His Rocket Ship
I was 8, maybe 9 years old, when my parents gave me a hardcover copy of Tom Swift and His Rocket Ship by Victor Appleton II. Probably a birthday or…
April, the cruellest month
April, wrote T.S. Eliot in his remarkable poem, The Waste Land, is the “cruellest month.”* And not merely because of the inclement and unsettling weather that seems to mix winter…
Kim Jong-un…
… reading things… Probably written in English. (17) Trashy, Ottawa, Ontario
The Consolation of Literature
For Boethius, it was the Consolation of Philosophy*. For me, it’s literature. Not to write about it so much as to read it. Consolation from the act of reading. And…