Before the rain settled in for the weekend, we strolled over to the Central Park Conservatory Garden. The spring bulbs had already been dug up and were being given away last time we visited, and the new plantings weren’t in yet. Still, there was plenty to enjoy. The day was windy, and the foxgloves shivered too much for a good…
Coming through the security check at Heathrow recently, my carry-on bag triggered an alert and was pulled aside for inspection. At the request of the agent, I opened the bag. “Anything sharp?” she asked. I suddenly had a moment of dread that I had foolishly packed the Swiss Army knife in the side pocket. You know the kind of thing…
There are moments in literary culture when one senses, however faintly, that something is about to remain exactly as it is, but with unusual significance. Such a moment may now be upon us, as C. Langley Dunwood’s newest work, The Way Of It, enters consideration for the summer issue of The Seasloth Review. We are grateful to the critic Joanie…
I am his Highness’ dog at Kew; Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you? Evening traffic homeward burns Swift and even on the turns. Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea In a beautiful pea-green boat Umberto Eco argued that lists are…
“Sweet, bland commendations fall everywhere upon the scene; a universal, if somewhat lobotomized, accommodation reigns.” — Elizabeth Hardwick, 1959 One of my online routines is reading The Book Jotter each week. It’s a reliable way to keep up with what’s going on in the literary world, and if you care about books at all, I recommend subscribing. One item it…
The Scattering At the beige bungalow the apple tree held its white breath— petals loosening. “It needs a prop,” she said, holding the small trunk to centre as blossoms drifted below the clothesline. “I told him.” “Push the pegs along,” said another. For the photo. There were meant to be seven. We…
The Dragon, the Princess, and St. George: One Story, Three Paintings, One Poem, Three Perspectives. First the Legend Behind the Paintings The most famous tale associated with St. George, as patron saint of England and champion for Christianity, is of him slaying the dragon which was terrorising the city of Silene in the province of Libya, on the day when…
Incident on Broadway Last Friday—March,bright sun, cold wind—I was on Broadway, hobbling,headed for the next block. At 109th, at the light,two men just ahead, waiting:one speaking,one being spoken at. The speaker—young, loud,a dog on a loose leash,muscular, steady— kept returning to it: Why am I an anti-Semitejust because I’m against Israelkilling people? Again: Why am I… The other man—seventies,beard, dark…
Kellings Manor, Wiltshire. January 1935. The snow is closing in. THE SEASLOTH REVIEW is pleased to offer readers the first chapter of Lauden McVey’s Death Comes to Kellings ahead of publication by Barbeque Books. An incomplete manuscript has been found among the papers of Lauden McVey — one of the great Queens of Crime, some said better than Christie, better…
A Postal Worker with the BEF in 1940 In my hand I hold a small pocket diary for the year 1940, printed for gardeners by the Royal Horticultural Society. Its pages offer advice on pruning fruit trees, planting seedlings, and preparing the soil for spring. Yet in the blank spaces between that advice the diary records something very different: the…
Has This Happened To You? If you go to art museums and galleries you will probably recognize this. You leave the Met, say, and step back out into the world of Fifth Avenue and everything is changed. This happened to me most memorably leaving the Edward Hopper exhibit at the Whitney. His urban landscape was suddenly there, as if Gansevoort…
A neighbor recommended an Off-Broadway play: Douglas Lackey’s Hans Litten: The Jew Who Cross-Examined Hitler. We saw it last Saturday. In one memorable scene, concentration camp prisoners are ordered to sing the Horst Wessel Nazi anthem”Die Fahne hoch,” ( “Raise the Flag”), in celebration of Hitler’s birthday. Instead, Litten leads them in the defiant German folk song “Die Gedanken sind…
Encouraged by Elizabeth at The Skeptic’s Kaddish and #W3199 to engage in a little self-love, I wasted no time in penning a few brief and modest lines of self-praise. ~~~~~ It is a sonnet. But truly, it was hard to keep it so short. An epic saga would be more fitting, as there is just so very much for which…
Arthur Hugh Clough’s “Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth” is a poem for the weary. Not for the triumphant, nor for the newly inspired, but for those who have begun to fear that their effort may be pointless. Clough does not begin with triumph. He begins with correction: Say not the struggle nought availeth, The labour and the wounds are…
Agatha Christie’s Death in the Clouds (1935) delivers a compact, satisfying Hercule Poirot mystery with a mid-flight murder in an airliner en route from Paris to Croydon. With no passing tramp to blame and eleven passengers and crew sealed aloft, the crime unfolds in a true closed circle – the sort of setup that promises ingenuity, and the exercise of…