This week marks the start of the #1952Club, a reading event co-hosted by Simon Thomas (Stuck in a Book) and Karen Langley (Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings). The idea is simple: Pick any book published in 1952, read it, and share your thoughts – on your blog, on social media, or just in the comments. No pressure, just the pleasure of discovering…
As might be guessed from Seamus Feamus, I’ve been reading – and thoroughly enjoying – The Pilgrimage of Peregrine Prykke. (How did I get to this age without having read it before?) This is Clive James’s parody of 1970s literary London and it got me thinking about the enduring and peculiar proclivity of poetical types to self-pollinate and propagate peculiar…
In what would have been the week of Seamus Heaney ‘s 86th birthday – here is Clive James ventriloquist. Performed at the ICA in London in 1974: These were the Belfast poets — all called Seamus — Of whom the leading light was SEAMUS FEAMUS, Who even now attacked his midday meal: Two slabs of peat around a conger eel. ‘White spoors of cockle,’…
The great chain of books – #6Degrees – how one book leads to another. There’s an explanation of how all this works here. Everyone is welcome to join in. This is my contribution for April 2025: Our collective starting point is Salman Rushdie’s Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder (2024). It’s a memoir that begins with a harrowing account of the murderous…
Pedantry, Politics, and the Park Ranger Activists persist in plastering all available neighborhood surfaces with their messages. Here’s a small selection: The Red-tailed Hawks and Raccoons of New York Big excitement with the report that red tailed hawks are nesting on Riverside Drive and a new message from the Park Rangers Bumper stickers tell a story New blooms at Wave…
You don’t have to be Irish or Catholic (I’m neither) to find this documentary fascinating. It’s the story of Evelyn Folan from Ballinasloe in County Galway. It’s her thirteenth birthday. The year is 1966. Of course, I wanted to know what happened to Evelyn. According to information found on Facebook she became a teacher but not a nun. This seems…
Modern life is full of complexity, chaos, and contradictions. In our efforts to cope, some succumb to despair, while others take solace in the knowledge that ’twas ever thus. With Spring on the horizon – if not yet in the air or step – everyone is busy preparing for the new season. Squirrels are digging up last Fall’s nuts, pigeons…
For if ever you are in danger of feeling a wave of quite unreasonable cheerfulness descend, here is a simple antidote: The Three Miseries This is the key to misery It opens its miserable door Attendants glum & gloom greet you half way You bring your fears you call a number They provide the tissues This other key is for…
I take my title from the South African poet Roy Campbell (1901-1957), who knew a thing or two about lovers and haters. It’s from Georgian Spring, in which Campbell lampooned his fellow poets for their cosy triteness: New quarterlies relume their yellow covers, Anthologies on every bookshelf sing. The publishers put on their best apparel To sell the public everything…
This painting dominates a whole wall in the exhibit at the Neue Sachlichkeit / New Objectivity exhibit at the Neue Gallery in NYC. It’s Eclipse of the Sun, by George Grosz (1893–1959) and painted in 1926. There’s a short video with an overview and introduction to the exhibit at the link The exhibit features over 140 works by more than 60…
In the Kitchen, Where I Lay My Scene Upon the counter where I lay my scene – (Do join me, if your hands are clean). From tamarind I strip the shell, And pluck the seeds that there do dwell. A curry brews – a fragrant blend Of cumin, garlic, spice to send A spark upon the waiting tongue. Here, have…
My New Identity I haven’t changed. The world around me has. At first, my new identity came as a bit of a surprise, even though it crept up on me over months – perhaps even a couple of years. After all, I campaigned for Labour before I could vote, steeped myself in Orwell as a teenager, developed a New Statesman…
The great chain of books – #6Degrees. There’s an explanation of how all this works here. Everyone is welcome to join in. This is my contribution for March 2025 The starting point is Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song (2023) the Booker Prize-winning dystopian novel set in a near-future Ireland collapsing into authoritarianism. It follows Eilish Stack as she struggles to keep…
A murder in a locked room. Whodunit? And more importantly, howdunit? Who would want to kill philanthropist, union organizer, and general do-gooder Arthur Constant? And why? Arthur Constant rents rooms from Mrs. Drabdump in Bow, in London’s East End. Zangwill sets the scene with that essential ingredient of a London mystery—fog: On a memorable morning of early December London opened…