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Review: The Transcendentalists And Their World

What a great book, really. I borrowed it from the library, but with everything I had going on, especially the other reading I needed to do, it was clear I wasn’t going to have time to finish it before the due date (there was a long-ish waiting list for it). So, I pre-ordered the softcover version (because, as much as I want good books to succeed, that doesn’t mean I have to pay for a hardback…

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Stop Talking About The Philosophy Of Socrates, Please

Stop talking about the philosophy of Socrates, please. We don’t know what it is. We have three writers who put words into his mouth – Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes – all of whom had clear and different agendas for which they were using the idea and memory of Socrates. I would suggest that Xenophon might be the most accurate, because his Socratic dialogues seem to have the least personal…

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Poetry Is Just Fine, Thank You

Please check out my latest essay, now up at the Decadent Review, “Poetry Is Just Fine, Thank You.” And check out the whole magazine, they are publishing some great articles and reviews; I would suggest that they are a European equivalent to something like The Los Angeles Review of Books, which is to say a place for intelligent essays and reviews (many of them, more intelligent than mine, I am…

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The Hatred Of Poetry

I do not like the provocative title. I don’t think it is particularly useful. Years ago, before I became a father, I read Lerner’s first novel, Leaving the Atocha Station (I have not read any of his poetry, or rather, any of his poetry collections; I have probably read one of his poems in a magazine), but Hatred is my first time returning to him. The actual contents are much less provocative…

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Defense Of Poesy

The ur-text for all arguments for poetry in the English tradition, Sir Philip Sidney’s Defense of Poesy is better than you think. Don’t let that archaic spelling in the title throw you off. I have heard it described as being very Aristotleian, though I confess I don’t see it myself, except insofar as both are operating under the shadow of Plato and both attempt to answer Plato’s challenges with…

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Pomona Valley Review

Please check out issue 16 of the Pomona Valley Review for my poem, Sleepwalking.

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Vita Poetica

I noted that a recording of my appeared in a Vita Poetica podcast, I am also in the autumn 2022 edition, if you’re more of a reader.

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'The Arts Of The Beautiful' By Etienne Gilson

‘The Arts Of The Beautiful’ By Etienne Gilson

I had always Gilson described as being a sort of Christian existentialist (people felt the need to add ‘Christian’ because figures like Sartre made their atheism such an important part of both their public image and the problem they attempted to solve). It took me a while to see it until I then read a bit of Hans Urs Von Balthasar, another Catholic thinker (better known as a theologian than a…

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In Which I Appear Very Briefly On A Podcast

Which is to say, here.

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In The Fog

This short novel was a fun, if predictable read. A group of men in an exclusive club, improbably named The Grills, eating, drinking, and reading newspapers. Three men have connected stories around the murder of a returning aristocrat and a disreputable, larcenous Russian princess. But any careful reader will quickly see the game: the storytellers are trying to delay a charismatic member of…

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'The Imperial Presidency' By Arthur Schlesinger

‘The Imperial Presidency’ By Arthur Schlesinger

While the late great Gore Vidal almost had some choice words for the man who has been described as Camelot’s court historian, I am glad to have finally read something longer than an old New Yorker essay by Schlesinger. He’s a good, though not great stylist and enjoyed the history I learned, though part of me wishes that he had also written a more concise version, where the polemical aspect could…

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Why We Did It

Fascinating. Sort of. Actually, it was just interesting to return to my old world of political oppo and flacking, but from the other side of the aisle. You see, once upon a time, I had similar jobs, though I never rose as high. He makes some nice distinctions, such between a campaign guy (like himself, and, generally, me) and a Hill rat. But that’s not what this book is about, well sort of not.…

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The Return Of Fu-Manchu

The racism is so bad, yet the story moves so effortlessly, actively, and thrillingly. Sufficiently exciting that, while you can hardly escape the racism (though it seems laughably transparent; however, as a white man, it is, perhaps, too easy for me to laugh, since I am not the target), you mostly overlook the question of why, if this the genius agent provocateur and herald of a new, global…

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'Ars Poetica' By Horace

‘Ars Poetica’ By Horace

I read this twice, which was a good thing, because the first time, I just had no time for it. Fan of his poetry, by his Ars Poetica or Art of Poetry simply didn’t speak to me. Even on second reading, this is not going to be my go to resource, but I liked it much better. Mostly, I enjoyed his wit, which is the best part of his poetry. But it’s no Poetics (the Aristotle one; which I also read…

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Ion

Nope, not talking about particles or science, but about the minor dialogue by Plato, wherein Socrates interrogates a rhapsode name Ion on his vocation. Generally, a rhapsode was someone who memorized an epic poem or myth and was an expert on reciting it. Ion specialized in Homer. He says that he also comments on it, but that doesn’t quite track, not in the least because Socrates’ questioning…

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The Spirit Of The Liturgy

I won’t write too much here, mostly because I’m thinking about doing something longer on this work, which inspired me in an unexpected way. I was supposed to read Joseph Ratzinger’s book of the same name, but accidentally purchased this one and am very glad that I did. Especially because it feels especially relevant in light of His Holiness’ statement on the use of the Latin or Tridentine mass…

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The Phaedrus

Like the Symposium, I am enamored of The Phaedrus as a work of imaginative literature. Any contemporary writer would be jealous of how he draws and manipulates his characters, exposing them for the reader. But again, his hatred of rhetoric, as something whose danger as a tool for demagogues makes it too dangerous, cannot be suppressed. And in that, a critique of democracy as something which…

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