Tonight's December Thirty-First,
Something is about to burst.
The clock is crouching, dark and small,
Like a time bomb in the hall.
Hark! It's midnight, children dear.
Duck! Here comes another year.
Sydney Sings and sings Happy New Year ... it was lovely to show magnificent jewel of Sydney to John and Vera as well as Phil and Kristen
Capitalism and the good life. There is a limit beyond which material goods don’t make us happier. We believe that. We also believe we are under that limit... How Much Is Enough
Shakespeare endured syphilis, Jack London ulcers, the Brontës and Orwell tuberculosis. Only the cures were worse than the diseases... 'Herman Melville is not well," one of the famously gloomy author's friends wrote in the 1850s. "Do not call him moody, he is ill." Melville's eyes, "tender as young sparrows," were so sensitive that he had a shaded porch built onto his house to spare them the full light of day Imrich's nightmares, Shakespeare's Tremor and Orwell's Cough
In our culture of proliferation, every taste is given a niche and every niche is catered to. Is this the end of big works of literary synthesis? Sven Birkerts has some thoughts... For art to exist
To all media dragons who, like me, suspect that chance is in the saddle and rides mankind, I hope that 2013 treats you not unkindly, and that your lives, like mine, will be warmed by hope and filled with love.