Thursday, January 13, 2022

RIP TT - The price of nails since 1695

If I emailed this kind of link a  blogger aka critic, biographer, playwright, director, unabashed Steely Dan fan, ardent philosemite, Terry Teachout, he would appreciate it as he loved eclectic information 👌 The price of nails since 1695


Terry Teachout, R.I.P.

My friend Terry Teachout died today at age sixty-five. Like a million others I’m feeling cold-cocked. Shortly after Thanksgiving he posted ...



Terry Teachout, 1956-2022 - John Podhoretz, Commentary Magazine.


Terry and I exchanged emails from time to time. He sent me a very kind note when I reviewed his wonderful biography of Louis Armstrong. He was a great critic. Eternal rest grant unto him oh Lord and may perpetual light shin upon him

 Terry possessed an extraordinary talent, all the more extraordinary because his life’s work was a defense of the value, meaning, and profundity of ordinariness. A child of small-town Missouri, he was someone who made a study of every topic that interested him and, with his passion for completeness, achieved a greater level of expertise in matters of high and popular culture than just about anyone in America.


His output was beyond prodigious. His love for the transformative power of art was transcendent. And his love of country, like his love of family, was as deep as the deepest of wells. Terry’s COMMENTARY contributor page can be found here. It, too, is a deep well of glory. May he now be reunited with his beloved Hillary and his beloved parents. The rest of us who knew him and loved him must soldier on


Terry Teachout's criticism was marked by a philosophical, non-political conservatism. That might be rare, but is it extinct?  


I fell asleep Thursday night rereading Terry Teachout’s essays about Willa Cather, Aaron Copland and Whit Stillman, among others, and I purposely choose the word “essay.” Terry’s pieces were originally written and published as reviews or articles in magazines and newspapers, but his sensibility – that idiosyncratic melding of learning, experience and emotion that make up a writer -- lent them more substance than their origins might imply. The poet W.S. Di Piero notes that “‘essay’ has embedded in it ‘assay,’ ‘weighing,’ ‘testing,’ ‘proofing,’ ‘trying out.’ ‘attempting.’” 


SIGNS OF LIFE IN CANADA!   RCMP member sent on unpaid leave writes this powerful letter you must read.


The Countries That Ask Google To Remove The Most Content, VisualizedThe Countries That Ask Google To Remove The Most Content, Visualized


Saliva test is best for Omicron detection


American Gulag and Stasi, Inc.

Remember, you only have 11 months and change to prepare the Romanian Christmas Gift the would be totalitarians have on their wish list. 





An interesting collection of threads from web gem Ask MetaFilter, compiled by Phil Gyford (also a web gem), e.g. "Easy reads with literary flourishes", "Ikea, but like, the *good* Ikea", and "Nurses! What’s on your feet?"


Interesting thoughts from an indigenous person about The Book of Boba Fett and its portrayal of the Tuskens.

From I Love Typography, the Year in Type for 2021.


Only That I Were an Official Person! Lapham’s Quarterly

Dissolving Genre: Toward Finding New Ways to Write About the World Literary Hub


Novelist Emma Straub loved working in her neighborhood bookstore and it eventually inspired her to open her own. This is a lovely piece about books, bookstores, neighborhoods, and book lovers.


Rick Rubin: The Invisibility of Hip Hop's Greatest Producer. "It's still difficult to explain the legacy of a man who doesn't appear to do much while doing everything at the same time."


A Note of Reassurance from Your School District Regarding Our Updated Omicron Policies. 1. "Your child's classroom will have no teachers." 2. "Your child should report to school no matter what."