Which observation occurred to me, gleaned from the Penguin “Great Ideas” anthology, which goes under the title of On Solitude. I’ve podcasted about the chap before. The following quote is from his “On Books”: It is always a pleasure to see things written about by those who had assayed how to manage them, but there… Read More Montaigne Prophesies Propaganda
See how far you can get into their marketing gibberish before you give up. There’s so many things wrong with this. First of all, Robert Oppenheimer was not an heroic figure, however poetic his turn to the Baghavad-Gita was upon viewing what his science had wrought. He was a lab coat surrounded by lab coats.… Read More Christopher Nolan is Making a Movie About Robert Oppenheimer, and Variety Wants Me to Care
A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry begins a deep-dive into Paradox Interactive grand strategy games, a subject after my own heart. He begins discussing Europa Universalis IV, a game I enjoy very much less than Crusader Kings 2 (I haven’t made the switch to Crusader Kings 3 yet, as I don’t think my graphics card can… Read More Paradox Teaches History: EU4 vs CK2
From A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, a longish article on the varieties of ancient evidence. The modern world is resplendent with all kinds of evidence, but the further back in time you go, the less and less there is. There is a physical reason for this, of course: things decay over time. And despite the… Read More On the Kinds of Ancient History
Editing existing projects is not the most exciting way to spend one’s time. Very often it feels repetitive, especially when you’ve already labored with a thing to finish it. I’m not saying I won’t edit the various projects I’m planning on getting out this year. I’m saying I’m pushing off a deadline in order to… Read More The Burning Palace
{First in a Series} Ovid is a Comedian. That’s the best way to read him. Taking him seriously will wear on you after a while. It’s impossible to wind yourself up, in text, to the extent he does, without at least a notion of self-overhearing. Someone does not spend that much time arguing that it’s… Read More Reading Ovid – The Lover is Not a Fighter
Back when I first conceived The Meditations of Caius Caligulia, I had a list of books I wanted to read to give me inspiration and background. Writers have to be readers, and I had the broad strokes of what I wanted to do, without the details. Details are key. So I needed to read, at… Read More Ovid, Virgil, and Lucretius Walk Into a Palace…
Recently I went on a quick camping trip and happened to take along my copy of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. It included some selections from Conrad’s “Congo Diary”, a record he kept of his 1890 journey into the Belgian Congo, events of which clearly informed the subsequent story. This made for an immersive diversion… Read More Books Fall Apart: Chinua Achebe and Joseph Conrad
There are two ways this can go: desperate attempt to defend this oh-so 1930’s take on historical drama, or dump all over it as the irritation it is. I will do the second thing. I do not like Gone With The Wind and never have. I don’t know why anyone does. I shall give a… Read More Let Us Now Discuss Gone With The Wind
A Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger is a book so opposite to All Quiet on the Western Front so thoroughly as to be hardly discussing the same war. And in a sense, they are. Storm of Steel is essentially a diary, a recitation of facts and occurrences, held together by the observer. All Quiet, is a… Read More The Merry Spirit of War
Content Blues 