{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
Over at Rotten Chestnuts, a post on Hegel and Marx that underlines the giant Problem of Philosophy. One reason “underpants gnome metaphysics” appeals, of course, is that Hegel et al had a point. Classical logic has some huge gaps, as the Classical Greeks — i.e. the guys who developed it in the first place —… Read More Logic and Word Games
A long essay, but worth your time, which dovetails nicely with other things I’ve written on the subject. Our Cranky Professor lays out three “approaches” to aesthetics/beauty: The Psychological Approach – In which one experiences beauty as an individuated response to the appearance of a thing. A Flower is Beautiful. The Rational Approach – An… Read More The Three Tiers of Aesthetics
There once was an Epicurean Roman named Titus Lucretius Carus, who lived in the 1st Century BC. I say “Epicurean” as a follower of the philosophy of Epicurus. Epicureanism began as a combination of an empirical epistemology (we can know things only insofar as we can observe them), atomistic materialism (there is nothing but atoms… Read More Lucretius’ Poetic Epicureanism
More Properly, he was Droll, i.e. curious or unusual in a way that provokes dry amusement. I think ol ‘Honore invented the style of feigned ironic detachment in order to draw a laugh. In the years that followed, he delivered up countless towns in Asia and in Africa to sack, fell upon the miscreants without… Read More Balzac Was Funny
I have a nicely-bound, Heritage Library edition of John Dryden’s translation of the Aeneid by Virgil. I’m working my way through it, or at least the first 4 books of it, as research for the deep edit that’s going into The Meditations of Caius Caligulia before I publish it. It also makes for a fun… Read More Enough Was Said T’inspire a Better Mind – On Reading The Aeneid
The self-described “horrorist” Zero HP Lovecraft, aka The Only Man On Twitter Worth Reading, submits to a blog interview. He has much to say on many topics, including “wokenes” and the “school of resentment”, post-modernism, “desire machines” and his own work, and a hose of others. I invite you to read it in full, but… Read More Literature in the Age of Zero HP Lovecraft
Every now and again I like to indulge in the temptation to rail against the mindless repetition of uninteresting facts. I know it will accomplish nothing, and indeed is probably counterproductive, but I cannot help myself. This is stupid and I’m going to tell you why. Cry about it in the comments, nerds. I could… Read More Why in the Hell Does Anyone Care That It’s Carrie Fisher’s Birthday?
Jean Artur Rimbaud wrote strange prose-poems in the Belle Epoque. He was an exceedingly odd duck: not ostentatiously wierd like Van Gogh, but the sort of man who could drop everything and spend his final years as an arms-dealer in North Africa. He’s kind of like William Burroughs, except his stuff is short enough so… Read More Rimbaud Dreams of War
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
Content Blues 