From the pen of Miguel de Cervantes – La libertad, Sancho, es uno de los mas preciosos dones que a los hombres dieron los cielos; con ella no pueden igualarse los tesoros que encierra la tierra ni el mar encubre; por la libertad asi como por la honra se puede y debe aventurar la vida, [...]
Like all Uruguayan children, I wanted to be a soccer player. I played quite well, in fact I was terrific, but only at night when I was asleep. During the day I was the worst wooden leg ever to set foot on the little soccer fields of my country. As a fan I also left [...]
Canary Billie Holiday’s burned voice had as many shadows as lights, a mournful candelabra against a sleek piano, the gardenia her signature under that ruined face. (Now you’re cooking, drummer to bass, magic spoon, magic needle. Take all day if you have to with your mirror and your bracelet of song.) Fact is, the invention [...]
In my last Goodreads micro-review, I stated that “there’s a lengthy excerpt which pertains to literature which I should type in here, but I may save that for a blog entry.” I’ll go for half here and cite the better paragraph, truncated at that: In dealing with the [classical] liberal social philosophy there is a [...]
Following on my list of top ten fiction books below, something easy for Super Bowl Sunday, lost in the shuffle. Like my fiction list, this is in no analytical order. Some are footnoted research tomes, some are long riffs on a subject, all are good, of course. 1. Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago (Royko) [...]
An interlude aside from ‘heavy’ commentary, to list my top ten fiction books, inspired by the passing of J.D. Salinger. These are in no analytical order. There are others I like, but here’s what comes to mind of import: 1. The Catcher In The Rye (Salinger) 2. Tropic of Capricorn (Miller) 3. Lord of The [...]
Too often, as the WSJ’s puffery shows, we take scientists to be super-human, rationalists above all else, never prone to the human frailties of ego, jealousy, etc. I would argue that it’s because scientists have become our “secular priesthood“, as Chomsky observed. Dethroning God was all well and good, if one sought the facts, but [...]
In the elder days of art Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part, For the Gods are everywhere — Hey Snag wots in the bibl’? Wot are the books ov the bible? Name ‘em, don’t bullshit ME. — If we truly had a separation of church and state — in practice, pun [...]
Apart from laziness, it’s often hard to find the time to devote oneself to a serious entry, but as it is the holiday season, and time is moving appreciably slower than normal, I’ll try not to be so serious. This made me laugh: “This information will be stored with an anonymous Genius ID and not [...]
This is more or less a reposting (OK, a bit more) of Steve Sailer’s review of Crazy Heart; I haven’t seen the film, or any in a long while, but the idea here is to point out that criticism is important, as also here. Now, I’ll need then to note that despite some friends’ ardor [...]