Thursday, January 18, 2018

Robert J. Sawyer: Calculating God

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Robert J. Sawyer Calculating God I found this an intriguing novel  It's a first contact novel with a surprising theme.   An alien sp...
14 comments:
Monday, January 15, 2018

Favorite novels read in 2017

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   Listed in alphabetical order by author: Willa Cather:                         Youth and the Bright Medusa --cheating here, for t...
6 comments:
Friday, January 12, 2018

Basho: some winter haiku

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Some winter haiku by Basho.  While it seldom, if ever, gets this cold in Tucson, I grew up in Chicago, and I remember those wintry days and ...
7 comments:
Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Familiar?

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     Apes were to become men, in the inscrutable wisdom of nature . . .Down on the grass by a streamside, one of those apes with inquisitive...
13 comments:
Saturday, January 6, 2018

A Minute Meditation

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All philosophy seems to lead me towards a perfect spiritual detachment- a divorce from the world, and therefore towards sterility and deadne...
11 comments:
Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Albert Camus: The Possessed: a play in three parts

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Albert Camus The Possessed: a play in three acts Camus is not one of my favorite writers, though I have read several of his novels.  They...
3 comments:
Sunday, December 31, 2017

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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May the coming year be a happy and healthy year for you.   Regardless of what kind of year 2017 was for you, I hope 2018 will be a better...
16 comments:
Friday, December 29, 2017

Lawrence Durrell: is this poetry?

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Two young men are talking.  One is Walsh, the main character of Lawrence Durrell's Pied Piper of Lovers and the other is a close friend...
9 comments:
Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Lawrence Durrell: sense of place, one last word

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"One last word about the sense of place; I think that not enough attention is paid to it as a purely literary criterion.  What makes ...
5 comments:
Friday, December 22, 2017

The Story of God: a National Geographic TV miniseries

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The Story of God National Geographic Series Morgan Freeman, narrator Three DVDs Several reasons moved me to get this set from the libra...
16 comments:
Tuesday, December 19, 2017

The Dark Tower: a few comments

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I finally got around to watching The Dark Tower.   After I watched it, I realized the film began with a very large lie: a statement to the e...
5 comments:
Friday, December 15, 2017

A Minute Meditation

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  Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong.  They are conflicts between two rights. -- Georg Wilhelm Frie...
15 comments:
Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Loren Eiseley: The Long Loneliness (from The Star Thrower)

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Loren Eiseley "The Long Loneliness" an essay in The Star Thrower The first two paragraphs of "The Long Loneliness," ...
12 comments:
Saturday, December 9, 2017

Emily Dickinson: "Success is counted sweetest"

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No. 67 Success is counted sweetest By those who ne'er succeed. To comprehend a nectar Requires sorest need. Not one of all the p...
8 comments:
Wednesday, December 6, 2017

A Minute Meditation

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VII.22 "Plans made swiftly and intuitively are likely to have flaws.  Plans made carefully and  comprehensively are sure to." -...
11 comments:
Saturday, December 2, 2017

Lawrence Durrell: Spirit of Place

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Lawrence Durrell Spirit of Place:  Letters and Essays on Travel 426 pages Alan G. Thomas, Editor I am now embarked upon a project ...
3 comments:
Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Kenko: on doubt

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No 98 When in doubt whether or not to do something, generally it is best not to do it. -- Kenko -- Essays in Idleness Kenko is most...
11 comments:
Saturday, November 25, 2017

Gregory Benford: "White Creatures"

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Gregory Benford "White Creatures" a short story from The Best of Gregory Benford The story begins:   The aliens strap him ...
22 comments:
Wednesday, November 22, 2017

A Minute Meditation

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We are, in fact, a nation of evangelists; every third American devotes himself to improving and lifting up his fellow-citizens, usually b...
9 comments:
Sunday, November 19, 2017

Russell Hoban: Kleinzeit

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Russell Hoban Kleinzeit a novel When I first began reading Kleinzeit I immediately thought of Lewis Carroll's poem "Jabberwoc...
12 comments: