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Snowy world
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,In the bleak midwinter, long ago. -Christina Rossetti; excerpt from In the Bleak Midwinter
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Under A Lucky Star: A Lifetime Of Adventure by Roy Chapman Andrews
I read this book back in January of 2021 and wrote the following reaction afterwards: This morning I finished reading Under A Lucky Star: A Lifetime Of Adventure by Roy Chapman Andrews. It is a memoir by a man who was famous during the first half of the 20th century as a naturalist, archaeologist, and explorer. It…
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Hippopotamus
This is a fun word…just the sound of it is pleasing, and its etymology interesting. The English name for this large mammal found in the swamps, lakes, and waterways of sub-Saharan Africa comes, like several African animals, from ancient Greek. The hippo segment, ἵππος in Greek, means “horse”. Several other words in English use this…
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Inevitable
The shades drawn all dayErasing time, a circleThe elm seed in spring
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Beasts, Men, and Gods
Back near the end of 2020, I read Beasts, Men, and Gods. After finishing the last chapter, I wrote up what was to be the first of what I’m calling a “book jot” (a simple little reaction after reading a book). In an effort to include these book jots on The Vulgar Eclectic, here it…
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JMW Turner and Ruskin
In The Queen of the Air, John Ruskin mentions the landscape painter J. M. W. Turner several times, and once refers to a specific work of his. Perhaps it is this painting. Here is the passage: “But, opposite me, is an early Turner drawing of the lake of Geneva, taken about two miles from Geneva,…
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The Queen of the Air
I finished reading The Queen of the Air (1861) by John Ruskin, an English writer who explored a wide range of topics throughout his life. This book was a collection of four different pieces, all connected in some way to the ideas represented by the Greek goddess Athena. It took me a while to fall…
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Hedda Gabler
I just finished reading Hedda Gabler (1891), a play written by Henrik Ibsen and translated by Una Ellis-Fermor. The play elicited one of the strongest reactions I’ve had in a reading experience in recent memory. I found myself shouting out loud at a few points, so agitated was I by the circumstances of the play…
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Alone, alone, all, all alone, alone on a wide wide sea
I’ve discovered a couple of new-to-me musical works I’ve really enjoyed. It’s as if music like this creates a whole other world, a world one can swim through…tranquilly like a cyclopean whale or darting about like curious minnows among the shadows of sunken driftwood cities, waving aquatic forests, and silent sea meadows. The first is…