Christmas with Renata Scotto at St. Patrick's Cathedral / Lorenzo Anselmi, Conductor; Orchestra and the St. Patrick's Cathedral Choir [AUDIO CASSETTE]
Ivebeenreadinglately (Free subscription) | 11/21/2009
A post by Patrick Kurp at Anecdotal Evidence last week about Peter Ackroyd 's novel The Lambs of London (2004) reminded me that I had a copy of that book, unread, on my shelves, purchased several years ago when all I knew of Charles and Mary Lamb was their Tales from Shakespeare . Patrick's post gives a good sense of the pleasures of this slim novel (and you can also turn to him...
Laudator Temporis Acti (Free subscription) | 11/12/2009
Patrick Kurp sent me an email with the subject line "This might interest you." The email contained a link to a poem by Herbert Morris with the title Latin . The poem does interest me, and it might also interest readers of this blog. The only bit of Latin quoted in the poem, however, is puzzling. Morris recalls his Latin teacher, Mrs. Goodman, saying "Lapsa de memoria."...
Laudator Temporis Acti (Free subscription) | 11/07/2009
Thanks to Patrick Kurp for introducing me to Canadian poet Archibald Lampman (1861-1899). Here is Lampman's sonnet Autumn Maples : The thoughts of all the maples who shall name, When the sad landscape turns to cold and gray? Yet some for very ruth and sheer dismay, Hearing the northwind pipe the winter's name, Have fired the hills with beaconing clouds of flame; And some with softer woe...
House of Mirth (Free subscription) | 10/28/2009
... magnets. And by coincidence, I just came across an excellent example of leafy metaphor-making on Patrick Kurp's Anecdotal Evidence. He's quoting from a poem I've never read, R.S. Thomas's "Autumn," which is actually an argument against the sort of anthropomorphic mischief I've just been engaging in: Happy the leaves burnishing their own downfall. Life dances upon life's...
