The Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night
The Heroic Vision Over shadowy spires and gleaming towers lay the ghostly darkness and silence that runs before dawn. Into a dim alley, one of… Read More »The Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night
literature
T.H. White on chivalry, confronting evil, and destiny
The Wart is the young King Arthur. “Kay won’t tell me,” said the Wart, “what happens when you are made a knight. He says it… Read More »T.H. White on chivalry, confronting evil, and destiny
Edith Grossman on literary translation as narrative transmutation
I’ve been reading her Don Quixote [amazon] for the last 18 months. Rest In Pages. Ralph Manheim, the great translator from the German, compared the… Read More »Edith Grossman on literary translation as narrative transmutation
Darwin among the machines: Samuel Butler (1863) on the mechanical master race
It could almost have been written yesterday… Sir — There are few things of which the present generation is more justly proud than of the… Read More »Darwin among the machines: Samuel Butler (1863) on the mechanical master race
At the Mountains of Madness: Edwardian* Science; Lovecraftian Cosmology
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a… Read More »At the Mountains of Madness: Edwardian* Science; Lovecraftian Cosmology
Recommendation: Paul Fussell (and Shakespeare) on Real War
KING HENRY V (unrecognised): …methinks I could not die any where so contented as in the king’s company; his cause being just and his quarrel… Read More »Recommendation: Paul Fussell (and Shakespeare) on Real War
Unreal City: T. S. Eliot’s Wasteland Jukebox feat. Dall-E [known to be the wisest woman in Europe]
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,And puts a record on the gramophone. I. Chaucer Chopped Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,The droghte of… Read More »Unreal City: T. S. Eliot’s Wasteland Jukebox feat. Dall-E [known to be the wisest woman in Europe]
Emperor of Ruins (Lovecraftian anthropology; Kremlin psychodrama)
In the second installment of James Lovegrove’s tremendous Sherlock Holmes / H. P. Lovecraft mashup, Moriarty – assumed dead – has returned as the god… Read More »Emperor of Ruins (Lovecraftian anthropology; Kremlin psychodrama)
Lovecraftian Theology; or, Holmes in the Hammam
This is a nice summary of the Lovecraftian worldview from James Lovegrove’s Sherlock Homes and the Miskatonic Monstrosities, to compare and contrast with your own.… Read More »Lovecraftian Theology; or, Holmes in the Hammam
Harrison Bergeron: Kurt Vonnegut imagines true equality
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody… Read More »Harrison Bergeron: Kurt Vonnegut imagines true equality