Saturday, May 10, 2025

A Revolutionary Religion

Christianity arose in a period when there were a lot of religions around, and its early liturgies were, of course, influenced by them. But it is harder to understand just how revolutionary Christianity was in that context.

Kathleen Ferrier (1912-1953)

Much has been written about this great English contralto, so it’s probably OK that this appreciative American write something about her, but here, where she is not as well known, more than seventy years after her death.

Richard Long (born 1945)

I came upon his sculptural work almost by chance in the mid-1980s. The weird thing about modern art is that, after it got separated from draftsmanship, it got a lot easier to be a fool for doing it, so being an artist took a lot of bravery. It allowed your idiocy to be seen plain and up front.

Thursday, May 8, 2025

Why I Like Ella Fitzgerald

When my partner, Eric, and I first met in the early nineties, a great appreciation for the music of Ella Fitzgerald was one of the things that united us.  

Recent Poetry, May 2025

No Christ

Suppose Christ left no benediction,
That he was nothing but a fiction,
Mythic and adjudicated,
And all about him fabricated.