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Gerard de Nerval
Vincent van Gogh
Antonin Artaud
Ian Curtis
Rozz Williams

I still haven't recovered from the loss of Susan Sontag. Now Guy Davenport, one of my favorite writers, is gone. Mainly a writer of short-stories and essays, Davenport was also an accomplished translator. His book, 7 Greeks, is a masterful translation of seven very different types of ancient Greeks - the poets Sappho, Archilochos, and Alkman; the ( Read more... )

Wildstar and I had a beautiful anniversary. New books exchanged - Willa Cather's My Antonia and Antonin Artaud's Ouevres (shouldn't be too difficult to tell which book matches which Ryan). Fancy Italian dinner, with a memorable bottle of Sangiovese and the tiramisu dessert I've been craving. Last of all, we watched the oh-so romantic Casablanca, ( Read more... )

Six hours left to go from this time zone. And can I just say THANK GODS 2004 is over. 2005 is going to be my year ( Read more... )

Since I'm not in the mood to re-live the negative aspects of 2004 (aka My Dark Year of the Soul), I'd rather make a list of my personal picks in the realms of Art, Literature, Music, and Film/TV ( Read more... )

What a terrible day. General malaise, random nightmares, financial problems, the computer crashed again, two French phone companies are trying to destroy us . . . and other assorted frustrations. Then I look at the news, and in addition to the absolutely *horrifying* catastrophe ravaging Asia right now, I see this headline -

Author and Activist ( Read more... )

I remember my college Latin professor saying that the true test of a good pop song was that it could be translated into Latin without breaking up the rhythm - he then proceeded to burst out into a rendition of several ABBA songs with hilarious effect (the only one I can remember is "Mater Mea"). Anyway, in the spirit of the holidays, here's ( Read more... )

I hope that amidst the crass commercialism and family drama that always surrounds this day, that everyone reading this, regardless of your personal beliefs, could take a minute and reflect upon what Decemer 25th is really about - the birth of one man, unique in all history, who was sent down from heaven to save all of our souls ( Read more... )

Thanks to everyone for their support - the computer's back. It works for now. The hard drive is dying but everything is backed-up, nothing was lost, and for a modest fee (which we can actually afford) we'll soon be able to drastically upgrade everything about this computer. Thank gods. And I do mean that (libations were poured and hymns were sung ( Read more... )

Dearest gods - not this, not now. This year has already been a nightmare, and there's thankfully only ten days of it left - but not this, not now ( Read more... )