The ending of T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland” I’m still recovering (though recovering I am) from a vicious cold that left me almost ;) incapable of posting Notes but definitely beyond extended composition. I also still await the video of Projecting L.A. 2024 I plan to share, so I offer another selection out from behind the paywalled archives. Next week and that after I’ll be traveling for leisure — Ohio for a college graduation and to visit family, then New York, where, among other pleasures, I’ll be dining with a gathering of Substackers, so what I share may be inventive. For today, it occurs ..read more

via Wikipedia The pre and weekend period surrounding Julia’s Projecting L.A. 2024 (info and video to come) was all consuming — and that was just for a behind-the-scenes, supportive helper-outer, never mind the important people. And then, too, I came down with a pesky cold, so here I am a day late with the Monday offering — and that was supposed to be an entry in the Extraordinary Ordinary People series. I have that lined up but not ready to go, so I thought, in that case, I’d offer this view, free to all, of the very first Magellanic Diaries offering. The Magellanic Diaries are a series in w ..read more

Part of a grave monument erected for an athlete in the Kerameikos cemetery in Athens, circa 510-500 BCE, via the National Archaeological Museum in Athens Wherein I develop themes from three of the selections in “A Reader’s Review 2,” on the New York Intellectuals, Guernica Magazine, and Ann Manov’s review of Lauren Oyler on Bookforum. Last month’s Closer Look essay was “The Code.” Agonies of the Agon The ancient Greeks famously seeded the garden of civilization with, among other botanicals, philosophy, democracy, rhetoric, natural science, drama, epic poetry, a full universe of symbolic a ..read more

The Library of Babel Welcome to the second monthly issue of A Reader’s Review. My enthusiasm for what I and you, my readers, can make of it grows. As I said the first time around, I welcome not only you but also your comments and thoughts about how the review might evolve. As a reminder, A Reader’s Review is a two-part series at Homo Vitruvius combining free and paid elements. The first, free part, every four weeks, on Thursdays, is what you are reading here, titled “A Reader’s Review.” In this monthly review, I’ll offer recommendations, with brief commentary and greater quotation, of some o ..read more

Looking Ahead, Falling Behind (Preliminaries) Last week’s cross-posted guest essay at the The Recovering Academic and a minor mental interruption at my brain threw me a little off schedule but I shall recover thusly: Today As you see, the latest paid subscriber Recs & Revs offering, with an array of life-enhancing introductions to sources on the Web and news of our world. Thursday The free, somewhat delayed second installment of A Reader’s Review, the commodious reading room in which I share with you all some favorites from my periodical reading over the past month (or so :) Next Monday ..read more

Sisyphus by Titian, 1549 Every now and then, I share an essay from the archives, an essay no longer available to free subscribers. For those who don’t know, all free essays on Homo Vitruvius — the Thursday creative flights — in addition to the four semi-accessible paid subscriber series, move behind the paywall into the archives after 3 months. That’s a long time for them to be freely available, I think. But I do believe that what I offer, creatively and intellectually, has value. I think it’s worth paying for if someone can afford it. So I offer periodic peaks into the vault and its deeper ..read more

Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash Today, in place of what normally would have been A Readers Review paid subscriber post yesterday (now this coming Monday) I am publishing at The Recovering Academic Substack of this guest essay, below, “Exit Interview.” In it, I ruminate on my life in education. My focus is not on the academics but rather the teacher-student relationships, as student and as teacher, that both shaped me and by which I have tried to contribute to the lives of my students. The essay reflects, too, on the state of liberal arts and humanities education and on the academic profe ..read more

Jeff, still taller than his younger brother, c. 1958, Fort Ticonderoga, New York When I was in the second grade, I ran away from home. I told a classmate at school of my plan, and at the end of the day, when the school bus from P.S. 18 dropped us off a mile east along Hillside Avenue, in front of the Bell Park Manor Terrace garden apartments, I avoided the large center court of apartments where my family lived and followed an alternative route from the usual. I instead wended my way through many other courts, sadly but determinedly following a course in the winter snow up a gently incli ..read more

A statue of Zheng He at the Sam Poo Kong Temple in Java, Indonesia. Image Credit: Budianto Santosa, Shutterstock (royalty free) On December 21, 1521, the Spanish Nao Victoria, the last of the now-deceased Ferdinand Magellan’s original five ships still remaining and seaworthy to attempt a global circumnavigation home, and crewed by only 44 of the original 270 men, with a new captain, Juan Sebastian Elcano, set sail from their final destination, the “spice island” of Tidore, toward the Indian Ocean and the last perilous leg of a three year journey that would more than half their number still ..read more

First in an occasional series. The seventh and last of the propositional sentences that form the backbone of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s 1921 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus states, “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” ("Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darueber muss man schweigen.") Read literally, the statement forms a tautology. If one literally cannot speak of something, it follows by logical necessity, inherent in the condition of that first clause, that one is silent on it. But Wittgenstein does not mean his statement literally. What he means is Whereof one cannot speak inte ..read more