Category Archives: history

Surfing the Time Waves

I’m reading the minor declamations of pseudo-Quintilian in Shackleton-Bailey’s great Loeb edition. The idea is to briefly escape the current political nightmare by immersing myself in the weird little stories of these controversiae. It’s not going that well. For example: … Continue reading

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Ripped From the Headlines: UNNATURAL DEATH by Dorothy L. Sayers

Some writers I take to with irrational intensity. Others, who may be equally good or even great, I don’t. Sometimes I understand the process involved; sometimes I don’t. Sayers is one of the writers I took to as soon as … Continue reading

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Mail Call

Looking forward to (re)reading the vintage paperbacks. The history book is more for figuring out how teaching will work in the future, now that everything old is new again. I already have a copy of Van Vogt’s The Book of … Continue reading

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Breslin vs. Trump

As Fate or Chaos would have it, the LoA collection of Jimmy Breslin arrived on my doorstep this week, so that on the evening when Trump’s guilty verdict was announced in Manhattan, I got to read Breslin’s verdict on Trump … Continue reading

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Actaeons Have Consequences

“διὰ τί, πολλῶν ὄντων ἐν Ῥώμῃ ναῶν Ἀρτέμιδος, εἰς μόνον τὸν ἐν τῷ καλουμένῳ Πατρικίῳ στενωπῷ ἄνδρες οὐκ εἰσίασιν;” ἢ διὰ τὸν λεγόμενον μῦθον; γυναῖκα γὰρ αὐτόθι τὴν θεὸν σεβομένην βιαζόμενός τις ὑπὸ τῶν κυνῶν διεσπάσθη, καὶ ἀπὸ τούτου δεισιδαιμονίας … Continue reading

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Eldritch Lore of Lightning, Stars, and Magic

On Facebook, Michael Swanwick mentioned a historical (or maybe apocryphal) episode when the Pope invited Etruscan seers to use lightning magic to defend Rome against Alaric and his Ostrogoths. It’s a pretty good story, whether or not it’s actually history. … Continue reading

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Napoleon, Simoleon

ME: I wish people would make movies that aren’t based on comic books. RIDLEY SCOTT: [makes sweeping romantic saga about the inventor of the police state] ME: Not like that!

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Foreshadows of Hanuvar

Aya Katz talks with Howard Andrew Jones about LORD OF A SHATTERED LAND, his great book coming out soon from Baen.

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Four Dead in Ohio

May 4, 1970

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Joans Against the Moon Men

I misread a student’s handwriting and thought they had written “Prester Joan” (instead of “Prester John”). Now I can’t stop thinking of Prester Joan teaming up with Pope Joan to, I don’t know, conquer the moon or something. [edited to … Continue reading

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