Diary: Atlas Shrugged and how Bob Youngblood taught me to appreciate Charles Dickens
At best, I tend to regard Ayn Rand as a sociopath, and yet I’ve read her ball-boiling pot-buster (and seemingly interminable) novel Atlas Shrugged.
Why...
I’m set to write a book about beer, or so this impending contract suggests
It is my pleasure to announce that a contract is impending with Bloomsbury Academic Inc. to write a book bearing the working title of...
Menu Items: “Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants and Intoxicants”
Originally published at the Food & Dining Magazine web site on 13 September 2020.
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Nothing could be more common than the salt and pepper on...
Does New Albany even have an intellectual history?
Originally written and published at NA Confidential on October 30, 2014.
ON THE AVENUES: Does New Albany even have an intellectual history?
The last time I...
Daphne Phelps and “A House in Sicily”
The struggle to learn the language was wearing, when study necessarily took place after long days of dealing with endless kind visitors who felt...
Books and politics, with Roberto Bolaño and “The Savage Detectives”
In the year 2015 I ran for mayor of New Albany. During a candidate Q & A, I became the first mayoral candidate in...
Books: “Bowling for Communism” in Leipzig
Leipzig was among the East German cities to be visited in 1989 during my August working holiday in the GDR, but the group excursion...
“Trieste,” a novel by Daša Drndić
It can be daunting, perhaps even crippling, to consider the immensity of what remains unknown about the wider world. What we as individuals know...
Books: “The Cold War from the Margins” in Bulgaria
In May I read a good book about a little-known aspect of the Cold War.
The Cold War from the Margins: A Small Socialist State...
Take me, I’m existentially yours (or, crisis—what crisis?)
This essay appeared as an "On the Avenues" column on January 1, 2019. For those reading from afar, be aware that in metro Louisville,...
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Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 4: Greece, Turkey, a famous Pythion interlude, and the Levant...
Previously: Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 3: Growing up in Greece with Henry Miller.
It makes little sense, but musically, Bangkok was getting far more airplay...
Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 3: Growing up in Greece with Henry Miller
Previously: Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 2: Crawling across the borderline into Luxembourg.
Long before leaving home, I took care to equip myself with an American Express...
Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 2: Crawling across the borderline into Luxembourg
Previously: Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 1: Three months that shook my world.
Madonna's “Borderline” reached #10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in June 1984. It...
