OK. Let’s switch tracks. Modern politics is so depressing, and I’m sure we all need a metaphysical pick-me-up after thinking about Iran-Israel.
I recently got two great art books for my birthday, and when I tell you that one of them was full of Victorian nudes, but that it’s the other one I’m most excited about, you’ll have some idea [...]
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The world’s tallest building is under construction…in the Middle East.
After recently watching an interesting documentary about Dubai (in the United Arab Emirates) on 60 minutes, I briefly became fascinated with that city. The documentary called it “the largest construction site on the planet”–already boasting a phenomenal indoor ski slope, and man-made island groupings in the [...]
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The following excerpt is from the Columbiad, an epic poem by Joel Barlow, a member of the Connecticut Militia in 1776, and later diplomat and poet. It is the closest thing I have ever found to an objective assessment of Columbus’s place in history, and it is beautifully written:
I sing the Mariner who first unfurl’d
An eastern [...]
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I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the Ridley Scott film “The Conquest of Paradise.” The movie falls prey to the modern fixation with realism, and thereby loses sight of the power of art to dramatize the abstract meaning of history rather than relate its purely concrete chronology.
That said, I am a big fan of the Vangelis [...]
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The young man sits perched on a mooring post, looking out to sea, with a thoughtful gaze that suggests it isn’t the objects before him that truly have his attention, but rather a vision of something that others, if they were present, would not perceive.
This young man is not, however, merely day-dreaming. His is not [...]
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