by Charles Cameron | Sep 7, 2016 | Monitor
[ by Charles Cameron — on a quote from my fellow whacky Brit, Geoffrey Pyke ] . Whacky? From a short description of the man by his biographer, Henry Hemming: Geoffrey Pyke, an inventor, war reporter, escaped prisoner, campaigner, father, educator–and all-around...
by zen | Aug 4, 2014 | Monitor
[by Mark Safranski, a.k.a. “zen”] The Orientalist by Tom Reiss Some biographies are as much about the era or the milieu as the man. The Orientalist is one of them. This is not to say that Tom Reiss has written a bad book. On the contrary, it is an...
by Charles Cameron | Mar 16, 2014 | Monitor
[ by Charles Cameron — still trying to cover some of the major feasts and fasts of the world’s religions in calendar time, which can open on occasion into timelessness — Chag Purim Sameach! ] . Jan Lievens, The Feast of Esther, ca 1625 From the North...
by zen | Jan 10, 2014 | Monitor
[by Mark Safranski, a.k.a. “zen”] The Independent has a short, quasi-sensationalist, article featuring historian Margaret MacMillan discussing what is likely to become the first pop academic cottage industry of 2014….making historical analogies about...
by AdamElkus | Dec 26, 2013 | Monitor
(by Adam Elkus) One of my favorite television shows when I was younger was the Japanese sci-fi anime Gundam Wing. The characterization was awful, the giant robots were kind of lame, and the fights often were not all that suspenseful. However, it had a very interesting...
