On Reading Poetry with Harold Bloom
I strove with none, for none was worth my strife. Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art: I warmed both hands before the fire of life;...
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David Matthews
- Nov 10, 2018
- 3 min
Week's End Thoughts & Reflections, November 10, 2018
Rally to protect the Mueller investigation Waterfront Park, Portland, Oregon #nobodyisabovethelaw Is it hyperbole to suggest that we are...
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David Matthews
- Sep 14, 2018
- 4 min
The Fall Term 2018
Autumn is in the air, as they say. The week has seen daily showers and temperatures no higher than 70. The change of season stirs that...
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David Matthews
- Aug 29, 2018
- 17 min
The Strange and Curious Case of Jordan Peterson, Part II
This is the conclusion of a two-part essay. Part I was published August 28, 2018. The going gets thorny when Jordan Peterson moves away...
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David Matthews
- Aug 28, 2018
- 9 min
The Strange and Curious Case of Jordan Peterson, Part I
The strange and curious case of Jordan Peterson could be the scenario for a television minidrama scripted by a disciple of Ayn Rand. An...
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David Matthews
- Jul 13, 2018
- 14 min
Those Zany Surrealists
The Lives of the Surrealists by Desmond Morris Thames & Hudson, 272 pp., 2018 Until recently I knew Desmond Morris only vaguely as a...
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David Matthews
- Jun 24, 2018
- 4 min
Week's End Thoughts & Reflections, June 23, 2018
In Man's Fate, André Malraux's novel about an episode in the Chinese revolution, Suan, a young terrorist, remarks that the sons of...
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David Matthews
- May 6, 2018
- 5 min
Week's End Thoughts & Reflections, May 5, 2018
Yesterday afternoon I finally made it to a Reed College Friday @ 4 recital. The Friday @ 4 series came to my attention about six weeks...
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David Matthews
- May 2, 2018
- 5 min
Incident at Café Insomnia
I came across this story while trying to clean out and impose some semblance of order on the paper files. It was first published on my...
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David Matthews
- Apr 26, 2018
- 8 min
A Wacky Saga of Life, Literature, and Intellectuals of a Certain Vintage
The Seventh Function of Language by Laurent Binet tr. by Sam Taylor Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 359 pp., 2017 "Life is not a novel. Or...
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David Matthews
- Apr 19, 2018
- 11 min
Tom Nichols and the death of expertise; or, experts and the rest of us (Part 2 of 2)
Part 1 of this two-part essay and review of The Death of Expertise by Tom Nichols was published on April 17, 2018. Tom Nichols tells us...
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David Matthews
- Apr 17, 2018
- 18 min
Tom Nichols and the death of expertise; or, experts and the rest of us (Part 1 of 2)
The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters by Tom Nichols Oxford University Press [2017],...
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David Matthews
- Feb 9, 2018
- 5 min
Tony Judt, Corey Robin, Raymond Aron
Along with the crime novels I can read with half my brain tied behind my back and go through at a rate that gives me pause, I recently...
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David Matthews
- Dec 15, 2017
- 4 min
Cultural Appropriation; or, I proceed with trepidation as I venture a few thoughts
Issues of cultural appropriation and identity politics lie in dark waters where intrepid scribes venture at their own peril. Strong...
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David Matthews
- Dec 8, 2017
- 3 min
Things People Said
Among the pleasures of reading is the encounter with remarks and observations that are witty, perceptive, intriguing, amusing, or simply...
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David Matthews
- Sep 21, 2017
- 8 min
One Month On
So what have I done with the first month of retirement? Much or little? Does that matter? After all, I am supposedly retired. I don't...
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David Matthews
- Jul 24, 2017
- 4 min
From Cioran to Eliade
The School of Life's video about Romanian-French philosopher and pessimist Emil Cioran was so intriguing I immediately placed holds on...
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David Matthews
- Jul 22, 2017
- 2 min
What's on my mind today...
Glorious run this morning with temperature in the low 60s and sun all over the place when I set out at 6:15. The route took me from my...
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David Matthews
- Jun 26, 2017
- 16 min
Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg, Part II
I Greet You at the Beginning of a Great Career: The Selected Correspondence of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg 1955–1997 Edited...
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David Matthews
- Jun 18, 2017
- 8 min
Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg, Part I
I Greet You at the Beginning of a Great Career: The Selected Correspondence of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg 1955–1997 Edited...
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