“…and he saw his days burn up like paper in fire.”
“Quid Plura?” is still here, and although the site is updated less than before, I’m still pleased to have an online notebook for stuff that fits nowhere else. I say that every year, and it’s still true. Writing projects, the ongoing pandemic, and a string of losses made for a tiring year, but a few … Continue reading “…and he saw his days burn up like paper in fire.”
“Last of the line at an honest day’s toil…”
“But today the endless patchwork of fields slumbered in the sun, and the air, even on the hill, was heavy with the scents of summer. There must be people working among the farms down there, I knew but I couldn’t see a living soul; and the peace which I always found in the silence and … Continue reading “Last of the line at an honest day’s toil…”
“But down in the underground, you’ll find someone true…”
If you were an adolescent in the early 1980s, you probably heard tales from a college your friend’s brother’s cousin attended on the fringes of wherever you lived: a kid obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons had lost his mind and then lost himself in a maze of tunnels underneath the campus. You may have seen … Continue reading “But down in the underground, you’ll find someone true…”
“…and if we live the lie, let’s lie in trust…”
“The Green Knight is everything you love about King Arthur, but with a twist.” That’s the tag line Comcast is using to advertise streaming rentals of writer-director David Lowery’s visually sumptuous new movie. The angle surprised me: I didn’t know Arthuriana still sells. My sense was that the Arthurian boom peaked in the late ’90s … Continue reading “…and if we live the lie, let’s lie in trust…”
“I’ve willed, I’ve walked, I’ve read, I’ve talked…”
Build your brand! Optimize your keywords! Like, review, subscribe! Writers now believe they have to carry on with this nonsense. Maybe some must, even though for most of us the returns are minimal and the requisite skills aren’t always inborn. Much good writing goes unread because a poet or novelist lacks the hucksterism of a … Continue reading “I’ve willed, I’ve walked, I’ve read, I’ve talked…”
“Something unseen, some hand is motioning…”
The Brood X cicadas have risen again, crawling up our tree trunks, our wooden posts, our concrete foundations—any upright surface suits them fine. The last time they emerged, I was living in a city and wondering where I’d find myself after 17 years. Now here I am in the country, with the cicadas’ deafening song … Continue reading “Something unseen, some hand is motioning…”
“Night is day, and twilight’s gone away…”
When the pandemic began, friends asked me what insights I could glean from studying and writing about the Middle Ages for as long as I did. “Nothing,” I told them, which remains true. Yet I can’t shake the feeling that we’re living through an apocalypse—not necessarily in the religious, end-of-the-world sense, but in the literal … Continue reading “Night is day, and twilight’s gone away…”
“And this world’s a fickle measure…”
They told me, “You have to watch this interview where Mike Tyson talks about medieval history,” and so I did, and there he was at the New York Public Library in 2013 being interviewed by curator Paul Holdengräber, whose German accent strikes the American ear as both effortlessly intellectual and lightly amusing, and who would … Continue reading “And this world’s a fickle measure…”
I Have Started for Canaan: The Story of the African American Town of Sugarland
I don’t have romantic notions about what writers do—but every so often, our work has profound implications for neighbors and friends. In January 2019, I met two great-granddaughters of the founders of Sugarland, a town established by former slaves immediately after emancipation in rural Montgomery County, Maryland. My new friends were tenacious historians who had … Continue reading I Have Started for Canaan: The Story of the African American Town of Sugarland
“…and in this town of stops and starts…”
It took a few months, but I managed to transfer this blog to a new host. Links to posts from outside sources may no longer work, so if you’ve linked to a book review or favorite post in the past, you’ll need to find it via the search box in the sidebar and re-link to … Continue reading “…and in this town of stops and starts…”
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Quid Plura? 