From Preface to “Medieval Technology and Social Change”, Lynn White Jr.
Voltaire to the contrary, history is a bag of tricks which the dead have played upon historians. The most remarkable of these illusions is the belief that the surviving written…
Category: commonplace book
From “The Monks of Tibhirine: Faith, Love and Terror in Algeria” John W Kiser
I also began to better understand why my exposure to the Trappist culture had a certain resonance for me. Simplicity is one reason. Doing less, not more, and doing those…
John Lewis-Stempel on anthropomorphism. From “Meadowland: The Private Life of An English Field”
While I have some misgivings about the “lab coated lobby” part (I suspect that the sneering phenomenon Lewis-Stempel describes doesn’t so much emanate from “science Puritans” as simple cynicism, perhaps…
From “Rituals” by Cees Nooteboom
“I sleep very little,” said Philip Taads. He was sitting in the same place as yesterday and wore a plain blue kimono. “Sleeping is senseless. A peculiar form of absence…
“A Panoply of All Possible Futures” From “The Zahir” by Jorge Luis Borges
Next to the Anthony Burgess quote I previously posted, this is my favourite literary passage on money Sleepless, possessed, almost happy, I reflected that there is nothing less material than…
Post Election Thoughts, or Easter 2016
When I read this passage from Adam Nicolson’s Why Homer Matters (NYTimes review here) a few weeks ago I was struck at how relevant it seemed to the (then upcoming) election. I…
Anthony Burgess on decimalisation.
This quote made me wonder about the cognitive impact of decimalisation. There seems to be a consensus that cognitive challenging activities help to reduce and/or delay dementia, and I wonder,…
Dabbler no more.
Sad to report that The Dabbler is on an indefinite hiatus . It was a great website, and not only because they printed things by me. It was an oasis of wit, insight…
Séamus Sweeney 