Month: October 2023

Allhallowtide is a Western three-day observance (or triduum, a word I learned today) between October 31 and November 2 when we remember […]

Giovanni Battista Piranesi, “Remains of the Temple of the God Canopus in Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli,” from Vedute di Roma, 1768. The […]

Speaker Mike Johnson’s a character out of a novel and all people can do is argue about which box he fits in.

For what else can I do, a lame old man, but sing hymns to the gods?* —Epictetus (55-135 AD), The Discourses, Book […]

At once playful and dead-serious, Paris is “the city where artists love and starve together, shock the bourgeoisie, then die tragically young.” […]

Since the summer of 2005, this blog has showcased a number of pet issues and themes. We’ll keep doing that. One topic […]

Over-Communicate: Bombard, Copy Confirm. It’s from our annoying but dead-on accurate 12 Rules. And it’s short. Rule Five: “Over-Communicate”: Bombard, Copy and […]

Bring Back Real Women. Educated. Smart. Curious. Elegant. Thin. Pretty. Healthy. Feminine.

“Supreme egotism and utter seriousness are necessary for the greatest accomplishment, and these the Irish find hard to sustain; at some point, […]

Indian Summer, Hudson River 1861, Albert Bierstadt

“He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.” –Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784 London

The most civilized nations of modern Europe issued from the woods of Germany; in the rude institutions of those Barbarians we [received] […]

New York-born John Vanderlyn (1775-1852) was a student of Gilbert Stuart. However, he was trained and worked in Paris. There he worked […]

Drum roll please. As of October 5. 2023, the patrician Chicago beauty and storied Ozark scrapper pictured here in mid-1950 have fourteen […]

Tramps Like Us: Heidelberg Castle. Around 1620, Jacques Fouquières painted Germany’s Heidelberg Castle, a famous structure in both German history and art, […]

The Concert, c. 1620, Theodoor Rombouts (Flemish, 1597-1637)

Cancel culture kills expression, fun, satire, humor, poetry, literature, and Art itself. The progressive left and the Dem party stopped being liberal […]

Hôtel Costes “All things in excess”

The comparisons between Rome and the U.S. are exciting and instructive. –What About Clients? When in Rome, do as many Romans as […]