Welcome statement


Parting Words from Moristotle (07/31/2023)
tells how to access our archives
of art, poems, stories, serials, travelogues,
essays, reviews, interviews, correspondence….

Saturday, December 31, 2016

In Your Dreams: A bedtime serenade – The Bach Arioso

By Geoffrey Dean

A few months ago, roughly coinciding with our daughter Vera’s arrival, I put together a playlist of classical pieces that I considered suitably sleep-inducing. After mining my own memory for appropriate selections, I enriched our nighttime listening repertoire with a few “readymade” albums, such as “More Bedtime Serenades.” This compilation came up as I searched for one of my favorite pieces by J. S. Bach, the “Arioso,” which is perhaps best-known and most widely performed today as a cello solo with piano accompaniment. This is the version heard on More Bedtime Serenades, in an interpretation by Janos Starker that to me brings home the sense of Arioso as “almost an aria” – a piece striving towards full-fledged aria status, and almost getting there. Starker’s is a lyrical interpretation that still retains a hint of the spoken quality that was also an important element of Baroque music and the “rhetoric” behind it.

Friday, December 30, 2016

Correspondence: Trashed

Edited by Moristotle

Could this really be the species that imagined the Old & New Testaments, the Enlightenment, the U.S. Constitution…? “Christmas Revelers Leave 16 Tons of Trash on Australian Beach” [Brett Cole, NY Times, December 28]. Excerpt:

Thursday, December 29, 2016

Thunder Down Under: Four little paintings for Christmas (#4)

Painting by Shirley Deane/Midyett

Text by Vic Midyett


The fourth painting was actually for a post-Christmas gift, but we include it among our Christmas paintings to Moristotle & Co. Greetings to all!

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Thunder Down Under: Four little paintings for Christmas (#3)

Painting by Shirley Deane/Midyett

Text by Vic Midyett


Here is the third of four little paintings Shirley created as gifts for Christmas.

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Thunder Down Under: Four little paintings for Christmas (#2)

Painting by Shirley Deane/Midyett

Text by Vic Midyett


Here is the second of four little paintings Shirley created as gifts for Christmas.

Monday, December 26, 2016

Thunder Down Under: Four little paintings for Christmas (#1)

Painting by Shirley Deane/Midyett

Text by Vic Midyett


Shirley created four little paintings as gifts for Christmas. Here’s the first one.

Sunday, December 25, 2016

Correspondence: Round about Christmas

Edited by Moristotle

Nice Christmas picture: “‘Everyone was stunned’: Snow falls in Sahara desert town for first time in 37 years” [Jason Samenow, Washington Post, December 21]. Excerpt:

Saturday, December 24, 2016

The Loneliest Liberal: Reasons for the season

By James Knudsen

Desperate as I usually am for something to base my monthly column on, I thought to spend a few words on Christmas. The winter holiday has, for some time now, been part of the social discourse in ways it never was. “The War on Christmas,” nativity scenes banned from the public square, stockings filled incorrectly because Santa ate one too many pot-laced cookies – this 2,000-year-old holiday is being asked to deal with issues it was never meant to tackle.

Friday, December 23, 2016

Thunder Down Under:
Merry Christmas!

By Vic Midyett

Aussies don’t know how to make a decent pecan pie. A lot of the time when you find it available in a cafe it’s made with molasses. That’s just not right.

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Movie Review: Manchester by the Sea

A stillness at the center

By Jonathan Price

Manchester by the Sea, starring Casey Affleck, Ben’s younger brother, is a superb film, the best I’ve seen all year and, in fact, in some time. And that’s as far as you should read here if you haven’t already seen (and want to see) it, because the rest of what you’ll find here will tell you a great many things about what happens and what’s key in the film.

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Correspondence: The dying of the light

Edited by Moristotle

Personal note from the editor: It has been a week since I’ve posted anything. Only this morning did I think I begin to understand why: I’ve been paralyzed in the inaction of waiting to hear the news of Donald Trump’s death.
    Not sure why I suddenly became un-paralyzed. Maybe it was driving through a bright patch of sunlight this morning and being reminded of the feeling I experienced as a child when I “saw the light” and believed that I had just been saved by Jesus. One gives up hope after a while.


Sunday, December 11, 2016

Correspondence: Existential threats

Edited by Moristotle

Doctor’s dementia test. Can you meet this challenge?
    We’ve seen this with the letters out of order, but this is the first time we’ve seen it with numbers. Good example of a brain study: If you can read this out loud, you have a strong mind. And, better than that, Alzheimer’s is a long long, way down the road before it ever gets anywhere near you.

Saturday, December 10, 2016

Poetry & Portraits: Grades

By Eric Meub
 







 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
Above the chair’s arm and her perfect card,
his glasses mirror back a blank regard.
She seeks for eyes behind those disks of light,
gold-edged, and lensed in brilliant newsprint white.


Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Correspondence: What it feels like

Edited by Moristotle

This nature column is interactive! Enjoy: “You’re a Bee. This Is What It Feels Like.” [Joanna Klein, NY Times, December 2]. Excerpt:

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

“Shiprock Store Window”

Bob Boldt’s visuals always at the ready

By Moristotle

Feeling the need this morning for a bit of visual stimulation, I clicked on the link to Bob Boldt’s Pictorial Gallery, featured in our sidebar.

Saturday, December 3, 2016

Let’s seek new ways to do good

By André Duvall

While listening to WKNO Memphis (NPR for the Mid-South) on one of my many afternoon commutes, I recently discovered another artistic gem based in my city.