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….

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Correspondence: Refresher

By Moristotle

After all the enemying, don’t you think your readers need a few days off from you-know-who?

Monday, February 27, 2017

Correspondence: Enemy of the people

By Moristotle

“Trump Embraces ‘Enemy of the People,’ a Phrase with a Fraught History” [Andrew Higgins, NY Times, February 26]. Excerpt:

Sunday, February 26, 2017

Near and far in sestina

Piedmont eye chart

By Moristotle

[This poem was originally published on June 8, 2013.]

Questions have arisen about sunsets.
Why is one beautiful to me but plain
to the next person? Some want horizons
spread out under a big sky at a far
distance over vast space, but I want near
displays set against trees and local piedmont


Saturday, February 25, 2017

The Loneliest Liberal: Mum’s the word

I’m going to be in a TV soap opera

By James Knudsen

It’s probably a safe bet to say, that among the contributors and consumers of Moristotle & Co., there aren’t a lot of soap-opera devotees. The genre is one of those things that elites on the coasts look down their noses at while they make high-minded jokes about the low-brow art form. Still, it does pay.

Friday, February 24, 2017

Book Review: Olive Kitteridge

Life as we live it

By Moristotle

[In Wednesday’s post, “A curious case of apathy,” I mentioned a book club I had participated in. The book reviewed today was discussed in that club, and the review, “Life as we live it,” was originally published on August 14, 2012.]

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Correspondence: Donny Trumpp plays Johnny Depp


By Moristotle

Donald Trump’s affectless reading of “his” anti-anti-Semitism statement brings to mind Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s droll,tongue-in-cheek “apology” to Australia for illegally bringing her two dogs into the country: “Trump denounces anti-Semitic threats as ‘horrible’ after facing criticism” [ABC News, February 21]:

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

A curious case of apathy

By Moristotle

Entering the offices of my cardiologist’s practice yesterday morning, I felt (or, rather, failed to feel) in a way that I could only think was apathy. Apathy in the basic sense of lack of enthusiasm, or impassivity, or ennui. Usually, whenever I approach a receptionist – whether in a doctor’s office, a Starbuck’s, Elliott’s Pet Spa, or wherever – I feel primed to banter, to joke, to say something I hope will sound witty.

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

How do we choose to react to a joke?

By Victor L. Midyett

How do we choose to react to something we consider rude, politically incorrect, or demeaning to a situation or to ourselves? Do we first ask ourselves some questions? Or do we simply assume that what was said was intended to be demeaning? Was it said as a joke simply for a joke’s sake? Was it meant as a slam of “my kind” or of me in particular?
    I think that if we don’t know the answers to these questions, we are doing ourselves a disservice. As I have said before, OTHERS cannot MAKE US feel. We CHOOSE how we react to others and everything.


Monday, February 20, 2017

Lost time reading Marcel Proust

Hawthorns in blossom

By Moristotle

As a direct result of visiting Paris last year with my wife, for our 50th wedding anniversary, I have finally been applying myself to reading Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past (A la Recherche du Temps Perdu [In Search of Lost Time]), which I had been meaning to read ever since my wife read it over 35 years ago, in the C. K. Scott Moncrieff translation (1920’s), before we moved from California to North Carolina.

Sunday, February 19, 2017

West Coast Observer: An abhorrent admiration

Let’s not have a repeat

By William Silveira

I happened to view the PBS News Hour with Judy Woodruff on February 15, and I came away shocked and frightened for the future of our country and the world.
    I am sure that many of you have read about the glowing reports of the wonderful work Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party were doing in Germany in the 1930’s. Their false and fatuous view of what was going on helped cement Hitler’s grip on power in Germany during that era. Among the Americans who were taken in by Hitler and the Nazis were Charles Lindbergh and Joseph Kennedy. Now I see the same sort of line being taken by Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, and a consultant to the American oil industry.

Saturday, February 18, 2017

A history not of God, but of the idea of God

By Moristotle

[Originally published on March 19, 2008]

Karen Armstrong’s 1993 book, subtitled “The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,” has the misleading but catchier title A History of God. She herself refers in the Introduction to “this history of the idea and experience of [emphasis mine] God in the three monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam” [p. xix]. She admits that God might not really exist and that she wished, “when I was starting out in the religious life” [in the 1960’s], that she had been told to “deliberately create a sense of him for myself.”

Friday, February 17, 2017

Blossoms in winter

Flowering apricot

By Moristotle

I took these photographs last month, in our yard (and inside our home), in Mebane, North Carolina.

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

To Valentine’s Day

By Moristotle

[A reader commented yesterday on this poem’s original post, on Valentine’s Day 2015, reminding me I had even written it (and might have republished it yesterday).]

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Happier Valentine’s Day than this!

By Moristotle

Unhappy Valentines: romantic holiday disasters” [various, Guardian, February 11]. Few things conjure up the idea of romance like an exotic trip with a partner, though the reality can be excruciatingly different, as these writers discovered....:

Monday, February 13, 2017

Correspondence: Resisting Trumpery

Edited by Moristotle

Thanks for occasionally sharing a live “Resistance Report” from Robert Reich, which have been very informative and inspirational during these depressing times.
    The reports seem to be a permanent archive on Professor Reich’s “Resistance Report” Facebook page, for anyone who would like to check them out.

Sunday, February 12, 2017

Happy Birthday

By Moristotle

Greetings to everyone whose birthday is today, particularly to my wife. We celebrated at home, where the weather was perfect for lunching on the back porch, with Siegfried, whose bowl we move to his (lower) table before we sit down to eat.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Poetry & Portraits: Odysseus

By Eric Meub
 







 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
His every sentence pitted mortal thought
against that ruthless, terminating dot,
as if annihilation might precede
a new Aeneid no one needs to read.


Friday, February 10, 2017

Boldt Words & Images: Ham on Nye (a poem)

By Bob Boldt








Bill (the Science Guy) Nye runs into his old nemesis,
Ken Ham, waiting for the Senior Buffet to open at a Delicatessen

in an alternative universe, or Miami Beach (whichever is closer).
Both miscreants are under 65 and not entitled to hog the “Seniors Only” lane.


Thursday, February 9, 2017

Correspondence: Yet more Trumpery

Edited by Moristotle

“Trump Accuses Media of Not Reporting Voices He Hears in Head” [Andy Borowitz, New Yorker, February 7]. Excerpt:

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Why so much sestina?

Psychiatry session in sestina

By Moristotle

[This poem was originally published on June 12, 2013, in a time during which I fairly frequently wrote sestinas. As I don’t seem to have written another, the question might now be, “Why no more sestinas?” – a question I intend to answer soon, in my first sestina in three and a half years. I miss writing them!]

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Susan to the Moon

“Tree of Joe” (detail)
By Moristotle

Congratulations to our good friend Susan C. Price (see “Past Members of the Staff” in the sidebar), who has a painting on display in Women Painters West’s “Love in Deed” show, at Topanga Canyon Gallery, open now through February 19, with a reception this coming Sunday afternoon (February 12).


Monday, February 6, 2017

Correspondence: More Trumpery

Part of the “Evolution of Civilizations”
mural in the dome of the main reading room
at the Library of Congress
Edited by Moristotle

Good points by the outstanding NY Times conservative commentator David Brooks: “A Return to National Greatness” [February 3].
    We the People will have to “return to greatness” despite the Trumpestuous interference we are confronting. Excerpt:

Sunday, February 5, 2017

Labels

By Victor L. Midyett

My DNA heritage is Argentinean, German, French, English, and most proudly, Cherokee. I have predominantly olive skin and in the right circumstance could possibly pass as an Iranian or Middle-Eastern terrorist. What would my label be on sight? What would you call me? “Half-breed”? I have been called that, and so be it, even though it is biologically and mathematically impossible.
    I recall that when I was younger than ten, adults in my father’s home state of Tennessee referred to all African Americans as “niggers.” In my early teenage years I was part of the government’s mandate to desegregate the schools. Suddenly my friendship world grew. My learning, acceptance, tolerance, being better informed, and fun times grew with it. During that time I do not recall ever labeling any of my African American friends by anything other than their given names. The white “adults” in the community, however, still labeled them the same way they always had. This habit gradually diminished, and the label survived mostly as hush-hush and in “safe” circles.


Saturday, February 4, 2017

As the World Turns: Shit storm

By Ed Rogers

I keep waiting for the shit storm to settle down that was released the day Trump won the election. But it seems to get wilder each day – his team is even inventing words to explain the stink coming from the White House. How did Papa Bush— Or was it Reagan who called it a shining city upon a hill? We once knew it as the White House, but I believe it needs a new name now.
    I have been wondering about the people who think the new President is a genius. It’s hard to believe, but there are a lot of them – many more than I would have thought possible. What is bothering me is I’m trying to ascertain if they are crazy or could it be me? Crazy people don’t think they are crazy, so I guess it could be me. After all, he was elected President of the United States. In a way it is easier to believe I am insane and everything is going along just fine.
    If I lived on the West Coast, I could roll a fat one, turn on, and tune out – it worked for me during Nixon’s time in the White House. But now I live in the forward-thinking State of Mississippi. “Go Rebs!” “Hotty Totty!” (For those not in the know, those are cries of football fans at Old Miss.)


Friday, February 3, 2017

Boldt Words & Images: Dreaming a Hurricane (a poem)

By Bob Boldt








What was the name of that girl I stood up
way back then? Julie, June, Jackie?

What difference would it have made anyway?


Thursday, February 2, 2017

Outside the Box: I hate digital technology

By Anonymous

[Editor’s Note: This article would have been an item of correspondence (anonymous, as is the custom in a “Correspondence” column) if it had stopped with the first email we received, but it kept growing...into a longer piece (but still anonymous) just right for “Outside the Box.”]

Correspondence: Trumpery

Edited by Moristotle

After Trump’s executive order , the author of this article visited an icon of welcome for immigrants: “Checking In on Lady Liberty” [Sam Hodgson, NY Times, January 31]. Excerpt:

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Outside the Box: Robotics and the jobs paradox

By Chuck Smythe

I’m afraid I only know about robotics what I read in the science magazines (which don’t pay enough attention to applied technology) and articles like “How to Make America’s Robots Great Again” [Farhad Manjoo, NY Times, January 25], from which I share this excerpt: