“Books are everywhere; and always the same sense of adventure fills us. Second-hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack. Besides, in this random miscellaneous company we may rub against some complete stranger who [...]
Archive for November, 2008
Wild Books
Posted in Libraries, Literature on November 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Our Loss
Posted in Literature on November 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past.”
– G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) in “A Piece of Chalk”
Henry D. Babcock, Yale and Polo
Posted in Polo on November 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Henry Denison Babcock Jr. had the world by the tail. His grandfather, Samuel D. Babcock, was a wealthy businessman with a home on Fifth Avenue, a “country seat” at Riverdale-on-Hudson, and memberships in the Metropolitan, Union and Manhattan clubs, the New York Yacht Club, and the Country Club of Westchester County. Henry’s father, Henry Babcock [...]
Borders
Posted in Commentary on November 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“The love of one’s country is a natural thing. But why should love stop at the border?”
– Pablo Casals (1876-1973)
Crossroads
Posted in Commentary, Religion on November 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“The good road and the road of difficulties you have made me cross, and where they cross, the place is holy.”
– Black Elk, Shaman of the Oglala Sioux, 1912
Freedom
Posted in Commentary on November 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“We play gladly and think gladly because in these activities we feel ourselves masters of the situation. The space of play and the space of thought are the two theaters of freedom.”
– Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (1888-1973)
Marjorie LeBoutillier
Posted in Polo on November 18, 2008 | 3 Comments »
I have a special affection for extraordinary people who have been largely, and unfairly, forgotten, and one of my recent favorites is Marjorie LeBoutillier, a polo player of great ability. She first surfaces in Aiken, South Carolina, in Harry Worcester Smith’s Life and Sport in Aiken and Those Who Made It (1935), in which he [...]
Mastering Time
Posted in Art, Photography on November 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Over dinner in Toronto last week I was treated to a demo of the coolest gizmo. If you have ever wanted to photograph time-lapse sequences using a digital still camera, the Pclix LT is the cat’s pajamas. It’s easy to use and program, and it’s about the size of a deck of cards. You can [...]
Beware
Posted in Literature on November 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“Do not let any lionizers stampede you. Hide and write and study and think. I know what factions do. Beware of them. I know what flatterers do. Beware of them. I know what lionizers do. Beware of them. Good wishes to you indeed.”
– Vachel Lindsay in a note to Langston Hughes
On Business Travel
Posted in Commentary, Literature on November 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“Then I turned and went up the Han-mein River. In all, I must have covered several thousand miles on water. During these wearisome travels, when I was unlucky enough to encounter sudden storms or rough waters, many times I cried aloud to the gods to spare my brief life. In one such moment, as I [...]
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