Alan Jacobs

The Fading Promise of Higher Education is the theme of this excellent new issue of the Hedgehog Review. I don’t have anything in the issue on that important theme, but I did write a reflection on hearing Glenn Gould — on the 70th anniversary of his breakthrough recording of the Goldberg Variations. 

P.S. That essay may be paywalled — if so, my regrets. 

The Economist’s obituary for Alan Greenspan is a small masterpiece.

Confluence

I think, given his recent discovery of the possibilities of Casual Fashion, Poch’s personal theme song should be “Sharp Dressed Man.”

I have been assuming all along that he will leave the USMNT at the end of this tournament, and I still think that’s the way to bet, but the fanbase has fallen in love with him and he’s obviously reciprocating. I laughed out loud watching him sing “Take Me Home, Country Roads” after the match. It wouldn’t shock me now if he stayed on — and that would be great, because he has these guys playing assertive, confident, tactically imaginative football. I’m having the most fun I’ve ever had watching the USMNT.

🇺🇸⚽️

If I still lived in northern Illinois I would surely cheer for 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 against 🇲🇽 — but here in central Texas I think the power of neighborliness will shift my allegiance. Sunday will tell. Gonna be FUN.

I’ve updated my home page with a link to OUP’s page for my biography of Dorothy L. Sayers, now scheduled for publication on 28 November. I’ll add other options for pre-order as they become available. I had a lot of fun writing this and I think you’ll enjoy it also. I’m pleased that, in a series whose books average about sixty bucks each, OUP priced this one for a broader readership. 

Wood engravings by John de Pol

In which I write about the greatness of Baird Whitlock and the power of the movies. 

There will be a series of these in the coming weeks (during which I’ll have little time to write): posts adapted from a book proposal that neither my agent nor any editor I talked to was interested in. Maybe I should use my big blog exclusively to post rejected book proposals. I have several. It looks like I’ll be going to my grave not having written any of the books I had most hoped to write — because if I want to do it, the rest of the world is indifferent to it. This is the unbreakable rule. 

Here’s a post on why an argument about how humanists’ defenses of the humanities are bad is itself a worse argument than the ones it critiques. I’m gonna have to write a follow-up to this but … not soon.