Dorothy Leigh Sayers was born in Oxford on this date in 1893. The cover of my forthcoming biography of her might look like this:
Iโm spending the day on a long-overdue task: going through all my unfinished drafts and deciding what to do with them, the three options being (a) post as-is to the Big Blog, (b) post as-is here, (c) discard. Itโs dreary work but Iโll have a more orderly digital workplace when Iโm done. And over the next few days more posts than usual will be showing up โ I could spread them out in a weeks-long queue but then Iโd be tempted to work further on them before they post. Canโt have that.ย
When I was a kid, my dad often bought these Ace Doubles, and they seemed magical to me. Read a book, flip it over, read another book. But I also often think of a comment made by the editor Terry Carr: If Ace were to publish the Bible theyโd do it as a Double: on one side War God of Israel, on the other The Thing with Three Souls.
I love watching our male cardinals fetch seeds and suet from our feeder and bring them to their lady friends, who wait patiently and decorously. Such chivalrous young men; such appreciative young women.
The british architect Norman Foster once called the [Boeing] 747 his favorite building of the 20th century. Like the ocean liners and railcars it replaced, the 747 is more than a vehicle. It is also a dwelling.โฆ ย
Use of the whole space was encouraged. Why make a building for people to remain seated in? A TWA pamphlet about 747 service from the early 1970s encouraged passengers to exercise on their flight: โWalk 13 times up and down the cabin and youโve actually covered one mile.โ Continental once boasted of removing 41 seats for four extra inches of legroom in coach. Even on a three-hour domestic flight, the experience of the airborne building was deemed as important as the transportation itself.
The photos in this article are wonderful.ย
Here’s an essay by me on Auden and James Schuyler. And here are links to some of the poems I mention:
- Schulyer, “A Stone Knife”
- Lawrence, “Snake”
- Auden, “Their Lonely Betters”
- Lawrence, “Tortoise Family Connections”
My book The Year of Our Lord 1943 has gotten a largely positive response, but thereโs been one odd element to its reception that can be seen here: Some people complain that a book thatโs quite explicitly about what five Christian intellectuals wrote during World War II is marred by its failure to cite works published in 1930 or 1955. ยฏ\_(ใ)_/ยฏย
To put the point very mildly indeed, I am not a fan of Gov. Greg Abbott, but this letter is encouraging. It’s clear that the big AI companies think that minimally regulatory states like Texas, and all of rural America, are easy targets for predation and extraction. If their business model requires them to exploit us rather than deal fairly with us, then the sooner they fail the better.
Of course, what seems true before a World Cup has a way of getting blown to dust by about the second day of matches. But the 2026 tournament, cohosted by the United States, Mexico, and Canada โ though donโt mention the cohosting part to Donald Trump โ kicks off this week in Mexico City, and in all the years Iโve been covering the event, Iโve never seen a World Cup generate this little advance excitement or this much advance disgust. Iโve also never seen a World Cup whose muted buzz could be so clearly attributed to fansโ exhaustion with the cartoon villainy of the people in charge.ย
I keep waiting to see if my indifference-bordering-on-disdain will shift into something more positive, but so far, no. This may be the first World Cup in decades that I don โt watch โฆ or I may end up watching every match I can. The switch could still flip. โฝ๏ธย