Alan Jacobs

Christine Rosen’s new book The Extinction of Experience — which I blurbed — is here also, and here’s a preview in podcast/interview form.

Jeff Bilbro’s new book Words for Conviviality — which I blurbed — is just out, and here’s a preview.

Hi! I’m back!

I’ll be back!

Looking at what the next few weeks hold for me 😬 I realize that I need to take a break from micro.blog for a while. I’ll still be writing at the big blog, though perhaps less frequently than usual. Ciao for now!

I just keep coming back to this one. 🎵

People love Big Stories, sweeping narratives that seek to describe the whole world or the last thousand years, but Big Stories always obscure two essential truths: (a) that local conditions are endlessly variable, and (b) that you and I are constrained by and accountable to our local conditions.

I wrote about William Blake’s sleeping giant.

Ted Gioia on the healing power — literally! — of music.

Rachmaninoff in Sydney — a report from one of my students.

I wrote up My Correct Views on Theological Diversity – the title being a nod-and-wink in the direction of Leszek Kołakowski.

You probably have not heard of Mildred Pope, but I bet you’ll be glad to learn about her.

When I’m writing my back would very much prefer that I do it while reclining in a comfy chair, but this photo shows why that wouldn’t really work.

Feels good to cross the 10K barrier. (Working on my Sayers bio.)

Initial letters. 

Via Damon Krukowski, a reminder that even a basic calendar of events could be a work of art if you wanted it to be. 

Here’s a new post for my BMAC supporters​.

If you slip the cover art out of the plastic box that holds the Criterion edition of Perfect Days​ and look on the back side, you see this:

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Full-size image here​. (I ran that through the scanner but the folds are still somewhat visible. I apologize.)

China depicted by a 17th-century English artist – at the V&A.

Very interesting observation from Ethan Iverson:

Ross Barkan and Freddie deBoer are prolific on their Substacks; I strongly recommend subscribing to both.

Barkan and deBoer have also published essays in The New York Times within the past week. […] The articles are excellent, but they also inevitably went through the rather implacable editorial process of The New York Times. Everyone who writes for the Times ends up sounding like the Times. As a result, the exceptionally distinctive voices of Barkan and deBoer are toned down a little bit.

I became attuned to this particular topic after publishing my Gershwin essay “The Worst Masterpiece: Rhapsody in Blue at 100” in The New York Times this past February. There was at least a week of editing, with two different editors who answered to a higher third editor. After I thought I signed off everything, the final was edited further (without my oversight) and made even more “New York Times-y.”