Blog

I bang out half-baked commentaries, like the mad editor of some hallucinated news desk, clinging insanely to the bleeding edge of journalism as if his very life depended on it. In more lucid moments, I believe I have the facts reasonably well in hand, and in my editorial flights of fancy, am desperately attempting to make sense of it all, knowing full well only myself – and perhaps the cat – will ever see the fruits of my compulsive labors.
    Those are the good days. The bad are more of the same, only darker, with vaguely paranoid undercurrents and eddies.
 
    John Day

I resisted creating a web log when the idea first arose, and did so yet more strenuously when a friend, tired of the endless stream of short, barely rational and often caustic emails he was receiving from me, suggested a blog was just the place for my amateur punditry. Either I eventually recognized his wisdom, or else grew tired of arguing with him. Not quite sure which. The result, such as it is, may be found here.

The Wisdom of H L Mencken

While walking off a remarkably pleasant meal of Middle Eastern cuisine recently, I wandered into a used bookstore, one I'd noted on previous occasions, but never found the time to explore. Inside was a dusty mess, heaps of books piled on the floor and spilling from the tops and shelves of ill-ordered and burgeoning cases: in a word, paradise. Or at least it looked like paradise to me.
    Though pressed for time, I nonetheless found something of interest, and presenting the yellowing paperback - Alistair Cooke's The Vintage Mencken (1955) - to the gothibopper behind the counter, was told the price of this little gem was but 46¢. So much for the value of American literature. I magnanimously offered her fifty – curiously, a gesture she did not find particularly amusing – and counted myself among the blessed.
    I've shared some of the joy and insight the text has brought me here.