Category: Literature

D.H. Lawrence Taught Me a Lot about America Today

Featured, History, Literature

“What,” I wondered, “does that British pornographer have to say about American literature?”

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Garden Writing is About More than Plants

Featured, Gardening, Literature

The biographical, philosophical, meditational, and countercultural world of American gardening literature

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Are You Trapped in the World of Total Work?

November 27, 2020

Wage work, in other words, is replaced with play work. It’s like changing from a smelly shirt into the sweat-soaked shirt you jogged in a few hours earlier.
How to Pay for Thanksgiving Dinner

November 26, 2020

The price of turkeys is up about 12% from last year. Vegetables and breads are up 7%ish.
Annual Thanksgiving Day Quotes

November 26, 2020

“If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice.” Meister Eckhart
Black Wednesday Arriveth

November 25, 2020

I was going to play my Spotify "Garage Rock Elite" playlist, but it promises to be a more laid-back affair, so I might go with my "Mellow" list. We'll see.
Nineteen Decadents You Ought (Not?) Know

November 24, 2020

Men prepare themselves for the next life differently (Socrates: Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius. Will you be sure to repay the debt? Tiberius: Crito, bring me that boy.)
You’re Not a Lunatic? Thank Your Daddy.

November 23, 2020

Portland’s feral children have bonded since the 1980s in “street families,” complete with “street moms” and “street dads.” Some of the most grotesque crimes in the city’s history have ensued thanks to “laws” about “family” loyalty
Triple Anniversary

November 22, 2020

CSL, JFK, and AH (Aldous Huxley). All died this day in 1963.
Seven Days Make One Weak

November 21, 2020

Expertise is the taurine of the State and intellectuals are its caffeine. Experts and intellectuals make the State think that it can do far, far more than it can.
How We Can Still Celebrate Holiday Drinking in These Troubling Days?

November 20, 2020

The decadents think it’s a shortened version of “Black-out Wednesday,” but it’s not. It’s a play off “Black Friday,” which is “black” because retailers turn huge profits that day. “Black Wednesday” is black because it turns huge profits for bars.
What’s Going on at TDE?

November 19, 2020

Please use the Amazon search widget or any of the TDE Amazon links (bolded links = Amazon links) when you shop this year for Christmas presents.

Triple Anniversary

CSL, JFK, and AH (Aldous Huxley). All died this day in 1963.
The Downfall of Cecil Rhodes (11/26/2020)

Stefan Kanfer, in his book on the De Beers diamond cartel, gives Chesterton the last word on Cecil Rhodes
Dalrymple Explores the Exploding Underclass (11/22/2020)

I have encountered many alcoholic Sikhs, for example, who were among the most refractory with regard to abstinence of all my patients; I have encountered almost every kind of social pathology among Muslims, from incest to drug addiction.
A Few Interesting Red-Blue Facts (11/21/20)

Blue states and red states don’t even watch the same television shows. Game of Thrones was popular in Blue America, but Red America watches The Walking Dead.
Bill Eerdman, RIP (11/21/2020)

He forfeited an advance and backed away from co-publishing a book by an important English scholar because he came to see it as denying the preexistence of the Son, the only time in his own career, the originating English publisher later joked, that he had had a book turned down because it was "weak on the hypostatic union”
Do You Rely on Your Doctor? (11/21/2020)

Steven Levitt, of Freakonomics fame, was recently interviewed on Econtalk. At approximately minute 21:50, he said that, if you're diagnosed with a rare disease, you can research it for a day on the Internet and you'll know more about it than a general practitioner.
Negativity Bias Identified Long Before It was Identified (11/18/2020)

The minds of men always dwell more on bad luck. They accept ordinary prosperity as a matter of course. Misfortunes arrest their attention and remain in their memory.
Synopsis: 11/17/2020 Post

The Left, including Pope Francis, thinks savings and success are entirely or mostly the result of privilege and structural inequities, so it feels justified taking away the resulting wealth and giving it to those who weren’t so privileged.
The Smithsonian’s Assumptions of Whiteness

Things non-whites should shun: self-reliance, the nuclear family, the idea that “hard work is the key to success," the scientific method, mathematics, and rational linear thinking.
Epstein Corner

Walking along the beach, Goldstein finds a bottle, picks it up, and—surprise! surprise!—a genie emerges. . .

“In America, they have a feast to celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims. Here in England, we should have a feast to celebrate their departure.” GKC
“It is the inner mystery of every soul to be a new and unique tapestry of two basic tendencies—power and love, surmounting and surrender, domination and humility.” Erich Przywara
"The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another." William James
"Fight all error, but do it with good humor, patience, kindness, and love. Harshness will damage your own soul and spoil the best cause." St. John (not BLM fan) Cantius
"If I can acquire money, and also keep myself modest and faithful and magnanimous, point out the way and I will acquire it." Epictetus
“It is quite human for the sinner to acknowledge his weakness and to ask mercy for his failings; what is unacceptable is the attitude of one who makes his own weakness the criterion of the truth about the good, so that he can feel self-justified, without even the need to have recourse to God and his mercy. An attitude of this sort corrupts the morality of society as a whole, . . .”. John Paul II
“The holy man always conceals his holiness; that is the one invariable rule.” G. K. Chesterton
“All prayer begins by man becoming silent.” Romano Guardini
"Why can’t people let each other alone and not obtrude on each other?" Dorothy Day