A reminder from my past

At SiriusXM Martin Goldsmith dips into his memory archive (and mine) to remind us of what Phil Ochs said—

Ah, but in such an ugly time the true protest is beauty.

I didn't listen long enough to hear whether Mr Goldsmith also asked "when will they ever learn?"

Has Baseball Lost Its Poetry?

Most of all, I get the feeling that a languorous 19th-century invention — baseball — is being forced to fit a 21st-century pace of life. Most days, most places, I already feel rushed, sensing, as Andrew Marvell wrote, “time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near.” Now I have to feel that at the ballpark, too?

I don't know whether I appreciate more the whole of Jesse Nathan's thoughts in "Baseball Has Lost Its Poetry" or the remarkable feat of placing a reference to "To His Coy Mistress" in an essay about baseball.

The ideal reading experience according to Patrick Stewart


Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).

Immediately on waking up I make a cup of Yorkshire Gold with a chocolate digestive and read in bed for half an hour, or more. Always a book. Never a script or emails. This not only wakes me up, it puts me back in the world we are living in and who we are today. Unless there is an urgent reason I do not look at newspaper headlines, or listen to the news until halfway through the morning.


By the Book at the New York Times

On the verge of war

Steven Spender reports a conversation with T.S. Eliot in 1939 via Diaries of Note

About writing, he said that it was very important that one should, at all costs, go on writing now. ‘It doesn’t seem to me to matter very much whether one isn’t able to do anything very good. The important thing is to keep going. Probably it’s impossible to do excellent work while things are so disturbed.’
 
 I mentioned that I hadn’t been able to work, so had started this journal. He said, ‘Yes, that’s an excellent idea. Just writing every day is a way of keeping the engine running, and then something good may come out of it.’