Portrait of George Eliot
National Portrait Gallery, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
In the picture above, my brother Richard, who passed away a few weeks after this photo was taken, my 85-year-old brother Ed, and I are pictured.
I remember that I could not bear the pyrotechnics of human existence: how life ignited for an instant, burst in the air in a myriad of color flares, then all at once vanished. Who ignited it? Who gave it such fascination and beauty, then suddenly, pitilessly, snuffed it out? “No,” I shouted, “I will not accept this, will not subscribe; I shall find some way to keep life from expiring.” ~ Nikos Kazantzakis
My 85-year-old brother was recently released from the ICU at a hospital in Missouri after having a stent placed in his heart. Evidently, he has a long rehab in front of him. Ed is as cognitively sharp as ever, but his physical health has been deteriorating over the past few years. Continue reading My Oldest Brother Is Ill
Henri-Pierre Danloux, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
(Le Baron de Besenval dans son salon de compagnie at the Hôtel de Besenval, by Henri-Pierre Danloux (1791). The baron was a patron in both the arts and sciences.)
My main patron for this website, without whom it couldn’t continue, forwarded a link to a NYT review of a new book releasing next week, Call It Evil: Understanding the Trump Era. Continue reading Call It Evil: Understanding the Trump Era
In the summer of 1974, I was driving east on I-70 in St. Louis when a ladder fell off the truck in front of me. Steering to avoid the ladder, I drove over it, and a piece of it locked my wheels. Continue reading Ralph Nadar and the US Government Saved My Life
