The sonnet is a neglected form these days.  Verse of all stripes is unpopular — at least under that name, although it still defines popular music.  It’s all in the branding, I suppose.
And current taste often brands the sonnet as precious, artificial, or old-fashioned.  Fair enough; although you could tar most American entertainment genres with the […]

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We have another unexpected encounter, another fleeting kiss of incongruities.  All is chaos and continuity, at least sometimes.
RICHARD SHAVER AND ALBERT EINSTEIN
Richard Shaver — the visionary pulp fictioneer and painter — and Albert Einstein — the mathematical mystic and physics pioneer — were very different men.  They moved in different circles.  But they were both […]

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As we gape at the continuity and chaos of the world, a chance meeting draws our attention. One way to approach the ineffable is to consider the mismatched pairs that time and space have thrown together. Here’s one.
ERIK SATIE AND LE PÉTOMANE
Satie is sometimes depicted as a sort of musical monk, writing his radically simple pieces in […]

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During a dark night — both literal and figurative — I came across this passage, which I now translate:
“Those who say that life is no more than an assemblage of misfortunes must find life itself a misfortune. If it is, then death is a blessing. People do not write such things when they […]

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