I talked with a group of poets yesterday. Poetry operates at a level beyond my ordinary grasp; often it reads like an excuse for lazy incoherence rather than stabs at truth. In yesterday’s case, the writers had forged their art around efforts to ensure equal rights and legal protections for women. The event rose above … Continue reading Poetic Feminist Rant
Thoreau
Thoreau’s First New Yorker Cartoon
The wordless cartoons of Nurit Karlin. The sketched illustrations of R.O. Blechman. Turns out these staples from The New Yorker have an antecedent in Henry David Thoreau. Had The New Yorker been around, how might Thoreau have captioned this sketch from Journal XVII, kept February 1854 to September 1854? Certainly not as follows: At the steam-mill sand-bank was … Continue reading Thoreau’s First New Yorker Cartoon
Thoreau, Hold the Joe
Noble and wise, Henry David Thoreau also could be irascible, judgy, and temperamental. In Walden, we learn why: a conspicuous absence of coffee. Take his list of supplies: Rice..... $ 1.73½ Molasses..... 1.73 Cheapest form of the saccharine. Rye meal..... 1.04¾ Indian meal..... 0.99¾ Cheaper than rye. Pork..... 0.22 Flour..... 0.88 Costs more than Indian meal, both money … Continue reading Thoreau, Hold the Joe
Ben East Books 