Tom Quinn RACED through with wife Jeri today en route from her aunt’s old house in Tularosa (no quail this year) over the subzero divide toward rainy Point Reyes. The snapshot though hardly great connects a lot of dots. (As always right or double click to see bigger). Upper left is a Vadim Gorbatov original …
Tag: Connections
Art, Science, Insect Hunting, and Nabokov
John Wilson’s butterfly photos remind me of one of the great neglected stories of 20th century intellectual life; that Vladimir Nabokov was not just a writer and teacher but a great taxonomist, this despite being denigrated as a dilettante in his time. Joseph Conrad is legitimately revered for becoming a great English novelist in his …
Michael’s fly; more connections…
As promised, the “Goshawk & Claret”, on its cover letter from Michael Simon back in 2000 [I had put 1990, meant to type 1999, and it was actually 2000!]The reason for the Khyber Pass falconer- with- Gos in “Teaser”, below, is that Michael spent a good bit of his youth in Afghanistan before war tore …
Battle Rugs & Endless Connections
I have posted a pic of my Soviet- war era Afghan battle rug before. It is a prized possession, drenched in haunted history and metaphorical blood. I got it from fellow fly fisher and double gun nut (and fine artist and rug fancier) Michael Simon, then of Livingston Montana. Daniela, who, like many of us …
Some “Country” Music Videos: Nostalgia and Chills…
Not all “country” music is unsophisticated or even American. Here I give you a bunch of stuff I have been working through and following. Let us start with Tom Russell’s classic “US Steel”— a straight- up traditional country lament complete with sweet pedal steel, but set in Pennsylvania rather than on the border or even …
More Thoughts on Prof. McMahan’s Essay
Reading yesterday’s NYT (online) essay, The Meat Eaters, by Rutgers University professor of philosophy Jeff McMahan (forwarded by reader Daniela and shared below by Steve), I’m almost more puzzled by my own need to comment on the piece than I am amazed by it. It’s tempting to lump this man’s essay in with the tiresome mass of …
Worst NYT piece EVER?
Unfortunately the Times is not up to Jeff Lockwood’s standard today, at least outside of their science pages. Last night Daniela sent me this essay by a philosophy professor at Rutgers who is also a visiting one at Princeton (which at least balances him and Peter Singer with Freeman Dyson, who outweighs them both together …
Military Rifles and the LATE Great Game
To continue the series on guns I have & like, humble & noble… I don’t have a military Mauser because I already have a first rate example built as sporting one. I don’t have a Springfield because with a gun of similar action and caliber (Mauser) it seems a bit redundant. I don’t have a …
Nest
From the book files: Bratislav Grubac from Serbia, writer and photographer of the good book Suri Orao (Golden Eagle) and fellow Mongolia- phile, sends this entry for Eagle: a Steppe eagle nest on the ground in Mongolia.
Bookplate
Reid has been after me to do this one for ages. Let’s see: here is a slice of bookcase (yes, Carel, you are in there too). Take out that black one in the center. There it is: See the bookplate? Let’s zoom in. Can you read it? When I found it in a store in …