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 …

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More Visitors

Who but Arthur Wilderson would visit and bring obscure, beautifully- made Czech battle rifles, other military goodies, a bottle of cherry dessert wine from a Colorado winery, and friends, Nate and (female) Evan, with interests in everything from fossil cat cladistics and Darren Naish’s blog to Asian falconry and cartridges I had never heard of? …

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Cladistics

From the always reliable XKCD, via Jonathan who just emailed that he was in Nairobi impatiently waiting to go out in the bush. We should all be so lucky as to have THAT cause for impatience!