Tag Archives: language

Montserrat of the Heart

Posted on December 3, 2025 by JMN

When I thought I’d become a poet my head was as empty as a young male’s under-developed frontal lobe can be. In hindsight I can see it now. It was hiding in plain sight, the poetry, waiting for me to … Continue reading →

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‘The Things That You’re Liable to Read in the Bible…’

Posted on December 2, 2025 by JMN

“… They ain’t necessarily so,” goes the song in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. “If we could stop coming at the Bible postured as though we’re the ones that own it… to prop up, whether it’s theologies, whatever makes us comfortable, … Continue reading →

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‘Something Endlessly Inspiring and Strange’

Posted on November 29, 2025 by JMN

While Shakespeare’s plays must have stemmed from some personal experience, they take the “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to” and, through an act of artistic creation, fashion them into something endlessly inspiring and strange. (Drew Lichtenberg) Inspiring and … Continue reading →

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Portrait of the Reader as an Exigent Mug

Posted on November 27, 2025 by JMN

“Boundless extension of torment, incredible intensity of suffering, unceasing variety of torture. This is what the Divine Majesty, so outraged by sinners, demands.” (From “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” by James Joyce) I’ve been hearing a milestone … Continue reading →

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The Parable of Angus Burdoo

Posted on November 22, 2025 by JMN

“Interdependence is no longer our choice… It is our condition. We will either build healthy interdependencies and rise together or suffer through unhealthy interdependencies and fall together.” (Dov Seidman, quoted here) Picture a man who engenders a lovely daughter. In … Continue reading →

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Never Too Many Books

Posted on November 21, 2025 by JMN

… Peter-Ayers Tarantino[’s aesthetic] recalls that of maximalist bibliophiles of centuries past, including Marcel Proust and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, was formed during a life on the road. In the Abstract Expressionism section, Tarantino extracts, almost without looking, a thick … Continue reading →

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And One More Thing…

Posted on November 17, 2025 by JMN

I adore compression and spareness, and Infinite Jest, finished at 7:29PM on 11-16-25, is bloated and prolix. It tells you something that it’s a novel with footnotes. Hundreds of them. During the periods when I ground my teeth, it tracked … Continue reading →

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‘I’m Too Old to Paint Such Beautiful Things’

Posted on November 15, 2025 by JMN

Monet made the comment about being too old before starting to paint the town feverishly. I’ve seen enough of his paintings for now. They’re on pillowcases and doilies. They’re everywhere!  What I relish is seeing the man himself feeding the … Continue reading →

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Middlesex Praise God, Texas View

Posted on November 13, 2025 by JMN

Imagine Middlesex — it must exist — a town, maybe a “village,” not a city. It’s in The Shires — wherever that is — an English village situated on a stream whose name is sufficiently spelt with three letters. The … Continue reading →

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Time’s Wingèd Hotrod Tailgates Our Patoots*

Posted on November 11, 2025 by JMN

 “It’s easier to turn an aquarium into fish soup than to turn fish soup into an aquarium.” (Russian saying) Time’s wingèd hotrod tailgates our patoots.The piper that denies it is pie-eyed.Rosin up the bow and lick a toad!Time’s wingèd hotrod … Continue reading →

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