Dr. Metablog

Dr. Metablog is the nom de blague of Vivian de St. Vrain, the pen name of a resident of the mountain west who writes about language, books, politics, or whatever else comes to mind. Under the name Otto Onions (Oh NIGH uns), Vivian de St. Vrain is the author of “The Big Book of False Etymologies” (Oxford, 1978) and, writing as Amber Feldhammer, is editor of the classic anthology of confessional poetry, “My Underwear” (Virago, 1997).

June 2013

  • There is an ocean of difference between colloquial conversation in real life and the dialogue that appears in Shakespeare's works, even when his plays are at their least artificial and most mimetic. In its most ordinary use, the word "conversation" means nothing more that the talk in which real men and women engage in the…

    Read more…

  • By March of 1962, John Fowles had finished but not yet published The Collector, a work that I've never loved, and was still fussing with The Magus, the novel that hit me so hard when it appeared in 1965. Fowles was also reading just as randomly as I do, as I have now discovered from…

    Read more…

RECENT POSTS


ARCHIVE