Dr. Metablog’s Greatest Hits
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Here's a truth that blows my freakin' mind: since I earned my B. A. in English from Cornell University in 1960, sixty-five years have come and gone. Glaciers have melted and rivers have changed their course since, way back when, in a prior millennium, I was first introduced to serious literature — to Chaucer and…
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My father, who was born in 1904, was a basketball enthusiast when the game was in its infancy. He played guard on Eastern District High School's team and later played as a freshman at CCNY under legendary coach Nat Holman. But Dad came from an impoverished family and left college after one year because, he…
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The premise of Riley Black's The Last Days of the Dinosaurs (New York, 2022) is a most splendid one. Imagine, she proposes, that it is 66 million years ago and dinosaurs are the monarchs of the earth. What was it like, in that era, to be alive in, say, the steamy forests where Wyoming now…
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We visited Beardstown, in southwestern Illinois, because it was the birthplace, in 1845, of one of Lynn's maternal great-grandmothers, Mary St. John DeHaven. Even though it's Lincoln country, we had no idea what to expect, the AAA entry being so scant, but we soon discovered that Beardstown is a place that had its moment of…
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In the mid 1980s, thirty-five years ago, I was in residence for a week at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., researching an article on one of the lesser English Renaissance dramatists — a pleasure as well as a condition of employment. The article turned out to be not a bad piece of academic…
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We settled on University Hill by lucky accident. Shortly after accepting a teaching position, I received a letter from my then-chairman Harold Kelling, urging me to write immediately to Professor J. D. A. Ogilvy, who had a house to rent near the University. I jumped to follow instructions and in August, 1969, the four of…
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This woebegone object was once a plump and thriving stuffed animal — a bear, in fact, though for some reason my children always called him "Puppy." Their only other stuffed animal, a snake, was named "Snakey." Pedestrian nicknames to be sure. I admit that our family wasn't very imaginative about naming our mascots. Even though…
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"Bisson conspectuities" is one of my all-time favorite Shakespearean oxymorons. Although it's not as transparent as, say, "hot ice" or "living death," it's much more quirky and colorful. "Bisson conspectuities" appears in Coriolanus in one of the scenes in which Menenius banters with the Roman crowd. They attack and he parries by enumerating his own…
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First of all, let us dismiss the notion that Charles Dickens invented a pair of persnickety punctilious accountants and named them Jot and Tittle. Sorry, it could or should have been the case, but it's not so. Nevertheless, both "jot" and "tittle," often found in each other's cozy company, have stories to tell. Take jot, for…
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The rooster came to our attention about a month ago. We heard him before we saw him. He was living at the edge of the forest, about one hundred yards from the house. After a few days he became bolder and we were able to catch a glimpse now and then. He's a Barred Rock,…