Notes of an AlchemistPoems by Loren EiseleyIllustrated by Laszlo KubinyiNew York : Charles Scribner’s Sons (1972) Found in a local used bookstore, after what struck me as a dreary drive past pot stores, fast food joints, and numerous other businesses that have no reason for existing, other than to satisfy a society that prizes bad habits and unhealthy living; past men and women pushing shopping carts bearing all of their […]
When it comes to my immediate surroundings, I see always that there’s sufficient space between and around objects; this extends even to my crowded library — or my library that would be crowded, and would feel crowded, if I didn’t observe my own personal rules of harmony, order, and balance. This creates more than a pleasant overall impression; each shelf, stack, and book is placed and arranged in such a […]
Sometimes I look into my old books as a dying man looks into the sunset and easily finds himself there. Other times, I turn their pages as might a man with dreams and plans with time and energy enough to realize them. A few moments ago, reading the introduction of a small hardcover published in 1893, a book I read in its entirety several years ago, I felt almost as […]
I’m enjoying Melville’s Omoo, and am now about one hundred twenty-five pages in. More story-like than Typee, it’s worth reading for its sailing and sea vocabulary alone. And it’s certainly not without its descriptive humor, as shown in the opening of the twenty-eighth chapter: In a few moments, we were paraded in the frigate’s gangway; the first lieutenant — an elderly, yellow-faced officer, in an ill-cut coat and tarnished gold […]
I simply can’t pass my remaining years this way. It’s better to be in my library, mumbling in languages I’ll never quite understand, English among them. I’ve no more patience with the internet. It drains me, lames me, tames me. I knew more about the world When I was seven: Sunshine is love. So is wet mud. And both are their own perfect heaven. ~ [ 2079 ]
During a brisk walk by the river yesterday morning, we saw two vacant, rugged osprey nests — one in a tall, dead cottonwood tree, the other in a sparse, narrow fir. Both will likely be in use again this spring and summer. We did hear an osprey calling out from over the water, but we didn’t catch sight of it. There are hints of spring in the landscape, though the […]
A while back I noted reading In Thackeray’s London, written and illustrated by Francis Hopkinson Smith. I’ve since had the good luck of finding In Dickens’s London, published by Smith the following year, in 1914. The book, for which I paid a little under eight dollars, arrived in yesterday’s mail. It’s beautiful, both sturdy and aromatic, with its complex old-paper smell, the kind one might expect from having been unopened […]
We broke the ice in the birdbaths and filled them with fresh water. The first drink was taken by a squirrel. Then a pair of juncos descended from the bare birches. They hopped around the rim, stopping for very quick small sips — stopping without stopping, you might say. More sun, more cold, not a drop of rain. The dry air inside makes the sinuses ache. My blood pressure was […]
A clear, chilly morning of thirty degrees. Out under the stars, I ran for the forty-second consecutive day, making six weeks of barefoot sandal running. I saw no one, and was met by only one car, which was driven by one of this country’s many thousands of “independent contractors” delivering packages. I’m about halfway through Melville’s Typee, the narrator of which has come to question who is truly civilized — […]
It’s much less what I’m reading, than the simple fact that I am reading, that I find remarkable. More than remarkable: holding a book in my hands, turning the pages, and making sense of what’s printed on those pages, is a miracle. How the books I read find their way to me, and come to a temporarily safe harbor within these walls, is a mystery. Though it appears that I’m […]
William Michaelian 