Funny the way this whole thing started, then took on a life of its own. I was having a coffee with a colleague some years older than me (these days they’re scarce), and he was lamenting the 15,000 maritime books he owns, just part of a bigger collection of tens of thousand of other sorts […] More >>
Archives for December 2016
Feeding the Rat
Well, all the chores are done. The winter’s wood is cut, split, and stacked. The compost has been turned one last time. The bills are paid. The books from the last couple of catalogs are wrapped and shipped. I’ve even got my Christmas shopping done. Everybody’s getting the same book – Fredrik Sjoberg’s The Fly […] More >>
Who Cares? I’ll Tell You Who Cares!
On January 3, 1841 the whale ship Acushnet departed Fairhaven, Mass. on a voyage to the Pacific. On board, serving as a common seaman, was a young ex-schoolteacher named Herman Melville. By July of that year they’d rounded the Horn and were off the west coast of South America, as Melville recorded it, “on the […] More >>
Faced with the Prospect…
Last month I stirred the pot up by posting an entry which several readers construed as “political.” A few disapproved of using a commercial space to post a personal message. A few supported the post, and most people didn’t give a damn. In that spirit I offer the following obituary – not because it’s “political,” […] More >>