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Sunday, October 30, 2016

Letters From the Lettered


The devolution of culture is as exponential as it is inexorable. Its flotsam and jetsam stream across our screens each day. The decimation and impending demise of newspapers is a paradigm of this descent.

In the 20th century, when well-educated individuals often sought my counsel in crafting their correspondence, I mused whether letter-writing was a dying art. With the rise of chat and texting in the 21st, it is the future of the letter itself that concerns me. 

Yet letters, particularly those penned by the literate, are literature, Such Letters From the Lettered may end up in the dead letter box, but their worth lies in their writing, and that is the legacy I hope to honor through this review series.

Friday, July 08, 2016

Return of the Prodigal Son

While a significant contributing factor, our fallen human nature is a poor excuse for our lapses and failures. Suffice it to say, this is not the first time that I have picked up my quill to write some lines here after a prolonged absence. Such is the nature of life  mine, at any rate, mea culpa ― a carousel of contrition, confession, penance, amendment . . . and relapse.

I thank God for His mercy and the kindness of my confreres for affording me the opportunity to return to my post, as a prodigal son, and rejoin our common cause: language in the service of a life of reason in the quest for truth, one I've continued to wage elsewhere, however imperfectly ― which brings us back to the opening line. Carousel indeed, won't you join me for the ride?