The Weeping Rock of Niobe, Spil Dağı (Mt. Sipylus), Manisa Province, Turkey. Photo Carole Raddato, Courtesy Wikimedia Commons As the Greeks told it, the Agamemnon Cycle began…… Read more “The Fall of the House of Tantalus”

Clytemestra mourning, from Sacrifice of Iphigenia fresco, c.1st Century, Pompeii. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons They say that there is also a shrine of the heroine Iphigenia; for she…… Read more “Iphigenia and the Cult of the Sacrificed Child”

JUST SAW YOUR FOURTH JAZZ CRITICS POLL. IT’S OBVIOUS THAT THERE IS A NEW MINORITY GROUP, “WHITE JAZZ MUSICIANS.” THE ONLY THING I GAINED FROM STUDYING THE…… Read more “Jazz in Black and White: On Race and Jazz”

And so he went privily into the court, and saw this adventure, whereof it raised his heart, and he would assay it as other knights did, but…… Read more “Thomas Malory: The Knight-Prisoner’s Redemption”

So they cut down the trees, and burned their stumps that the grass might grow sweet for their kine and sheep and horses; and they diked the…… Read more “William Morris and J.R.R. Tolkien”

[O]n Good Friday I awoke to find the sun shining brightly for the first time in this house: the little garden was radiant with green, the birds…… Read more “Parsifal”

   ‘Shall Rome or Heathen rule in Arthur’s realm?Flash brand and lance, fall battleaxe upon helm,Fall battleaxe, and flash brand!  Let the King reign.   ‘Strike for the…… Read more “Idylls of the King”

In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen…… Read more “The Knight of La Mancha”

Chrétien’s grail was a serving dish upon rich meats and delicacies magically appeared.  For later writers it was the chalice Christ used at the last Supper.  The…… Read more “Joseph of Arimathea: Keeper of the Grail”

The term “Cultural Marxism” is often bandied about as the Right’s version of “Fascism” — a slur that means little save “I don’t like it.” This episode…… Read more “Notes From the End of time 17: Gramsci, Popper and the Frankfurt School”