December 14: The Millau Viaduct

Millau Viaduct from above

 I like bridges. When I was in grammar school, there was a pedestrian footbridge over the flood control channel that ran along the playground boundary. There were students who lived “beyond the wash” and got to use the bridge every day to get to school. The bridge transcended the division that slashed the neighborhood in… Continue reading December 14: The Millau Viaduct

November 30: Gregory of Tours

Gregory of Tours, Statue at the Louvre, Paris

I like Gregory of Tours. His feast is November 17, but I opted to talk about Möbius that day, so we’ll consider Gregory today, on the anniversary of his birth, A.D. November 30, 539. Students at Scholars Online have the rare opportunity to read Gregory, in English in Western Literature to Dante, or in Latin… Continue reading November 30: Gregory of Tours

November 14: Moby-Dick

Harpooning the White Whale (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1902 edition)

“Call me Ishmael.” Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick begins with a three-word imperative — one of the most famous openings ever written for a novel. That is it the product not of the late twentieth century, but of the mid-nineteenth, is especially remarkable. Whereas most novels of its day ease the reader into the unfolding story by stages, this… Continue reading November 14: Moby-Dick