From Quentin Bell's life of Ruskin, and a perfect example of why I love concise biographies as opposed to doorstoppers (although I love doorstoppers too):

Emerson, circa 1847: "Work and learn in evil days, in insulted days, in days of debt and depression and calamity. Fight best in the shade of the cloud of arrows.” Now more than ever.

Hard to believe that this five-year-old American Scholar piece emerged from a moment of optimism (relatively speaking). We have to keep hanging on. theamericanscholar.org/mansion-on-the…

Am putting the final touches on my new novel, "There Was Bad Traffic: Godot Tells His Own Story At Last."

Joseph Rezek and I appear to be related.

Portrait of Igor Stravinsky. 1920 Picasso. #art #painting #arts #finearts #luizsantosarts

Active shooter four blocks from my house. I hear lots of sirens and helicopters outside, am hoping this nightmarish situation is resolve soon. x.com/Worldsource24/…

Alexander Pope

I visited the Smithsonian after the inauguration specifically to take pictures of anything that seemed like it might get censored, and there were times during that day when I started to wonder if this was just irrational doomscroll-induced paranoia. Welp

A fruitcake rather than an egghead | Norman Lebrecht | The Critic Magazine thecritic.co.uk/a-fruitcake-ra…

This one's new to me:

Among the greatest things about a trip to Finland is visiting Ainola, Sibelius's house outside of Helsinki. The place is fairly modest, the thrill enormous. Here is the composer's grave, his piano, his rotating flotilla of six ashtrays, and me sitting outside, humming "Tapiola":

Sibelius aside, another highlight was this large public sauna, with jolly Finns in bathing suits on the deck. The steam tunneled its way straight through my nasal passages and poached the underside of my brain. The antidote was a dip in the adjacent, freezing Gulf of Finland.

Berlin is a city filled with "memory culture," but it's more and more difficult for denizens to grasp the present, where anxiety about antisemitism obscures everything. Adam Shatz in London Review of Books: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/…

Our 45th Anniversary Season kicks off on 19 September as we perform Sibelius and Rachmaninoff Cheltenham Town Hall cheltenhamtownhall.org.uk/event/english-… Lots more details on our website! eso.co.uk youtu.be/SQK5CsevK1w?li…

Genius negotiator Steve Witkoff talking (to Tucker Carlson) about Vladimir Putin's empathy. Something of a comic masterpiece. Should be read with "You've Got a Friend" playing in the background.

Mahler on the composition of the Fourth Symphony. I love his sense of being a perpetual beginner, starting from scratch each time around:

This issue of the TLS features Jonathan Keates on the Durrells, George Berridge on wine; Lily on Michael Clune; Evan Jones on Cavafy; Harrison Stetler on HE in France; Crispin Sartwell on addiction; Alison Kelly on Geraldine Brooks – and much more