Saint Ephrem or Ephraim was a deacon in the early church, living in Turkey during the 4th century. His prayers were so beautiful that he was called "the harp of the Holy Spirit." Here is one of his prayers from the Psaltery of Saint Ephraim (95). Praise God in the morning, ye children of the [...]
Picture by James Clark Tidden, Villa d'Este, 1923. https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1223147/m2/1/high_res_d/HETAG_Newsletter_No7_201609_September_Houston_in_Europe.pdf And who is James Clark Tidden? In pursuit of a short story idea, I’ve been reading about Rice University’s early days. Rice had an architecture and art department right from the start (1912) and, right from the start, they seem to have behaved like the European [...]
I was reminded recently that I was ‘connected’ — by marriage — to Sam Houston. I remember hearing this in some very vague way and knowing that it was a bit of a joke to whoever was saying it to me. However, in the course of various researches I’ve been doing, I stumbled across Isabel [...]
A friend sent me a YouTube video for an art exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, devoted to the artist Raphael. It is one of the largest exhibitions of his work ever put on. It is exquisite. Watch the video. https://youtu.be/y5vnCnB4JcE?si=M3snocb7Aeo2wJY5 Lots of paintings are on view but also, lots of drawings and [...]
I’m having a bit of a struggle with my writing. I invented a setting where I think about choices that people make, and how they work out what they are willing to do to make their choices real. Written like that it sounds like any long novel, but in fact I’m writing short stories about [...]
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