Author: stevendouglasblog

Born in 1954. Chequered career including Lecturer in English, Social Worker and Lecturer in Social Work. Had breaks related to mental health that also meant I worked in social care. Now retired.

‘The School Play’: Growing up Queer amid so many manly performances. The poet James Merrill on the perils of a “small part”, “but an important one”, when: ‘What was not important to the self / At nine or ten’.

April 6, 2025

As I sort my library, I come across writers I have long meant to read. Such a one is the poet James Merrill, who I came across in relation to reading novels of his period some years ago. I know nothing really of Merrill.  I read through the selection I have in the Everyman Library … More ‘The School Play’: Growing up Queer amid so many manly performances. The poet James Merrill on the perils of a “small part”, “but an important one”, when: ‘What was not important to the self / At nine or ten’.

Do Roads answer questions? In honour of a great photographer, Chris Killip

April 5, 2025

As I was sorting out my books again, I came across a book I bought at the Laing (pronounced ‘Laine’) Gallery in Newcastle when I visited the wonderful permanent exhibition there. It’s a huge book – the size newspapers used to be and made of a similar kind of paper. But how do you look … More Do Roads answer questions? In honour of a great photographer, Chris Killip

‘For the Mesopotamians, truth was not contained ….’: was their culture such a one that norms existed alongside happily alongside their contradiction, and repression was unnecessary. This blog reflects on a first reading of Selena Wisnom [2025] ‘The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of History’.

April 4, 2025

When Alexander Pope warned that ‘a little learning is a dangerous thing,’ he was warning that, since error lies everywhere, we need exposure to all the evidence that supports the one and only version of knowledge of the world that is the truth. The real danger is that there are so many statements that claim … More ‘For the Mesopotamians, truth was not contained ….’: was their culture such a one that norms existed alongside happily alongside their contradiction, and repression was unnecessary. This blog reflects on a first reading of Selena Wisnom [2025] ‘The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of History’.

Thomas Haller’s resurrection is his ‘lilac renaissance, his violet hour’.

April 3, 2025

Fritz Schein lives entirely in, and on as his means of living, ‘the art world’ of ‘spectacularity’ – a world of apparently random images and appearances that eschews the privacy of inner reflection by being in love with the still surface of mirrors. When the ‘great recluse’ Thomas Haller turns up at a show Schein knows … More Thomas Haller’s resurrection is his ‘lilac renaissance, his violet hour’.

Has anyone truly adapted? Pandemics and the global extinction of livable environments are the wilful product of a world obsessed with growth and competitive domination.

April 2, 2025

How have you adapted to the changes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic? GAVI is a public-private partnership created to enable the vaccination of more of the vulnerable populations of the globe. And yet, even so, its research implicates the need for change in the approach of both sectors to their belief in growth as … More Has anyone truly adapted? Pandemics and the global extinction of livable environments are the wilful product of a world obsessed with growth and competitive domination.

When knowledge is reduced to appearance and those appearances animate ‘legends’ so that the experience is ‘epic’, there is no room for a book to ‘read over and over again’.

April 1, 2025

I still have not got myself ready to write on James Cahill’s wonderful novel The Violet Hour, though I have started, but today one part of it sticks out as usable in answer to this question. One particularly character in the novel, Fritz Schein represents what the ‘art world’ is increasingly meant to mean for … More When knowledge is reduced to appearance and those appearances animate ‘legends’ so that the experience is ‘epic’, there is no room for a book to ‘read over and over again’.

Let’s be Dante!

March 29, 2025

I could be Dante because, as yet, I have read only extracts of what is considered by some the greatest poem of the modern world. Moreover, I have been preparing to read it for so long that the task of cataloguing these volumes is raising my cultural guilt to new and higher levels than ever. … More Let’s be Dante!

When I do strange things, fortunately I laugh at myself. A case in point …

March 28, 2025

My current reading Being retired and in one’s seventh decade of age leaves the issue of time open and yet I seem forever to find certain nagging questions pressing on my mind as if they mattered top anyone – even myself. Here is a case in point. i have resolved to do a blog a … More When I do strange things, fortunately I laugh at myself. A case in point …

The art of not being looked at comfortably: Ron Mueck

March 27, 2025

I am still cataloguing books, clearing away rejects as I go and re-reading when I feel the curiosity. I placed the 2826th book for keeping on the catalogue I am making tonight (the rest boxed for various Fates) and then sat down to read that little book through again and reflect. It was a volume … More The art of not being looked at comfortably: Ron Mueck

‘There is always too much and too little said in any story of desire’. A blog that won’t be written on a book that just needs to be read and reflected upon.

March 26, 2025

‘There is always too much and too little said in any story of desire’. [1] Simon Goldhill is an exquisite historian as well as scholar of Greek drama, as his book on the Benson family deeply illustrates (see my blog on this at this link). As works they they therefore satisfy without commentary – for … More ‘There is always too much and too little said in any story of desire’. A blog that won’t be written on a book that just needs to be read and reflected upon.