Samizdat Blog

W.H. Auden once wrote out a description of Eden as he would wish it to be.  I've long wanted to go through his various categories...

When asked the question “what do you do?” who is entitled to reply “I’m a writer”?   That’s the question animating an essay by Tom Co...

George Orwell was many things—martyr, masochist, moralist, Etonian malcontent—but he was not a particularly scrupulous scholar.   So w...

Those of you who have booked me for a lecture, poetry reading, radio spot, celebrity roast, bris, or beauty pageant have been getting...