You are here: Home / culture Hello! You may remember me. From September 2011 through October 2024 (with some short intermissions) I published this little blog, Big Food, Big Garden, Big Life in rural Mississippi. I need very much to get back to writing. And so I’m making an effort to be back. And what better to start posting than with
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From a couple of years ago… errr, I mean ~2700 years ago but still relevant. “I suggest you reflect on the clearing of your debts and the avoidance of famine. First, a household… . The utilities in the house must all be got ready, lest you ask another, and he refuse, and you be lacking,
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“Catching the Turkey” Grandma Moses 1940 More in the “Catching the Turkey” series here. Though I know little about Grandma Moses, primitivism, or art, I am a fan of Anna Mary Robertson, and enjoy looking at her work. “A Blizzard” 1956
The Farm. November 19, 2023. Happy Thanksgiving Week! This week we’ll rummage through 12 years’ worth of Thanksgiving related posts and see what we can come up with from bygone days. I am semi-inclined to write something new, so stay tuned for that as well. And as a reminded, the latest reiteration of Jesse Jackson’s
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By every act of good, we quantitatively … do make the world better, and we disproportionately make the world better for the receiver of our kindness. “The Capacity for Good of an Ordinary Man” at ThinkingWest One might think that the greatest good one can do is that which benefits the most amount of people.
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This isn’t a political blog, though I have my share of opinions of politics and the state of worldly affairs. But this must be stopped one way or another–and hedged against if we can’t. By ‘we’ I mean normal human beings, the sort who have been on the planet long enough to know better than
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Ahh. The olden days. Came across this from September 2019. Made me smile. Here’s the background. As part of his day job, Mr. Big Food and I had been going to the Alabama Philosophical Society annual meetings, held at Pensacola Beach, for a few years. In 2018 he arranged to have a one day session
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This is a good little story. It’s a shame James Whitcomb Riley, The Hoosier Poet, has fallen out of favor. That old book I mentioned yesterday–Children’s Reading: A Guide for Parents and Teachers (1926)–includes Riley and his works among reading for kids. A lot of his books have been digitized and almost all are free.
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My library contains a lot of old books by Great Thinkers addressing life’s most profound questions. What does it mean to flourish as a human being? How can we believe in a benevolent God in the face of brutish evil? What is the proper relationship of the state to the citizen? Why is Tuesday becoming preferable to Monday as wash-day?
From a series of newspaper articles I wrote in 2014. Cross posted to The Old Books Blog. Books Bygone: What does history mean to you? “What does history mean to you? Is it alive, or is it dead and buried in the past? Is it a list of dry happenings with drier dates, or is
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We begin with “Organized Innocents: MacDonald, Lewis, and Literature ‘For the Childlike’” by Daniel Gabelman in Informing the Inklings: George MacDonald and the Victorian Roots of Modern Fantasy (George MacDonald Society, 2018) which sets the stage by quoting a bunch of C.S. Lewis which I’ve read many times over, and some things that Locke had
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There’s a new Horizon A Magazine of the Arts post up at The Old Books Blog. Lots of fun and entertaining stuff from long ago. Click on over and discover what the artsy folk were thinking and worrying about sixty years ago.
Literature Primers: Greek Literature. R.C. Jebb. American Book Company, New York. 1890. That’s a post from back in 2016 and I can certainly understand the sentiment. But I’m inclined to say the alphabet itself is “one of the most precious things to come down from the past.” Where besides Miss Missy’s School are kids going to
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of a White Christmas… As far as I’m concerned, white Christmases can stay in Vermont, but I want you to have that tune in your head as I tell the story of little Israel Baline, and the man he came to be. Israel was born in Temun, Russia in 1888. His family was Jewish and
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“This book has been twelve years in the making. It was in January 1948 I started criss-crossing the United States as roving Food Editor for This Week Magazine–my assignment, tell “How America Eats.” I have traveled by train, plane, automobile, by mule back, on foot–in all over 800,000 miles.” –Clementine Paddleford, How America Eats
This my from my regular Monday posts featuring an old Horizon (A Magazine of the Arts) issue. Each post has the cover art and Table of Contents plus one featured article. For today’s post, I chose “What Good is Television?” by Walter Kerr. He is a critic, renowned for writing perhaps the best book ever
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MarciaWAC had a nice post at The Old Books Blog sharing a bit of the history of the dust cover. Some fun (and scandalous!) examples! Click on over. Reposts and links to The Old Books Blog are much appreciated. Around the end of the 19th century Book Jackets were being used to protect the book
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From the Raleigh, North Carolina News and Observer, Friday November 28, 1958. If I’m not mistaken, I think I saw one store advertising a 9:30 closing. Gotta out do the competition.
Yes, indeed, Dear Readers–it’s time once again for our annual mini-rant about why I don’t like the term, “Black Friday.” [Minor edits form original] “Black Friday” Thoughts: Part 1 Originally published on November 24, 2011 These two short essays are from Lines of a Layman: T)he Golden Rule in Every Day Living. The author is a guy named
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I know everyone is ready to be in a festive mood, but I couldn’t resist re-posting this from 10 years ago. I hate the phrase “Black Friday.” Later today I will devote some time to its origin and long-abandoned alternatives. Are you starting to prep for the weekend yet? Mr. Big Food moved the turkey
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