left write & centaur was launched in 2017 on WordPress. I’m migrating its content here while adding new material, largely short comments on poetics, politics, art, history, neighborhood, and family. You can find the original site here. Thanks to Tina Turbeville for designing the banner.
Distressed Stucco
Wandering through the apartments of Unite d’Habitation in Marseilles, critic Robert Hughes recalled how deeply architect Le Corbusier believed that its clean-lined modernism would “improve” its inhabitants…
Meditation and Story
Washing the dishes, I listened tonight to “Carols of the Times,” composer Bob Chilcott’s introduction to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, a century-old tradition of King’s College London.
Reading Sara Ryan's Never Leave the Foot of an Animal Unskinned
Within reach from my desk is a small wooden box. Inside is a snake’s skull…
John Palfrey, Biblio Tech
John Palfrey’s is loyal to libraries: a former librarian himself (most notably at the Harvard Law School), he does not see them as potential profit centers or dismiss their books and shelves as obsolescent tchotchkes in an age of information technology. That said, he is not optimistic about the future of libraries as repositories of books…