To be able to say "Noggle," you first must be able to say "Nah."
As you might remember, gentle reader, the stack of Teaching Company Great Courses I bought last September includes a number of shorter biography lecture series on classical musicians and composers. I have previously listened to (but not reported on) the series on Mozart. They’re all done by Professor Robert Greenberg, who also did the series […]
So let’s get on with Christmas presents: I am often underwhelmed on the gifts I receive. Sometimes, it’s a little premature that I look askew at something under the tree, as the time when I got a Keurig single-use coffee maker which I thought I would never use, but as my life changed from upstairs-mind-the-children-by-the-coffee-pot […]
I have often said that I don’t really care for the Teaching Company courses that are in my disciplines–English and Philosophy–but this one was an exception. It covers, well, the development of the novel in England and talks about its themes and whatnot from the 1700s to roughly World War II with the death of […]
This is another one of the turn-of-the-century six hour lectures that I bought this autumn. I have been tearing through the six hour ones at a pretty good pace (see also The Search for Intelligent Life In Space, The Ethics of Aristotle and The Aeneid of Virgil). It’s the first lecture series that I have […]
So on Wednesday, November 4, the night after we watched Sergeant York, I wanted to watch To Hell and Back with and about Audie Murphy; it was then that I learned it was the wrong region DVD. So I cast about looking for something, and I thought I would pop in this video which I […]
Okay, now this was a fun course to listen to. I was a little concerned that it might be a bit thin on topic matter, as the SETI program itself would be a rather narrow topic–merely talking about analyzing radio signals from space would make for a long six hours. Instead, the course runs a […]
I am not saying I am that guy or we’re that family; generally, we decorate for Christmas around Thanksgiving here at Nogglestead. But this year might be different. I played the first Christmas carols of the year last Friday because I got a disappointing email and because, well, 2020, man, although I am hopeful the […]
This audio course, I wish to remind you, gentle reader, cost me a mere fifty cents at the recent Friends of the Springfield-Greene County book sale because it is on audiocassette. I, dear reader, have an audio cassette player in my truck, so I can still enjoy audio courses and books on tape (literally). And […]
As you might know, gentle reader, I pretty much think that Eydie Gorme did the best rendition of every song she ever recorded, andall other artists who attempt to record new versions of the songs are fools. However, as I recently picked up a new copy of the album Eydie In Love since the copy […]
Okay, I am a little behind in my Wall Street Journal reading, again. Which is basically my normal condition when taking the paper. So I have only now come across an article from September 24, 2020, that explains a little more about why it’s often hard to find movies you want to see on streaming […]
The boys and I have taken a couple weeks (a month) off of continuing education, but I’ve added some schoolish work back into their day by introducing them to one of the greatest books in the history of writingkind: When I was in high school, I took a college composition class (which offered three hours […]
I have started to read Will and Ariel Durant’s The Story of Civilization series. When I bought most of them in May of 2019, my wife asked me if I was going to read them. To be honest, my positive response at the time was probably a little optimistic when I gave it, but after […]
So I’m hoping to write an article that uses Charles Sander Peirce’s “The Fixation of Belief” as a bit of a starting point. So, Sunday, I faced a dilemma: Read it online or spend an hour scouring the Nogglestead library’s to-read shelves for a copy of The Essential Peirce that my beautiful wife gave me […]
So every day of this last week, their first at home because of the coronavirus lockdown, the boys and I (and sometimes my beautiful wife) have taken a poem and hand-copied it to keep up with our handwriting and to talk about poetry. We started with “If” by Rudyward Kipling, and apparently it’s a thing […]
In yesterday’s Bleat, Lileks humblebrags about his music library: I’m agonizing over the music. In the old days: you had a hundred albums or so, arranged on a particle-board shelf with concrete blocks on the end. If you were in college. Or you had them arranged in purloined milk crates. HEY if they didn’t want […]
This BRY (Book Reading Year, roughly Christmas to Christmas), I completed, what, 111 books? The Hungry Ocean Linda Greenlaw Death Valley Scotty: The Man and the Myth Hank Johnston Taekwondo Kyorugi: Olympic Style Sparring Kuk Hyun Chung, Kyung Myung Lee, Sang H. Kim Whatever Became Of? Second Series Richard Lamparski You Can Tell You’re A […]
I felt a little bad for my children. My varied musical tastes pretty much outflank any genre of music that they could discover and try to play really loud to shock the parents. Heavy metal? Come on. They tell me to turn it down. Rap? I have Eminem on the playlist. And they think the […]
I’m not referring to my cousin-in-law; I’m referring to this cover of the Phoebe Snow song by Jessy J: It loses a bit without the lyrics, but it’s still a pleasant melody. I have not been listening to the DirecTV streaming music stations as all the remotes from the entertainment center have been confiscated until […]
Kim du Toit has posted a list of things he encouraged his children to read while homeschooling them. A list of books? That’s a quiz! So how do I do compared to a du Toit? Once again, I will bold the things I’ve read and underline the things I own but have not yet read. […]