Archive for December, 2010
Holiday Interviews
Sunday, December 26th, 2010All the holidays at this time of year have gotten me thinking about interviewing relatives. Part of the art of interviewing relatives is to recognize when the flow of the interview is going in an good direction even if it isn’t where you planned for it to go. It may not be the information that [...]
Love for Letters
Saturday, December 18th, 2010I’ve had the privilege of working with some letters lately. Many, many letters. Letters of an age that sent a wave of disbelief through me every time I picked one up and I picked up hundreds. Every letter had a different feel. Some were written on paper so ethereal that I couldn’t believe that they [...]
The Creative Act
Monday, December 13th, 2010When people think of creativity they often limit themselves to art. Painting, literature, music and dance are the kinds of things that come easily to mind when one thinks of creativity. Other activities come less often to mind when we think of creativity. For example, people often believe that science is not a creative endeavor, [...]
Paleography and the “G-Word”
Sunday, December 5th, 2010Presumably everyone reading this has heard of the Renaissance—the great flowering of learning and investigation that followed the medieval period and went back to and improved upon Western Culture’s classical roots. Few know that this was at least the second try at a renaissance since the fall of Rome. The first try didn’t go quite [...]