How did Weimar, the town of Goethe and Schiller, become the crucible of Germany's moral collapse? I speak to Katja Hoyer about her new book, Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe. audioboom.com/posts/890048...
Weimar’s descent into darkness
How did Weimar, the town of Goethe and Schiller, become the crucible of Germany's moral collapse? Katja Hoyer, author of Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe (https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/45...
audioboom.com
Set down your quill! Take up your iPod 120GB! And read Alastair Benn’s account of how to navigate the borderlands between our imagination (Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘kaleidoscopes of changing pictures, echoes of the past’) and the elusive present moments of our modernity:
Alastair Benn@alastairbenn.bsky.social · 4mo agoThe smartphone inherits anxieties about distraction that have haunted every new technology. My latest for @engelsbergideas.bsky.social: engelsbergideas.com/notebook/in-...
And he’s in the curling finals! (This video is lovely)
BBC Sport {bot}@bbcsportbot.bsky.social · 7mo agoTeam GB curler Bruce Mouat speaks about coming out and being an LGBTQ+ role model in British sport.
Our algorithms are trimming our very souls: read this salutary meditation on the modern world, & don’t forget: no Bildung, no Bildungsroman + no Mignon: Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blühn Im dunkeln Laub die Gold-Orangen glühn Ein sanfter Wind vom blauen Himmel weht…
Engelsberg Ideas@engelsbergideas.bsky.social · 7mo agoThe classical ideal of self-formation has been replaced by a sterile cult of productivity, simulating work and leisure while forfeiting both. The decline of Bildung | @alastairbenn.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the...
“Let’s have more pirates,” they said. Throw in how Shakespeare’s close reading of pre-Existentialist Montaigne informed “To be or not to be” (thus dragging Hamlet out of a Jonsonian Revenge Tragedy and into a colder, more modern world) & this pod becomes essential (& greatly enjoyable) listening:
Alastair Benn@alastairbenn.bsky.social · 7mo agoWe were joined by Emma Smith (@oldfortunatus.bsky.social), Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Oxford, to explore the endless complexities of Hamlet on the latest EI Podcast. Listen here:
Read this! I loved BB’s self-deprecating description of her distinctive topknot as ‘choucroute’ / Sauerkraut - a wonderful article bringing back many happy boyhood screen daydreams ⚜️🇫🇷
Muriel Zagha@murielzagha.bsky.social · 8mo agoFor the admirable @engelsbergideas.bsky.social I wrote about Brigitte Bardot, the French myth 🇫🇷 @suzanneraine.bsky.social @garlicandpearls.bsky.social @bennrobin.bsky.social @drmatthewsweet.bsky.social @rwilliamsparis.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/notebook/bri...
"A commercial for Carte D’Or ice cream I would have been very pleased to have written." - Alan Bennett
"He's not your dad. We never knew who your dad was."
I thought of this old television commercial a while ago, but I've only just found it because I had convinced myself it was advertising Vienn...
liberalengland.blogspot.com
We're all set for our Midsummer Concert this evening at Canongate Kirk. It was sounding fantastic this morning. Tickets are still available at TicketSource until 5pm and any remaining will be available on the door £15 (£13) U18Free www.ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/edi...
This is part of a thing called "The Last Picnic", which didn't make it into The Usual Apologies, but is part of a series of hybrid splurges of consciousness tentatively entitled Postcards From An Edge. Buy TUA, show me, and I will send you a hand drawn postcard from an edge. #Poetry #BribeOrThreat
Do read this! From Robert Louis Stevenson to Numberwang, via Croydon, Slough and Hackney, to the emergence of a new, and gentle, seam of English pastoral comedy (Mackenzie Crook’s The Detectorists and Will Sharpe’s Flowers) that helps glimpse life’s mysteriousness:
Engelsberg Ideas@engelsbergideas.bsky.social · last yr.The subtle art of English comedy | @alastairbenn.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-s...
A really great podcast. Listen out for Tallis, Mozart, Wagner, Ted Heath(!) +reflections on the sad sidelining of <élitist> classics, compared with the real joys of music making for all: playing the cello, singing in choirs, conducting youth orchestras, playing Solti’s Ring Cycle on a 60s phonogram…
Engelsberg Ideas@engelsbergideas.bsky.social · 2y agoWhat makes Classical music special among the arts? 🗣️ @alastairbenn.bsky.social is joined by Richard Bratby and @amwilson.bsky.social to discuss the inexhaustible complexity of the western musical tradition. 🎙️The case for Classical music | EI Podcasts engelsbergideas.com/podcast/ei-t...
Is George Smiley the still-abiding spirit of the post-war era, and does spy fiction help us to parse our new/old world and its actors? Your conclusions will be thoroughly enlivened by this podcast, with both David Omand (not C, but nearly) and Pauline Blistène:
Engelsberg Ideas@engelsbergideas.bsky.social · 2y agoAre we living through a golden age of espionage drama? 🗣️ @alastairbenn.bsky.social is joined by David Omand, Pauline Blistène and @paullay.bsky.social to discuss the enduring popularity of the spy in fiction. 🎙️The myth and magic of spy fiction | EI Podcasts audioboom.com/posts/865349...
Thank you, @bennrobin.bsky.social! Goodness knows how much we all need re-enchantment. And chant/chanson too.
Robin Benn @bennrobin.bsky.social · 2y agoAs @murielzagha.bsky.social writes, it is often (especially on Mondays) “as though the medium of chanson is used to disrupt and re-enchant the ordinariness of everyday life and its tiresome repetitiveness”. Happy reading (& listening - some wonderful links):
As @murielzagha.bsky.social writes, it is often (especially on Mondays) “as though the medium of chanson is used to disrupt and re-enchant the ordinariness of everyday life and its tiresome repetitiveness”. Happy reading (& listening - some wonderful links):
Muriel Zagha@murielzagha.bsky.social · 2y agoFor @engelsbergideas.bsky.social I wrote about the appeal of the Great French Songbook: a deeply rooted shared identity for the French; myriad windows on to France for the rest of the world. Many links to catchy songs in the piece - sing your life! engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-g...
The ‘note of civet is evaporating from our cultural life’ remarks Jenny McCartney - catch it (if that’s the right word) while you can in this fascinating essay, along with pungent doses of Hogarth, Zola and Sickert:
Engelsberg Ideas@engelsbergideas.bsky.social · 2y agoOn squalor | Jenny McCartney engelsbergideas.com/essays/on-sq...
A most literate (& elegantly alarming) exposition of the post- or even anti-literate era we appear to be entering: do listen (and/or watch!):
Engelsberg Ideas@engelsbergideas.bsky.social · 2y agoIs the era of mass literacy over? And what might a post-literate society look like? 🗣️ @alastairbenn.bsky.social is joined by James Marriott and @paullay.bsky.social to discuss literacy and its uses. 🎙️The dawn of the post-literate society | EI Podcasts podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/e...
The great Andrew Wilton’s tour d’horizon of a century of printmaking and his insights into the abiding and dynamic influence of Turner himself on the course of this mechanical art are very much worth reading:
Engelsberg Ideas@engelsbergideas.bsky.social · 2y agoJMW Turner lived in an age of extraordinary mechanical advances. He was ever alive to the opportunities that new technologies afforded the arts. Turner’s genius for technology | Andrew Wilton engelsbergideas.com/notebook/tur...
This is a picture of Dylan as Goethe’s greatest wanderer, Chaucer’s man in the crowd, who sees everything and sets out to tell us all the condition of each one of us. Do read this (before seeing the excellent film) by @alastairbenn.bsky.social at the ever-more-essential @engelsbergideas.bsky.social
Engelsberg Ideas@engelsbergideas.bsky.social · 2y agoNo other living artist has so successfully and for so long lit up the vastness of the American experiment as Bob Dylan, as an ambitious, knowing biopic reveals. Bob Dylan, the last of the best | @alastairbenn.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/reviews/bob-...
No other living artist has so successfully and for so long lit up the vastness of the American experiment as Bob Dylan, as an ambitious, knowing biopic reveals. My latest for @engelsbergideas.bsky.social: engelsbergideas.com/reviews/bob-...
Bob Dylan, the last of the best
No other living artist has so successfully and for so long lit up the vastness of the American experiment as Bob Dylan, as an ambitious, knowing biopic reveals.
engelsbergideas.com
The public's appetite for intellectual stimulation is now being met by podcasts. The risks to the written word may prove existential. My latest for @engelsbergideas.bsky.social: engelsbergideas.com/notebook/pod...
Podcasts v the written word
The public's appetite for intellectual stimulation is now being met by podcasts. The risks to the written word may prove existential.
engelsbergideas.com
Some carols from last night's service @scotparl.bsky.social 🎶 @caltonconsort.bsky.social
This is a brilliant article - typical of the excellent (& paywall free) content at @engelsbergideas.bsky.social
Engelsberg Ideas@engelsbergideas.bsky.social · 2y agoBritain's railways are more than just machines. They are a miniature civilisation in their own right, teeming with human experience and bound together by shining ribbons of steel. The restless brilliance of Britain’s railways | Richard Bratby engelsbergideas.com/reviews/the-...
A picture taken seven years ago. A merchant's and shipper's office in Leith, Edinburgh. Gone now.
