Профиль

An Apple podcast I helped research. Will Sharpe (The White Lotus) hosts a mind-bending real-life story of reincarnation and a spooky tale of family secrets. Won several awards. Stick with it, as it's a story with more twists than a M. Night Shyamalan movie podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/e...

ExtrasensoryTrue Crime Podcast · Weekly series · Will Sharpe (The White Lotus) hosts a mind-bending real-life story of reincarnation and a spooky tale of family secrets. In 1950s England, milkman John Pollock mak...podcasts.apple.com

F. Scott Fitzgerald's close encounters with Fascism and Communism in North Carolina and Hollywood in the 1930s. Series of short podcasts. www.monocledmutineer.co.uk/american-dre...

Forgotten Man: American Dream in Crisis - Great Gatsby Centenary PodcastIn the 1930s, F. Scott Fitzgerald, suffering personal and professional decline, struggled for recognition as The Great Gatsby faded from memory. Amid Zelda’s worsening mental health and the rise of Am...www.monocledmutineer.co.uk

Received wisdom. Those ‘starting points’ that contribute to accepted knowledge. Remind me of network/computing nodes, the basic building blocks in a network structure. Or better still — redistribution points. My struggle isn't with documents, like von Ranke said, but with nodes.

“There are no facts in themselves. It is always necessary to begin by introducing a meaning in order that there can be a fact.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

The story in The Great Gatsby gets started a few days before Independence Day. Tom Buchanan is complaining about the immigrant threat and Jordan & Daisy are reading from The Saturday Evening Post. At the last moment Fitzgerald changed the year from 1923 to 1922. That week's SEP (both years) #BookSky

‘So This is Greenwich Village?,’ Harper’s Bazaar 1922. This 'graphic survey' also features Cesare. It also features F Scott Fitzgerald and his friends (and fellow writers) John Dos Passos and John Peale Bishop driving through town and over a pedestrian. #BookSky

The famous Red Door of Frank Shay's bookshop in Greenwich Village (1923). Features the signatures of William Ely Hill, who designed the covers of F. Scott Fitzgerald's first two novels and Oscar E. Cesare, an associate of ‘the real’ Jay Gatsby, Max Gerlach. #BookSky

“A good book is more intelligent than its author. It can say things that the writer is not aware of.” — Umberto Eco #BookSky

Father Sigourney W. Fay. Influential figure in the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Played an important role in Anglo-US-Vatican relations in WW1. Scott was scheduled to join him on a ‘spying mission’ in Russia in Sept/Oct 1917 (until Kornilov threw it into chaos).

A flyer for the Chicago Metropolitan Opera (1917-1918). Designed by Spanish-Cuban artist, Francis Cugat, the man who designed the cover art for The Great Gatsby. His brother was the legendary bandleader, Xavier Cugat. #BookSky

Chasing up a Myra Kingsley who is mentioned in a letter to Max Gerlach - the man whose mannerisms and 'grandeur' would inspire Jay Gatsby. I wonder if she's the ex-wife of Manghattan opera singer, George Fleming Houston. She later became 'astrologer to the stars.'

“To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one.” — Umberto Eco, UR-Fascism

In 1929, Albert Einstein would tell The Saturday Evening Post that his thoughts on scientific matter would often take shape in music; “I live my daydreams in music”, he had said, “I live my life in terms of music.” In 1921 he played his Strad with Kay Swift, a friend of Gershwin #History #Science

Old books, bearing that wonderful patina of the past. Notice that posts with pictures of old books, celebrating the joy of reading get more likes and shares. Clearly a fetishistic dimension to this. A reaction to a perceived loss of authenticity or depth in our lives, perhaps?

“Baseball Title For Durex Again.” (1939) For anybody expecting to get beyond third base, I presume.

I've used AI voices as supporting audio on my blog. I've even tried Google Storybook for illustrations. Without trying them you never know the full scale of what's lost. The creeping embrace of AI in actual composition at Bloomsbury is far more worrying #BookSky www.bloomsbury.com/media/0zxgch...

Catcher in the Rye. The book famously mentions The Great Gatsby: “I was crazy about The Great Gatsby. Old Gatsby. Old sport. That killed me.” Christ-like dimensions to that figure too. The great American martyr. One is a phoney. One loathes phonies. #BookSky www.newstatesman.com/culture/2026...

The Catcher in the Rye still speaks to our profoundest desiresHolden Caulfield is a Christ-figure, half-human, half-divinewww.newstatesman.com

Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald knew Laurell in New York in Paris. She would eventually make it into Zelda's story The Original Follies Girl (1929). Great article from a few years back.

Death of Marie Lovell, wife of UR-Gatsby, Max Gerlach (aka Max A. Stork), a bootlegger who F. Scott Fitzgerald knew in Great Neck. Lovell left cash to Oscar E. Cesare in her will. Scott owned a bestselling book that Cesare provided illustrations for: The Mirrors of Washington (1921) #BookSky

Ryvoan Bothy, Glemore, Cairngorms. Hope it survives the blaze. Great memories of the place.