Today, I plugged new headphones into my iPod and entered nirvana. That may seem somewhat dramatic, but trust me, it’s not. I had been limping along in headphone purgatory for months. One side worked, the other didn’t. I could hear the music, and most of the melody and generally all […]
It seems like lately I simply cannot wash the dishes without first plugging into my iPod. (Yes, I still hand wash my dishes. I know, call me a Philistine, I don’t mind.) This is true with other housework to a lesser extent, but especially when washing the dishes, I must […]
On this day, December 3, in 1857, Joseph Conrad was born in Berdichev, Imperial Russia (modern
Ukraine, then a part of Poland). While he settled in England and wrote in English, he always considered himself a Pole. Heart of Darkness, one of the most famous of his 20 novels (which explores colonialism and the attitudes regarding what constitutes a barbarian versus civilized society) is considered one of the best English novels of the 20th century, as is his novel Lord Jim, which chronicles a crew’s abandonment of its disabled ship. Conrad died in England in 1924 at age 66.