Well, it ain’t necessarily so Well, it ain’t necessarily so Dey tells all you chillun De debble’s a villun, But it ain’t necessarily so! So sang the character Sportin’ Life in George Gershwin’s award-winning 1935 opera Porgy and Bess. Sportin’ Life was, of course, in his own playful and opportunistic way seeking to disrupt the […]
Since taking up Prof. Paul Robichaud’s recent book “Pan; the Great God’s Modern Return” I’ve been expanding my understanding of Pan considerably. Exploring how he has been understood and represented from classical antiquity right up to our own present time, Prof. Robichaud presents a god whose own history is as filled with mysteries, tricks, and turnings by examining a wide selection of the stories, songs, and images created that include him.
“I hadn’t had my daily dose of lurking frogs and chirruping goldfinch flocks for so long now. I hadn’t sat on a bank of moss and grounded my energy into the earth. Instead of wildflower meadows, my dreams were often preoccupied with train timetables and unsaved Word documents. Where had all the wildlife gone from my life?” So writes Jennifer Lane very early in her new book “The Wheel.”
As those who follow The Well-read Naturalist’s Twitter or Instagram feeds will likely already know, I make a regular habit of reading from the collected essays in Melissa Harrison’s Seasons quartet of anthologies from Elliott & Thompson. However what you may not know is just how regular this habit is, or why I do it. […]