I use this blog to record or translate things I have read and found interesting.
I would prefer to do this sort of thing in private, and on paper; I don't like the idea of being chivvied out and stared at. But we live in an ostentatious age, and in order to attract the sort of people who might want to purchase the books one is translating, one must be online...
Apart from providing myself with a beachhead on the digital coast there is no point to this site. I am especially fond of the Belle Époque (and the corresponding late Victorian and Wilhelmine periods), but there is really no unifying theme here besides my own inclination.
More than a decade of hack journalism has dampened the pleasure I used to get from writing articles and essays. Prostitutes probably feel the same way about sex. I may try to revive my enthusiasm with the occasional piece here, but promise to avoid the twin horrors of self-reflection and sentimentality.
If nothing else I hope this blog will help me keep in touch with friends I see far too seldom. Things typed in isolation are a poor substitute for face-to-face wheezing and harrumphing, but when constraints of time and place make this difficult, at least you can stop by and visit me here.
