Saxon Henry's Blog, page 9
January 7, 2017
A Plumb Line Through Literary History
This time next week, I’ll be spending my first full day in Paris. Knowing I’ll be walking around the Left Bank always makes me think a great deal about the literary historythat was aby-product of the Lost Generation’s time in Paris, particularly Ernest Hemingway’s. In his memoirs exploring his time in Paris—A Moveable Feast—he […]
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January 2, 2017
Henry VIII’s Cult of Cloth
A trip to Frankfurt to attend Heimtextil a week from today has inspired me to share one of my favorite anecdotes about Henry VIII and his court, as it describes how the Tudor King doted on textiles. I came across the depictions of his wanderlusting ways in Nicola Shulman’s book Graven with Diamonds: The Many […]
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November 5, 2016
What Libraries Might Teach Us
I’m on my way back to Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University tomorrow and it occurred to me that it would be a good time to share with you what I’ve learned so far from delving into the papers of some heavyweight writers at some of the country’s finest libraries. I’ve reserved […]
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October 30, 2016
Taking a Train with Edna St Vincent Millay
One summer not long ago, I caught a Metro North train bound for Croton-on-Hudson where I hoped to glean sensory details for a book I’m writing. I decided to take the local so I could linger and write as I trundled along the watery vein of the Hudson River. I was following a path Edna […]
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October 11, 2016
For Aesthetes and Decadents Beauty Is Difficult
Moving through the London literary scene during the fin de siècle was not a comfortable ride. Oscar Wilde is one of the most explosive examples but others who navigated those restrictive streets and who cloistered themselves in the gentleman’s clubs learned what a dicey trip rebellion can be. The lot of them, known as aesthetes […]
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October 4, 2016
The Legacy of Edgar Allan Poe
I’ve seen and heard some of my all-time favorite exhibitions and lectures at The Morgan Library and Museum, the programming they produce so exemplary I always check their site first when I know I’ll be in New York City. And no matter how many times I walk through Pierpont Morgan’s library, I’m struck by the […]
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September 28, 2016
The Difficulty of Writing Well
Becoming a writer: a phrase rife with pitfalls, rewards, angst, celebrations, stumbling blocks, euphoria, despair and every other type of emotion one can imagine. Writing well has preoccupied my mind for more than three decades during which I’ve experienced pretty much all of these (as well as a host of others). When my quest to […]
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September 19, 2016
Architecture with Heart in Bordeaux
In the preface to the book Grand Bordeaux Châteaux: Inside the Fine Wine Estates of France, Philippe Chaix describes discovering Bordeaux as a bewitching act: on foot, he reports, it means ambling through the city of stone and gazing into its mirror-like river. Setting off to explore the Mèdoc and Saint-Èmilion, he notes, the experience […]
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September 15, 2016
The Architecture of Tango
I envy the pencil being held carefully between her fingers, the rasping sound the sharpener makes as a thin layer of wood peels away from the instrument’s body. I am fascinated by her hesitation, the dark point poised above the supple blank pages so pristine the sight sends ripples of resistance through the synapses […]
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September 7, 2016
Touching Literary History
The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University reopened yesterday following a 16-month renovation to upgrade the 50-year-old building’s climate-control system, expand its classroom space, and restore the landmark to its original luster. The building’s architectural features—an exterior grid of granite and Vermont marble panels, a six-story glass-stack tower, and a sculpture garden […]
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