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John W. Kropf
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Life imitates Art. From last August, my piece on Tommy B...
Life imitates Art. From last August, my piece on Tommy Boy Fest
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gAhekfz_FkOu3MH3HhNOV-6unfoCNKuT/view?usp=sharing
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John’s Recent Updates
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Gentlemen of the Woods: Manhood, Myth, and the American Lumberjack
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The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier
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Topics Mentioning This Author
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Reading with Style:
FA 2017 RG Plans
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17 | 50 | Sep 06, 2017 09:54AM | |
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Reading with Style:
SU 19 Completed Tasks
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1152 | 130 | Aug 31, 2019 09:02PM | |
| Hooked on Books : Symbols of Luck and Fortune | August 2025 | 12 | 36 | Aug 06, 2025 03:48PM | |
| Turn of a Page: Richard's Candy Land Journey-Complete | 74 | 42 | Sep 08, 2025 06:43PM | |
| The Lost Challenges: August 2025 Scattergories | 76 | 58 | Sep 13, 2025 07:21AM | |
| 2026 Reading Chal...: Gina Marie's Reading Corner | 13 | 66 | Sep 19, 2025 05:52PM |
“I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.”
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“The danger of civilization, of course, is that you will piss away your life on nonsense.”
― The Beast God Forgot to Invent
― The Beast God Forgot to Invent
“There is a time in the life of every boy when he for the first time takes the backward view of life. Perhaps that is the moment when he crosses the line into manhood. The boy is walking through the street of his town. He is thinking of the future and of the figure he will cut in the world. Ambitions and regrets awake within him. Suddenly something happens; he stops under a tree and waits as for a voice calling his name. Ghosts of old things creep into his consciousness; the voices outside of himself whisper a message concerning the limitations of life. From being quite sure of himself and his future he becomes not at all sure. If he be an imaginative boy a door is torn open and for the first time he looks out upon the world, seeing, as though they marched in procession before him, the countless figures of men who before his time have come out of nothingness into the world, lived their lives and again disappeared into nothingness. The sadness of sophistication has come to the boy. With a little gasp he sees himself as merely a leaf blown by the wind through the streets of his village. He knows that in spite of all the stout talk of his fellows he must live and die in uncertainty, a thing blown by the winds, a thing destined like corn to wilt in the sun.”
― Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life
― Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life
“I couldn't have spoken like this yesterday, because when we've been apart, and I'm looking forward to seeing you, every thought is burnt up in a great flame. But then you come; and you're so much more than I remembered, and what I want of you is so much more than an hour or two every now and then, with wastes of thirsty waiting between, that I can sit perfectly still beside you, like this, with that other vision in my mind, just quietly trusting it to come true.”
― The Age of Innocence
― The Age of Innocence
“Perhaps humans have always had this ridiculous belief in the absolute excellence of the present, this conviction that the world into which they have had the marvelous good luck to be born is the best world that ever was, the best that ever will be.”
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In advance of the one trip I made to Australia, I bought some books. Bill Bryson was by far the most entertaining, Bruce Chatwin the most esoteric, Robert Hughes the most weighty. I still have yet to read Alan Moorehead's Rum Jungle but expect it will be rewarding based on his White Nile and Blue Nile books.
1. In a Sunburned Country, Bill Bryson (2000). Bryson has a way of taking the dangerous and making it quaint or enjoyable probably because he knows you're safe and comfortable reading in an armchair. Australia, he lets you know, is full of the ten most poisonous snakes in the world plus other deadly wildlife like Great White Sharks, crocodiles, box jellyfish, toxic jellyfish and sea-shells that attack you. The outback and surrounding sea are also deadly. You learn that a Prime Minister once was lost at sea after swimming on a local beach (possibly due to a rip tide). I read this book on the plane over. Bought used at he State Department bookstore.
2. The Songlines, Bruce Chatwin (1987). Chatwin is fascinating by the Aborigines travel over what they call Dream Tracks as well as their holy men. He weaves his travel around the island-continent with memoir, history, philosophy and tributes to other writers. Bought used at State Department bookstore.
3. Rum Jungle, Alan Moorehead (1954). Each chapter devoted to different regions of Australia. Black and white photos. Bought used at State Department bookstore.
4. The Fatal Shore, Robert Hughes (1987). A good scholarly history that sets the stage with Australia's founding as a penal colony. The combination of convicts, freemen, representatives of Her Majesty's Government and being a hemisphere away from England combine into a fascinating history. Bought used but forgot where.