A Rebel In Defense of Tradition

"Dwight [Macdonald] was always disappointed that his books didn't sell. I'd had the same regrets. . . Dwight often thought that his life had been a series of disappointments. These self-destructive feelings often led to debilitating bouts of depression and writer's block."

~~ from Michael Wreszin's A Rebel in Defense of Tradition: The Life and Politics of
      Dwight Macdonald

Berlin Wall

Is a "New World Order" at risk thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall?

A variety of sources reported on the anniversary.

slovenly and grand

"Like Von Humboldt Fleisher of Saul Bellow's fictional portrait, Delmore in 1939 was 'slovenly and grand,' his ample hair swept back, 'his face with widely separated eyes white and tense.' Cosmopolitan, radical, at home with Rilke, Trotsky, Pound, he was the very embodiment of the New York intelligentsia. Declaiming in what [Alfred] Kazin described as 'gulps of argument,' Delmore transformed Greenwich Village in his talk from a province into cultural capital, importing ideas from the whole European tradition and adapting them to the sprawl and chaos of contemporary America."

~~ from James Atlas's Delmore Schwartz: The Life of an American Poet

better off in Buchenwald

"Delmore's mother reacted to the announcement with even less enthusiasm; she threatened to kill herself. How could her son abandon her in this cruel way? she wailed, working on his guilt. (A few years later, she would greet Kenneth's marriage with the declaration: 'He would have been better off in Buchenwald than married to that woman.')"

~~ from James Atlas's Delmore Schwartz: The Life of an American Poet

a good night's rest

"'History is a nightmare during which I am trying to get a good night's rest,' he once noted in his journal, reversing the famous remark of Joyce's Dedalus. Delmore used to say that he was twice as old as everyone else because he never slept[.]"

~~ from James Atlas's Delmore Schwartz: The Life of an American Poet

at all costs

"The children come first," Mr. A. said to me at the time. "You understand that. We have to protect the children at all costs."

~~ from A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley