Saturday, October 31, 2009

Sounding His Barbaric YAWP...

... over the rooftops of the world!!!

On the big screen, the leader of theDead Poets Society at an all-boys prep school was an inspirational teacher played by Robin Williams. In real life, it's a balding amateur poet who drives around in his "Poemobile," visiting and documenting the graves of dead poets and calling attention to their works.

Walter Skold, founder of the Dead Poets Society of America, just finished a three-month road trip in which he visited the graves of 150 poets in 23 states. Skold boasts that he set a literary land speed record of 1.66 gpd (graves per day) over the course of his 15,000-mile journey...


"It's not really a morbid project but rather a way to honor our literary forebearers and to historically resurrect their works," Skold said...


Skold, 49, of Freeport, founded Dead Poets Society of America a year ago, leaving his job as a public school technology teacher to pursue his passions of poetry and photography. For his trip, he bought a used cargo van with a rack for cameras and supplies, shelves for books and a desk that, in a pinch, doubles as a bed.

Over the course of his 90-day journey, Skold visited the gravesites of giants of the poetry world including Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, as well as lesser-known poets like Dudley Randall, whose Broadside Press published many leading African-American writers.

He's making a film documentary called "Finding Frost: Digging Up America's Dead Poets." Next year, he hopes to scout out America's dead poets buried in Europe...


"So many of these individual poets have such interesting stories and such interesting lives that I really feel it's a shame that they've been lost to our literary imagination or our literary history," he said. "I'm trying to bring back people's works and lives who have value and who have been forgotten for one reason or another."

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Random links a-comin'...

Over these last few months in which I haven't been as active in blogging as I had been in the past, I have accumulated quite a number of links to stories (political, economic, and otherwise) which I found either intriguing or important. Over the course of the next month I hope to go through these, sort out the ones I still find of importance, and post them.

So, stay tuned...

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Friday, October 09, 2009

Prizeless!!!

UPDATED:

Hot Air is on a roll about it.

First Things also chimes in.

Creative Minority poses a question:

The best part is that the votes were in by February 1st which means that Obama was in office less than two weeks when the Peace Prize committee voted... Essentially, the only thing President Obama did before the vote was taken was he reversed the Mexico City Policy to allow the funding to international abortion providers. Does funding the death of babies from other countries merit a peace prize?

Power Line lists previous notorious winners of "The Prize".

And I just shake my head and laugh at the absurdity.

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

The Cross of Honor is bestowed upon Mother Angelica...

(Hat-tip Insight Scoop)

EWTN's founder Mother Angelica and the network's former president, Deacon Steltemeier, have been bestowed the highest honor by Pope Benedict XVI - The Cross of Honor.

Congratulations!

Back in mid-2006 I had the opportunity to visit EWTN and The Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Alabama. This link will take you to my 8-part post on my personal experiences during that spiritual trip.

Thursday, October 01, 2009