The Latest(ish)
There’s a long, unrespectable tradition of vampires’ being unable to decide whether we humans are lunch, lovers, or a bite of both. My irritation at coming across a pile of Twilights and their no-less-sensitive kin heaped under the heading “undying love” in a neighborhood Barnes & Noble was thus curmudgeonly and somewhat unfair. For those who can understand my reaction (well, you are reading NRO, so you just might), and are themselves getting a little sick of the simpering-emo-tofu undead, here’s a recommendation: This weekend, celebrate both Halloween and the 30th anniversary of the release of the finest — and [...]
The Borgomeister
October 30, 2009
Werner Herzog's Nosferatu; published originally in National Review Online
Except for the vague impression of a heavily built, benignly gruff, occasionally encountered man with short silver hair, I cannot claim to remember my great-uncle Tom very well. Tom Royden was, I understand, an English country doctor of the old school with a lady friend down the road, a flourishing practice, a keen interest in songbirds, and a shrewd understanding of the practice of medicine that owed as much to common sense as to science. I can remember, just, being told of his death in 1966 (I was eight), and the flock of cheeping, singing, and trilling folk that moved [...]
Never such innocence again
October 1, 2009