0°Behind the Hedge
artist, writer, scholar of Old English poetry . . . freelance everything. I just sort of do stuff . . .
Recent Blog Posts
Rabbit Holes, Barrow Mounds, and Biblio-Burros: Does no one care about scholarly rigour anymore?
A casual reading of Guglielmo Spirito’s “The Legends of the Trojan War in J.R.R. Tolkien”1 sent me down a polyramified rabbit hole the other day, questing for attribution, a bugbear of mine I’ve touched on before (see also the Tom Stoppard footnote below). Spirito begins his paper wit...
Published at Behind the Hedge
A casual reading of Guglielmo Spirito’s “The Legends of the Trojan War in J.R.R. Tolkien”1 sent me down a polyramified rabbit hole the other day, questing for attribution, a bugbear of mine I’ve touched on before (see also the Tom Stoppard footnote below). Spirito begins his paper wit...
Published at Behind the Hedge
Haggis-filled Baked Perogies
Burns Night is a little different this year — no big gatherings due to the pandemic, of course. But also, there seems to be even more of a desire among the momentary Scots to take part somehow in a tribute and a toast to the Immortal Memory. As my part I’ll share one of my...
Published at Behind the Hedge
Burns Night is a little different this year — no big gatherings due to the pandemic, of course. But also, there seems to be even more of a desire among the momentary Scots to take part somehow in a tribute and a toast to the Immortal Memory. As my part I’ll share one of my...
Published at Behind the Hedge
The Merry Widow Fizz
In my post about The Helen Twelvetrees Cocktail I suggested that later I would dig up more on The Merry Widow Fizz mentioned by Kurt Vonnegut in The Sirens of Titan. Well, now it’s later and here’s what I’ve found by searching through cocktail books on hand. Yes, a google search...
Published at Behind the Hedge
In my post about The Helen Twelvetrees Cocktail I suggested that later I would dig up more on The Merry Widow Fizz mentioned by Kurt Vonnegut in The Sirens of Titan. Well, now it’s later and here’s what I’ve found by searching through cocktail books on hand. Yes, a google search...
Published at Behind the Hedge
The Helen Twelvetrees: or how an old cocktail let me witness ignorant pompous snobbery in the Edmonton beverage world
The internet has become a wonderful resource for readers. When I was young, I enjoyed referring to Benet’s The Reader’s Encyclopedia and often found myself going down a rabbit hole of interlinked entries, much as one can become lost in a digital reverie when researching online. A few ...
Published at Behind the Hedge
The internet has become a wonderful resource for readers. When I was young, I enjoyed referring to Benet’s The Reader’s Encyclopedia and often found myself going down a rabbit hole of interlinked entries, much as one can become lost in a digital reverie when researching online. A few ...
Published at Behind the Hedge
The Witch of Edmonton: A Cocktail
This is a little trifle in the martini family that I came up with as a bit of a special Edmonton thing. The name, of course, comes from the title of the Elizabethan Play. I won’t tell a big story, just straight to the recipe: To a cocktail shaker add 3 parts Strathcona Spirits Barrel-...
Published at Behind the Hedge
This is a little trifle in the martini family that I came up with as a bit of a special Edmonton thing. The name, of course, comes from the title of the Elizabethan Play. I won’t tell a big story, just straight to the recipe: To a cocktail shaker add 3 parts Strathcona Spirits Barrel-...
Published at Behind the Hedge
“Lost in That Dream”: Some thoughts on Audrey Alexandra Brown’s “Laodamia” and a few associated poems.
Audrey Alexandra Brown is a poet unjustly neglected. I certainly had never heard of her until I found, in a rural Alberta antique store, a first edition of her somewhat surprisingly titled collection A Dryad of Nanaimo. (It is from this 1931 copy from Macmillan that all quotations below come.) Wh...
Published at Behind the Hedge
Audrey Alexandra Brown is a poet unjustly neglected. I certainly had never heard of her until I found, in a rural Alberta antique store, a first edition of her somewhat surprisingly titled collection A Dryad of Nanaimo. (It is from this 1931 copy from Macmillan that all quotations below come.) Wh...
Published at Behind the Hedge
What Edmonton Theatre Could be in this Year of Plague
Four hundred years ago, the theatres in London were closed by Royal Decree as plague ravaged the city. For two years the theatres remained shuttered. But the theatre companies did not remain idle. They got creative, travelled to the provinces, the rural areas. They performed shortened vers...
Published at Behind the Hedge
Four hundred years ago, the theatres in London were closed by Royal Decree as plague ravaged the city. For two years the theatres remained shuttered. But the theatre companies did not remain idle. They got creative, travelled to the provinces, the rural areas. They performed shortened vers...
Published at Behind the Hedge
A Brief note on “Norse Poems” translated by W. H. Auden and Paul Beekman Taylor
One of the joys to be derived from second-hand books is the faith that the volume one holds and reads was held and read by someone in the past — one walks this new road with an unseen companion. I have written previously about this sort of experience — but with companions well-known t...
Published at Behind the Hedge
One of the joys to be derived from second-hand books is the faith that the volume one holds and reads was held and read by someone in the past — one walks this new road with an unseen companion. I have written previously about this sort of experience — but with companions well-known t...
Published at Behind the Hedge
On Certain Events Along the Shores of ‘Nnalubaale, Separated by a Century
History is almost always written by the victors and conquerors and gives their viewpoint. — Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India. In his account of his circumnavigation of ‘Nnalubaale (now known as Lake Victoria), Henry Morton Stanley describes a moment of tension and violence on the La...
Published at Behind the Hedge
History is almost always written by the victors and conquerors and gives their viewpoint. — Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India. In his account of his circumnavigation of ‘Nnalubaale (now known as Lake Victoria), Henry Morton Stanley describes a moment of tension and violence on the La...
Published at Behind the Hedge
Bread Recipe for Michael
My friend Michael in this time of plague isolation had a bit of trouble with one of Jamie Oliver’s bread recipies, so, I’m sending her my recipe that makes pretty much all of our bread at home, plague or no plague. Feel free to try it yourself and let us all know in the comments [R...
Published at Behind the Hedge
My friend Michael in this time of plague isolation had a bit of trouble with one of Jamie Oliver’s bread recipies, so, I’m sending her my recipe that makes pretty much all of our bread at home, plague or no plague. Feel free to try it yourself and let us all know in the comments [R...
Published at Behind the Hedge
