Around the Web

For the week of Saturday, February, 20th through Friday, February, 26.

1) Via the Mises Institute Blog, "Alas, Poor Yorick! An Apology for the Human Race" by Albert Jay Nock, from "Snoring as a Fine Art."

2) In Humanities, Ammon Shea on Old English and "the brutality and elegance of our ancestral tongue."

3) Alison Flood at The Guardian on the discovery of a long-missing letter by René Descartes.

4) In City Journal, Nicole Gelinas on "Eminent Domain as Central Planning."

5) In the WSJ, William R. Snyder on Monks, Munich, and Strong Beer.

6) A review of "The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why it Endures" by Nicholas Wade, in The Economist.

7) In The Guardian, "Ten Rules for Writing Fiction" from Elmore Leonard, Diana Athill, Margaret Atwood, Roddy Doyle, Helen Dunmore, Geoff Dyer, Anne Enright, Richard Ford, Jonathan Franzen, Esther Freud, Neil Gaiman, David Hare, PD James, AL Kennedy.

Music

8) Robert Greskovic at the WSJ interviews Mark Morris and discusses Mr. Morris' Dance Group at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

9) Barbara Jepson at the WSJ interviews violinist Gil Shaham, performing in "'Concertos of the 1930s,' a project with major American and European orchestras that continues over the next year or so."

1. Shaham performing Prokofiev's 2nd Violin Concerto: III. Allegro, ben marcato.

10) Ellen Gamerman in the WSJ asks violinst Christian Tetzlaff about spending so much time traveling.

1. Tetzlaff performing J. S. Bach's Sonata No. 3 in C major, BWV.1005: III. Largo.

11) [Added 2/27]  Via Classic FM, composer, teacher, conductor, and Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Michael Tilson Thomas received the National Medal of Arts.

1. Thomas conducting the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra performing Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 2 in F minor, IV. Finale: Allegro con fuoco.

12) From Warsaw, Vanessa Gera for the L. A. Times on Polish celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frederic Chopin.