Non-fiction

Interview with Umberto Eco

In the Shadow of Winter

The Sins of Jeroboam

One Hundred Good Books

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Interview with Umberto Eco

I don't like to think of myself as someone prone to intellectual idolatry, but if I was, then certainly Dr. Umberto Eco would be among the gods of my personal pantheon. This is an interview that took place when Dr. Eco was touring the United States following the English release of "The Island of the Day Before". He's a very talented and interesting man with an intriguing and playful mind.

This is only a small part of the complete interview, which was first published in the St. Paul newspaper. One of these days I'll get around to transcribing the entire interview for this web site.

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In the Shadow of Winter

I'm not terribly fond of poetry, for the most part, but every now and then I find myself writing down a little doggerel of one sort or another. I was in a rather melancholy state when I wrote this particular piece, and was feeling very much lost in the space between two worlds - that to which I had once belonged, and that to which I had subsequently chosen. I was literally standing on the side of a mountain one evening, totally enshrouded in the darkness of night, looking across the lake to the lights of the city on the other side, when I began contemplating how I truly felt about my decisions. This is an attempt to express those thoughts.

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Tolerance and the Sins of Jeroboam

I was reading the Bible one evening, and it occurred to me that I had no idea what "the sins of Jeroboam" really were, despite their frequent citation in the chronicles of the Kings of Israel. I don't pretend to have any particular insight into what those sins actually were, but I think that what I've presented here is a logical concept worthy of some consideration.

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