From a Basement on a Hill

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Library of America, Southern style trio
Flannery O'Connor; Walker Percy part one; Civil War by those who lived it
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John L. Murphy
"They can't sing 'Happy Birthday' to Tommy Lasorda 'cuz they'd get sued"
A look back 18 years at a eve of Rosh Hashanah post..Matisyahu, MySpace, Frank McCourt as in Dodger owner, I remember. But George Allen Jr? Macaca?
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John L. Murphy
Aquitaine's princess abducted, her Berber rebel, a "Jewish kingdom of Septimania"
As the Moors took Spain, a legendary twining nested in my family tree ca. 730
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John L. Murphy

August 2024

Fifth crescent moon before dawn
Saher de Cuincy, my 33rd great-grandfather, possibly a wandering soulmate
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John L. Murphy
Butlers were doin' it for themselves
Gangster Hibernicized clan grafts (!) my family tree: mercenary merry men (Robin Hood's not technically Maid Marian), Rebels (Beyond the pale, Concord…
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John L. Murphy
Purity of blood, Geiger counter in my head, Footprint on the beach
I swear this isn't about the Jesus People's "Footprints in the Sand"+ Or, there go my likes, "Sex on the Beach" (~cocktail)++
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John L. Murphy

July 2024

A physicist, a mathematician, a philosopher walk into a novel, or three...
Bruce Duffy's "The World as I Found It"; Benjamin Labatut's "The MANIAC' and "When We Cease to Understand the World": invited to a dinner party's…
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John L. Murphy
Joseph Boyden's trilogy for the Birds
If a writer's outed as a "pretendian," does this cancel his craft?
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John L. Murphy
They met me in St. Louis
My weekend encounter with ecumenical Franciscans
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John L. Murphy
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June 2024

On the physics of reading very long novels
From 15 years ago, a return of me to handling heft and hoisting dead-tree reams.
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John L. Murphy

May 2024

My wife's memorial
May 18th: photo and talk and video links
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John L. Murphy
Desert island dry-bag book stash
What'd be your baker's dozen you'd drag ashore from your shipwreck?
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John L. Murphy
© 2024 John L. Murphy
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