New! We read Sadeq Hedayat's classic novel Blind Owl (translated by Sassan Tabatabai, published by Penguin Classics). It's a disquieting tale about a pen-case painter who is haunted by the image he paints again and again… Listen on your podcast app or at megaphonic.fm/spouter/64

We love to see it.

Our episode on The Epic of Gilgamesh is coming soon. I'm curious: Is there anything (book, painting, whatever) inspired by or responding to the story of Gilgamesh and Enkidu that you particularly love?

In our latest episode, we look at The Epic of Gilgamesh, a three thousand (or so) year old poem about Gilgamesh (a king who is two-thirds divine) and his beloved Enkidu. megaphonic.fm/spouter/65

Friend of the show Simone de Rochefort made a video about games based on The Great Gatsby (and about copyright overreach). Absolutely check it (and the games) out!

In the latest episode of The Spouter-Inn, we take a look at the classical Greek tragedy Antigone by Sophocles, in Anne Carson's translations. And we consider its exploration of what we owe each other, including what we owe the dead. megaphonic.fm/spouter/66

Chris is in Portland (Oregon) for a bit and will be participating in this marathon reading of works by Jackson Mac Low and Gertrude Stein. Sunday, starting at noon at Passages Bookshop. Come by if you're interested! facebook.com/events/1937018…

This is happening today! So excited.

New! We look at the erotic — and therefore devotional? — lyric poetry of The Song of Songs. And we also take a peek at some of the medieval commentaries on the poem, which also get spicy... megaphonic.fm/spouter/67

In our new episode, we look at Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy. It's got poetry, it's got prose, it's got autobiography, it's got neoplatonist philosophy. What more could you want? megaphonic.fm/spouter/68

100 gets all the attention, but 101 is also a nice number. It’s palindromic, it’s prime, what’s not to love?

A fascinating piece about editing!

And now, the episode that three of you were waiting for, the one where we read an encyclopedia! Oh, but Isidore's Etymologies are so much more than that — maybe we'll convince that this book is something special. megaphonic.fm/spouter/69

We don't have an account at that other site (yet), but Chris does, in case you're migrating and want to keep tabs on us.

In our recent episode on the Etymologies, I mentioned the ancient theory that 1 didn’t count as a number, but I didn’t have time to get into why. And now YouTube recommends this video to me, which explains the history in the first few minutes. Nice! youtube.com/watch?v=R33RoM…

We’ll take any chance to talk about etymology! 😁 And if you haven’t listened to their related episode about Isidore, the great medieval etymologist, we heartily recommend it!