“We’ll be blamed,” said a small voice. It was Mausi, a young friend of the Doe I Know, my beloved DIK. “Blamed? For what?” I asked the tiny creature, a sensitive, intelligent mammal with a tendency towards anxiety. “For the virus. The humans will say it came from animals and will want all animals destroyed.” … More Common Decency

K. emerged from hiding yesterday, at least audibly. He called the Authorial Rabbit from an unknown number. “And so it begins.” “What? Hello? Who is this?” “K.” “Okay,” the AR quipped. “What begins?” “Read Anne Applebaum’s piece in the Atlantic. I did and phoned K. back. He had given me his number. “Yes, yes, first, … More Exitus Acta Probat

“I’m eating breakfast,” mumbled Titmarsh when he picked up the phone. “Prunes?” queried the Authorial Rabbit. “Certainly not,” cried Titmarsh. “I’m as regular as clockwork.” “Hear them chime, those bowels of freedom.” “Hilarious.” The Authorial Rabbit began, not without craft, to introduce his subject. “When I was in Vienna . . . ” “Ho, boy,” … More Semmelweis

Even rabbits must rise when the times require. The times do require. In his July 10th New York Times column, Roger Cohen lays out the peril. As the Preposterous Pump’s niece put it, the most dangerous man in the world in our time is entering his most dangerous period. It will be the culmination of his … More Rabbits Rise

  “The novel is going how?” asked Titmarsh of the Authorial Rabbit. Titmarsh was not cruel but he had obsessions. The AR’s output was one. Easier than dealing with his own. “Coming along, coming right along,” I replied. “Franz Kafka has just published a new story in the New Yorker and he’s been dead for … More Wordsworth and Kafka

Authorial Rabbit musings. The New York Times‘ Peter Wehner mentions Plato’s Cave in his June 13 column in relation to those mystifying persons who choose to make distrust of all expertise a personal creed, who would rather die than wear masks, opt to seek out the riskiest venues, and so on, whose freedom is endangered … More Plato’s Cave

“He went out,” I reported to Titmarsh. “Out?” “Yes, he went to the streets, mask on, fist raised.” “Good lord.” We were speaking of our friend, Johannes de Silentio, who had grown quieter and quieter of late, and was self-isolating to a fault. He was silent no longer. “He told me he had to join … More Rilke

“Bufflehead!” said the Doe I Know (Dee) to the Authorial Rabbit. “That’s a bit harsh,” I replied. “Duck!” “Oh, oh.” “A bird, dummy bunny.” She is pointing. “I’m talking about a bufflehead, a duck-like waterfowl. So interesting to see one.” Dee and the AR were on one of their long bounding walks during their corona … More Hamlet and the Decline of Elsinore

“Why bother!?” cried Titmarsh yesterday on the phone. We’d given up on Zoom, not because of those notorious hackings but because the sight of each other — Titmarsh unshaved in his pyjamas and the Authorial Rabbit’s own fur growing into the bizarre semaphore of the deserted island — need no longer be seen. “About what?” … More Other People

Camus wrote the book on plague. He gave artistic life to that threat of death and just how it animates the powerful and the weak. From his Left Bank apartment in the 1940s near the Abwehr’s headquarters at the Lutetia hotel, in front of which the AR has shuddered in safer times, Camus earned money … More Camus