Uncategorized Archives - Page 4 of 8

Carl Jung’s “Psychology of the Unconscious” and the Value of Primary Texts

By seanvansickel May 29, 2015Uncategorized

Jung’s seminal work is a treatise on the universal unconscious manifestations of the human libido, in religion, in art, and -most importantly- in religion and myth. Is there any reason…

On Posting Regularly

By seanvansickel May 25, 2015Uncategorized

I'm sure some of you have noticed that I've been posting a little less, and with a little less regularity. Fear not. I have every intention of continuing to publish…

Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon”, and Why You Should Read Good Genre Fiction

By seanvansickel May 25, 2015Uncategorized

Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon" is one of those books that has its fingerprints over everything. In the same way that Melville's turns of phrase have trickled down to every…

Reading Log: March

By seanvansickel April 6, 2015Uncategorized

I did much better this month, but I had to really buckle down toward the end. I read a couple back issues of literary journals, some work in translation, a…

Bookhounds -Jr. High Edition:

By seanvansickel March 27, 2015Uncategorized

I’m running a Jr. High Language Arts classroom until the end of the school year. Since I’ll be in there a while, I decide to invest in the youth a…

Another Successful Trip To Bookhounds

By seanvansickel February 9, 2015Uncategorized

Had some good luck at Bookhounds (simultaneously the greatest bookstore and thrift shop within 80 miles of Bakersfield, CA). All of this for less than twenty bucks. Really loving this…

Linguistics, Literature in Translation and my Attempt to Learn Spanish

By seanvansickel February 5, 2015Uncategorized2 Comments

I took two years of Spanish in high school, so I can speak it about as well as most Americans who took any foreign language for two years (somewhere between…

Reading Log: Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley

By seanvansickel January 28, 2015Uncategorized

At 58, John Steinbeck drove across America for a little over three months in a camper pickup with his elderly French poodle, Charley. The dog was not only a companion,…

(Aborted) Reading Log: Gone Girl and Why I Need to Give Up on Reading Books That David Fincher Makes Into Movies.

By seanvansickel January 26, 2015Uncategorized

I gave up eighty pages in and skimmed the rest for plot (I always try to make it at least 50 pages in good faith with any novel-length reading endeavor).…

Reading Log: Paul Harding’s Tinkers

By seanvansickel January 23, 2015Uncategorized

Tinkers by Paul Harding Tinkers is a short book, but it was hard to get through. One might be tempted to call the prose purple if it weren’t…