Iām fascinated with the way art, literature and popular culture interact with each other and reflect the period of their creation.
Iām addicted to Shakespeare but also 1930s pulp magazines. Exploring popular culture from any period can bring that era alive with extraordinary vividness. I collect first editions and the earliest appearance of literary works in periodicals for the ātime-capsuleā experience of exploring what they meant to readers at that time of earliest publication.
Some favorite artists and photographers are Francesca Woodman, Gustav Klimt and Tamara de Lempicka. I'm smitten with the Victorian Era.
Making YouTube and booktube videos is a blast since they allow me to revisit subject that have fascinated me for decades such as the life and works of James Joyce, Ann Sexton, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Geoffrey Hill. I'm also currently writing about the subjects of two lectures I gave decades ago: āShakespeare and Modern Evil,ā and āHerman Melville and the Visual Arts.ā