Phantom Libraries – Part 3: The Sealed Museum of Sir Thomas Browne

Having reviewed comical imaginary libraries from Swift to The Sims, Jonathan Law turns to stranger, more dreamlike worlds, for 'large are the treasures of oblivion'... So far, this has been mostly for laughs. The libraries invented by Rabelais, Donne, Joyce, and Swift were all uproarious things, even where the humour seemed to be laced with something ... Read More...

Deeps beneath the Deep

What if all that we see or seem takes place in a sea beneath a sea, beneath a sea...? Fans and devotees of Spongebob Squarepants (yes, I’m raising my hand) will recall that while the town of Bikini Bottom itself is located underwater it nevertheless borders a sort of sea-under-the-sea. At ... Read More...

Savage Philosophies

Douglas Dalrymple on Before Philosophy, Black Elk and Catholicism... My paternal grandfather’s sympathies were evenly split, I think, between cowboys and Indians. When he died, my grandmother begged me to take a few items from his closet. I kept a button-up cowboy shirt with a nighttime western scene stitched on the ... Read More...

Still Life: Objects and Initimacy

Nige reflects on the power and meaning of still life painting, in the light of a book by American poet Mark Doty... Still Life with Oysters and Lemon is the title of a painting by Jan Davidsz de Heem (above)  that hangs in the Metropolitan Museum in New  York - or ... Read More...

‘Pataphysics

The more I read this unusual wikipedia article, the less I understand. It seems to be some sort of situationist dadaesque wheeze for frenchmen who like to think that they're a bit 'kraaaazy'... 'Pataphysics is a philosophy or media theory dedicated to studying what lies beyond the realm of metaphysics. The ... Read More...

C.E.M. Joad and the buzzing bluebottle

'If he hadn't existed, a satirical novelist would surely have invented him' - Nige on the popular philosopher C.E.M Joad... As well as being a 'botanophile' (as he terms it, to distinguish himself from a proper botanist), Jocelyn Brooke was also a keen maker of fireworks, an interest he developed while ... Read More...

Roger Scruton on wine – an interview

The Dabbler's drinks correspondent Henry Jeffreys talks to the philosopher and columnist Roger Scruton about all matters wine-related... For many years Roger Scruton wrote a column for the New Statesman. It was ostensibly about wine but in reality it smuggled subversive views about the family, religion and hunting into a left ... Read More...

The brain is weirder than the sky…

We've been marking the launch of occasional Dabbler Bryan Appleyard's new book The Brain is Wider than the Sky with a mini-Appleyardfest (read Brit's review here and an exclusive Q&A with the author here). To conclude it, here's Elberry on the human imagination... Signed copy competition winners - congratulations to Dabbler ... Read More...