Occasional blogging, mostly of the long-form variety.

About Vagabond Scholar

This blog covers politics, film, theater, poetry, literature, history and what-have-you. (Mostly, it's tardy long-form blogging.) For the brave of heart with lots of time at hand, my blogiversary roundups (linked below) provide a decent overview of past posts, wide in variety, uniform in their suspect quality. I've guest posted or cross-posted a few other places – Crooks and Liars, Hullabaloo, the Campaign for America's Future, and Blue Herald, where I did a series called Right-Wing Cartoon Watch.

As for the blog's title, it's in the spirit of curiosity and searching, not pretending to know all the answers. From my second blogiversary post:

…There are times I wonder why the hell I picked it. As I wrote early on, I've long thought it would be a fun name for a column, and later learned it was the title of a biography about historian George Santayana. I have a wide range of interests, and until a few years ago, I had spent most of my life moving around (seven states, three continents) studying or teaching. I think of a "scholar" as one who values the life of the mind and the arts, is driven to learn more and who tries to be honest, not someone who possesses all the answers already. There's a saying that "I don't trust the man who says he's seen the light. I trust the person who's still looking." That said, sometimes "Vagabond Scholar" strikes me as a stuffy or pretentious blog title that doesn't quite fit with the more satirical posts or my nom de blog, but I guess it sounds vaguely more respectable than "Semiliterate Bum."

Blogiversary Roundups
(Mainly so I can find the damn posts later)

Here's the second blogiversary roundup (2005–2007).

Here's the third blogiversary roundup (2007–2008).

Here's the fourth blogiversary roundup (2008–2009).

Here's the fifth blogiversary roundup (2009–2010).

Here's the sixth blogiversary roundup (2010–2011).

Here's the seventh blogiversary roundup (2011–2012).

Here's the eighth blogiversary roundup (2012–2013).

Here's the ninth blogiversary roundup (2013–2014).

Here's the 10th blogiversary roundup, which serves as a "best of" roundup of the blog's first 10 years (2005–2015).

Drinking Bacchus. (Hic!)