Hello, again, Blogonauts! (I ask that you allow me to play a little loose with the time-line fiction. Most readers know that I've returned to the US six days ago, on October 4. But for a brief moment, let's pretend that it is last week, and I am just finishing visiting two walled, ancient cities.) Here's a question: Do good fences make good neighbors? The Romans may have argued over this Frostian quote. Romans in Britain built mortared battlements because they...

Hello, again, blogonauts. When I was a teenager, I remember seeing my first Shakespeare play ("A Comedy of Errors," I believe). Its dialogue surprised me, because even though it employed Elizabethan English, it could still thrill and entertain a naive teenager. The Bard nearly perfectly employed the common denominator of human experience. Even in an era that now incorporates astronauts, antibiotics, and Android phones, we still can identify with his characters ...

Hello, again, Blogonauts! What happens when ecclesiastical excess intertwines with municipal mania? Well, I mean aside from the Spanish Inquisition, the Thirty-Years War, the Crusades, the Salem Witch Trials, Islamic State, Utah, etc. More aesthetic outcomes include the occasional Colossal Cathedral! And in medieval England, all the necessary elements cross-pollinated repeatedly. And I went to see a pair of the biggest fruits, each growing on relatively small ...

Hello, again, Blogonauts. While there is a lot we do not yet know about prehistoric residents of England, one thing is repeatedly demonstrated: They were nuts about circles! And without that bit of info, the story of Stonehenge or the older, larger Avebury Henge makes little sense. What stands out most immediately to everyone is the presence of vertical stones set in a circle. They are as hard to miss as they are to explain. But in both monuments, as well as d...