Not long ago, someone I respect asked how to use the blog: what to read, where to begin. It now has more than 500 posts, plus other resources, totaling about 700,000 words. I created this alligator extension to help readers find their way and, frankly, to remind myself of what I’ve written here. The tool needs to be a lot smarter (it will be), but the plan is to make it a guide to Lafferty’s writing through my posts on Arrive at Easterwine. You can ask about a story, a charac

Anthony Quinn's illustration of Mad King Sweeney Eorann: All the same, I would prefer a hollow tree and Sweeney bare — that sweetest game we used to play — to banqueting with him today. I tell you, Sweeney, if I were given the pick of all in earth and Ireland, I'd rather go with you, live sinless and sup on water and watercress. — Seamus Heaney, Sweeney Astray “I suppose that I had better take up my den in the tree,” Enniscorthy Sweeny had said. “They won’t know how to drive

About Sweeny’s work, those endless and topless mountains of music, and the rivers of words that run like waterfalls out of those mountains, is it really influencing and creating events in the world? Yes it is. And the music is much more powerful than the words in these creations. Alexandr Scriabin (1871–1915) went out in a bad way. A pimple on his upper lip developed into an infected boil. Attempts to lance it failed to stop the infection. There were no effective antibiotics