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Of Nisbets, ISBNs and Has-Beens

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Continuing a previous post on Karl Popper that started as an email thread: O kay, just one more, which I shall great-grandfather in after having name-checked Robert Nisbet in closing my lead letter in the TLS for June 26; file the age-synced obits below under "What a difference thirty-five years does not make" or perhaps an expansion of the old Benny Hill/ pub joke ending with "twenty-two today!" by sixty more: Obituary, The New York Times , 1961:  ROBERT NISBET, 82, PAINTER, RIFLEMAN * Obituary, The New York Times , 1996:  Robert Nisbet 82, Sociologist and Conservative Champion ...
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The Popper Study of My Kind, or, The Open Sesame and Its Enemy, or, The Poverty of His Story: A Schism, or, Le philosophe se parle à lui-même, or, Karl Bühler's Day Off

M ichael Ignatieff in 1998, round the time of his Isaiah Berlin biography, in the closing passage of a public colloquy at Berkeley  with two of the leading literary lights on the faculty, the Hebraist Robert Alter and Michael André Bernstein: "I don't mean to cast aspersion on Popper, who was a great man, but I once went to interview him for British television. And Popper was in his late 80s/early 90s, and he greeted me at the door in a kind of blue running suit and Nike trainers, a tiny little man, like a sort of bantam cock, and he says, 'So pleased to see you. I am ready for your interview. Here are your questions.' [laughter] "I'm not kidding. He had written up on longhand, which I will treasure and sell for a vast price, an eighteen-page interview including all 'my' questions and all his answers. All I had to do was turn on the tape recorder and we would rea...
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The Gan Cave, or, Much ADU Abuts Nesting

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Real Estate A woman built her parents a 725-square-foot cottage in her backyard so they could be closer to their grandchildren
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Like Father's, Like Parkinson’s

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F rom a family email thread discussing the potential patriarchal prospect of Parkinson's: On Thu, Aug 6, 2026, 11:31 AM Kristen Lahti wrote: He Suddenly Shuffled When He Walked. Why? (Gift Article) nytimes.com ...
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This Week's Episode of 'DSL. in the TLS' (Letters, August 7, 2026): 'Out of the Fire and Into the Ayer Fryer with Tyson's Frozen Nuggets (feat. Boxing Rings and A Can of Campbell's), or, By the Dons' Early, Burly, Girly Twilight'

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M y fourteenth letter in The Times Literary Supplement (August 7, 2026 , below ), six weeks ( three biweekly issues )  since the last (old record, 2020: eight then-weekly issues between letters) , now online ( third letter, mostly  paywalled), in my  Google Drive  and due in British mailboxes and newsstands Friday morning (images added) : Letters to the Editor ‘Twilight of the Dons’          Twilight of the Dons , J. M. Coetzee on genocide, Waiting for Godot in Blackpool, etc R ichard Vinen [ reviewing Twilight of the Dons: British intellectuals from World War II to Thatcherism by Colin Kidd , July 24 ] describes the Oxford philosopher A. J. “Freddie” Ayer    as having felt aggrieved not to have been recognized by the boxer Mike Tyson. But as the famous story was reported in A. J. Ayer: A Life by Ben Rogers, the cry of lèse-majesté and attendant pulling of rank originated with Tyson. Colin McGinn ( TLS , Ju...
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