Epitome

Bob Gonzalez

Excerpts from great writings by master writers, storytellers, philosophers, poets as well as original commentary by informed enthusiasts. Genres will range from fiction, drama, and essay to poetry, oratory, and aphorism.

  • Episode 78 - The Art of Worldly Wisdom - Part 2
    More aphorisms and commentary from Balthasar Gracián, the 17th century Spanish Jesuit philosopher, offering counsel on surviving and thriving in the life of the court and society in general.
    19 August 2018, 10:00 am
  • Episode 77 - Laotze - Dao De Jing - Passages 28-36
    Our fourth installment of 9-passage sections of the ancient Chinese sage's Classic of the Way and Its Excellence.
    12 August 2018, 10:00 am
  • Episode 76 - What is Education?
    Thomas Henry Huxley, British biologist, educator, and famous as "Darwin's Bulldog," for championing the revolutionary naturalist's theory of evolution, offers his definition and explanation of a liberal education.
    5 August 2018, 10:00 am
  • Episode 75 - Cultivating Peace
    A handful of maxims whose practice can bring quietude and tranquillity to life.
    29 July 2018, 10:00 am
  • Episode 74 - Thanatopsis - Bryant
    William Cullen Bryant's most famous poem, which translates from the Greek as "A View of Death," written when he was 17 years old.
    22 July 2018, 10:00 am
  • Episode 73 - An Adventure in India - Voltaire
    Greek philosopher Pythagoras, while sojourning in India, encounters an herb, an oyster, and a mob of Hindus bent on burning two men at the stakes for the perceived heresies of questioning religious traditional wisdom.
    22 July 2018, 7:14 am
  • Episode 72 - Aphrodite & Ares - Homer
    The story sung by Demodocus, singer of the court of Alcinous, King of the Phaeacians, hosts of Odysseus after his raft washes ashore on the island of Scherie. How Aphrodite, goddess of love, cheated on her husband, Hephaestus, the gods' smithy, with Ares, god of war.
    8 July 2018, 10:00 am
  • Episode 71 - Time Sonnets II - Shakespeare
    Six sonnets on the theme of time by the Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon. Music: John Dowland "Flow My Tears," performed by guitarist Jon Sayles. http://www.jsayles.com/familypages/earlymusic.htm
    1 July 2018, 10:00 am
  • Episode 70 - The Artist - Maupassant
    A short story from the French master of the form, Guy de Maupassant. A skilled carnival knife-thrower laments his misfortune to the sympathetic narrator of the tale.
    24 June 2018, 10:00 am
  • Episode 69 - On Clothing by Henry David Thoreau
    An excerpt from the chapter, "Economy," in Walden by Henry David Thoreau, where the philosopher expounds his thoughts on simple accoutrements.
    17 June 2018, 10:00 am
  • Episode 68 - A Fable by Mark Twain
    The great American storyteller, author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, offers this brief, moralistic animal tale featuring the cleverness of the cat, the skepticism of the ass, and the curiosity of a host of other animals of the forest.
    10 June 2018, 10:00 am
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