John Carey, an early and influential mentor of Clay’s, was the Merton Professor of English at Oxford University. Professor Carey died recently at the age of 91.

Remembering My Beloved Oxford University Mentor

Clay remembers an early and influential mentor, Professor John Carey of Oxford University.
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Time's 2025

A Review of 2025 at Year’s End

Amid Christmas grocery shopping, Clay reflects on the year that was.
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image of the U.S. Constitution

America at 250: Our Stuck Constitution

Clay has debated constitutional scholars and historical impersonators in and out of costume across the United States; addressed 27 state legislatures; Supreme Court summer conferences; and humanities conferences across America. After reading Jill Lepore’s new book, We the People, and following the third of four weekly online classroom sessions, he stepped back to write this week’s essay.
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American flag at half-mast.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Seeing flags at half-mast last week brought to mind the immortal passage from the great poet and scholar John Donne.
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Oxford University Graduation program.

There Will Always Be an England (I Hope)

Clay traveled to England last week to attend his daughter’s graduation ceremony, where she received her PhD from Oxford University. Oxford University Graduation program. I had the joy yesterday, Friday, November 7, 2025, of seeing my beloved daughter take her degree at the seventeenth-century Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford.…
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The World of Error in a Galaxy of Facts

Clay ponders the “Truth Taser.” The best invention since the Veg-O-Matic?
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Inspired by Thoreau and the inevitability of time, Clay undertakes sorting through a six-decade collection of thousands of books.

My Adventures in Downsizing

After spending five or six decades buying books, an enormous number of books, I have begun to downsize.
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near Fremont Peak

Where Steinbeck Said Goodbye to His California Home — Video Dispatch

Clay and Russ Eagle recently visited Fremont Peak, which overlooks California’s Salinas Valley and Monterey Bay. It was an especially important spot for John Steinbeck and deeply tied to his youth. Russ reads a passage from Travels with Charley, where the famous author writes about his last visit to there. 
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Approximately 250 Lakota men, women, elders, and children were killed on December 19, 1890, at Wounded Knee, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, SD

Reopening the Wounds of Wounded Knee

Wounded Knee, really?
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Jimmy Kimmel Live promotional poster

Humor on Trial in an Age of Disruption

Free speech and the future in context.
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