Thursday, October 31, 2019
Not what you’ve been told …
… Yellow journalism ‘brought about Spanish-American War’? But how? | Media Myth Alert.
“But neither the diary entries of Cabinet officers nor the contemporaneous private exchanges among American diplomats indicate that the yellow newspapers exerted anyinfluence at all. When it was discussed within the McKinley administration, the yellow press was dismissed as a nuisance or scoffed at as a complicating factor.”
Hey, folks — here's life under Communism …
… Spy Photos From Communist Czechoslovakia. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
These are some of the thousands of images snapped by Czechoslovakia’s secret police during the 1970s and '80s using tiny hidden cameras.
Touching …
… Afternoons and Early Evenings | by Louise Glück | The New York Review of Books. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
A master's instrument …
… The Long Journey of Charlie Parker’s Saxophone | At the Smithsonian | Smithsonian. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Somebody tell the NBA …
… Police in China's Guangzhou Detain Feminist Who Wrote About Hong Kong. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Sounds about right …
… Bonner: The Nobel Prize in Economics Is a Joke and So Are the Winners - Money & Markets.
And then there's Paul Krugman on election night: “If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.”
Poetry and October …
… The Poetry of Quid Pro Quo on Ezra Pound’s Birthday | Town Topics. (Hat tip, Virginia Kerr.)
Love it or hate it or who-cares, poetry abounds this month, beginning with the birth of Wallace Stevens (October 2) and ending with the arrival of John Keats (October 31). Along with Ezra Pound, whose birthday is today, October 30, and whose name was once synonymous with the hatred of poetry, there’s Arthur Rimbaud (October 20), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (October 21), John Berryman (October 25), and Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath (October 27).
The lunacy continues …
… Nation’s only all-male historically black college accused of ‘toxic’ masculinity | The College Fix.
Morehouse College, the only all-male historically black college or university in the United States, promotes a “Morehouse Man” ideology based on ideals such as “acuity, integrity and agency.”
But Georgetown University Law Professor Jill Morrison thinks those standards create an “exceptionally toxic environment for those who do not conform to the ideal for black masculinity.”
What the hell has happened to Georgetown?
Hmm …
… When C.S. Lewis Predicted Our Doom | The American Conservative. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… just how malleable is our humanity? Would we kick a dying man if those in power demanded it? Would we shed the Tao altogether? Right now, the regnant culture is waging war on a number of things once considered fundamentally human: the family, the two genders, the need to communicate honestly (some would say politically incorrectly), the desire for a national identity and flag. Could it be that the Frosts of the world have already begun their work?
Yet another school to write off …
… Instapundit — HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: UMaryland warns ‘cultural appropriation’ costumes have ‘no place’ on campus…
They have “have no place in an inclusive community.” But UMaryland is obviously not such a community.
Listen in …
… Episode 347 – Kevin Huizenga – The Virtual Memories Show.
“I have a split in my writing life. Part of my brain plans everything out, but I know enough now not to listen to that too much, and that I should be more open to improvising.”
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Finally …
… Trump Awards Medal Of Bravery To Chewbacca For Heroic Deeds During Battle Of Yavin | The Babylon Bee.
Snopes, The New York Times, and dozens of other unbiased, austere truth-tellers immediately debunked the image, pointing out that the Wookiee could not have been presented with the medal since Wookiees are not real.
Remembering Judith …
… Today's Book of Poetry: The Night Chorus - Harold Hoefle (McGill-Queen's University Press).
(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
If you scroll down, you can see a sweet poem about Judith Fitzgerald.
God’s mission …
… Owen Barfield and the power of words – Mark Vernon.
He noticed that poetic words are powerful, even magical. They are a source of delight because their resonance, vigour and colour channel worlds of experience that, in his depression, he doubted were there. Like a shaft of sunlight on a cloudy day, they illuminate what he came to call “the inside of the whole world”.The awakening did not stop with that but led to his big idea: words have soul, an inner vitality that, when embraced, is transformative. They reveal a storehouse of treasures that is permanent and keeps giving. They echo the activity of the divine Word at work in the cosmos.
Something to think on …
To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees.
— Paul Valéry, born on this date in 1871
Progress …
… Weaving Books into the Web—Starting with Wikipedia | Internet Archive Blogs. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
“What has been written in books over many centuries is critical to informing a generation of digital learners,” said Brewster Kahle, Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive. “We hope to connect readers with books by weaving books into the fabric of the web itself, starting with Wikipedia.”
Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Three cheers for Michael Moreno
… Debate professor: Science is a projection of whiteness (Update).
When Moreno argued that the experience of these astronauts proves space exists and is real, the professor countered that, since he hadn’t personally been to space, he could verify that it’s not real. “You can verify that space isn’t real because you haven’t been there?” the student said.
“My life is evidence of the fact that space does not exist,” the professor replied.So nothing exists for the professor that he has not personally experienced. Hmm.
Horse’s ass alert …
… Bernie: 'I Don't Have To' Explain How To Pay For Socialized Medicine.
Excuse me, sir. I believe you are running for public office and have a policy proposal. How that proposal would be paid for is precisely what you ought to be able to tell us. What a putz.
Clever is easy, simple is hard …
… The Deceptive Simplicity of ‘Peanuts’. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… I had recently become good friends with Chris Ware, who articulated quite eloquently the difference between drawing and drawing comics. I had an inkling of what he meant, but it wasn’t until I tried copying Schulz that I experienced comics as a special kind of calligraphy, formed and informed not only by an iconic mental map of the world but also by the intensity of life lived, the depth of feelings felt. Charlie Brown is simultaneously a beautifully proportioned, abstracted assemblage of marks; a conceptually pure and original character; a true expression of Schulz; and, through the act of reading Peanuts, a way also to understand myself. To communicate so much to so many, with so little, as Schulz was able to do with Peanuts, takes a lifetime of practice, persistence, determination, focus, stamina, and dare I say: obsession. Dilettantes and imposters easily betray themselves.
Q&A …
… Interview with Malcolm Guite - After Prayer | The Cultivating Project. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I’m still discovering everyday what the ‘life of a writer’ is, but it certainly involves a kind of fidelity to the craft, a regular, covenanted offering of time and space to the actual task of writing. That means overcoming distraction, self-doubt, not being daunted each time by the difficulty of the task, on the one hand, but on the other hand, it means not being carried away by apparent success, not writing for applause, not depending on reputation, or resting on laurels. In the end it’s quite a practical thing, but it is immensely helpful to have a partner who understands the need for time and space to write, but is also good at keeping your feet on the ground and guarding you against the pretensions and inanities which sometimes ensnare ‘successful’ writers and artists.
Retirement interrupted …
… BOOK REVIEW: 'In a House of Lies' - Washington Times.
… when a group of small boys discover an old car abandoned in the woods near Edinburgh, Scotland, that contains in the trunk the remains of a young private detective who was the subject of a contentious missing persons case back in 2008, John Rebus becomes involved in the reopening of the cold case.
Something to think on …
Prose is not to be read aloud but to oneself alone at night, and it is not quick as poetry but rather a gathering web of insinuations ... Prose should be a long intimacy between strangers with no direct appeal to what both may have known. It should slowly appeal to feelings unexpressed, it should in the end draw tears out of the stone.
— Henry Green, born on this date in 1905
Shocking …
… A genuinely transgressive act | The New Criterion. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… the cheek—the audacity—of a liberal arts college circa 2019 choosing to build and give such prominence to an explicitly Christian chapel. It even features a cross on the roof above its main entrance. Talk about transgressive!
You do not hear much about beauty or its inextricable relation to the true and the good on most college campuses these days. Even to utter the words without the armor of scare quotes would be to seem quaint or naïve at best, compromised by affiliation with a putatively oppressive heritage at worst.
Monday, October 28, 2019
Anniversary …
… Who was Sylvia Plath? Google Doodle honours iconic Pulitzer-winning poet | The Independent. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Sylvia Plath would have turned 87 yesterday. Hard to believe.
Eulogies …
… The American Scholar: Remembering James McConkey – Our Contributors. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
True faith …
… RT’s Reviews & Marginalia : Award for Flannery O’Connor film brings new attention to Catholic writer.
Those who think Christianity is all sweetness should take a look at a crucifix from time to time.h
Another appreciation …
… John Ashbery, the Poet of Our Clime. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Here is my review of Ashbery's Where Shall I Wander.
Like Whitman, Frost, Eliot, Stevens, and William Carlos
Williams, John Ashbery had a hand in creating the American poem.
And when he died at the age of ninety, the encomiums actually
exceeded expectations. Even his admirers liked him. Indeed, no poet
in recent memory—not Merrill or Walcott, not Strand, Wilbur, or
Kinnell—generated the coupling of such affection and respect. It was
something to behold, this gentle blizzard of appreciation.
Here is my review of Ashbery's Where Shall I Wander.
Appreciation …
… “The undulating quality of his thought”: Robert Pogue Harrison remembers Michel Serres | The Book Haven.
See also: Stanford remembers Michel Serres: French consul praises his optimism and “infinite love of peace.”
With Serres, the classroom became not only an intellectual space of illumination but also the site of revelations. In addition to what I’ve called the Orphic quality of his teaching, it also had a Pentecostal aspect. (I borrow the term from our onetime Stanford colleague Pierre Saint-Amand, who attended many of Michel’s seminars in the early years.) Michel himself speaks of that particular type of communication in his book, Le Parasite. With Michel, one had the impression at times that something was speaking through him, that he was bringing to the surface deep, long-buried sources of knowledge and wisdom. It was very close to what Hannah Arendt, with reference to Heidegger’s teaching in the 1920s, called “passionate thinking.”
See also: Stanford remembers Michel Serres: French consul praises his optimism and “infinite love of peace.”
Remembering …
… Saying Goodbye to Sam. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Combat, he knew, creates an unbridgeable gulf between those who have been to war and those at home who spout wartime slogans and believe in national virtues that the battlefield has exposed as lies.
“War turns landscape into anti-landscape, and everything in that landscape into grotesque, broken, useless rubbish—including human limbs,” he wrote in “The Soldiers’ Tale,” a book I read while covering the war in Bosnia.
I have never been in combat or near a battlefield. That is something I am very grateful for. The U.S. entered WWII a couple of months after I was born. As I moved into toddlerhood and beyond, I came to know which of the trains we could see passing just across the street were troop trains. I remember the men who returned that the grownups said had been shell shocked. Later, I got to know men who had been in battle. A friend of my brother's had flown gliders behind enemy lines — and somehow lived to tell about it. One of my best friends — obviously older than I — had flown 25 bombing missions. It wasn't easy to get them to talk about it, but when they finally did, it was a pretty horrific tale they told. Those wartime slogans may be lies (more like grotesque fantasies, it seems to me), but the pacifist slogans are not much better. War is a major piece of evidence in support of the original sin hypothesis.
Something to think on …
An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.
— Evelyn Waugh, born on this date in 1903
Who knew?
… J.S. Bach the Rebel | Lapham’s Quarterly. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… the real-life Bach … provides a striking case study in how prickly dissidents in the history of classical music get transformed into conformist establishment figures by posterity.
Listen in …
… Episode 346 – Ho Che Anderson – The Virtual Memories Show.
“I walked into Star Wars at 7 years old as one person, and I left as someone else. That movie introduced me to the idea of visual storytelling.”
Sunday, October 27, 2019
Poetry and theology …
… Taking Serious Poetry Seriously | The Russell Kirk Center. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
P
P
oetry speaks through two, simultaneous grammars, one of English syntax and one of verse’s rhythms, sounds, and lineation. In doing so, it is able to afford both the experience of theological intellection and the experience of living out theology—of human practice, flourishing, and cost: Auden’s smile and Eliot’s pain. In their work, these two theological experiences overlap as the two grammars of poetry do
Ireland vs, Switzerland …
…Plan to exhume James Joyce’s remains fires international ‘battle of the bones’ | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Reminds one of the football match in Ulysses: “All Ireland vs, the Rest of Ireland.”
Reminds one of the football match in Ulysses: “All Ireland vs, the Rest of Ireland.”
In case you wondered …
… Why poetry matters. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
As Auden says, poetry is “a way of happening”. It takes the passage of time, the reality of loss, the absorption in a sharpened kind of seeing or hearing, and makes all these into speech that can survive (as Auden also insists) and help others survive. Its task of “turning noise into music” is thus irreducibly political, a sustained resistance to commodified, generalised language and the appalling reductions of human possibility that this brings with it. Far from being a decorative adjunct to social or public life, it represents the possibilities to which all intelligent and humane social life should point. “Poetry saves the world every day.”
Getting at the mystery …
… The heart and place of prayer – Catholic World Report.
There are so many aspects to prayer, both external and internal, that the heart of prayer is often best glimpsed through indirect means, such as parables.
I'm persuaded …
… In defense of Comic Sans - The Washington Post. (Hay tip, Dave Lull.)
I claim no expertise, but I am mindful of typefaces, especially when it comes to choosing type for my own books. Until recently, though, I had no notion that my own typeface of choice, Comic Sans, was déclassé, infra dig or in bad, make that execrable, taste. Now that I learn that I have been in wretched taste all these years, well, what the Helvetica, you could knock my serifs off, embolden my Bodoni, italicize me purple, I intend to do nothing about it.I had never heard of Comic Sand until now. But from now on I will be using it whenever I can.
Something to think on …
A lot of novelists start late — Conrad, Pirandello, even Mark Twain. When you're young, chess is all right, and music and poetry. But novel-writing is something else. It has to be learned, but it can't be taught. This bunkum and stinkum of college creative writing courses! The academics don't know that the only thing you can do for someone who wants to write is to buy him a typewriter.
— James M. Cain, who died on this date in 1977
Saturday, October 26, 2019
In case you’re interested …
… Twenty-five writers on the magazines and journals they enjoyed. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I was a big New Yorker fan for most of my life. Now I find it unreadable. Even the cartoons aren’t funny anymore. I suspect that’s because the running it now have no sense of humor.
Something to think on …
This is true happiness: to have no ambition and to work like a horse as if you had every ambition. To live far from men, not to need them and yet to love them. To have the stars above, the land to your left and the sea to your right and to realize of a sudden that in your heart, life has accomplished its final miracle: it has become a fairy tale.
— Nikos Kazantzakis, who died on this date in 1957
Friday, October 25, 2019
Is there anything it can’t do?
… Global Warming is producing fewer “very hot days” | Catallaxy Files.
I look forward to the BoM explanation as to how the decline in “very hot days” during the “warmest decade on record” is evidence of global warming and not a pause. It will be interesting to see if this graph is reproduced using the ACCORN 2 data reconstruction to see what the changes are.
Hmm …
… The closing of the conservative mind: Politics and the art of war.
The technologists of power are today’s true rationalists. That superior intelligence is found among the practitioners of populism is a fact of our time. When liberals talk about reason they mean a mishmash of ideas they picked up at university. Scraps of Rawls, Dworkin and Thomas Piketty, together with a smattering of modish conspiracy theories, form the folk wisdom of the thinking classes. Rationality means deferring to this ragbag of ephemera and ignoring enduring truths about the deciding forces in politics.
Imagine that …
… Opinion: Kanye's new album is explicitly, unabashedly, amazingly Christian – Disrn. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
“But his conversion is no more important than some unknown person’s conversion!” people have said to me. To which I say, ehhhhh that’s right and wrong. His conversion in and of itself, sure. But Kanye has sold 21 million albums and 100 million digital downloads. Millions of people listen to every word he utters. He has the potential to influence masses — masses — of people. So yeah. It’s a big deal.
Hmm …
… The unholy alliance between atheists and evangelicals | Spectator USA. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
When asked what the goals of this new venture are, the organizers and speakers asserted that they share a vision of growing a movement that tries to clarify what ‘social justice’ is about and offers alternatives that don’t rely upon postmodernist ideology to address issues of social inequality and other grievances. By design, the movement should be apolitical and encourage the breaking down of barriers that prevent meaningful dialogue across divides (mostly via guilt by association), fostering free and open dialogue even with people with whom we have substantive disagreements.Well, you have to have evidence to engage in that sort of thing.
Sic transit gloria mundi …
… The death of the great cultural critic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Are reputations like sandcastles, all washed away sooner or later by the tides of fashion?
I doubt if many people remember who Van Wyck Brooks was. I think he was one of the best writers America has produced. I guess that's between me and Brooks now. But isn't that always the case.?Reading is an intimate encounter of writer and reader. The rest is mere celebrity.
The goodness of limits …
… Finitude Frustrates | Peter J. Leithart | First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
From its first pages, Scripture treats finitude as part of the creation God calls “very good.” On the first day of the creation week, God summons light into existence. Light dispels the original darkness, but God doesn’t eliminate darkness—not yet. Instead, he sets light and darkness in a rhythmic dance of day and night, which forms the evenings and mornings of every day since. That temporal rhythm is good, and when God delegates governance of day and night to the heavenly lights, he says that’s “good” too (Gen 1:14–16).Life is nothing if not an adventure.
Then and now …
Here is my review of Unlikely Pilgrim: A religious travelogue that is at once uplifting and dismaying – Catholic World Report.
The contrast between the flourishing of faith in places where it had been severely persecuted and its withering in the lands of what is called the free world turns Alfred Regnery’s Unlikely Pilgrim into something of a cautionary tale.
Something to think on …
Political correctness does not legislate tolerance; it only organizes hatred.
— Jacques Barzun, who died on this date in 2012
Thursday, October 24, 2019
Blogging note …
Once again, I have to take my wife to an appointment. We should be back, though, by mid-afternoon, at which time blogging can resume.
Or taking yourself too seriously …
… The delusions of literary dystopias | Peter Hitchens | Standpoint. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
This wilfully stupid and ignorant regime suppresses knowledge of the past, burns books, and calls those who seek that knowledge “heretics”. It imprisons them and brands their foreheads.
This could be said of any number of contemporary universities.
Beatific south of the border …
… Jack Kerouac, the “poet of jazz” who found Nirvana in Mexico | AL DÍA News. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
After many visits, Kerouac decided to stay in Mexico DF. He lived in a muddy apartment, on the rooftop of a poor building in the “Colonia Roma”; there wasn’t any water or light, except for a candle that the writer used for meditating.
Anniversary …
… On Her 100th Birthday, Doris Lessing And The Jews – The Forward. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
“We did not have to identify with the Soviet Union, with its seventy-odd years of logic-chopping, of idiotic rhetoric, brutality, concentration camps, pogroms against the Jews. Again and again, failure. And, from our point of view, most important, the thousand mind-wriggling ways of defending failure. I think the history of Europe would have been very different. Socialism would not now be so discredited, and above all, our minds would not automatically fall into the habit of ‘capitalism or socialism.’”
Something to think on …
Both art and faith are dependent on imagination; both are ventures into the unknown.
— Denise Levertov, born on this date in 1923
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
Bravo …
… JHU Press celebrates Open Access Week by releasing 100 out-of-print titles online for free | Hub. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
It’s a white whale, men …
… RT’s Reviews & Marginalia : Why I cannot ignore Melville, Hawthorne, and God.
I’ve always regarded Captain Ahab as the greatest Calvinist of them all.
Blogging note …
I'm behind today, and I have to take my wife to PT and schedule some medical stuff for myself as well. I will resume blogging when I can.
Nice …
… First Ever Sukkah at the White House.
During several hours every day, those within the White House complex were able to make their way to East Executive Drive and spend time in the Sukkah to have lunch, bless the Lulav and Esrog and celebrate the Jewish Festival of Sukkos.
Very bad behavior …
… October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month - Washington Times.
As a writer, I’ve accompanied police officers out on patrol many times. A good number of cops have told me that they disliked responding to calls of domestic disputes where they often encounter the aftermath of domestic violence. The disputes often involve drugs and alcohol abuse, and a backdrop of complicated family conflicts. The cops told me that witnessing the suffering of the women and children saddens them and they feel anger toward the person who caused the pain. It is often a struggle to remain professional, I’ve been told.
Q&A …
… A.M. Juster on Writers Using Twitter and Poetry He's Reading. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Family always came first, public service a close second, and writing, as much as I have loved it, a distant third. I wrote a lot in my head during slow commutes and idiotic mandatory meetings, and sometimes I could put pen to paper in airport terminals and hotel rooms. It’s an increasingly disdained model, but it worked for T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams.Non-academics shouldn’t be embarrassed about their work—I think their jobs often provide better experience to support good poems than an academic career does.
For the defense …
… Understanding Jordan Peterson: Why Bother? - Rob Mackenzie - Medium.
If your first exposure to Peterson was an angry re-post from a friend condemning him as a bigot, you can be forgiven for the mistaken assumption that his issue with Bill C-16 has anything to do with trans folks themselves. His issue is with forced speech, or with any government using law to force people into voicing a political view. He’s not stoking fear about trans people. It’s more accurate to see it as resistance to an ideological mentality that deals with opposing viewpoints by silencing them. He’s saying maybe let’s not arm them with the force of law. The idea that one person’s “right to not be offended” trumps another person’s “right to speak freely”, when taken to extremes, leads directly to the climate of absurd moral panic that brought us the college campus scandals surrounding Bret Weinstein at Evergreen College, and Lindsay Shepherd at Wilfred Laurier.
Something to think on …
Whatever you are doing, that which makes you feel the most alive ... that is where God is.
— Ignatius of Loyola, born on this date in 1491
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
In case you wondered …
… I certainly did: How “The Postman Always Rings Twice” Got Its “Sort of Crazy” Name | Library of Congress Blog. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Good …
… Parents in College-Admissions Cheating Case Face Additional Charges - WSJ.
Maybe it will encourage them and others to stop preaching to the rest of us.
Good …
… Faithful Catholics Throw Amazonian Idols Displayed in the Vatican into the Tiber River.
This was done for only one reason: Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, his Blessed Mother, and everybody who follows Christ, are being attacked by members of our own Church. We do not accept this! We do not longer stay silent! We start to act NOW!
Because we love humanity, we cannot accept that people of a certain region should not get baptized and therefore are being denied entrance into heaven. It is our duty to follow the words of God, like our holy Mother did. There is not second way of salvation.Of course, I’m just am old|-fashioned Catholic. The sooner Pope Francis goes to his eternal reward — whatever that may be — the better.
Listen in …
… Episode 345 – Frank Santoro – The Virtual Memories Show.
“Memory rhymes with these little moments in time, and time folds in on itself in a remarkable way, and comics is a wonderful example of that, unlike film or prose.”
In case you wondered …
… Watch and listen: What's wrong with political correctness? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Hmm …
… The moral mathematics of letting people die | OUPblog. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Taking account of all these numbers leads to increasingly challenging questions. Must we save two lives or prevent a thousand people from losing their sight? Can avoiding tiny chances of future catastrophes take precedence over helping folks right here and now? Because resources are limited, we cannot respond fully to every morally serious consideration. As with deciding whether to push the only raft left or right, we must face our situation of scarcity head-on.
Q&A …
… A Conversation with Maryann Corbett | Maryann Corbett | First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I think I have “white whale subjects”—obsessions I return to over and over. I’ve finished many poems about them but never feel I’ve exhausted them or gotten to the heart of my meaning.
Something to think on …
A simple grateful thought turned heavenwards is the most perfect prayer.
— Doris Lessing, born on this date in 1919
Seasonal reminder …
… First Known When Lost: Nevertheless.
What a wonderful and breathtaking circumstance: each year, the seasons play out for us the arc of our life. This beautiful and mysterious gift should give us pause. One might fancy that we are part of something that is beyond our ken, and beyond words. In the meantime, autumn and winter and spring and summer come and go, each with its own "and yet -- and yet --," its own "nevertheless." How lucky we are.
Monday, October 21, 2019
Remembering …
… The American Scholar: My Teacher, Harold Bloom - Gary Saul Morson. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Like so many other students in the class, I was sometimes mystified, sometimes elated. No one better conveyed—in fact, embodied—the love of poetry. But if I had been asked what exactly I had learned from his lectures, the answer would have been: not much about the poems, but a great deal about how to teach. These lessons in pedagogy were both positive and negative. I constantly recall them, and they have shaped my teaching ever since.
Pen in place of sword …
… BOOK REVIEW: 'Cold Warriors: Writers Who Waged the Literary Cold War' - Washington Times.
“Between February and May 1955, a group secretly funded by the Central Intelligence Agency launched a secret weapon into Communist territory. Gathering at launch sites in West Germany, operatives inflated 10-foot balloons, armed them their payload, waited for favorable winds and launched them into Poland.“They then watched as the balloons were carried deep behind the Iron Curtain, where they would eventually disgorge their contents. These, though, were not explosives or incendiary weapons: they were books,” Duncan White writes in the opening of his book, “Cold Warriors: Writers Who Waged the Literary Cold War.”
Getting to know each other …
… Akin by Emma Donoghue review – the ties that bind | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
If this book demonstrates Donoghue’s range as an author – and it does, in spades – it also shows her circling back to a handful of key concerns. In Akin, she has found a way to consider the subjects of love, freedom and family from a freshly illuminating perspective.
Hmm …
… Overcoming Bias : Joker is Creepy. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
With Democratic candidates competing to advocate unprecedented extreme redistribution schemes, you might think left-leaning movie critics would love a film about a downtrodden guy who, suffering from public service cutbacks, starts a political movement to resist the rich and powerful. But in fact elite critics mostly hate it …As Dudley Do-Right used to say, “But this is a movie.”
Celebrating a birthday …
… Samuel Taylor Coleridge; a birthday sonnet, and a book | Malcolm Guite. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Hmm …
… The Atheist Illusion - Los Angeles Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Thankfully, Gray spends little time on the New Atheists, getting them out of the way in the perfunctory first chapter, while acknowledging that their contributions to disbelief, while the most recent and the most visible among the wider public, they’re also historically the least interesting. Rather, he spends most of his time giving a fuller taxonomy of the ways to not believe in God that go beyond the middle-class affectations of a Hitchens or Dawkins. Seven Types of Atheism categorizes its subject in the same number of broad tenets, with Gray including alongside the suburban New Atheists more provocative tribes of non-sectarians such as those who’ve made a religion of science, those who’ve made a religion of radical politics, those who’ve embraced a misotheistic hatred of God, and finally two categories for whom Gray has an obvious affection: the disbeliever who still sees the utility of religious ritual and the apophatic visionary for whom, paradoxically, “some of the most radical forms of atheism may in the end be not so different from some mystical varieties of religion.”I know a bit about "some mystical varieties of religion." The via negativa figures prominently in the Thomism I was instructed in. Simon says he has been trying throughout his career to discover what the word God means exactly. Well, I don't know what his parameters of exactness are, but for me God is the principle of intelligence and personality inherent in being. That is what I think Heraclitus was getting at with his notion of the Logos and what Lao-tse was trying to get across with the notion of the Tao. As for Jesus, the Chinese translation of the prologue to John's Gospel works for me: "In the beginning was the Tao and the Tao was with God and the Tao was God." I do not think that God can be defined much beyond that. But I do think God can be experienced, which is why an authentic prayer life, with its doubts and darknesses, is essential. As Karl Rahner said, "In the days ahead, you will either be a mystic (one who has experienced God for real) or nothing at all."
Something to think on …
I have seen great intolerance shown in support of tolerance.
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge, born on this date in 1792
Sunday, October 20, 2019
Sounds good to me …
… RT’s Reviews & Marginalia : Is it time Bible classes in public schools?
Given that we speak English and that the King James Bible is one of the monuments of English prose, I can’t see why not. Think of the titles taken therefrom — East of Eden, The Sun Also Rises, Balm in Gilead, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men — and many more.
Taking prayer seriously …
… The prayer that we breathe – Catholic World Report.
Prayer, then, is both a battle of faith and the triumph of perseverance. We usually don’t think of prayer in these terms because, I think, we often envision prayer as having to be serene and peaceful, a smooth path of communication between God and ourselves. Yet, on the other hand, we all know that prayer often is a battle; it is a struggle against our natural inclination to not pray if we “don’t feel like it.” And prayer can also reveal to us the grim reality of spiritual warfare. This battle, the Catechism insightfully points out, shows us that “Christian prayer is neither an escape from reality nor a divorce from life.”
Eyewitness news …
… zmkc: Revulsion. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
But until I thought about it yesterday and today, I tended toward a disgruntled and cowardly tolerance of the status quo (it would all be too hard, would leaving be worth it, would it be too economically dangerous [which is still a question I fear has no good answer]?)Not any more. There was something about what I witnessed yesterday that turned me against those who wish to force Britain to remain within the Brussels power structures. It seemed to me that what I was witnessing was a meeting of cult members who want to ruthlessly crush democracy and who loathe their dissenting fellow citizens.
Definitely read the whole thing.
Equal wrongs …
… Europol says women 'equally capable of crime' as men as it reveals most-wanted list.
I was raised by my mother and my grandmother (my mother’s mother), both factory workers. This would not surprise them.
The many ways of reading …
… What we talk about when we talk about books – TheTLS. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… reading in print is supposed to be a sedentary activity which absorbs the reader, situated in opposition to a complex of online reading-based activities (browsing, posting, retweeting, commenting). Price offers, by contrast, dense histories of marginalia and dog-earing, of books sold, loaned, redacted, recommended and withheld – multi-tasking rather than rapt attention. Where reading books is assumed to palliate pathological issues including anxiety and depression, Price draws attention to the history of moralistic opposition to books (particularly novels) as spreaders of disease, and, more broadly, to readers who turn to literature not to be sedated but rather to be stimulated. Reading books has, Price shows, fostered community and conversation, and still does.
His own man …
… What Clarence Thomas doesn't believe. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The best thing that can be said about Corey Robin's new book is that it should finally put an end to these inexcusably ugly slurs — which, as the author reminds us, are exactly the sort of thing right-wingers used to say about Thurgood Marshall and William Brennan. Thomas is, as court watchers not named Linda Greenhouse or Jeffrey Toobin have long recognized, a fascinating figure in his own right
Faith and art …
… A Friendship in Letters: Flannery O'Connor and Katherine Anne Porter | Literary Hub. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Being in context …
… Longing for Home | The Russell Kirk Center. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Rather than idolize where we came from or where we are going, Esolen argues, nostalgia rightly understood provides the inspiration to appreciate and treasure the legacy of the past to the present, and provides a sense of value and meaning for the future. As Gustav Mahler put it, “Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.”The point of a classical education is to acquire an experienced mind, a mind familiar with where we have been, in the hope if discovering where best we might go.
Trumpets and drums, please …
… Poem of the Year: May 2017-Apr 2018 : IBPC.
The Judges’ Pages:
… Joyce Kelly.
… Kim Leifer.
(Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
The Judges’ Pages:
… Joyce Kelly.
… Kim Leifer.
(Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Something to think on …
Indeed he knows not how to know who knows not also how to un-know.
— Richard Francis Burton, who died on this date in 1890
Saturday, October 19, 2019
Sounds persuasive …
… Why You Should Read Peter Handke | John Wilson | First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… you may say, why should I invest time reading about a controversy involving a writer whose work I know only slightly or not at all, especially when it sounds rather murky? That’s a good question. I think the intention of those who have denounced Handke is to surround him with a toxic smell, so that readers who might otherwise have been tempted to pick up some of his books will be discouraged from doing so. That seems wicked to me, especially when it is cloaked in moral trappings.Many years ago, I reviewed Handke’s The Left-Handed Woman. The intrepid Dave Lull tracked down a copy of that review. I was not impressed. But I have just ordered Repetition.
Better odd than none …
… The Odd Immortality of John Crowe Ransom. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
One of Ransom’s best addresses mortality: Janet Waking.
One of Ransom’s best addresses mortality: Janet Waking.
Get woke, go broke …
… Taxpayers are fed up: The real reason universities are making cuts.
Taxpayers may wonder what, exactly, about a truthful historical statement is beyond the bounds of university life, and why unelected educational bureaucrats get to decide what the university’s values are. But more likely they will simply conclude that universities are silly places, not worthy of their tax dollars.
Remembering …
… Harold Bloom’s Immortality. (Ht tip, Dave Lull.)
What has followed, in this past month, was perhaps the most beautiful creative process I have ever been part of. On a daily basis, Harold would send me notes, parts of chapters, thoughts, apologies for not writing more because he was worn out from teaching, dreams and corrections to the prospectus that he wanted to make sure I liked. At eighty-nine, he was writing more quickly and more powerfully than I (his ostensible editor) was able to read and respond to. In one email, he sent me the epilogue in its entirety—not in a Word document, just in the body of the email. It included this line, which I can’t stop rereading.Well, this life and the next one are nearer to each other than we think.
At ninety I have died and been resurrected five or six times. I refer to the many falls and grave illnesses that led to serious and successful surgery. My body—such as it is—is the Resurrection Body. I would interpret this as meaning that immortality is this life and so is redemption.
Blogging note …
It's Saturday and I must do some shopping. But I'll be blogging again this afternoon.
On the cusp of an anniversary …
… “Goodnight Moon,” Almost 75 Years Later - Los Angeles Review of Books. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
I realize my thoughts on all this could be borne from a mushy, sleep-deprived daddy-brain, but I have also read this book after a good night’s rest, looked into Brown’s life and times, and concluded something else. This book, which is fast approaching its 75th birthday, has become the classic bedtime story not only for the insights Brown has invited us to have into the child’s experience, but also, given its deep and lasting resonance, for its insights into the caretaker, the other character in the room who is identified — in Brown’s words, as “a quiet old lady who was whispering ‘hush.’”A wonderful book.
Unsentimental journey …
… I, Rose Sayer: Going Downriver With Donald Trump | The American Spectator. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I like The African Queen, though I certainly have never identified with Charlie Allnut. But I don't tend to identify with characters, period.
Friday, October 18, 2019
Missing manuscript …
… Director of a New Truman Capote Doc Has a Theory About His Long-Missing, Incendiary Last Novel. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The case of Answered Prayers is one of literature’s great mysteries. After chapters of the novel were published in Esquire in 1975 and 1976, Capote became persona non grata among his longtime socialite friends, the “swans.” Slim Keith, Gloria Vanderbilt, and other wealthy, fashionable jet-setters never forgave him for stealing their gossip for a thinly veiled portrayal of their vanity, vacuousness, and marital turmoil.
Blogging note …
I am being taken out for a belated celebration of my birthday. Blogging will resume later.
Blogging is a little difficult for me just now, because I'm wearing an old pair of glasses while my others are fitted with new lenses. I have to keep increasing the size of the type to see what I'm doing.
Monstrous and magical …
… Case Closed – Idlings. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Bleak House by Charles Dickens.Dave also sends along this: Books, Inq. - Bravo Dickens ...
Hmm …
… 'Music: A Subversive History,' by Ted Goia book review - The Washington Post.
Well some insiders have done some good stuff, too — Mozart, Bach, Josquin Des Prez.
… Gioia argues that “musical innovation happens from the bottom up and the outside in.” After all, fresh ideas are seldom found in the conservatory, cathedral or concert hall. One needs instead to search out “the neglected spheres of music that survive outside the realms of power brokers, religious institutions and social elites.”
Well some insiders have done some good stuff, too — Mozart, Bach, Josquin Des Prez.
Deadline alert …
The North of Oxford deadline for November is October 27th if you would like to send something along for consideration.
Honored …
… Film Prize Awarded to Literary Documentary “Flannery” | Fine Books & Collections. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
Zen teaches nothing; it merely enables us to wake up and become aware. It does not teach, it points.
— D. T. Suzuki, born on this date in 1870
Thursday, October 17, 2019
Blogging note …
I have to go out and do some things that will probably take up much of the day. And tonight we're going to the orchestra. So I will fit in blogging when and if I can.
And the winners are
… Gramophone Classical Music Awards 2019: the full report | gramophone.co.uk. (Hat tip, David Tothero.)
I'm familiar with Bertrand Chamayou, who is very good, but I don't keep up much with the latest in classical music anymore. I listen to my old favorites. (I do think highly of Paavo Järvi, though.)
A prophet for these times …
… Houellebecq and the Death of Europe | John Waters | First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Here is my review of Houellebecq's The Map and the Territory.
This may be where Europe is heading.
Houellebecq writes about the disappointment, sadness, loneliness, anguish, terror, boredom, and despair imposed by a culture unfit for human habitation. He exposes the freedom con pedalled since the sixties and defended in the name of progress. He summons up a diseased world, leaving the reader repelled and unsettled, but also relieved that at last the truth is told. He does not raise false hopes, but presents his characters in extremis within the collapsing culture, their humanity no longer capable of extending into the available space. But all the while there is an implicit comparison of an unexpected kind: that something better is possible—something that may once have existed, perhaps a memory deep in the recesses of the reader’s mind.
Here is my review of Houellebecq's The Map and the Territory.
This may be where Europe is heading.