Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Happy New Year - 2020
On behalf of Frank and Vikram, I wanted to wish everyone a happy and health new year. We're fortunate to have such an engaged, thoughtful, and committed readership: thank you for all of your comments, links, and articles. It's been another great year on the blog. We passed 60,000 posts and are closing in on 5,000,000 visits. A tip of the hat to all, but especially to Frank, who continues to lead with his characteristic mixture of grace, grit, and intellect. Here's to 2020!
Listen in …
… The Guest List 2019 – The Virtual Memories Show.
We asked the past year’s podcast-guests for the favorite books they read in 2019 and the books they hope to read in 2020 for our special year-end Guest List episode! More than two dozen guests participated, so listen to the show to hear about their picks, and use this page to check out all the books, as well as their past episodes!
Among our lesser worries …
… The Midlife Crisis of the American Restaurant Review - Los Angeles Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The old ideal of critic as neutral arbiter gives way to a modern vision of the critic as hip, multicultural storyteller. “I don’t see the critic’s task as one of simply deciding if a food or restaurant experience is pleasing,” writes Soleil Ho, “but rather using an aesthetic evaluation of restaurants to tell stories about the connections between people, cultures, and communities.”Well, as Miss Jean Brodie said, "for those who like that sort of thing … that is the sort of thing they like."
For the new year …
… a jeremiad: The turn of the year is no cause for optimism - UnHerd. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… they chose war. And it was that war which ended all possibility of the future which we might have had. War took us from stately, mannered opulence to bare, arrogant expressions of strength and money. It ended the slow amelioration of old-fashioned social democracy and gave us Bolshevism. It obliterated conservatism and gave us fascism and National Socialism. And in the end it brought us to the deliberately materialist modernism of the European Union and the secular worship of material progress above all things, which we have now, and perhaps for a while longer.
Something to think on …
Cure yourself of the affliction of caring how you appear to others. Concern yourself only with how you appear before God, concern yourself only with the idea that God may have of you.
— Miguel de Unamuno, who died on this date in 1936
Monday, December 30, 2019
Methinks we need more research …
…'Snowmanning' is winter's heartbreaking new dating trend | Fox News.
I see no indication that it is always the snowman who is at fault. What about the snow-women?
Here be dragons …
… A History of Dragons Throughout Western Literature | Tor.com. (Hat tip, Tim Davis.)
More Powys …
… His one subject: 'I am I'.
The book editor of The Inquirer, when this was published, was yours truly.
Roundup …
… The New Yorker’s Twenty-Five Best Poems of 2019 | The New Yorker. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Two poems …
… Portrait in Georgia by Jean Toomer | Poetry Foundation.
… Beehive by Jean Toomer | Poetry Foundation.
(Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
December 26 marked the 125th anniversary of Jean Toomer's birth.
… Beehive by Jean Toomer | Poetry Foundation.
(Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
December 26 marked the 125th anniversary of Jean Toomer's birth.
Only two days from now …
… Public Domain Day 2020 | Duke University School of Law. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Anniversary …
… High Times Greats: Interview With Paul Bowles • High Times. (Hat tip,Tim Davis.)
The absurd is fantastic. I can appreciate when other people write absurdities, but to invent them myself—I don’t think I could do very well. I don’t think it would be very funny. Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is an extraordinary story. It’s funny only as long as she means it to be funny, and then suddenly it becomes very serious. But when it is funny, it is funny because it is absurd.
Our times …
… Kabalarians at the Gate – Quadrant Online. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
There is little doubt that children, even the most privileged, are being bred up to easy moral outrage about complex and difficult social matters before they can even think, which is why, perhaps, a child of nine or ten can spell correctly the word offensive but not write (or we are willing and able to believe that it can).
Grand master …
… He Kept his Spirits Down on Purpose: Wolf Solent by John Cowper Powys |. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I actually reviewed Powys's Porius. Here it is. The review begins with one of the reasons I read Powys in the first place:
And here is Melissa Beck's post on her reading this past year: Communication in the Midst of Solitude: My Year in Reading—2019.
I actually reviewed Powys's Porius. Here it is. The review begins with one of the reasons I read Powys in the first place:
"The other day I began reading A Glastonbury Romance by John Cowper Powys," Henry Miller wrote to Lawrence Durrell. "My head began bursting as I read. No, I said to myself, it is impossible that any man can put all this . . . down on paper. . . . Old John had caught the world by the throat. And lovingly and surely squeezed every bit of beauty, of meaning, of purposeless purpose out of it in a few pages. Utterly phenomenal. "
And here is Melissa Beck's post on her reading this past year: Communication in the Midst of Solitude: My Year in Reading—2019.
Something to think on …
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
— Rudyard Kipling, born on this date in 1865
Sunday, December 29, 2019
Inside story …
… Bair, Beauvoir, and the Becketeers | The Russell Kirk Center.
… as the book progresses, she becomes more and more emotionally involved with the story she’s telling, as if we were talking to her at a cocktail party and she needed a few drinks to loosen up. By the book’s midpoint, she is perfectly willing to tell us about the boorish behavior of John Montague, an Irish friend of Beckett’s who invited himself and his family to live with the Bairs for six weeks. And she’s certainly willing to talk about her mistreatment at the hands of the overwhelmingly male Academy and especially the academic Beckett cult—or, as she amusingly calls them, the Becketeers.
RIP …
… Alasdair Gray, influential Scottish writer and artist, dies aged 85 | Books | The Guardian.
The novelist Ali Smith called Gray “a modern-day William Blake” and said: “He was an artist in every form. He was a renaissance man. His generosity and brilliance in person – felt by everyone who knew him even a little – were a source of astonishing and liberating warmth. The few times I met him in life, he was all these things in a unique combination of polite, frank, detached (or maybe more truly differently attached), sanguine, many-voiced, wise, warm, kind, hilarious, acutely truth-telling, uncompromisingly articulate
His other job …
… Twin Ports see lull in winter storm Sunday; storm watch in effect for Monday | Duluth News Tribune.
Dave Lull, our man in Superior, has already done three snow-shoveling stints today. So I assume, lower case notwithstanding, that’s who the headline is referring to.
Social dadaism …
… davidthompson: The Year Reheated.
Elsewhere, in the pages of the Philadelphia Inquirer, “fat-positivity” activist and “Instagram therapist” Ms Sonalee Rashatwar proposed a bold solution to the problem of obesity – namely toppling Western civilisation. A project more righteous, and somehow less difficult, than cutting back on carbs. Ms Rashatwar’s own impressive girth and consequent health issues were of course blamed, not on her frequently announced love of doughnuts, consumed in bulk, but on “white supremacy.”I remember when The Inquirer was a serious newspaper.
Cause for concern …
… Forty Years of the Computer Revolution | The American Spectator. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
And it’s the young who are the easiest audience, since one of the things we do understand is that the neural pathways in the brain are not well formed until late adolescence. No wonder Steve Jobs and a surprising number of other seminal figures in the computer revolution limited screen time for their children. They wanted to protect their own families from the devices they were becoming wealthy by producing.
The computer has always been for me a glorified typewriter and research tool. Email is nice, because I don’t need to put something in an envelope and take it to a mailbox. I have a cell phone, but it is usually turned off. I use it mostly to stay in touch with Debbie when I’m out and about. I don’t do Facebook or Instagram. But I have noticed the people on the sidewalks — and even in their cars — glued to their phones. I have a Twitter account, but almost never tweet. So I doubt if anybody ever tweets me. I have noticed kids’ absorption in their devices. But they’re not my kids and it’s none of my business. I have also noticed that the younger generation often seems ignorant of all sorts of things I had learned in school at their age, which has struck me as odd, since they have at their disposal devices they can use to look things up. Oh, well. Sometime in the next few years I will leave the scene for good.
Do tell …
… When Disruptive Students Are Coddled, the Whole Class Suffers - Quillette.
The emergence of room clears is a product of several fashionable education-policy trends designed to protect the rights of troubled students, often with little regard for the rights of their classmates. These include the provisions contained in the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which mandates that special-education students be subject to the “least restrictive environment” possible. When it comes to students who are hard of hearing, dyslexic or developmentally delayed, this policy likely has done a great deal of good. But many schools also label disruptive or violent students as having an “Emotional and Behavioral Disability” (EBD)
Something to think on …
... the best figurative poetry speaks not to the frivolous intellect, but (if anything does) straight to the heart; and does it better than plain prose. There seems then to be something which is better said with metaphor than without, which goes straighter to its mark by going crooked, and hits its aim exactly by flying off at tangents.
— Austin Farrer, who died on this date in 1968
Saturday, December 28, 2019
A difficult exchange …
… Ralph Waldo Emerson, Small-Business Owner, Interviews a Job Seeker – Mark Scott. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
On this fourth day of Christmas …
"And the Word Was Made Flesh and Dwelt Among Us" (John 1:14) - Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical.
Before the creation and before the Incarnation of the Creator into the created order divine spirit had the power to manifest itself materially, and in the Incarnation the power not only to manifest itself materially but to become material. The divine Word becomes flesh; the Word does not merely manifest itself in a fleshly vehicle. It becomes that vehicle and comes to suffer the fate of all such vehicles, dissolution. The divine spirit was always already apt for materialization: it bore this possibility within it from the beginning. It was always already in some way disposed toward materialization. On the other hand, matter was always already apt for spiritualization.
Sad music and gay …
… Nigeness: Death of a Queen.
Mary's husband, William III, who had hurried back to England from the Dutch Republic to be with her, was overcome with grief. This habitually austere and distant man dissolved into tears, and was inconsolable for days on end; some thought he would die. 'From being the happiest of men I shall now be the miserablest creature on earth,' he declared. 'The marble weeps,' wrote Matthew Prior, observing this broken man.
Well worth pondering …
… Quid plura? | “We’ve tried potions and waxen dolls, and none of us could find any cures…”
Why were people invested in the young-adult fiction industry, which rakes in more than $3 billion a year, so quick to pounce on a lone, unknown student who expressed her taste in literature three years ago? Perhaps some readers and authors, living by expired cultural templates, can’t yet fathom that they stand in the mainstream and no longer wield the moral authority of underdogs. It may be meaningful that the loudest voices representing young-adult literature on social media aren’t adolescents but thin-skinned adults. Too many aspiring writers are also so keen to feel collegial with big-name authors that they’re inclined to join an author’s side, eager for the righteous rush of communal fandom. No doubt it’s corrupting for authors to have fans who look to them for meaning and purpose beyond what their books can provide. Fame, wealth, and flattery are disastrous in realms far beyond politics.
Another reason to skip college …
… Colleges are dropping testing, curriculum standards in order to create ‘diversity’.
I have nothing against diversity, but I'm also in favor of people being qualified.
I have nothing against diversity, but I'm also in favor of people being qualified.
Something to think on …
The idea of a universal mind or Logos would be, I think, a fairly plausible inference from the present state of scientific theory.
— Arthur Eddington, born on this date in 1882
Friday, December 27, 2019
Words, words, words …
… Lecturer uses word ‘negro’ from black-authored source material, university apologizes to students | The College Fix.
Professor Frank Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology at Kent University, said: ‘The obsession with the policing of language has become a caricature of itself. The word negro, which was used by pan-Africanists to refer to themselves, is now rebranded as a source of distress by students who do not have a clue about what racism means.’
Q&A …
… ‘I aspire to write for posterity’: An interview with Tom Stoppard | The Spectator. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
So he is a sceptic of the scientific age?‘Yes — a sceptic of the expert explanation, the sort of complete lack of self-doubt: total self-certainty and dogmatism of the proponents. I mean your friend Sam Harris would be an example. I’ve never really read him but I’ve read a bit of him here and there, and I remember thinking of him in much the same way as I think of Richard Dawkins, who I find very agreeable company too, that there’s something discourteous about claiming 100 per cent of the terrain, just nothing else to say from any other quarter. Somebody said about Macaulay, “I wish I knew as much about anything as Tom knows about everything”. ’
Something to think on …
A book reads the better which is our own, and has been so long known to us, that we know the topography of its blots, and dog's ears, and can trace the dirt in it to having read it at tea with buttered muffins.
— Charles Lamb, who died on this date in 1834
The state of comedy …
… Comedy in the era of Twitter outrage: An interview with Ricky Gervais | Spectator USA. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Many of Ricky’s detractors take issue with the jokes he told about Caitlyn Jenner while hosting the 2016 Golden Globes, but he is adamant that he has always supported trans rights. ‘There are many trying to say the subject of the joke is the same as the target, but it’s not. The word “transphobia” has been watered down through misuse. It couldn’t have been done better by real transphobes.’
This may surprise you …
… Andy Warhol’s Pop Art Christmas Cards | THE REMODERN REVIEW.
It’s true. Pop artist Andy Warhol, the legendary, ironically blank scenester, was also a devoutly religious man. He attended church faithfully, volunteered in soup kitchens, and made a late body of Christian themed works that have been largely overlooked by the hostilely secular art world.
Thursday, December 26, 2019
Vintage expertise …
… Paul Krugman: The Economic Fallout.
Nice to know you can win a Nobel prize and still be dumb as a post.
Blogging note …
I have to take off shortly to run some errands in what we call Center City. Blogging will resume later on.
Anniversary …
… The Brazilian Beat That Charmed the World - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Marcel Camus’s film ‘Black Orpheus,’ released in the U.S. 60 years ago this month, spawned a still-popular soundtrack full of bossa nova that helped spark the 1960s craze for the music.It's a fine film.
In case you wondered …
… Rosanna Warren on why poetry matters: ‘If it discovers nothing, it’s worthless.’ | University of Chicago News. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Like many poets, Warren is a scavenger and inheritor, and her life has been shaped by two powerful influences: the shared human legacy of classical literature—ancient Greek and Latin poetry infuse her work at an almost cellular level—and her own family history. She is the daughter of two celebrated writers: the poet and novelist Robert Penn Warren, and essayist and novelist Eleanor Clark.
Looking back …
… The New Yorker’s Twenty-Five Best Poems of 2019 | The New Yorker. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
The lottery of life …
… Chances Are by Richard Russo review – the role of luck in American lives. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The heroes’ professions of real estate, academic publishing and sound engineering – sketched in with small but resonant details – might be thought boring in ordinary times, but for their generation represent a glorious escape. Russo’s subject is the guilt and responsibility of having fallen on the better side of fate.
Something to think on …
The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.
— Henry Miller, born on this date in 1891
Wednesday, December 25, 2019
Predicting is difficult …
… especially the future: Booming oil and lower emissions: The decade that blew up energy predictions — Axios.
Unexpected visitor …
… Whoo's there? Georgia family discovers owl in Christmas tree | MPR News. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
Act of courage …
…The Black Dog Barks During the Holidays – Reluctant Habits.
My name is Edward Champion. I write and make audio drama. Despite my flaws, I’m a pretty fun and good guy, but I also suffer from bipolar disorder. It’s bitten me in the ass a number of times. I hope that you can find it within your hearts to forgive me for my black dog, but I fully understand if you can’t. I also hope that, as you approach the holiday season, you can also understand that three million Americans — and that number merely represents the ones who have been diagnosed, not the untold number of people who are suffering right now and who may not be in the position of being able to afford treatment and who are feeling shame about their mental health — are in the same boat as I am. I hope that you can extend empathy and understanding to this considerable cluster of Americans. They are all doing the best that they can. They really don’t want to give into the black dog. But they do need your love. They do need your understanding. They do need your patience. And they need this not just during Christmas, but throughout the entire year.
Not so trustworthy after all …
… The Many Faces of Scientific Fraud - Quillette.
In a radio conversation broadcast by the BBC in 1963, the British scientist Peter Medawar, cowinner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1960, asked, “Is the scientific paper a fraud?” As was announced from the outset of the program, his answer was unhesitatingly positive. “The scientific paper in its orthodox form does embody a totally mistaken conception, even a travesty, of the nature of scientific thought.”
The crowd — which has no hands …
… The Ecstasy of the Mob | Mark Judge | First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Schuster recalls how after the FBI declared Jewell a suspect, the media was off and running: “The Atlanta paper reported it, we ran it over and over as breaking news, and those thousands of reporters covering the Olympics had their lead. By the next day, Jewell was notorious worldwide.
Hmm …
… Pro-LGBT JK Rowling not backing down after offending trans activists | News | LifeSite.
See also: A Matter of Truth. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
On December 19, Rowling tweeted in defense of Forstater, calling for general respect and deference toward “transgender” individuals while drawing the line at “forc[ing] women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real”…
See also: A Matter of Truth. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… the question is not whether Rowling and Gervais are right, though most people would think that they are right, albeit that they would also increasingly fear to acknowledge it in public (a mark of creeping totalitarianism, incidentally). The question is, rather, whether they had the right to say what they did as part of the normal give and take of public debate. The reaction to what they said—the veteran feminist, Germain Greer, was another object of such aggressive recrimination for having said something similar—suggests that pressure groups’ attachment to freedom of speech is very weak. They prefer issuing fatwas.It is free speech we must stand up for, not approved speech.
Not what it used to be …
… like a great deal else, philosophy isn't what it used to be, is it? One longs for those passionate, not-suffering-fools-gladly, intemperate, entertaining, exasperating, eccentric characters of yore: Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Leopardi (a poet-philosopher or a philosopher-poet, as you wish), and Wittgenstein come to mind. Or, to go back even further: Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, Heraclitus.
When it comes to sensibilities such as these, one has the feeling that philosophy is a matter of life and death, that it has something vital to do with how we live and how we die. Now, we have academic philosophy. Shot through with politics, social "science," and semantics, as one would expect. Posturing and word-play.
There is often quite a difference between a philosopher and a professor of philosophy.
Something to think on …
Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret.
— Matthew Arnold, born on this date in 1822
But not without joy …
… Muddling through somehow | About Last Night. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) is
Needless to say, I can’t know what the future holds in store for my gallant Mrs. T as we wait impatiently for the Big Call that will upend our shared lives and, if all goes well, allow us in time to return to Sanibel Island at long last. The wait may be brief…or not. It’s out of our hands, and like the song says, Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow. What I do know, though, is that neither one of us has to muddle alone, even when we can’t do much more than sit quietly in an upper Manhattan ICU, holding hands and listening to soft music or watching pre-Code movies on her trusty iPad.
Monday, December 23, 2019
The triumph of ignorance …
… Study Finds Almost 40 Percent of People in Eight European Nations Would Like to Live “in a World Where Chemical Substances Don’t Exist” – Reason.com.
As the study's authors—Swiss academics Michael Siegrist and Angela Bearth—point out, such "chemophobia reflects stunning scientific ignorance, because human life would be virtually impossible without chemicals. Indeed, pretty much everything we use or touch is a chemical or combination of chemicals. Even if we limit the definition of "chemicals" to artificially produced substances (as opposed to naturally occurring ones), most of the products of modern industry and agriculture routinely use such materials, and they are—on average—no more dangerous than "natural" substances are.They could spare themselves exposure to all chemicals by depriving themselves of just one: dihydrogen monoxide.
Hmm …
…Oxford Blues. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Makes me glad I studied with the Jesuits (though I love Brideshead Revisited and Zuleika Dobson).
Makes me glad I studied with the Jesuits (though I love Brideshead Revisited and Zuleika Dobson).
The dumbest generation …
… Instapundit — NOT SO BRIGHT: Boston has changed the name of Dudley Square in the city’s Roxbury neighborhood to …
Nice to see someone bring up the responsibility for slavery on the African end. See The Libyan/Trans-Mediterranean Slave Trade, the African Union, and the Failure of Human Morality.
Nice to see someone bring up the responsibility for slavery on the African end. See The Libyan/Trans-Mediterranean Slave Trade, the African Union, and the Failure of Human Morality.
He told us what he thought …
… John Simon, 1925–2019 by James Panero | The New Criterion. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
John made a career out of criticizing the vicissitudes of stage and screen—of books, music, movies, theater, and just about every cultural space in between. His extensive writings have been collected in some dozen books, most recently a three-volume set from Applause Books extending over two thousand pages. That his latest review appears in the very same issue as his obituary speaks to how dedicated he was to his craft. He was a critic to the end and the last of a generation.
In case you wondered …
… 'It's full of one-liners': Armando Iannucci on why we should all read David Copperfield | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
To read the book … is to be taken by surprise. Micawber, for example, is often thought of as a jovial roly-poly character, played in film versions by such actors as WC Fields or Ralph Richardson, rotund and full of bonhomie despite a life continually on the run from creditors owed a slag-heap of debts. Dickens writes something far more stark, though: a desperate, hungry man going through erratic mood swings linked to his financial state, smiling one minute, talking and acting out very graphic suicidal thoughts the next. He’s good company, but also a leech on others, infecting with debt all those who befriend him.
Sunday, December 22, 2019
What an ass …
… Pope says Christians should never seek to convert unbelievers, anyone who proselytizes "is not a disciple of Jesus" | Disrn.
So much for “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”
For your listening pleasure…
I have decided to feature every day a piece of music that I love and think may be neglected.
Amen, brother …
… The real meaning of Christmas – Mark Vernon.
Divine life … is what the shepherds heard singing on the night of Christmas. It’s what guided the wise men by the cosmic star. When sight is lost of this spiritual reality, the good news becomes indistinguishable from the stump speech of any humane politician.
Worrisome …
… Papolatry and Progressive Privilege – Catholic World Report.
Francis, however, seems devoted to vilifying those who question him and gathering together “committees” by means of which he can manufacture a certain kind of “consensus” to support what everyone knew he wanted to do when the committee was convened. In this, he resembles nothing so much as the kind of academic bureaucrat that faculty members in colleges and universities everywhere are increasingly forced to endure, under whose enlightened despotism true “collegiality” has been replaced by corporatism and faux “consensus building,” and where “progressivism” is not only “empowered” but privileged. These are places where Havel’s greengrocer would feel as though he had never left home and where the watchwords are “Don’t make trouble. … Don’t be trouble.”Sooner or later, God will rid us of this turbulent priest.
Sounds very interesting …
…zmkc: Battered Penguins: The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin.
… the ideal kind of thing to read when you … don't want anything tiresomely thought-provoking …
Remembering …
… Quid plura? | “Break all the windows in the cold, cold ground.”
On the next day, a cold, cloudless Sunday, more than a hundred onlookers formed a crescent around the gazebo next to the church. Some of us don’t have deep roots here, but scattered among us, and settled unknowingly in nearby houses, were descendants and relatives of everyone whose lives converged on that spot in 1880: the men who raised the lynch mob; former slaves who knew the victim; the constable who tried in vain to stop the murder; and the black congregation that claimed the body and laid it to rest. Ashes and dust—our past and our future, summoned to gather in flesh and blood, shifting uneasily at the story retold.
A most interesting figure …
… Untempted by the Consequences | Commonweal Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I have my doubts regarding her moral absolutism. Surely it is permissible to lie in order, say, to save the life of an innocent person. As for Truman and the dropping of the atomic bomb, had he chosen not to drop it and ordered an invasion of Japan, plenty of other innocent people would doubtless have died. And by her reasoning — he would have had to intend the consequences of that choice — he would once again have been responsible for something morally wrong. So there was no way for him to do something morally right, since the very conduct of war would entail permitting the morally unacceptable to happen.As for WWII, the Germans certainly targeted Britain’s civilian population (she would have known of the Blitz). To insist that the Allies maintain their moral purity by not doing the same would seem to have entailed a longer war and possible defeat, neither of which seems morally preferable to victory — and the consequent cessation of hostilities — as soon as possible.
Hmm …
… Review: “Verse” by John Updike | Form in Formless Times. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A largely enjoyable collection, but not up to the standard of those similar 20th century poets, Phyllis McGinley and Dorothy Parker.Well, I’m a big fan of Phyllis McGinley, but there is Updike’s One Tough Kerotosis.
Unquoted saint …
… St. Joseph’s doubt and the angel’s gift – Catholic World Report.
So we don’t know what Joseph knew prior to the angel of the Lord appearing to him. Rather remarkably, we also don’t know what Joseph may have said, simply because not one word that he uttered is recorded!
Faith and language …
… Breviary notes : Essays in Idleness.
To appreciate the words that held the Anglican Church together, so that when they were withdrawn that church fell apart, would require great leisure. For our English-speaking world since Shakespeare, they have provided the principal cultural glue. Not only through Anglican but through Methodist and other church services, they transmitted Christianity through twenty generations. Memorable phrasing guides the mind, for the worse, but also incomparably for the better.
Gone, but not forgotten …
… Remembering Clive James | Commonweal Magazine. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
James respected and enjoyed both highbrow and lowbrow culture, while maintaining a shrewd sense of how they differed from each other. James loved popular culture, and James was an elitist. And James’s achievement as a critic was in demonstrating that this was not a contradiction.
Two off my favoriyes …
… Miniver and his creator: Miniver Cheevy by Edwin Arlington Robinson | Poetry Foundation. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Listen in …
… Tom Spurgeon Memorial Service – Dec. 14, 2019 – The Virtual Memories Show.
This special episode of The Virtual Memories Show features the memorial service for Tom Spurgeon, held December 14, 2019, at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. The speakers (in sequence) were Whit Spurgeon, Sunny McFarren, Rob Eidson, Dan Wright (slideshow here), Fred Haring, Eric Reynolds, Jordan Raphael, Me, Jeff Smith, Laurenn McCubbin, Rebecca Perry Damsen, Caitlin McGurk. The following people spoke during the open comments session: Bruce Chrislip, Christian Hoffer, Carol Tyler, Evan Dorkin, Darcie Hoffer, Shena Wolf, James Moore. To get a greater understanding of Tom’s life and his impact on the world around him, please listen to these heartfelt, emotional, and sometimes funny remembrances of our friend. If you’d like to make a donation in Tom’s name, he requested that your gifts go to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, but he also would have been happy to know you supported your favorite artist, writer, or creator, however you can.
Something to think on …
A tragedy need not have blood and death; it's enough that it all be filled with that majestic sadness that is the pleasure of tragedy.
— Jean Racine, born on this date in 1639
Saturday, December 21, 2019
Remembering and honoring …
… Dana Gioia on the late Scott Timberg: a bitter symbol for those who have been marginalized by our “creative culture.” | The Book Haven.
Scott’s suicide was a tragic act. He was so greatly loved and so conspicuously talented. No one can truly know what despair or temporary madness motivated it. But his death makes at least one thing obvious to any attentive observer. There is something wrong with our culture when Los Angeles, which now has more artists than any other city in North America, including New York, cannot provide a living wage for such a hard-working and gifted critic.
Indeed they have …
… The Library of Congress Disrespects a Poet Laureate – BLARB. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… I decided to try to resolve the question of William Jay Smith’s heritage by hiring an expert in Native American genealogy, Dr. William T. Cross.Dr. Cross’s research confirmed that everything William Jay Smith claimed about his Choctaw heritage was correct. Rebecca Moshulatubbee King was the oldest daughter of Chief Moshulatubbee and married Samuel Jake Williams. One of their seven daughters, Catherine Permilia Williams, married Samuel Roswell Campster in 1850, and then gave birth to George Washington Campster in 1863. In 1913 George Washington Campster’s daughter, Georgia Ella Campster, married William Jay Smith Sr., the father of our Poet Laureate.
The solstice …
… Beyond Eastrod (and more): First day of winter.
Today is the first day of winter. In these parts, the solstice will occur at 11:19 PM.
And the nominees are …
… World-Class Shortlist Announced for the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2020. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The shortlist of 57 books, divided into ten awards categories, will take the reader on a fascinating, and sometimes challenging, voyage into our planet’s past and future, across the seven continents and into hidden corners and unexplored cultures.
Disaster musical …
… Movie Review: 'Cats' a Strange Species Mashup | National Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The goal is for each song to be a showstopper, but given that no story ever sets things in motion in the first place, what Cats desperately needs is a showstarter.
Something to think on …
Existence in itself, taken at its least miraculous, is a miracle.
— Rebecca West, born on this date in 1892
Richard Jewell …
Debbie and I went with my stepdaughter Jen and her son Ben to see Richard Jewell yesterday. It is really very good. Everyone in it is good, but I especially liked Sam Rockwell as Watson Bryant, Jewell’s lawyer. All the complaints about how journalist Kathy Scruggs is portrayed struck me as being based on a failure to observe. Sure, Scruggs comes off as more than a tad ruthless. But it is she who goes to the FBI agent who gave her the tip and tells him Jewell could not have walked the distance back to the bomb site in time. She says out loud to herself that Jewell could not have been the perp. And she wipes away tears when Jewell’s mother begs the President to exonerate her son. Olivia Wilde does a very good job of portraying her in all her ambiguity.The real villain is the FBI guy, who seems incapable of dislodging any notion once it has settled into his brain.
See also: For Richard Jewell’s mother and lawyer, Clint Eastwood’s new film brings both pain and healing.
See also: For Richard Jewell’s mother and lawyer, Clint Eastwood’s new film brings both pain and healing.
Imagine that …
… Sex Differences in Personality are Large and Important - Marginal REVOLUTION.
There now exists four large-scale studies that use this multivariate methodology (see here, here, here, and here). All four studies are conducted cross-culturally and report on an analysis of narrow personality traits (which, as you may recall, is where most of the action is when it comes to sex differences). Critically, all four studies converge on the same basic finding: when looking at the overall gestalt of human personality, there is a truly striking difference between the typical male and female personality profiles.
Hmm …
… Essay backup: what I’m afraid to say in synagogue | askblog. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
When your tribal mindset takes over, you demonize the other side and never question your own beliefs.
A lurking hope …
… 'The Darkling Thrush' by Thomas Hardy in December | National Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Friday, December 20, 2019
Just so you know …
… We’ve just had the best decade in human history. Seriously | The Spectator.
Perhaps one of the least fashionable predictions I made nine years ago was that ‘the ecological footprint of human activity is probably shrinking’ and ‘we are getting more sustainable, not less, in the way we use the planet’. That is to say: our population and economy would grow, but we’d learn how to reduce what we take from the planet. And so it has proved. An MIT scientist, Andrew McAfee, recently documented this in a book called More from Less, showing how some nations are beginning to use less stuff: less metal, less water, less land. Not just in proportion to productivity: less stuff overall.Of course, none of this serves the power mongers.
Travelin' man …
… Mark Twain in the Holy Land - The Jerusalem Post. (Hat tip, Tim Davis.)
Twain found a clever way to get himself aboard a luxury cruise trip of a lifetime. He arranged to write a series of newspaper columns for a California newspaper and set off from New York’s harbor on the steamship Quaker City. The five-and-a-half-month excursion featured stops in Europe, the Mediterranean and the Holy Land.
The way of the cross …
… Movie Review: 'A Hidden Life' a Cinematic Monument of Christian Apologetics | National Review.
A Hidden Life, though, is a deeply considered and in the end staggering argument for a life lived according to Christ’s teaching by one of cinema’s great American artists, writer-director Terrence Malick. Church groups and other members of Christ’s flock, especially Catholics, should make it a point to see this adaptation of the life of Franz Jägerstätter, a Catholic Austrian farmer who refused to serve the cause of Adolf Hitler during World War II. Jägerstätter was beatified in 2007.
Good news …
… South African photographer freed in Syria after three years as hostage | RSF. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
An unflattering list …
… The Worst Books of 2019: Fiction! — Open Letters Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
For what it’s worth, I’ve read only one Stephen King novel — Mr. Mercedes — and I thought it was pretty good. In fact, it won the 2014 Hammett Prize (full disclosure: I was one of the judges).
For what it’s worth, I’ve read only one Stephen King novel — Mr. Mercedes — and I thought it was pretty good. In fact, it won the 2014 Hammett Prize (full disclosure: I was one of the judges).
Well, yes, sort of …
… Review: Is there still such a thing as a Catholic writer? | America Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Stated simply, this book should come with a seatbelt. Not because the ride ahead is bumpy—Gioia is as gifted a writer of prose as he is poetry—but because the velocity of its thinking is so great and the range of references so vast. In addition to the title piece, there are beautiful, searching essays on Donne, Hopkins and lesser (but should be better) known poets like Dunstan Thompson, William Everson (a.k.a. Brother Antoninus) and Elizabeth Jennings. There is an authoritative journey through Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians and thoughtful discussions of art, including the painter George Tooker (a detail of his painting “Embrace of Peace II” appears on the book’s cover). Dozens of other writers, artists and musicians glimmer in these pages, too, ranging from Dave Brubeck to Morten Lauridsen.Here is my review of Dana’s book.
In case you wondered …
…These are the 10 best-selling books of the decade. | Literary Hub. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
Perhaps there is more sense in our nonsense and more nonsense in our 'sense' than we would care to believe.
— David Bohm, born on this date in 1917
Thursday, December 19, 2019
A nice reminder …
… of when newspapers were worth reading: “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” | Newseum.
Getting to know him …
… The monster who loved Conrad | About Last Night.
This post also gives you a chance to see what the fare was like when television was just "vast wasteland."
Really neat photos and a Q&A …
… Keith Carter: Fifty Years - Digital Photo Pro. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Listen in …
… Episode 354 – Peter Kuper – The Virtual Memories Show.
“Heart of Darkness deserves to be canonical because it addresses through art what it means to be civilized and what it means to be savage, and touches on things happening now in our world: the madness of power.”
A homesteader's tale …
… The 21-Year-Old Norwegian Immigrant Who Started Life Over by Homesteading Alone on America’s Prairie | Essay, Glimpses | Zócalo Public Square. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
… homesteading laws required that she had to live on the property for three years before she could cash in—so while she sat there, waiting for her real life to begin, Westbye took photographs and wrote letters. The photo of her sitting outside her house on the prairie captures her circumstances neatly. Through the little window facing the photographer, we glimpse ironed curtains. Westbye wears a white lace blouse and a bonnet, and she poses like a young woman from the urban middle class—straight-backed and deeply absorbed in what appears to be a book or magazine. Her posture and grooming stand in strong contrast to the dismal shanty where she lives. A shovel leans against the wall, but her relationship to the landscape seems to be quite different than that of a farmer’s practical, utilitarian perspective. She is focused on what’s next, a world beyond.
It's come to this …
… Overruling the Visible: The Emperor’s New Gender - Public Discourse. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
It is time to remind people of a nice Latin phrase: reductio ad absurdum.What is at stake here is much more than the right of an individual to free self-expression or an employer’s freedom of religion to hold and act on such “stereotypes.” Since everyone in the workplace of that individual employee will be asked to accept that he is “a woman,” what is at stake is whether or not their—and, by extension, every person’s—pre-ideological, innate knowledge of oneself as a boy or girl, imbibed quite literally at the maternal breast, will be for all practical and public purposes officially overruled as false, a “stereotype.”Conversely, what is at stake is whether or not the alternative will be for all public and practical purposes officially true: namely, that everyone’s “identity” is arbitrarily and accidentally related to his or her body—as ghost to machine—even if the two are “aligned” in the majority of cases, as the fashionable prefix “cis” means to suggest.
Unlikely legend …
… Meet Cliff Stoll, the Mad Scientist Who Invented the Art of Hunting Hackers | WIRED. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
As The Cuckoo’s Egg hits its 30th anniversary, the book has sold more than 1 million copies. And for a smaller core of cybersecurity practitioners within that massive readership, it’s become a kind of legend: the ur-narrative of a lone hacker hunter, a text that has inspired an entire generation of network defenders chasing their own anomalies through a vastly larger, infinitely more malicious internet.