Monday, November 30, 2020

The writer and the man …

Wendell Berry's High Horse. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
…  rereading Berry, I realized that most of his essays aren’t really essays. They’re disquisitions, extended arguments. I don’t often get around to agreeing or disagreeing with their author, because I’m too busy arguing with his prose. Berry derives his strength as a writer from contact with the earth, the more immediate, the better. All his life, he’s been a vigilant man of conscience. He’s capable of moving and inspiring readers, capable too, at times, of getting to the heart of a cultural or social problem. But he can also make you feel like you’re warming yourself at a bonfire of straw men and women. All too often I’m disturbed, to the point of physical unease, by the involuted, strangely patristic way his writing and thinking move, the grandeur of his modesty.
 He seems, to borrow a phrase from George Bernard Shaw, “too full of the validity of his remoter generalizations.”

The guns of August …

… August 1914 by Isaac Rosenberg | Poetry Foundation. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

Isaac Rosenberg, born on November 25, 1890, was killed in action on April 1, 1918.

Someone send this to Bill Gates …

 
 (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

Destinations …

Two poems by Rachel Hadas. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

But of course

… Horowitz: Hopkins analysis showing COVID-19 has 'relatively no effect on deaths' in US retracted from publication. Why? - TheBlaze.
Yes, the CDC's excess death data can be unreliable, and yes, we need more recent months of data to make a better assessment. But rather than engaging in censorship, why are we not debating the merits of both sides? Why does any shred of good news about the virus have to be stifled rather than rebutted or debated?

 

Appreciation …

… Adrift in Cosmic Quarantine: Randy Newman Turns 77 - Los Angeles Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

As he turns 77 on November 28, Newman’s career continues to toggle between over a dozen keenly wrought rock albums — from his eponymous 1968 debut up to 2017’s Dark Matter — and smooth Hollywood scores: Toy Story (1995), Marriage Story (2019). That he projects authority and comfort in such disparate musical zones speaks to both his range and his disquiet. He’s a musical intellectual who has managed to get by without the typical celebrity headaches. There didn’t seem to be much new to learn about Newman, starting with his early breakout numbers (“I Think It’s Going to Rain Today,” from 1966), to the tribute album Nilsson Sings Newman (1970) that turned him into a brand, to the standout number from the soundtrack for the 1970 film Performance“Gone Dead Train,” that rang out completely unintimidated next to Mick Jagger.


RIP …

… Bob Miller, 2nd-to-last 1950 Phillies Whiz Kid, dies at 94. (Hat tip, Jon Caroulis,)

Not that Florida …

 … Reviews and Reflections: Sammy begins his journey in Florida.

Q&A …

… How To Tell If You're Being Canceled.

Kindly Inquisitors author Jonathan Rauch on the never-ending battle to defend free speech.

 Canceling comes from the universe of propaganda and not critical discourse. It's about organizing or manipulating a social environment or a media environment with a goal or predictable effect of isolating, deplatforming, or intimidating an ideological opponent. It's about shaping the battlefield. It's about making an idea or a person socially radioactive. It is not about criticism. It is not about ideas.

Something to think on …

Except among those whose education has been in the minimalist style, it is understood that hasty moral judgments about the past are a form of injustice.
— Jacques Barzun, born on this date in 1997

Word of the Day …

… Bathos | Word Genius.

Sunday, November 29, 2020

Haiku …

 Clouds drift overhead.

Fretwork of leafless branches.

Cold air and bright sun.

Ah, yes …

… Potcake Poet’s Choice: ‘Squelch’ by Nina Parmenter. (Hat ti[, Dave Lull.)

Odd couple …

 Reviews and Reflections: Amos and his daughter reconsidered,

Mike Tyson, book lover …

“And this world’s a fickle measure…” (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

… to hear Tyson cite a quip inaccurately attributed to Cicero, “a room without books is like a body without a soul,” is to wonder if he’s putting us on. Late in the interview, he jokes that if you quote books, you fool people into thinking you’re smart—but Tyson, for all his malapropisms and mispronunciations and odd mannerisms, is intelligent. He’s going round after round with big questions that many of the ostensibly educated attendees at his book-talk don’t bother to ask.

Something to think on …

There is someone that I love even though I don't approve of what he does. There is someone I accept though some of his thoughts and actions revolt me. There is someone I forgive though he hurts the people I love the most. That person is......me.
— C. S. Lewis, born on this date in 1898

In case you wondered …

… Why traditional masculine attributes still matter on the battlefield.

 … just 70 years ago this week, the First Marine Division fought its way into the pages of history with their gallant stand at the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. In temperatures as low as minus-30 degrees, the Marines held off some 100,000 Chinese attackers and fought their way in hellish conditions back to the allied lines.

Today, however, we live in a decidedly unheroic age, one in which the traditional masculine attributes of courage, physical strength, and moral fortitude have been disparaged by feminists and soy boys nearly into oblivion.

Word of the Day …

… Emulous | Word Genius.

Saturday, November 28, 2020

Lovely …

… Zealotry of Guerin: Wedding (Marc Chagall), Sonnet #540.

I should have posted this earlier today, as I usually would, but it was a distracting day.

In th tradition of Walter Duranty …

… Fabricator and fraudster | Oz Katerji | The Critic Magazine.
The veneration of Fisk, in his obituaries and throughout his career, serve as an indictment of a British foreign press that continued to indulge a man who they knew was violating not just ethical boundaries, but also moral ones. In a way, the glowing obituaries, free from the constraints of the normal journalistic practice of fact-checking and evidence, were a fitting tribute to Fisk. Like him, they preferred to tell a story that was not true, because stories are often far more comforting than the reality.
 

Aniversary …

Reviews and Reflections: Celebrating the Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

A poet we need …

… John Senior: Poet of Reality - The Catholic Thing. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

John Senior may have thought reality was endangered and receding, but I suspect he was only partly right. His poetic legacy, at least, suggests otherwise. “This collection is not private,” Senior tells us of his slender volume, “but perhaps it has no public.”

Still ahead …

… The Unheavenly City at Fifty - Claremont Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

While many people today may simply dismiss what Banfield said, it is impossible for me to dismiss it. As a personal note, I happen to have dropped out of high school at age 16, and took a full-time job as a messenger delivering telegrams for the Western Union telegraph company. But the law required me to also spend some time in what was called a “continuation school.”

It was a time-wasting farce. I informed the teacher that the law could force me to be there, but it could not force me to participate, and I had no intention of participating. I was indeed angry “at the stupidity and hypocrisy of a system” that used me like this. Fortunately, Western Union had its own continuation school for its messengers, and I transferred there, where I learned to type, a skill that would be of some value to me in later years—instead of being used to justify some teacher’s job in a public school.


Craftsman at work …

“Seventy Years Ago”: A Review of Red Stilts by Ted Kooser. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Kooser, like Williams, is integral to it. He is not a genius but a craftsman — think of Williams’ provocative statement that a poem is “a machine made out of words.” A Kooser poem is a dispatch from small-town America. Flyover country. For him, as it should be for us, a man standing at a bulletin board outside of the grocery store is worth documenting. 

Something to think on …

One never gets to know a person's character better than by watching his behavior during decisive moments.... It is always only danger which forces the most deeply hidden strengths and abilities of a human being to come forth.
— Stefan Zweig, born on this date in 1881

A closer look …

On That Censored Johns Hopkins All-Cause Death Analysis. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

If it weren’t for the censorship, I wouldn’t have got the dozens and dozens of requests to look at it. Now everybody is sure Johns Hopkins is hiding something. Hilarious.

The reason it was censored it particularly stupid, too: “… it was brought to our attention that our coverage of Genevieve Briand’s presentation ‘COVID-19 Deaths: A Look at U.S. Data’ has been used to support dangerous inaccuracies that minimize the impact of the pandemic.”

Yeah, sure. Ninety percent of the population is racing in every direction like extras in a Toho Godzilla movie, only in masks. Johns Hopkins thinks this level of abject irrational terror is just about right. Besides, everybody knows science means only have one unchangeable opinion on every matter. 

Funniest thing: they forgot, at least of this writing, to censor the YouTube video where Briand gives a talk.

Idiots.

Anyway, to Briand’s work itself. I appreciate the spirit, but don’t think there’s as much to it as some are hoping.

Word of the day …

… Dulcify | Word Genius.

Friday, November 27, 2020

Welcome to Orwellville …

 … Trust the science.

Was it because it was wrong? Was there a scientific error that slipped past the reviewers? Nope. Johns Hopkins tweeted that it was because “the article was being used to support false and dangerous inaccuracies about the impact of the pandemic.”

How sad that Johns Hopkins has decided to give a pass on the evidence. Like it or not, it will get out. It already is getting out. 

Just so you know …

… Evelyn Waugh’s favourite heroine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Re-discovering Helena’s humour was the perfect bridge to renewed engagement with the text, and I found myself listening for it, struck by its effectiveness. When her pilgrimage to Jerusalem begins, Helena has concerns about the commodification of any material remains that she might discover. But, in keeping with a level-headed assessment of her faithful task, she does not mock or judge Constantine when he superstitiously forges relics from her horde into a bridle for his horse. She giggles, rather, and quietly so, bringing her audience directly alongside in her understanding of what she has found and what it means. 


You may know some …

'Smart People" Review: Prisoners of Their Politics. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)


What makes “Smart People” more than just a brilliant hatchet job is that Ms. Diamond clearly feels for her characters, who are imprisoned by the stereotypes they embody. They are—so to speak—human beings beneath the skin, and none of them are happy with their privileged lives, least of all Ginny, whose ambition to get ahead is so powerful that it has cut her off from the ordinary pleasures of human existence: “I don’t do girlfriend well. I’ve never actually done girlfriend.”

Anniversary …

… Reviews and Reflections: Whom do you trust?

Very interesting …

… Study: Absolutely NO excess deaths from COVID-19.

When Briand looked at the 2020 data during that seasonal period, COVID-19-related deaths exceeded deaths from heart diseases. This was highly unusual since heart disease has always prevailed as the leading cause of deaths. However, when taking a closer look at the death numbers, she noted something strange. As Briand compared the number of deaths per cause during that period in 2020 to 2018, she noticed that instead of the expected drastic increase across all causes, there was a significant decrease in deaths due to heart disease. Even more surprising, as seen in the graph below, this sudden decline in deaths is observed for all other causes. 

This trend is completely contrary to the pattern observed in all previous years. Interestingly, … the total decrease in deaths by other causes almost exactly equals the increase in deaths by COVID-19. 

Of course, I don’t want to undermine anyone’s faith in COVID-19. 

Word of the Day …

… Sapid | Word Genius.

Something to think on…

Truth lies within a little and certain compass, but error is immense.
— James Agee, born on this date in 1909

The art of Thanksgiving...

 ...Context and meaning

Thursday, November 26, 2020

Roundup …

… Cartes de visite by William Logan | The New Criterion. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Once can only hope …

… Vietnam Must Drop Charges Against Poet Tran Duc Thach - PEN America. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

Many of them not terribly interesting …

… Oxford Dictionaries: 2020 has too many Words of the Year to name just one | Reference and languages books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden)

An exquisite pirtrait …

… Reviews and Reflections: On the road again with the Abbess of Andalusia.

To one and all …

… Paul Davis On Crime: Happy Thanksgiving Message From President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The future of journalism …

… Why high-quality analysis is no longer the preserve of print journalism. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Physical newspapers are in decline; soon the grand old mastheads will be seen only on screens. But this may not be their salvation. Their problem is … that a lot of people have got there first. In particular, there are now many online-only journals producing high-quality opinion and analysis, once almost the sole preserve of the broadsheet newspapers. But are they good enough to compete with the highly paid opinionators and analysers of the newspapers? The answer, I fear, is that in some cases they are and, in a few cases, they are better.


Just so you know …

2020’s Best-kept Literary Secret. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

This eighth novel from Marly Youmans breaks a lot of twenty-first-century rules and is hard to categorize—two more possible reasons that it never made the New York Review of Books. It’s a beautifully crafted adventure set in the America of 330 years ago. The novel is both Christian and about Christians but doesn’t comfortably fit into the “Christian fiction” category. The protagonist is a teenage girl, but readers of all ages will love this book (it will especially appeal to women and older teen girls). Who doesn’t love a rip-roaring story about a dangerous foreign land and a smart, thoughtful, God-fearing heroine?


See also: “Axe-grinding and message spoil what you make”: An interview with Marly Youmans.



Something to think on …

If we wish to serve God and love our neighbor well, we must manifest our joy in the service we render to Him and them. Let us open wide our hearts. It is joy which invites us. Press forward and fear nothing.
— Katherine Drexel, born on this date in 1858

Word of the Day …

… Craic | Word Genius.

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Hmm …

The Eternal Silence Of Infinite Space - NOEMA. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The cosmos is 93 billion light-years across, with perhaps 2 trillion galaxies each containing hundreds of billions of stars and, as we can now be pretty sure, hundreds of billions of planets. And yet still we see and hear nothing. There seems to be only what the French mathematician and physicist Blaise Pascal called “the eternal silence of these infinite spaces.” Extraterrestrial life, if it exists, is either very well hidden or just too far away in time and space.

Suppose God just wanted to give us an idea of infinity and the rareness and preciousness of life. Perhaps Earth and its inhabitants together serve as a perspective figure.

A real journalist …

… PHILLY’S WRECK-IT RALPH.

I was just chatting with Ralph in the Italian Market.

RIP …

… John O’Brien (1945-2020). (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The dumbest generation …

… Campus Reform | Indiana University students enraged after Hong Kong protestor is invited to speak.

I'm so old I remember when college students supported people like this.

At home with the whales …

… Jem Cresswell's Book "Giants" Features Underwater Portraits of Whales. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

Birthday anniversary …

 Reviews and Reflections: Wealthy son of a Scottish weaver and political radical.

Something to think on …

To have passed through life and never experienced solitude is to have never known oneself. To have never known oneself is to have never known anyone.
— Joseph Wood Krutch, born on this date in 1893

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Sounds plausible …

… Facebook Announces It Will Now Add Warnings To Any Posts Expressing Hope During The Pandemic | The Babylon Bee.

Haiku …

 Windless at nightfall.

Stillness on the patio.

Stillness in his heart.

Remembering …

… Paul Davis On Crime: On This Day In History Conservative Author, Newspaper Columnist, TV Host And Magazine Editor William F. Buckley Was Born.

And the nominees are …

… The Petrona Award: The Petrona Award 2020 - Shortlist. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Hmm …

Study: Asymptomatic and secondary infected individuals do not infect others.

Unfortunately, I fully expect an effort by many readers to reject these results, digging desperately for any tidbit that might be used to discredit it wholly. Being skeptical is of course absolutely proper, but today too many people aren’t skeptical, they are downright hostile to the arrival of good news. They are in love with their fear of COVID-19, and will oppose and reject any data that might mean their fear is mistaken.


Creative scribbling …

… You’ve Got to Draw the Line Somewhere: Doodling for Writers.

Fish Ewan offers up a wonderful chart detailing the links between perspective in drawing and literary Point of View. She has excellent points and pointers as to how exploring our characters in ink can help us learn more about the folks we write about in our memoirs. The prompts throughout the book are brilliant!


Not your usual art work …

 Reviews and Reflections: On being defenseless until the artist finishes.

Getting to know her …

… Crime Thriller Review: The Riveting Case of Aileen Wournos - The Jewish Voice. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Increasingly, Lee drives Chesler up a wall. Yet Chesler can’t help feeling sympathy for “this volatile, trigger-tempered, foul-mouthed child-woman” who, dealt a childhood of abuse and neglect, appears never to have had a chance at a normal life. One of Chesler’s accomplishments in this stunning memoir is that even a reader who doesn’t share an ounce of her sympathy for Wuornos will be forced by the book’s end to acknowledge that, at the very least, Wuornos’s trial was a betrayal of the cause of equal justice.

Something to think on …

The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.
— William F. Buckley, Jr., born on this date in 1925

Teach like an Elizabethan …

… Innovation Through Constraint | The Russell Kirk Center. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Twelve-hour days were devoted to a curriculum based on the classical trivium and featuring heavy doses of Latin translation. Corporal punishment was a given. The enterprise was educationally incorrect from every modern point of view. Indeed, it amounts to a horror show for the up-to-date pedagogue trained in our universities’ progressive schools of education. And yet, Newstok points out, “Thinkers trained in this unyielding system went on to generate world-shifting insights, found forms of knowledge—indeed, the scientific method itself—that continue to shape our lives.”

Word of the Day …

… Retroject | Word Genius.

Monday, November 23, 2020

Adjusting

 (3) Owen Grey on Twitter: ""November" by Rhina P. Espaillat https://t.co/WjpqMrRY0y" / Twitter. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Working class lady …

… More than a Step on the Boss Man’s Ladder. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Smarsh begins She Come By It Naturalby acknowledging Dolly Parton’s role in society today and her ability to unify disparate groups, but this book focuses on Dolly Parton as representative of working-class women. Parton was born in rural Tennessee to hard-working but poor parents who paid the doctor who delivered her with a sack of grain.


More than a Step on the 
Boss Man’s Ladder
More than a Step on the Boss Man’s Ladder
More than a Step on the Boss Man’s Ladder

Creative opposition …

 Reviews and Reflections: The rivalry that forged a nation.

Something to think on …

Art is the attention we pay to the wholeness of the world.
— Guy Davenport, born on this date in 1927

Word of the Day …

… Multivocal | Word Genius.

Sunday, November 22, 2020

Haiku …

 Sitting at twilight 

He ponders his own twilight.

The gray clouds drift by.


Anniversary …

… CS Lewis: A Sonnet | Malcolm Guite. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

His obituary, along with Aldous Huxley’s, was buried in the newspapers because Kennedy’s assassination the same day.
Here is something interesting, though: C. S. Lewis on the Coronavirus.

And the winners are …

… National Book Awards 2020 - National Book Foundation. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Facades …

… zmkc: OH & S.

When one considers that we now understand that the new virus that we are all being constrained because of only presents extreme danger to some people and that doctors have now worked out quite a few ways to make many of them better, it is hard not to feel faintly suspicious, given how genuinely damaging the measures we are being forced to accept are in so many ways. 

Many seem to feel quite comfortable being ordered about. 

Everyone around then remembers …

… JFK’s legacy reconsidered on this grim anniversary.

Is England...

 ...The new Hollywood?

Something to think on …

We may go to the moon, but that' s not very far. The greatest distance we have to cover still lies within us.
— Charles de Gaulle, born on this date in 1890

Word of the Day …

… Personage | Word Genius.

Saturday, November 21, 2020

Haiku

 In memory of Richard Burgin

His dear friend has died.

His own being has grown less.

When next will we talk?



The trees cast shadows 

On the old school’s brick walls

Time present. Time past.

Birthday anniversary …

 … Voltaire’s literary and personal evolution in exile.

Mark thy calendar times 2 …

… Nathaniel Popkin and Gail Straub: TO REACH THE SPRING | The Walden Woods Project.



(Hat tip, Doug Gordon.)

Something to think on …

Whenever I'm in trouble, I pray. And because I'm in trouble all of the time, I pray almost constantly.
— Isaac Bashevis Singer, born on this date in 1902

Grand gesture …

… Zealotry of Guerin: Casting (Winslow Homer), Sonnet #539.

Word of the Day …

… Ratiocinate | Word Genius.

Friday, November 20, 2020

Beneath the charm …

Cary Grant struggled with a turbulent past for decades, but found peace after quitting Hollywood: book | Fox News. (Hat tip, Jon Caroulis.)

To my readers …

 I am really bummed out by the news that my friend Richard Burgin has died. I may not have much impulse to blog in the coming days. Please bear with me.

RIP …

 Jan Morris obituary | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Very sad news … …

 … Richard Burgin, writer, founder of prestigious journal, dies at 73.

Richard was a friend and one of the greatest short story writers ever. Here  is my review of what may well have been his last book. I feel chilly and grown old.

Have a look …

 … Amazing Winners of 2020 Spotlight Photography Awards.

Appreciation …

… Cole, Cole Heart - Terry Teachout, Commentary Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
While Porter never hinted other than obliquely in his work at any gnawing dissatisfaction with the glamorous life he led, his best ballads are self-evidently the work of a man consumed by the need for physical passion (“Night and day under the hide of me / There’s an, oh, such a hungry yearning burning inside of me”) and haunted by the dream of romantic longing (“You’d be so nice, you’d be paradise / To come home to and love”). Stephen Sondheim was surely on to something when he observed that “Porter’s characters were all aspects of Cole Porter, or at least his public image: the worldly cosmopolitan with an aching heart.” Broadway has never had a wittier songwriter or one capable of deeper feeling, and the songs he left behind stand as a permanent monument to his inspired craftsmanship.

Ah, yes …

… Reviews and Reflections: The world is too much with us.

Weighed in the balance and found wanting …

 … Harold Bloom finally betrays how little he really understood literature. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

No one is going to base a claim for Bloom’s merits on this final book. But it does indicate, with painful acuity, that the critic may have had little understanding of how literature is made — which is not out of ideas, as Mallarmé patiently explained to Cézanne. It doesn’t achieve its effects by saying ‘this is funny’ or ‘this is so moving’. It relishes its own voice — and to dwell on what it has stolen from others misses its ambition.

Debating topics...

 ...In heritage and cultural preservation

Something to think on …

Happiness consists of living each day as if it were the first day of your honeymoon and the last day of your vacation.
— Leo Tolstoy, who died on this date in 1910

Word of the Day …

… Diegesis | Word Genius.

Thursday, November 19, 2020

Blogging will resume tomorrow …

 Having managed to do 2.5 miles (at least) at the best speed I could on my gimpy knees, I am feeling a bit weary.

Blogging note …

 I must be out and about today. Blogging will resume when get back home.

Just so you know …

… Facts About Jack Kerouac | Mental Floss. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

Woman of mystery …

 Reviews and Reflections: The forgotten Tudor queen who must not be ignored.

War memorials...

 ...Catalogued for the recent Armistice Day

Sound advice …

… First Known When Lost: How To Live, Part Thirty: Happenstance.
Just a rabbit crossing a road on a night in late autumn.  Fragile, precious, tenuous, irreplaceable, hung by a gossamer thread.  Fare thee well, dear friend.  Be safe, and live a long rabbit life.

Hmm …

… Mouthwash can kill COVID-19 in 30 seconds, study reveals | News Break.

Something to think on …

In a manner of speaking, the poem is its own knower, neither poet nor reader knowing anything that the poem says apart from the words of the poem.
— Allen Tate, born on this date in 1899

It isn’t easy being sensitive …

… Nestlé rebrands a popular candy so it's no longer "racist," decides instead to name it after monstrous serial killer/rapist | Not the Bee.

Word of the day …

… Disquisition | Word Genius.

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Henry Miller


It'd been a long time since I last read a book by Henry Miller. But for whatever reason, I picked up his account of Greece just before the Second World War. Like most of Miller's work, The Colossus of Maroussi is excellent. Miller's writing is fast and muscular. But at the same time it can be poignant and tempered. The success of Colossus owes to Miller's ability to locate in Greece something of the universal, something transcendent. 

It may be that, with Covid, we're living through a period of limited travel and mobility, and it may be that many of us are looking for ways to escape -- whatever the reason, reading Miller's travelogue provided just that: transplantation. Reading Colossus was like being whisked away to a foreign land. It was like being introduced to the Greeks through Miller, and seeing in them something wonderful. 

Miller is at his best in Colussus when he allows himself to be most enthusiastic. I don't know that I'd noticed this before when reading Miller, but he seems to have had a capacity for unbridled interest. He approached places, especially, with an unending curiosity and zeal. He showed no embarrassment when doing this: his descriptions of Greece make it seem like the only place in the world where a person could be happy. 

Miller lets himself go at these moments: he launches -- because that's the word, really -- into meditations, into calculations, into reflections on the meaning of it all. A small thing can trigger this. But when Miller gets going, he's unlike almost any other writer. A person needn't have visited Greece to take Miller at his word, to recognize in that place an unusual mixture of both the human and the divine.

As always with Miller, the last word is reserved for him: "If men cease to believe that they will one day become gods then they will surely become worms." 

Still relevant after all these years …

… Jacques Barzun’s 1937 Critique of Race-Thinking. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Barzun had some serious nerve to suggest that race is a superstition in 1937, with Social Darwinism, eugenics, imperialism, nationalistic wars, and the rise of Fascism and Nazism all around. A second edition of Barzun’s book was released in 1965, at another historical moment of heightened racial conflict and awareness in the American Civil Rights Movement. In the preface to the second edition he wrote, “As long as people permit themselves to think of human groups without the vivid sense that groups consist of individuals and that individuals display the full range of human differences, the tendency which twenty-eight years ago I named race-thinking will persist”

And the winners are …

… Winning Poems for 2020 October : IBPC.


(Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

Scottish printmakers...

 ...Some great pieces from the archives

An unfortunate first …

 Reviews and Reflections: Singular moment in history of assassinations.

Something to think on …

Absolute atheism starts in an act of faith in reverse gear and is a full-blown religious commitment. Here we have the first internal inconsistency of contemporary atheism: it proclaims that all religion must necessarily vanish away, and it is itself a religious phenomenon.
— Jacques Maritain, born on this date in 1882

Word of the Day …

… Chrestomathy | Word Genius.

Just so you know …

… You keep using the word “liberal:” it doesn’t mean what you think it means.

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Indeed …

… Faith Comes Through Hearing | Commonweal Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

You can’t hear the word of God until you’ve heard the Word of God. The word is imparted, the Word intuited. The word comes from a minister, of whatever sort. The Word might come from the leaves of a tree, or a rudimentary piano lesson, or a radio’s shipping forecast.

The dumbest generation …

… 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' Other Books Banned From California Schools Over Racism Concerns.

Appreciation …

… Nigeness: Cook and Waugh: The Comic Sense of Life. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Imagine that …

… Deep faith beneficial to health | Stanford News. (Hat tip, Cynthia Haven.)
Rather than presume that people worship because they believe, or build cathedrals because the belief is already present, Luhrmann flips the equation. She argues instead that people believe because they worship. In other words, the process of “real-making” and engaging fully in rituals and practices that bring one closer to God is so satisfying to practitioners that their faith endures.


This has certainly been my experience. 

Much ado …

 … Pronouns Go Political. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

“The terminology of gender changes,” writes Professor Baron, “as ideas about gender change.” So in contemporary life the “ess” has been removed from “actress,” the “rix” from “aviatrix,” the “man” from “chairman” and “man­kind”; waiters and waitresses have become “servers,” and more often than not their customers, no longer sirs and madames, have become “guys.” Some now want to change “Ms.” to “Mx.,” and “woman” to “womxn.” God Him­self (Herself?) may one day end up a hermaphrodite.

Language is a set of conventions. To get bent out of shape over certain conventions because they offend your ideology seems indicative of a certain dimwittedness. If you have something you think is important to say, spit it out. Don't get hung up on conventions. 

In the meantime, check out this: Das Mädchen: Why the Word 'Girl' Is Gender Neutral.

I happen to agree …

… Coronavirus Ushers in an Unconstitutional Hell for America

In defiance of all previous medical experience, the Covid “pandemic” has muzzled the population with bank-robber masks, driven families asunder, forced elderly couples to die apart, punished schoolchildren with the false promise of “remote learning,” made Americans eye each other with suspicion and sidle away, and created a near-Stasi level of rats and snitches only too happy to inform on their fellow citizens.

I like the people who drive by themselves in their cars wearing a mask. The mask, by the way, protects others from you.

For your listening pleasure …

RIP …

The lost art of letter writing in books | Datebook (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Anniversary …

After Elizabeth — The Rise of James to England’s throne.

Word of the day …

… Prospicience | Word Genius.

A test case for Christian discernment …

… Bruce Charlton's Notions: Jack Kerouac: Understanding the spiritual war(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In terms of what ought to matter decisively to Christians, Kerouac was a Christian. In terms of what side he took in the spiritual war of this world; Kerouac was on the side of Good. And, except for a period on the middle 1950s when he was a very serious and idealistic student of Buddhism; Kerouac was explicitly a follower of Jesus Christ and wanted more than anything to live eternally in Heaven.

Something to think on …

There are countless horrible things happening all over the world and horrible people prospering, but we must never allow them to disturb our equanimity or deflect us from our sacred duty to sabotage and annoy them whenever possible.
— Auberon Waugh, born on this date in 1939

Monday, November 16, 2020

And the winner is …

… Len Krisak - Winner, Able Muse Book Award, 2020 | Able Muse Press. (Hat tip, Dave lull.)

Something to think on …

Our main conclusions about the state are that a minimal state, limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on, is justified, but any more extensive state will violate persons' rights not to be forced to do certain things, and is unjustified; and that the minimal state is inspiring as well as right.

— Robert Nozick, born on this date in 1938

Note: I mistakenly posted this on Nov. 1.

Mark thy calendar …

 GREEN LINE READING ON ZOOM - for Thanksgiving 

November 17, 6 pm - Spread The Word

This Time: A Reading by
The 2020 Mad-Poet-in-Residence Workshop Poets


Dave Bender

        Jim Brosnan

Steven Concert

        Elinor Donohue

Elizabeth Fletcher

        Ed Krizek

Abbey Porter

        Prabha Prabhu

Jan Starkey

        Cleveland Wall



THE GREEN LINE CAFÉ POETRY SERIES on ZOOM
Tuesday, November 17, 2020, 6-7:30 PM




Poems Good To Hear At This Time /
Poems which speak to our current times
and perhaps of comfort and Thanks



Presented by POETRY IN COMMON and Peace/Works
Hosted by LEONARD GONTAREK


Wow …

… The Sculpture Garden of Edward James. | Great Gardens of the World. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
The Sculpture Garden of Edward James, is located on a piece of land situated in Xilitla near La Conchita. Its surface covers almost nine hectare of land, where we can find 40 buildings, structures and sculptures together with 37 hectares of natural landscape. 

Something for these times …

… 10 Art Books That Will Nourish Your Creative Soul This Month. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

Word of the Day …

… Littérateur | Word Genius.

Sunday, November 15, 2020

A literary mystery …

When the Worst Man in the World Writes a Masterpiece | Fantastic Anachronism. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Perhaps it is in vain that we seek correlations among virtues and talents: perhaps genius is ineffable. Perhaps it's Ramanujans all the way down. You can't even say that genius goes with independence: there's nothing Boswell wanted more than social approval. I won't tire you with clichés about the Margulises and the Musks.

Interesting fellow …

… Meet the Man Who Was Our First Multiracial Vice President - The Dispatch.

That he has been forgotten does not surprise me. As Thomas Marshall, my favorite Vice President,once observed: “ Once there were two brothers. One ran away to sea; the other was elected vice president of the United States. And nothing was heard of either of them again.”

Just so you know …

Banished Words List - Lake Superior State University. (Hat tip, Dave Lu..’

In case you wondered …

… From Cool to Cringe: what’s happened to American culture?

There was no Cool left in America by the time the Trump era began, just noise. Part hair shirt, part hollow bombast, every day for four years Americans buried themselves beneath a falling skyscraper of cringe. The rest of the world was collateral damage. This culture had more than a whiff of mental distress about it. Over there: howling patriots, conspiracy lunatics, Nazi bodybuilders, militarized trolls, hustlers and grifters. Over here: brittle liberal worthies, nerds, meritless meritocrats, academic Torquemadas, trust-funded podcasters, pseudoscientific TED speechifiers, hysterical talking heads and way too many lawyers. Not to mention all the creepy racists, the OnlyFans fans, the ‘wine o’clock’ mothers, the whining, weepy- kneeling athletes, the hate-crime fakers, the wannabe Bolsheviks, the acorn-brained influencers, the over-exposed YouTubers, Jerry Falwell Jr’s pool boy, Bret Stephens versus the 1619 Project. It almost sounds dynamic. But two dogs fighting over a pork chop can be dynamic. It almost sounds alive. But dead bodies always release gas.


A classic …

… The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson | Poetry Foundation. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

Word of the Day …

 Nisus | Word Genius.

Something to think on …

If you believe in evolution and naturalism then you have a reason not to think your faculties are reliable.
— Alvin Plantinga, born on this date in 1932

Saturday, November 14, 2020

Friday, November 13, 2020

Appraisal …

… The author in full: Tom Wolfe | Spectator USA. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Though Wolfe was never the great writer he finally aspired to be, he was a first-rate social observer and chronicler — a ‘social X-ray’ in his own right — and a superb satirist whose nonfiction and essayistic works are almost unfailingly clever, witty, imaginative and skillfully written. Most important of all, he had an unerring instinct for what we might call le cible just, the perfect target: the rich limousine liberal, the fatuous, shallow, hypocritical and parasitic pseudo-intellectual and artist, and — finally — the liberal mystique itself.


Beyond mere creativity …

… Taking Readings : Lost Knowledge of the Imagination by Gary Lachman. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Lachman quotes Jacques Barzun (referencing Pascal): “the spirit of geometry ‘works with exact definitions and abstractions in science or mathematics’, while the spirit of finesse ‘works with ideas and perceptions not capable of exact definition’”.But not all of Pascal’s contemporaries, nor Barzun’s in our own time, appreciate and realize this distinction. 

This is an outstanding review. I have already got the Kindle version of Lachman’s book. Do read as eell the review linked to toward the end of this one.

Something to think on …

God provides the wind, Man must raise the sail.
— Augustine of Hippo, born on this date in 354

Word of the Day …

… Matronymic | Word Genius.