Wednesday, November 30, 2022
My sentiments exactly …
… A Unified Theory of “Backwardism.”
This sort of either/or thinking is absurd, but they appear to believe this. Such is the only explanation I can conceive for why it is better to close down healthy parishes if the only way they can be salvaged is to fill them with Latin Mass Catholics, or to let seminaries and religious orders die if the only way to perpetuate them is to restore traditional theological or liturgical practices to them. Better to let the Church die off, apparently, than have it fall into the hands of people you think are fundamentally evil.
I am at a loss as to why Jesus doesn’t call the Pontiff home and have s chat. Happily, I remember that Jesus remains the head of the Church. Francis is only a stand-in.
Something to think on
Political correctness does not legislate tolerance; it only organizes hatred.
— Jacques Barzun, born on this date in 1997
Tuesday, November 29, 2022
A nightmare painting …
… Review of "Leopoldstadt," by Tom Stoppard | City Journal. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Politics, for Stoppard, can only go so far in extricating us from the scourge of politics. A playwright preeminently of ideas, in such works as The Real Thing (1982), Arcadia (1993), and The Invention of Love(1997), Stoppard in Leopoldstadt shows his audience the vanity of ideas, especially political ones, when confronted by the monstrous evil of race hatred.
Something to think on …
The most dangerous ideas in a society are not the ones being argued, but the ones that are assumed.
— C. S. Lewis, born on this date in 1898
Monday, November 28, 2022
Hear, hear …
Are their own voices so compelling that the rest of us are expected to listen, heeding advice which overturns two-thousand years of Catholic Christianity? Are the witness of countless saints and scholars, popes and martyrs, to count for nothing? The authority, no less, of Christ Himself, who made provision for none of the changes being proposed today?
Q&A …
… A Universe Reveals Itself From Within: An Interview with Anthony Bukoski — Hypertext Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Over a period from, say, 2007-2012, I’d come to the end of the line. J. W. Beecroft, the independent bookstore which hand-sold my books, closed in late 2007. My beloved editor of eighteen years had tired of my work. Then in 2010, Southern Methodist University Press, my home all those years, suspended operations. Sometime during this period, the midwestern representative for Publishers Weeklyhinted she might profile me for the magazine but instead profiled Marilynne Robinson, a better choice. After publishing four short-story collections with SMU Press, I’d gotten to the end.
Something to think on …
There is nothing more vindictive, nothing more underhanded, than a little world that would like to be a big one.
— Stefan Zweig, born on this date in 1881
Sunday, November 27, 2022
Seems like there may just be …
… Is There a Science of Musical Transformation in Human Life? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
For our purposes here, it’s more important to focus on the two very different ways our competing hemispheres have of changing the world. For the left hemisphere, we change the world by manipulating and controlling it. For the right hemisphere, we go out into the larger environment and transform both ourselves and our world in a way that feels more like merging or transcending. That is precisely the hero’s journey described in this book, and songs are better tools for that transformation than a hammer or a gun.
Something to think on …
As a whole part of "psychological education" it needs to be remembered that a neurosis can be valuable; also that "adjustment" to a sick and insane environment is of itself not "health" but sickness and insanity.
— James Agee, born on this date in 1909
Saturday, November 26, 2022
Birds and a legend …
… A. E. Stallings: Two Poems: Crows in the Wind & The Younger Memnon. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A singular masterwork …
… Cole Porter’s Lasting Song of Longing. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Porter’s unconventional harmonic shift from the first to the second theme surprises the listener. His second delivers a gift: instead of the standard 32 bars, we get 48, heightening the lyric’s expression of passion.
Something to think on …
It is a lesson we all need — to let alone the things that do not concern us. He has other ways for others to follow Him; all do not go by the same path. It is for each of us to learn the path by which He requires us to follow Him, and to follow Him in that path.
— Katharine Drexel, born on this date in 1858
Friday, November 25, 2022
She could well be …
… Therese of Lisieux, dangerous saint - Aleteia.
Therese takes away every excuse, dismissing every good reason we can give for not being holy, for not at least striving after sanctity. She’s proof that great holiness is possible for every soul, and so our lack of sanctity is a matter of our own will, rather than our luck or our circumstances. In other words, Therese’s message is this: If we’re not holy it’s because we don’t want to be.
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
Anniversary …
… things that matter: His organ donations would lesson the pain of the sermons.
The Holmesburg Library, where I spent a lot of time when I was a kid, was endowed by Carnegie
Just so you know …
… The Ten Best Photography Books of 2022 | Arts & Culture| Smithsonian Magazine. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Appreciation …
… Dr Henry Marsh - Oldie Brainbox of the Year. By Dr Theodore Dalrymple - The Oldie. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Neurosurgery entails what for most of us would be would be an intolerable burden of risk and responsibility; of no type of surgery is it more true that the surgeon should have the eye of a hawk, the heart of a lion and the hand of a lady.
Thursday, November 24, 2022
Wednesday, November 23, 2022
Something to think on …
I’ve carved the puppet, and I manipulate the strings, but while it’s on stage, the show belongs to the puppet.
— Guy Davenport, born on this date in 1927
Tuesday, November 22, 2022
A sad day those alive at the time will always remember…
… things that matter: We all know where we were when it happened.
I was a senior in college chatting with the pretty girl at the school switchboad.
Something to think on …
A patriot without religion in my estimation is as great a paradox as an honest Man without the fear of God. Is it possible that he whom no moral obligations bind, can have any real Good Will towards Men?— Abigail Adams. Born on this date in 1644
Monday, November 21, 2022
Something to think on …
To be a religions man and to pray are really one and the same thing. To join in the thought of God with every thought of any importance that occurs to us ; in all our admiration of external nature, to regard it as the work of His wisdom ; to take counsel with God about all our plans, that we may be able to carry them out in His name ; and even in our most mirthful hours to remember His all-seeing eye ; this is the prayer without ceasing to which we are called, and which is really the essence of true religion.
— Friedrich Schleiermacher, born on this date in 1768
Sunday, November 20, 2022
I will soon be reading them …
… The gospels according to E.V. Rieu - George Hunka. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I just ordered a copy of Rieu’s translation. I have made my way through a chunk of the Gospels in Greek. They are very impressive.but I want to see what Rieu has to ffer. You can never stop learning.
Well worth watching …
… things that matter: Enjoying a detour while reading about the revolution.
I have probably mentioned in the past that I once spent a delightful afternoon at lunch with David McCullough. A genuinely learned gentleman.
I’m afraid so …
… Servility Will Cower to Force - by William F. Vallicella.
And yes the people are ovine and servile and will cower to power. That has been amply demonstrated of late by the masses' mindless donning of useless masks. Don we now our fey apparel! Let us signal our specious virtue and adherence to the party line of Lord Fauci and his minions. And when the party line shifts, we shift with it!
Weighed in the balance …
… and often found wanting: A sentimental education by William Logan | The New Criterion.(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
Nothing on earth can make up for the loss of one who has loved you.
— Selma Lagerlöf, born on this date in 1858
Saturday, November 19, 2022
Q&A …
… Claire Hamner Matturro interviews poet Lola Haskins - Southern Literary Review (Hat tip, Rus Bowden,)
If you think sounding musical and/or stringing turns of phrase together is enough, AI can write poetry. But since for me poetry is so much more than surface effects, I’d argue that it can’t. And that, furthermore, it won’t be able to for a long time, if ever. And why not? Because we don’t know how to code emotion, intuition, and understanding of context. And they’re essential. The first is what makes the reader feel something. The second enables the leaps that when you read them leave you breathless for days. And without the combination of those two and the third, poetic wit and humor would be impossible.
A most interesting story …
… Embracing Grace: Amy Ford Shares A Powerful ‘Pro-Love’ Message.
At the Care Net conference, Ford shared a testimony about the reconciliation that eventually happened with the pastor who refused to marry the young couple when she was first pregnant.
“He asked my husband for forgiveness and said it was the worst mistake he has made as a pastor,” recalled Ford.
A couple of years later, Amy Ford was asked to speak at that pastor’s church for a Mother’s Day service. After she spoke, the pastor asked Ford and her son Jess, who was 16 at the time, for forgiveness in front of his congregation.
“He was very open about what he had done years before. He said that he had a religious spirit, a pharisee heart,” Amy Ford said.
In an apology to Jess Ford, the pastor said, “While you were in your mother’s womb, I rejected you. Will you forgive me?”
“It was such a powerful moment,” Amy Ford said. “You could feel church wounds being lifted in the room. The fact that the pastor would humble himself in that way was so amazing. And he has his own [testimony] about grace and mercy and what God did in his heart.”
In case you wondered …
… The Dirt on Pig-Pen | Elif Batuman. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In the 1954 strips, Schultz establishes the basic rules of Pig-Pen’s dirtiness. Pig-Pen doesn’t dislike baths; he just prefers getting dirty. He doesn’t try to get dirty; he just doesn’t go out of his way to stay clean. Dirtiness, if not precisely an elected state, is one Pig-Pen can initially control — sometimes to fantastical precision. At one point he tricks Patty into leaving him alone by seeming to have washed his face; when she walks away, we see that the other half of his face is dirty.
Something to think on …
Your preschool child will chatter endlessly to you. If you half-listen and half-reply the whole conversation will seem, and become, tediously meaningless for both of you. but if you really listen and really answer, he will talk more and what he says will make more sense— Penelope Leach, born on this date in 1937
Friday, November 18, 2022
God bless her …
… Petula Clark, the Oldie of the Year, turns 90. By Gyles Brandreth - The Oldie. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Q&A …
… What Heartbreak the Wind Will Bring: An Interview with Donald Newlove. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Debbie and I visited Don and Nancy a couple of times. Both were wonderful people.
Something to think on …
Let us not go faster than God. It is our emptiness and our thirst that He needs, not our plentitude
— Jacques Maritain, born on this date in 1882
Thursday, November 17, 2022
Sounds impressive to me …
… Tom Stoppard’s “Leopoldstadt” Is a Work of Bitter Greatness. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The play’s title refers to Vienna’s old Jewish ghetto—Leopoldstadt—and the suggestion is that the ease and comfort its deracinated characters think they have attained outside it is illusory. They are no freer outside and in greater danger.
Something to think on …
I think that everything you do helps you to write if you're a writer. Adversity and success both contribute largely to making you what you are. If you don't experience either one of those, you're being deprived of something.
— Shelby Foote, born on this date in 1916
One master on another …
… Anecdotal Evidence: 'Aggrieved By Such Simplicities'. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… Here is my review of Memoirs of a Midget. (Further thanks to Dave..)
Wednesday, November 16, 2022
Just so you know …
… MnDOT announces winners of 2022 “Name a Snowplow” contest. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
They do get a lot of snow there.
In case you wondered …
… Is Reason a White Male Euro-Christian Construct?:
The problem, very simply, is that if reason is culturally or racially or in any way relative, then there is no such thing as reason. Reason is like truth in this respect. Truth is absolute by its very nature; talk of relative truth is nonsense. Similarly, reason is normative and impartially adjudicative by its very nature. Talk of reason as reflective of class interests or racial biases is nonsense. So either there is no reason or it is not a social construct. And if it is not a social construct, then of course it is not a white male Euro-Christian construct.
Exactly how dumb do people like Caputo think the rest of us are? Well, I don’t think Caputo is dumb. He’s just a shameless panderer to faculty lounge fashion. Pathetic.
Something to think on …
The kind of doctor I want is one who when he's not examining me is home studying medicine.
— George S. Kaufman, born on this date in 1889
Tuesday, November 15, 2022
Much in what he says …
… The Jesuits: What Went Wrong - The Catholic Thing.
I went to a Jesuit college. Edward Gannon S.J. Was one of the most important people in my life. I can honestly say that I studied philosophy under him. But the appeal of the fashionable to today’s Jesuits puzzles me. And Pope Francis underrwhelmsme.
Terms we could use today …
… Reading Dante on His Terms | The Russell Kirk Center. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Frisardi argues that Dante, and other medieval thinkers like Ibn Arabi, were both mystical and intellectual. “[Dante] is both ardently devout and intellectually rigorous… In Dante, ardent love coexists with intellectual acumen.” Frisardi emphasizes that “[t]here is no essential conflict between [Dante’s pre-Enlightenment intellectualism] and Dante’s orthodox, devout Catholicism… His orthodoxy is indispensable to his poetic gnosis.”
Something to think on …
Along with our passivity, we're entering a profoundly masochistic phase everyone is a victim these days, of parents, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, even love itself. And how much we enjoy it. Our happiest moments are spent trying to think up new varieties of victimhood.— J. G. Ballard, born on this date in 1930
Monday, November 14, 2022
Blogging note …
I am not feeling well just now. Blogging may resume tonight. Or maybe not until tomorrow. Sorry about that.
Something to think on …
I don't want to write for adults. I want to write for readers who can perform miracles. Only children perform miracles when they read.
— Astrid Lindgren, born on this date in 1997
Sunday, November 13, 2022
No lie there …
… things that matter: Mark Twain would probably have a different opinion today
The founders didn’t want us to have a professional political. Given today’s overpaid hacks, you can see why.
The power of words …
… Back from the dead. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I think I had some understanding, at the time, of why I was so interested in obsolete words. I knew how much it hurt to feel extraneous, but I also knew the secret joy of liking yourself anyway. This was also the reason I exclusively wore secondhand clothes and dragged home intriguing objects from people’s trash. Everywhere I looked there were things that people didn’t want anymore, but I could look at them and see their value. They were still good! They just needed fresh eyes, some love and imagination. When I resurrected other people’s old belongings I felt the deep pleasure of owning something that was old and new at the same time, of letting the past mingle with the present—this time on purpose and for fun. If I couldn’t “learn to let go,” I could at least make a small theater of my inability to move on
Quite a family …
… House of saints: Visiting St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s home has inspired conversions.
“People are very touched by the witness of the Martin family when they come into this house. They realize how much love was exchanged between the parents and the children,” she said.
“They feel that love and that this house has a soul.”
Something to think on …
There is nothing but God's grace. We walk upon it; we breathe it; we live and die by it; it makes the nails and axles of the universe.
— Robert Louis Stevenson, born on this date in 1850
Saturday, November 12, 2022
Something to think on …
How does meaning get into the image? Where does it end? And if it ends, what is there beyond?
— Roland Barthes, born on this date in 1915
Friday, November 11, 2022
Gee, are these people bullshitting us — or themselves …
… I suspect the former: FOUR HUNDRED private jets arrived in Egypt during COP27 as climate delegates accused of 'hypocrisy' | Daily Mail Online.
Only not all of us are damned fools (hear that, Mr. Gates). I know I sound like I’m being hard on Bill Gates. But people like him will only back down in the face of richly deserved ridicule.
Hey kids …
… You’re supposed to be able to debate her: Campus Reform | EXCLUSIVE: Cornell students cancel Coulter's speech
… guess you need to go to school. Oh, you are in school. Guess you’re just dumb.
In memoriam …
Risk Analysis
For Judith Fitzgerald
Somewhere between
Rapture and despair
Lies the region most prefer
Inhabiting, feeling at home
There, playing it safe, willing
To forfeit one to be spared
The other, learning too late
Escaping despair means
Taking a chance on rapture.
Judith would have turned 70 todayl
Something to think on …
Fasting is the greatest remedy — the physician within.
— Paracelsus, born on this date in 1493
Thursday, November 10, 2022
Tracking the decline …
… Too Many Philly Cops Are Saying, “Exit, Stage Left!”
The cops who are retiring or quitting say they worry about deadly confrontation with criminals armed with illegal guns. If the cops draw their firearm and kill a suspect, they run the risk of being fired by an unsupportive mayor and commissioner, and being prosecuted by an anti-cop, progressive DA.
Let’s hope not …
… Is this Tom Stoppard's last act? - The Spectator World. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Which brings me back to Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt, just opened on Broadway last month. If this play does not convince the theatergoing public of Stoppard’s preeminence, then I am not sure what could. Stoppard — born Tomáš Sträussler in 1937 to secular Jews in Czechoslovakia — has crafted a play that dramatizes the process of memory in time as incisively as Pinter ever did. And through the subject of Jewishness — not Judaism, exactly, since many characters are not practicing — he elaborates a favorite theme of his, the ebb and flow of history, with characteristic ebullience. This show is a marvel. Hats off to Stoppard, director Patrick Marber and all involved.
I have liked the work of both.
Something to think on …
I know a fellow who's as broke as the Ten Commandments.
— John P. Marquand, born on this date in 1893
Wednesday, November 09, 2022
Honoring treasures …
… Rave. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
‘We should not expect all monuments to have been set up to entirely morally admirable people, even if they stand in a place of Christian worship. If, on the basis of contemporary moral judgments, we deface monuments or cause them to be taken down, then the debate is stifled and the opportunity to learn from past mistakes is lost. Our future is nothing without our past.’
Richard Hoptner, the fellow who taught me what little I know about carpentry, was apprenticed to be an ecclesiastical carver and joiner. He also did 25 bombing missions in World War II. Here is one of his sculptures.
Something to think on …
When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes.
— Dylan Thomas, who died on this date in 1953
Tuesday, November 08, 2022
Something to think on …
What I want to bring out is how a pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. And each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that.
— Dorothy Day, born on this date in 1897
Happy centenary …
… Ronald Blythe at 100: ‘A watchful, curious and gratefully amazed vision of life’. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A life rooted in East Anglia has given Blythe a rare depth of vision. His writing is attuned to the physicality of existence, attentive to the world around him, and always listening to people and other species, as here, in June:
Early morning in the heatwave, the air still and sullen, the trees cardboard shapes, the birds silent. One can almost hear the dead rose-petals falling. David’s corn is a motionless bluey-green sea. At the moment, the day is holding back its potential and seems uncommitted, but in a little while the sun will spin up in the east like a gold coin. Yesterday, the washing dried in an hour.
The vagaries of grammar …
… Odd poem: ‘The Naughty Preposition’ by Morris Bishop. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Monday, November 07, 2022
As well he ought …
… Nine years after novelist's death, Leonard's leg man is still on the job.
Leonard is nine years gone, and Sutter is essentially still working for him. It's a labor of love, and besides, if you don't count Leonard's five kids, it's a subject he knows better than anyone.
Dutch was not only a great writer (I once suggested that he be given the Nobel Prize —and I was serious.) He was also one of the coolest guysI have ever met.
Philly now: A moronic mayor and a simply despicable DA …
For the past four months, Krasner has been trying to evade my questions at his weekly press conferences by either ignoring me, or abruptly ending those sessions rather than answer my questions.
Ralph and I are former colleagues. Trust me: He’s a real journalist.
Something to think on …
I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live as if there isn't and to die to find out that there is.
— Albert Camus, born on this date in 1913
Just so you know …
… Emily Kopp: The Media Overlooked COVID Lab Leak Evidence.
Having done some medical editing in my time and worked for several years in the field of arms control and disarmament, I was skeptical of the official line from the start.
Sunday, November 06, 2022
Something to think on …
It has taken Christian philosophers work to take sin seriously, that is to say: to see that it transcends ethical phenomena.
— Don Colacho.
A saint at work …
… French Soldiers Tell How St. Thérèse Helped and Protected Them in World War I| National Catholic Register.
Soldiers flooded the Carmel in Lisieux with letters about their devotion to her. How she saved them. How she even appeared to them!
Saturday, November 05, 2022
Don’t think they won’t notice …
… more miscellaneous musings : Urgent warning to all deer: avoid Mark Twain sites.
Some years I was hiking in World’s End State Park. It was the opening day of deer hunting season. We were walking along the Pioneer Road. On our right was the state forest, where hunting was permitted. On our left was the state park, where hunting was prohibited, we saw more deer than we ever had in our lives, crossing the road our of the forest and into the park
Something to think on …
The soul of a civilization is its religion, and it dies with its faith.
— Will Durant, born on this date in 1885
Friday, November 04, 2022
Something to think on …
Poems have a different music from ordinary language, and every poem has a different kind of music of necessity, and that's, in a way, the hardest thing about writing poetry is waiting for that music, and sometimes you never know if it's going to come.
— C. K. Williams, born on this date in 1936
No kidding …
… A Good Research Librarian Can Help You Find Information You Didn’t Even Know You Needed. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Dave is living proof of this.
Thursday, November 03, 2022
Anniversary …
… Happy Birthday, Well-Tempered Clavier - JSTOR Daily. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… There’s now consensus that when Bach wrote “Das Wohltemperirte Clavier,” he meant “clavier” to signify any musical keyboard—harpsichord, clavichord, organ. He did not mean the modern piano as we know it, the very instrument upon which The Well-Tempered Clavier is played most often now, because modern pianos had yet to evolve.
In memoriam …
… The Dancing by Gerald Stern | Poetry Foundation. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Gerald Stern passed away on October 27: Gerald Stern (1925–2022), award-winning poet.
Hmm …
… Physics can't deal with reality's complexity | Nancy Cartwright — IAI TV. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I wasn’t aware that physics had become the queen of sciences. Do people pondering a question in biology now pick up a physics text? I hope not. Quantum has provided some pertinent information about the universe (e.g., were it the mass of a dime smaller or larger than it is it would not exist). And just to nit pick, the theologian mentioned near the end is Peter Fisher, not Peter Fishes). Trust me, if I hear of any physicist intruding on chemistry, I’ll be the first to complain. Intruding on philosophy? Well, we’ll have to take that on a case-by-case basis. Though I highly recommend quantum pioneer Werner Heiseberg’s Physics and Philosophy.
Electoral anniversary …
… more miscellaneous musings : I really cringed when conservative was crushed by liberal.
Johnson ran as the peace candidate. A few blocks from where I live he declared that “I’m not going to send American boys to fight a war Asian boys should be fighting.” I have long thought that if Goldwater had been elected, the NorthVietnamese would have backed off out of caution.
Something to think on …
One can fool life for a long time, but in the end it always makes us what we were intended to be.
— André Malraux, born on this date in 1902
Wednesday, November 02, 2022
Something to think on …
Nothing appeals to intellectuals more than the feeling that they represent 'the people'. Nothing, as a rule, is further from the truth.
— Paul Johnson, born on this date in 1928
Faith in the invisible …
… Haunted America - The American Conservative. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Just 3 percent of Americans totally deny the existence of the supernatural, and yet they have convinced the rest of us to feel embarrassed because we agree with 99.999 percent of human beings who have ever lived: that there are forces at work in the world we can’t explain—that these forces have consciousness and agency—that they’re creatures, like us. They awe and frighten us, and rightly so.
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