Saturday, December 31, 2022
A great Pope …
… Opinion | What Pope Benedict Taught Me About Faith - The New York Times. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The danger is that this narrowly scientistic account of reason affords humans a much lower status than the one granted them by classical philosophy and revealed religions. You can do anything to people, especially the weak and the poor, if you view human beings as mere collections of particles, lacking any special origin or destiny.
This will take some time …
… Shredding away the COVID insanity.
A new study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that “a regular exercise routine may significantly lower the chances of being hospitalized or even dying from COVID-19.”
RIP …
… Ian Tyson, Canadian Folk Great Who Wrote ‘Four Strong Winds,’ Dead at 89.
I saw him, not long before I retired, when I covered the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, NV, for The Inquirer.
Something to think on …
Military power wins battles, but spiritual power wins wars.
— George C Marshall, born on this date in 1880
Friday, December 30, 2022
Hmm …
… Did Poetry Die 100 Years Ago This Month? —PoemShape. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I think e. e. cummings was rather well known— at least in my day. And there was Dylan Thomas. And allen Ginsberg was practically a rock starnp.
But I wonder if you still are made to read poetry in school. That’s how my generation caught on to it. Ther is plenty of great poetry around today. Read Dana Gioia. He can help you appreciate life.
Where do these people come from?
… well this guy won’t tell you: Paul Davis On Crime: I'm Shocked, Shocked That Politicians Lie.
Something to think on …
A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition.
— Rudyard Kipling, born on this date in 1865
Thursday, December 29, 2022
A unique work …
… Rereading the Indescribable Perelandra | Brandywine Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The authorial challenge Lewis takes on here is supremely audacious – to imagine a true state of innocence in a way that won’t be misinterpreted by dirty minds. To describe colors the reader has never seen and tastes he’ll never taste, without sounding precious. To provide a parable of the life by of faith that even skeptics can appreciate – even if they don’t get the point.
Something to think on …
Time just seems to fly away for a boy. That, I s’pose, is why one day you wake up suddenly and you ain’t a boy any longer.
— Robert Ruark, born on this date in 1915
Wednesday, December 28, 2022
A surprising — and encouraging — comeback …
… What Can We Learn from Barnes & Noble's Surprising Turnaround?: (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Here’s the surprise: This company has been a failure at digital media, and has succeeded by embracing the most antiquated technology of them all: the printed book.
Something to think on …
More consequences for thought and action follow the affirmation or denial of God than from answering any other basic question.
— Mortimer J. Adler, born on this date in 1902
Tuesday, December 27, 2022
Hmm …
… Therese of Lisieux, dangerous saint - Aleteia.
… it’s not by our own efforts that we become holy.
So what are we supposed to do? The paradox is that we’re supposed to do nothing—God does all the work.
This looks great…
… Groucho & Cavett - Watch the Trailer Now | American Masters | PBS. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A most important piece …
… Conscience, Brain, and Scientistic Pseudo-Understanding,
Part of what is offensive about this rubbish is that a great and humanly very important topic is treated in a jocose manner. (I am assuming, charitably, that the author did not write his piece as a joke.) But that is not the worst of it. The worst of it is the incoherence of what is being proposed.
I am not a scientist, though, having having had three lab courses in science (physics, biology, and chemistry) I am sufficiently literate scientifically to have done a good bit of science editing (also medical editing). I think that Covid made it clear that the media these days doesn’t really know science.This article makes clear the nature of the problem. The writer of the piece being critiqued should have asked more questions, rather than just extrapolate on his own. I think I share the views of the writer of the piece, but it’s wise to be careful,
Spot on …
… A Letter to Father Pavone - Crisis Magazine.
What some radical Catholic writers like Leon Bloy and Bernanos meant by the term bien-pensantwould apply to some middle-class Catholics in America who are much more middle class than Catholics. Radical statements rock the boat, and you were unfortunately exceptionally good at a religious form of épater les bourgeois—upsetting the self-righteous and complacent who don’t want their religion to get in the way of their careers or their social relationships.
Something to think on …
My greatest desire is that I may perceive the God whom I find everywhere in the external world, in like manner also within and inside myself.
— Johannes Kepler, born on this date in 1571
Monday, December 26, 2022
Q&A ..,
.., ‘Glories Stream from Heaven Afar’ (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Marilyn Robinson interviewed by Daniel Drake and Lauren Kane.
Something to think on …
There's nothing wrong with the world. What's wrong is our way of looking at it.
— Henry Miller, born on this date in 1891
Sunday, December 25, 2022
RIP …
… Remembering Ned Rorem | NLS Music Notes. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I can’t believe I saw nothing about this is the news. I met him once. He seemed very nice. A great compser.
Poetry amid plague …
… To Draw the Mortal Hours: On James Matthew Wilson’s “The Strangeness of the Good”. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Wilson distinguishes two meanings of “good.” The first is the more familiar. He would call it sentimental. Wilson’s preferred meaning can be thought of as ontological. “Good Friday, 2013, Driving Northward” has potentially the most banal of premises: the speaker is driving home in the dark, having promised his wife he would arrive before the children wake. Somewhere in the Appalachians, the humblest of events occurs: dawn. Wilson likens it to “deep breathing underneath a blanket, / Where things declare themselves by being what they are within; / So much, it seems, that every blessed thing which comes to light / Stands forth to show its birth from that first fruitful wakefulness.” The poem concludes: “[A]ll is blessing, all is light.”
Something to think on …
We are aware that globalization doesn't mean global friendship but global competition and, therefore, conflict. That doesn't mean we will all destroy each other, but it is no happy global village, either.
— René Girard, born on this date in 1923
Saturday, December 24, 2022
That’s for sure …
… The FBI Destroyed Its Once Great Reputation - The Lid.
Where are Roger Smith and Efrem Zimbalit Jr. when need them?
These are wonderful …
… Ivanka Demchuk, Christian Artist - The American Conservative. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.
Well worth noting …
…Canon lawyer Fr. Gerald Murray on Frank Pavone's dismissal from Catholic priesthood: Only the Pope can issue a decision without appeal | Catholic News Agency.
…
the Code of Canon Law does not state that the possible penalties for these two offenses include dismissal from the clerical state. Canon 1368 states that a person who utters blasphemy is to be “punished with a just penalty.” Canon 1371 states that “a person who does not obey the lawful command” of his Ordinary “and after being warned, persists in disobedience, is to be punished, according to the gravity of the case, with a censure or deprivation of office or with other penalties mentioned in can 1336, 2-4.” Canon 1336, 5, which is not included in the scope of punishments for a violation of canon 1371, mentions dismissal from the clerical state.
Rest assured …
… There Is No Mary Problem in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
To be chosen and known and loved by such a woman is not a small thing. It is seeing Mary without him that breaks George enough to make him ask for life, as it is her just anger at him that sends him into the most desperate phase of his downward spiral. When he chases the alternate Mary through the streets, his desperate cry is not “Mary! What have they done to you?” but “Don’t you know me? What’s happened to us?” If Mary does not know him, if Mary does not see who he really is, he must not exist indeed.
Friday, December 23, 2022
The original king of cool …
… Four Perspectives on Bing Crosby - by Ted Gioia. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
If he’s remembered nowadays, it’s only during December, when his version of “White Christmas” briefly returns to heavy rotation. Even today, it ranks as the bestselling single of all time. There aren’t many records that last eighty years, and least of all in the record business, but Crosby still sits atop this chart.
Hmm …
… You Say You Want a Revolution.
The average American college hopeful would be better off drilling a hole in his head than attending a present-day university. He’d learn about as much, wouldn’t be financially crippled with student debt, and would likely avoid acquiring a variety of sexually transmitted diseases. And if a drill to the head sounds like self-harm, what do you think four to six years of safe spaces, trigger warnings, grievance studies, and neo-Marxist indoctrination amounts to, if not an expensively acquired ritual lobotomy?
Something to think on …
As the saying goes, you might as well be yourself; everyone else is taken.
— Robert Bly, born on this date in 1926
Thursday, December 22, 2022
Something to think on …
The meaning of life can be revealed but never explained.
— Kenneth Rexroth, born on this date in 1905
Wednesday, December 21, 2022
Something to thing on …
Self-pity is essentially humorless, devoid of that lightness of touch which gives understanding of life.
— Anthony Powell, born on this date in 1905
Tuesday, December 20, 2022
Moviegoer …
… “This Fairground Farce of Light”: Vladimir Nabokov’s “The Cinema” (1928). (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… Nabokov reported writing an essay on the cinema, but if it was ever completed, it does not survive. What we have is this poem: a metropolitan miniature, a confession of love, a gentle parody, and a refusal of snobbery.
Mind-boggling …
… The Stanford Guide to Acceptable Words.
These people need to get a life, preferably as far away from our kids as possible. They need to be mocked into deserved oblivion.
Something to think on …
The words! I collected them in all shapes and sizes and hung them like bangles in my mind.
— Hortense Calisher, born on this date in 1911
Masterful …
… Poem of the week: Grey Evening by DH Lawrence | DH Lawrence | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull,)
Tracking the decline …
… Bad Words: California Colleges Push Students To Purge ‘Harmful’ Phrases Like ‘Brown Bag Lunch’.
What makes these people think they’re so smart?
Monday, December 19, 2022
He’s not the only one …
… though he could ave done something about it: Bezos appears to lose interest in the Washington Post as its tech ambitions wither | Semafor.
How things are …
… Deus Absconditus - The Catholic Thing. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
For let us be Catholic for a moment. God does not expect us to lie in the cause of religion, or in any other cause. We cannot claim, or timidly imply, a knowledge that is beyond our means. We accept tradition, and value it on its own terms, which are extravagant enough – neither discounting nor inflating its claim upon us.
Maybe more worrisome than I thought …
… Vatican Removes Fr. Frank Pavone, Pope Francis Plays Key Role |
As I have said of Dope Francis before (the historically informed will know the reference): Will no one rid us of this turbulent priest? I am opposed to abortion for the same reason I am opposed to capital punishment: It’s wrong to kill people (the child in the womb is a genetically unique individual, not a condition the mother is suffering from; pregnancy is not an illness).
As for my rude reference to the reigning Pontiff, no I don’t want a cluster of knights to kill him. But he is making it difficult for this cradle Catholic — abandoning a key doctrine I was raised to believe. Maybe Francis will cut a deal with Planned Parenthood regarding the sale of organs from aborted children so the Church can gain some revenue. This “vicar” of Christ may end up destroying the Church. God I loathe him.
This is worrisome …
… Vatican dismisses Trump-supporting, anti-abortion leader from priesthood.
I’d receive Communion from Pavone before I would from the Pope.
Something to think on …
Everyone tends to remember the past with greater fervor as the present gains greater importance.
— Italo Svevo, born on this date in 1861
Sunday, December 18, 2022
Saturday, December 17, 2022
Life, love, and persons …
… Death, Consolation, and 'Life Goes On'.
… it is a point of phenomenology that love intends to reach the very haecceity and ipseity of the beloved: in loving someone we mean to make contact with his or her unique thisness and selfhood. It is not a mere instance of lovable properties that love intends, but the very being of the beloved. It is also true that this intending or meaning is in some cases fulfilled: we actually do sometimes make conscious contact with the haecceity and ipseity of the beloved. In the case of self love we not only intend, but arrive at, the very being of the beloved, not merely at the co-instantiation of a set of multiply instantiable lovable properties. In the case of other love, there is the intention to reach the haecceity and ipseity of the beloved, but it is not clear how arriving at it is possible.
Something to think on …
Regardless of what anyone may personally think or believe about him, Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of western culture for almost twenty centuries... It is from his birth that most of the human race dates its calendars, it is by his name that millions curse and in his name that millions pray.
— Jaroslav Pelikan, born on this date in 1924
Friday, December 16, 2022
I remember this …
… things that matter: President declares state of emergency in Korea.
My own view is that this was unfortunate. It got this country setting itself up as the world’s policeman. We have better things to do with our tax dollars, to say nothing of our young people’s lives. Let the rest of the world take care of their problems themselves. We can help out, of course, as we are in Ukraine.
Something to think on …
Whoever it was who searched the heavens with a telescope and found no God would not have found the human mind if he had searched the brain with a microscope
— George Santayana, born on this date in 1863
Thursday, December 15, 2022
A wonderful appreciation …
… The Waste Land at 100 | The Russell Kirk Center. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The Waste Land is full of tattered costumes and hints of consolation, too, but it also attempts to represent the world as it is and why one might wish to escape it. Moreover, it attempts to depict the present moment, the modern world, without sublimation but nonetheless in relation to that which transcends it: the archetypes of myth, the cyclical movements of history. If the fragmentation of poetic language found in Eliot’s poem would lead poetry in a direction from which all clear speech and substantial insights were to be excluded, the poem itself remains one of the most ambitious and strangely successful efforts in our literature to comprehend the vast horizons of history and spirit. In brief, it is a poem of great substance.
The joke that is now higher education …
… Scholars work at ‘Decolonizing Light’ to combat ‘colonialism in contemporary physics’.
Not a very funny joke, either.
As part of their effort to decolonize light, the three wrote, they plan to develop courses with indigenous scholars and “Knowledge Keepers” in which indigenous knowledge is elevated and Eurocentric western science is de-centered and scrutinized for its alleged past and present contributions to colonialism.
I think the aim is supposed to be to determine which is scientifically correct.
Something to think on …
Sometimes one word can recall a whole span of life.
— Edna O’Brien, born on this dare in 1930
Wednesday, December 14, 2022
A masterwork …
… Cole Porter’s "Night and Day" - A Lasting Song of Longing by John Edward Hasse. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Hmm …
… things that matter: What if we have been wrong about Ebenezer Scrooge?
I think we’ve been reading it right all alongr
Something to think on …
In the country of the story the writer is king.
— Shirley Jackson, born on this date in 1916
Life and the seasons …
… Spending the Winter (Book Review) - CBMW. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Spending the Winter opens with a resurrection poem in which Bottum resolves the bloodshed of Drudic rites and ritualized pagan longings in Easter, just as Easter, in the northern hemisphere, divides winter from spring. Bottum’s primary interlocutor in this first piece is René Girard, to whom the poem is dedicated. Girard’s anthropological study of the relationship between communal violence and ritual religion (Violence and the Sacred, 1972) frames the poem’s argument: Bottum’s young daughter running through the barely blooming dogwoods embodies resurrection hope against the backdrop of human suffering, experienced acutely in pagan rites of “grief / By grief, pain by vengeful pain,” but also echoed in the modern world of wars and ecological disasters where “innocence will come to grief.”
Tuesday, December 13, 2022
Something to think on …
The deepest truth blooms only from the deepest love.
— Heinrich Heine, born on this date in 1797
Monday, December 12, 2022
Something to think on …
Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.
— Gustave Flaubert, born on this date in 1821
Sunday, December 11, 2022
Well worth pondering …
… things that matter: When was Jesus born? (The answers can be confusing).
The interesting thing about Jesus (I am rather well trained in theology) is that he died a most ignominious criminal death and then within a couple of decades became probably the best known figure in the ancient world who attracted more and more followers and is still to be reckoned with today.
Poetry and espionage …
… A Communion of Pathless Solitudes: On Adam Nicolson’s “The Making of Poetry.” (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
As Coleridge would put it, they’d snapped the “squeaking baby-trumpet of Sedition.” Still, Nicolson makes the case that, insofar as poetry can pursue political ends by other means, “Wordsworth and Coleridge were moving faster and further than the most famous radical in England,” John Thelwall. For though their activist friend experienced “failed encounters between the champion of the poor and the poor themselves,” the Somerset poets “were wanting to understand them as people,” not “as a political problem.”
Something to think on …
If I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible what was the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: 'Men had forgotten God; that is why all this has happened.'
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, born on this date in 1918
Saturday, December 10, 2022
D. H. Lawrence
Well, that was a slog. And let me be clear: I don't mean that as a compliment.
When it comes to Women in Love, I don't even know where to begin:
- It was either the case that sex wasn't much fun in 1920, or that D. H. Lawrence couldn't figure out how to write about it. Because I doubt the former is true, I've settled on the latter: for all of Lawrence's references to "loins" and "passion," I must admit, I missed the sex. I mean: I looked for it, and I thought it was coming a few times, but then when it did, it was so thoroughly obfuscated -- so vague and shadowy -- that it amounted to nothing at all.
- Women in Love is a novel of two couples: but the personalities of these individuals are so uncertain, and their motivation so unclear, that anything they have to say about love or sex is shrouded in a frustrated veil of philosophy. At least three of these characters have very little background, and the fourth, who is propped up with a generic story about early capitalism, doesn't fair much better: all of these characters approach sex as some moralistic thing warranting endless discussion. But as I say, I wondered by the end whether all this discussion was a sign of Lawrence's simple inability to capture the sex act itself.
- You could argue that, despite its title, this is a novel less about love and sexuality than it is about violence, gender relations, and humanity's relationship -- of all things -- with animals. And I suppose all of that would be true. But the fact is: there are other novels about these topics which are more successful, and which were written at about the same time as Women in Love.
- One area where I will concede that Lawrence has charted interesting ground is around love and its association with monogamy. Lawrence's characters -- especially the men -- wonder about this: whether marriage, for instance, precludes the ability to maintain loving, or "eternal," relationships with other men. Put differently, these men wonder whether they can have both: sexual intimacy with women and intellectual companionship with men. Lawrence seems to suggest that this dynamic -- this rivalry -- is a frustrated one, and the novel, which ends by engaging this topic, seems not to fully answer the question.
I don't mean to be negative, but Women in Love is not a novel to enjoy: it's a big hulking thing without a third dimension. There are ideas here, and there is a vague sense of time: but there's no character and there's no context. I can't imagine sex was as pained in 1920 as Lawrence presents it. Or put it this way -- I certainly hope it was not.
Something to think on …
Any faith in Him, however small, is better than any belief about Him, however great.
— George MacDonald, born on this date in 1824
Friday, December 09, 2022
Apostle of truth …
… Anecdotal Evidence: 'The True Was Always Just That, True'. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on…
Grace can never properly be said to exist without beauty; for it is only in the elegant proportions of beautiful forms that can be found that harmonious variety of line and motion which is the essence and charm of grace.
— Johann Joachim Winckelmann, born on this date in 1717
Thursday, December 08, 2022
Wisdom …
… James Baldwin on the Creative Process and the Artist’s Role to Society – 1962.. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
“Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be. One hasn’t got to have an enormous military machine in order to be un-free when it’s simpler to be asleep, when it’s simpler to be apathetic, when it’s simpler, in fact, not to want to be free, to think that something else is more important”
Wednesday, December 07, 2022
Something to think on …
I never had a dog that showed a human fear of death. Death, to a dog, is the final unavoidable compulsion, the least ineluctable scent on a fearsome trail, but they like to face it alone, going out into the woods, among the leaves, if there are any leaves when their time comes, enduring without sentimental human distraction the Last Loneliness, which they are wise enough to know cannot be shared by anyone.
— James Thurber, born on this date in 1894
Something to think on …
It takes a great deal of experience to become natural.
— Willa Cather, born oo this date in 1873
Tuesday, December 06, 2022
Very disturbing …
… The 'Twitter Papers' Reveal the Totalitarians Among Us - Antiwar.com Original. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.’
Something to think on …
On every level of life, from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgment and efforts to get things done, hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur.
— Evelyn Underhill, born on this date in 1875
Monday, December 05, 2022
Bravo …
… another commonplace : Vanishing without a trace into the Bermuda Triangle.
As Bette Davis said, growing old ain’t for sissies. I’m 81.
Something to think on …
I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.
— Werner Heisenberg, born on this date in 1901
Sunday, December 04, 2022
Good advice …
… ‘I want to savour every word’: the joy of reading slowly. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.’
… it can take Li up to three weeks to finish a novel. “When you spend two to three weeks with a book, you live in that world,” she says. “I think reading slowly is such an important skill. Nobody has ever talked about it, or taught me that. I’m a very patient reader. Even if it’s a very compelling book. I don’t want to rush from the beginning to the end.”
Something to think on …
A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.
— Thomas Carlyle, born on this date in 1795
Saturday, December 03, 2022
Something to think on …
It is the mark of an inexperienced man not to believe in luck.
— Joseph Conrad, born on this date in 1857
Friday, December 02, 2022
A movie about poetry …
… Paterson and Poetic Fidelity - Front Porch Republic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I liked the film a lot. I was surprised, though, when some people found the scene near then when Paterson lays out a guy waving a revolver with one punch. A bus driver with a proclivity for poetry? Well, he doess seem also to habeen a cobat veteran in Iraq.
Something to think on …
I am what I am because early in life I decided that I would please at least myself in all things
— Edmond Rostand, who died on this date in 1918
Thursday, December 01, 2022
December Reviews at North of Oxford …
… These Days of Simple Mooring by Florence Weinberger
… The Girl Who Quit at Leviticus by Sueanne Rhodenbaugh.
… Under the Raging Moon – A Drama in Four Acts by Peter Thabit Jones.
… La Clarté Notre-Dame’ and ‘The Last Book of the Madrigals by Philippe Jaccottet (Trans. John Taylor).
… The Vanguards of Holography by Annie Christian.
… New from Poetry Editor, Diane Sahms - City of Shadow & Light (Philadelphia).
… .
A wise priest …
… Fr. Marvin O’Connell: A Historian Who Saw the Past & Future.
O’Connell could be sharp-tongued. He could also be wrong. Several times in the volume he hinted at his own skepticism about the Church’s teaching on contraception. But he also had a bit of the prophet in him. His 1990 address to the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, “An Historical Perspective on Evangelization in the United States: Shifting Concentration of Interest,” looks remarkably prescient three decades later. At a time when Catholics in the United States had achieved a remarkable degree of power and prestige, O’Connell noted the already cratering numbers of priests, baptisms, and weddings. He thought that the American Church had returned to the state of its earliest days—a quest for “survival.”
Wisdom …
… though maybe nor comprehensible to today’s airheads: The Care And Feeding Of The Mind : Jacques Barzun : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.
Something to think on …
Labels are for the things men make, not for men. The most primitive man is too complex to be labeled..
— Rex Stout, borm om this date in 1886
Exactly like us …
… A Poem by Adam Zagajewski: 'A Provincial Roman Town' - The Atlantic. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Good advice …
… Jack Kerouac's Belief and Technique for Writing Modern Prose In 30 Bullet Points - Flashbak. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)