Wednesday, May 31, 2023
Something to think on …
Either define the moment or the moment will define you.
— Walt Whitman, born on this date in 181
The mystery of τέκτων …
… Jesus the Carpenter, and the Search for Biblical Words | Philip Jenkins. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… if I want to know how early Christians used words, I have to access the Greek Septuagint translation that was their main entry point to the Bible. I repeat a point I have made often enough in the past. If you want to understand Second Temple Bible readings, and the scriptural universe of early Christians, start with the Septuagint.
Tuesday, May 30, 2023
My town …
… https://youtube.com/watch?v=MhvvxoIgNPg&feature=share.
When I was a little kid, and we lived in North Philly, my family used to go shopping there. I got my first Classic Illustrated in the Woolworth’s there. What a difference a few decades can make
Appreciation …
… William F. Buckley Jr.’s Travel Writings. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
To relieve tedium on long voyages, Buckley gave this recommendation in 1980: “read gluttonously.” Later, in reviewing two volumes, from the Library of America, of travel writings by Henry James, he wrote: “You can close your eyes and open either volume at any page and find yourself reading prose so resplendent it will sweep you off your feet.” The same can be said of Getting About, which deserves a place alongside Buckley’s other travel books (Airborne, Atlantic High, Racing through Paradise, and Windfall), as well as his posthumous anthologies (Athwart History, edited by Linda Bridges and Roger Kimball, and A Torch Kept Lit, edited by James Rosen).
Something to think on …
A good discussion increases the dimensions of everyone who takes part.
— Randolph Bourne, born on this date in 1886
Who exactly are we?
… Your Identity Is A Trap. Get rid of your story and be free! | by Nihan Kucukural | Curious | May, 2023 | Medium.
In releasing the grip of my identities, I found freedom. Life is a constant process of growth and change, and our identities should evolve along with us, or go away! Being more flexible and open allows us to reach the richness of life and fully engage with the world around us.
Monday, May 29, 2023
Something to think on …
It is absurd for the Evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything.
— G. K. Chesterton, born on this date in 1874
Sunday, May 28, 2023
Something to think on …
To understand the stars would spoil their appearance.
— Patrick White, born on this date in 1912
Saturday, May 27, 2023
Something to think on …
Like an ox-cart driver in monsoon season or the skipper of a grounded ship, one must sometimes go forward by going back.
— John Barth, born on this date in 1930
Friday, May 26, 2023
Very insightful …
… Martin Amis and the idolatry of style over substance | The Spectator. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Blogging note …
I am about to take some things to Debbie, who is still in rehab. So I won’t be blogging until later.
Something to think on …
Thinking begins only when we have come to know that reason, glorified for centuries, is the stiff-necked adversary of thought.
— Martin Heidegger, who died on this date in 1976
Let’s keep them in our prayes …
…Traditional Potters In Afghanistan Face An Uncertain Future. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Thursday, May 25, 2023
Tracking the decline …
… At High School Debates, Debate Is No Longer Allowed | The Free Press.
Twenty years ago, the NSDA I knew encouraged me to think and speak about how policies and issues impacted different communities. Not anymore.
This certainly bears thinking upon …
… (9) Is This The Real Life? Or Just a Fantasy?
Although in principle it’s possible to simulate anything in a sufficiently powerful digital computer, there’s one inescapable difference between being simulated and being real. If we’re real, we just exist. If we’re simulated, we exist only so long as the simulation runs. And since, presumably, the simulation will run only so long as whoever is running it finds it useful or interesting, if we’re living in a simulation, it behooves us to be interesting.
Something to think on …
Power is of its nature evil, whoever wields it.
— Jacob Burckhardt, born on this date in 1818
Tunes in your head …
… Where Everybody Knows Your Theme Song. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Things that don't make sense when you say them often sound fine when you sing them. Gilligan's three-hour tour, for instance. Or the theme song to the popular sitcom of the early 1960s, The Patty Duke Show, which explained that the merry mixups that occurred between the two lead characters—both played by Oscar-winning actress Patty Duke—happened because they were, as the lyrics convinced us, "identical cousins."
Wednesday, May 24, 2023
This crap has to stop …
… Right and Proper - The Reading Experience. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
If you don’t approve of a book, don’t read it. But don’t keep others from reading it. And leave the book alone. Check out the First Amendment, and that business about freedom of speech and press. I think that forbids censorship.
Something to think on …
There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.
— Joseph Brodsky, born on this date in 1940
Truth, beauty, and faith …
… How the Apostles Spoke of the Beauty of Christ - The Catholic Thing. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In some respects, these three kinds of preaching could not be more different. One appeals to the Jews’ knowledge of their scriptures and sacred history and holds Jesus as their fulfillment. The speech to the Athenians appeals to the laws of the cosmos, the order of reality, gleaned through wisdom and metaphysics. Both of these argue from general truths, as it were, the truths of history and the truths of being. Paul’s bearing witness at his conversion may seem, by comparison, no argument at all. He merely confesses the great transformation that has been wrought in him by Christ’s word, power, and spirit
Tuesday, May 23, 2023
Appreciation …
… Martin Amis, R.I.P. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Martin Amis, who died on Friday at the age of seventy-three, did not aspire to magnificence in the Wauvian sense. But he almost certainly would have recognized what Waugh meant when he said that in his own age “elegance tends to be more modest.” Unlike many of his contemporaries, especially in America, Amis aspired to—and, I think, ultimately achieved—what Waugh had proposed as a universal ideal for writers: the dutiful cultivation of a highly individual and readily identifiable style.
Natalie Zemon Davis
The Return of Martin Guerre is a great piece of historical writing -- and it's been celebrated as a movie, too. In the hands of Natalie Zemon Davis, this story of assumed identities and their eventual unraveling is a magical thing: Davis presents social history with techniques typically reserved for the novelist. Which is not to say that Davis reaches for too much: indeed, her history is well researched and accompanied by extensive footnotes. The point instead is that Davis weaves a narrative which reads like a novel: and yet, it is, in many way, traditional history. I found myself captivated not only by the story of Martin Guerre, but also by the accompanying social and religious context. The sixteenth-century was a period of profound change in France -- as it was elsewhere in Europe. And the ability of Davis to situate the events leading to the eventual return of Martin Guerre is very effective. I finished this book in only a few sittings. It was a pleasure to read: in part because the characters -- the historical characters -- come to life.
This has to end …
… Campus Diversity Is Campus Jew-Hatred - Seth Mandel, Commentary Magazine.
… DEI cannot be fixed. It cannot be made to accommodate Jews—because Jews are its scapegoat.
Something to think on …
Nothing is more foreign than the world of one's childhood when one has truly left it.
— Pär Lagerkvist, born on this date in 1891
Monday, May 22, 2023
Something to think on …
When the soul drifts uncertainly between life and the dream, between the mind's disorder and the return to cool reflection, it is in religious thought that we should seek consolation.
— Gerard de Nerval, orn on this date in 1808
Appreciation …
… W. Somerset Maugham: the pleasures of a master by Anthony Daniels | The New Criterion. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Maugham was a highly intelligent, self-aware writer who knew what he was about. To call him shallow is itself shallow. In The Summing Up, Maugham reflects upon why it was that his meetings with expatriates in far-flung places was so important for him as a writer (and helps, incidentally, to explain why many other authors have found expatriate life an inspiration).
Maugham happens to one of my favorite writers.
Sunday, May 21, 2023
Something has gone wrong …
Blogger has suddenly decidided that some of my posts violate their rules. Why linking to poems at Fourth of Oxford would escapes me. But I fear I won't be blogging for a while.
Saturday, May 20, 2023
How sad…
… Martin Amis, era-defining British novelist, dies aged 73 | Martin Amis | The Guardian.
He was an engaging writer. Reviewing him was a dialogue. May he rest in peace.
A must-read for sure …
…. (9) The Queers Versus The Homosexuals - by Andrew Sullivan.
It’s perfectly possible to believe that transgender people exist, but that children may not know who or what they are before they’ve even gone through puberty. I’ll defend the right of adults to define themselves as they wish and take irreversible medical measures as they please. I’d march in defense of those rights. I’m just saying something that we recognize in every other area:children are different. And children should not be self-diagnosing a medical condition.
Back in the day …
… The Bossa Nova Craze - JSTOR Daily. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The bossa nova may not have dazzled the youth, but it became a symbol of sophistication among the most powerful people in the country. In January 1963, a New York Times cultural column reported that Kennedy administration figures including Secretary of State James Rusk and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara “simply wouldn’t come to the White House to listen to [popular band leader] Fred Waring. You’ve got to give them Sandburg, Shakespeare, bossa nova, Leonardo da Vinci.” By the end of 1963, products from hair cuts to cashmere sweaters to ice cream were using the term “bossa nova” to convey sophistication.
Appreciation …
… Paul Davis On Crime: An Appetite For Crime: A Look Back At Mark Bowden's 'The Vanishing Blonde And Other True Crime Stories'.
Mark Bowden (seen in the above photo) is perhaps best known for his book “Black Hawk Down” and his other books about the American military, such as “Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America’s War with Militant Islam,” and “Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam.” But in his latest book, “The Case of the Vanishing Blonde and Other True Crime Stories,” he returns to his roots as a crime reporter.
Something to think on …
I saw not till now what sin brings with it - that we must tread others underfoot.
— Sigrid Undset, born on this date in 1883
Blogging note …
I live just off the Italian Market in South Philadelphia. This weekend is its annual festival. So I have to go out early for my daily walk — before the crowds get too large. So I won’t be blogging until later.
Friday, May 19, 2023
RIP …
… Died: Tim Keller, New York City Pastor Who Modeled Winsome...... | News & Reporting | Christianity Today. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
“Fifty years from now,” a CT editor wrote, “if evangelical Christians are widely known for their love of cities, their commitment to mercy and justice, and their love of their neighbors, Tim Keller will be remembered as a pioneer of the new urban Christians.”
In case you wondered …
… The Lure of Orwell | John Wilson | First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I am struck now by the extent to which Orwell—whom I first read then—remains as pertinent to a soon-to-be seventy-five-year-old as he was to a teenager. At that age, the real world of 2023 was unimaginable (“2023” was science-fictional territory back then). By the same token, what we might call “Orwell’s world,” as meticulously re-created by Taylor, appears even more exotic, more strange, from the vantage-point of today. And yet, thanks to the biographer’s art, we can share for the moment what Taylor calls “Orwell’s gaze,” and we can glimpse him in turn through the eyes of his contemporaries.
Something to think on …
There is always something left to love. And if you haven't learned that, you ain't learned nothing.
— Lorraine Hansberry, born on this date in 1930
Hear, hear …
… Hang the DJ - The American Conservative.
As they exist—as they actually can exist—are the three-letter agencies compatible with American self-government? Is FISA compatible with American self-government? Or will these organs and legal mechanisms always lead to entrenched cartels operating without political accountability, pursuing their own ends irrespective of the will of the people?
Thursday, May 18, 2023
Words of wisdom …
… (9) Reflections on a death, and life on the final frontier..
Expansion is a solution to many of our modern problems, too, I think. If Earth remains a closed system, it seems almost inevitable that it will wind up a poorer and less free system: A global surveillance state, with social credit scores, scheming bureaucrats, and probably waves of mass hysteria spread instantly by social media. In fact, that future is already here to a degree, it’s just not evenly distributed yet
Something to think on …
Anything you can do, I can do meta.
— Rudolf Carnap, born on this date in 1892
Literature born of suffereung …
… The Open Presentness of Past Moments: On Gary Saul Morson’s “Wonder Confronts Certainty”. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Lenin is responsible for the remorseless sacrifice of millions of people for the sake of a terror-based Marxism that reminded no contemporary Marxists of the creed. And yet, like a character in Chekhov or Tolstoy, Lenin (as I learned from Sebestyen’s biography) hunted, smoked, read, loved, and was even nice to his family! That Lenin and Stalin were genocidal terrorists who also loved books makes one’s head and heart hurt. If literature makes us better, or inclined to less evil, how much worse would they have been if they hadn’t read Pushkin?
Poem for today …
… A Sonnet for Ascension Day | Malcolm Guite. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In the mystery of the Ascension we reflect on the way in which, one sense Christ ‘leaves’ us and is taken away into Heaven, but in another sense he is given to us and to the world in a new and more universal way. He is no longer located only in one physical space to the exclusion of all others. He is in the Heaven which is at the heart of all things now and is universally accessible to all who call upon Him. And since His humanity is taken into Heaven, our humanity belongs there too, and is in a sense already there with him.
Wednesday, May 17, 2023
Where has sanity gone …
… We Are Objects In Their World THOMPSON, blog..
Any time there is a fundamental disconnect between what is real and what is not, there is a breakdown of trust. The trust between the working class and the mainstream media has long been broken.
I have my NRA membership decal pasted in my front window. I am the son of a cop, and the newphew of one. My neighborhood is armed. I also started life in North Philly. I’m street smart and street tough. Really.
That’s for sure …
… THE TRUST BETWEEN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA AND THE WORKING CLASS IS BROKEN.
America’s working class is struggling with real life issues, including, but not limited to, economic disparity, racism, sexual harassment, abortion, child abuse, homophobia, mental illness, violence, death, lost love and lost friendship. Yet today’s mainstream media does not reflect this reality. The working class is consistently portrayed by mainstream media as narrow minded, rigid conformists to alt-right conservative family values. This is a fundamental disconnect from reality.
I happen to be working class. My mother and grandmother, who raised my brother and me, were factory workers.
Something to think on …
Since philosophy is a dialogue, there is no reason to suppose that the last one to give his opinion is the one who is right.
— Don Colacho
The way we were …
… Esther Bubley, Waiting for the Bus at the Memphis Terminal. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
According to OWI documentary director Roy Stryker, Bubley and her photographer colleagues were asked to capture “pictures of men, women and children who appear as if they really believe in the USA. Get people with a little spirit.” [1] Bubley’s Bus Story series from 1943 faithfully included photographs of dutiful Americans patriotically making sacrifices—altering their modes of transportation to save gasoline and rubber for the war effort—without complaining or putting their individual needs first. Like images made by OWI peers including Jack Delano and John Vachon, Bubley’s photographs conveyed the public’s absolute faith in the ability of the United States to win the war.
Tuesday, May 16, 2023
No kidding …
… Dershowitz: Durham Report Shows ‘Americans Are Right’ to Distrust Government.
Durham wrote that the FBI relied on “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence” for its investigation. “The objective facts show that the FBI’s handling of important aspects of the Crossfire Hurricane matter were seriously deficient,” he added.
I think the FBI may have outlived its usefulness,
Something to think on …
I want people to talk to one another no matter what their difference of opinion might be.
— Studs Terkel, born on this date.in 1912
Appreciation …
… Scott Timberg and “Boom Times at the End of the World”: the future that none of us wanted. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
As someone who has shared his struggles to make a living in the collapsing world of cultural journalism, I wanted to focus in this blogpost on his own journey in “Down We Go Together,” beginning in 2008, the year the housing bubble burst, as he was in Portland. He got the phone call so many of us dread (always assuming we have a house in the first place):
Monday, May 15, 2023
Words of wisdom …
… (9) Is it Sometimes Rational to Believe on Insufficient Evidence?
…in some cases, to refuse to believe beyond the evidence is positively irrational. A theory of rationality adequate for the kind of beings we are cannot require that belief be always and everywhere apportioned to evidence.
Maye we should defund PBS …
… On PBS, Liberal Journalists Trade Tips on Deplatforming Trump for ‘24.How about we defund PBS.
Why should our tax dollars pay for them to promote their political agenda?
Something to think on …
To be ready is one thing, to be able to wait is another; but to seize the right moment is everything.
— Arthur Schnitzler, born on this date in 1863
Sunday, May 14, 2023
Appalling …
… Defending Pedophiles? YouTube Silences MRCTV for Calling Out Disgusting USA Today Article | Newsbusters.
Someone should remind YouTube that there are a lot more parents than pedophiles.
Well worth knowing …
… The Face of Water - Google Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
“Hebrew poetry’s structure is mainly in the content, not the form.”
“Hebrew poetry’s structure is mainly in the content, not the form.”
Saturday, May 13, 2023
Laugh clown, laugh …
… Into the Ditch. (Hat tip, Dave Lull..)
The late Malcolm Muggeridge once discussed the macabre phenomenon of “royal humor,” where the monarch is granted laughter in response to practically anything he says. His finest example was of a group of workmen on a hot day, to whom the King of Portugal said, “Hot, isn’t it?”, whereupon they fell about laughing.
Something to think on …
Poets are people who can still see the world through the eyes of children.
— Alphonse Daudet, born on this date in 1840
Friday, May 12, 2023
Those were the days …
… Truman Capote In Brooklyn - A Photo Story from 1959 - Flashbak. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
These days …
… Ukrainians under siege – in our schools writes Sophie Waugh. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Our little town has been fantastically hospitable to the refugees – we have taken in so many that we were given a royal visit of congratulation and encouragement – so it seemed not only shocking but rather odd. How could so many parents be welcoming and so many children be foul?
Something to think on …
Art and prayer are the only decent ejaculations of the soul.
— Joris-Karl Huysmans, who died on this date in 1907
Thursday, May 11, 2023
Neat …
… Slant Books on Twitter: "Forthcoming from @SlantBooks https://t.co/16nMB2iiDJ" / Twitter. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Crime and poetry …
… CHARLES REZNIKOFF: THE FINEST NOIR POET YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF. (Ha tip, Dave Lull.)
Every poem in “Testimony” is an all-American tragedy. People are shot over firewood and bad bets and bad marriages; crushed beneath trains and horses and industrial machinery; jailed, evicted, and left to die. Every line is stripped down to the starkest details.
Peculiarly insightful …
… My Shoes by Charles Simic | Poetry Foundation. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.):
I once spent very pleasant evening with Charles Simic..
Appreciation …
…. The Neo-Latinate Imagination of Joseph Bottum | Acton Institute. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Encountering Bottum’s English versions of Latin poetry provoked the thought in me that this has always been his own natural idiom. Latinate and aphoristic, sagely observed but—with important exceptions—lacking in the precise observation of minutiae necessary for realism.
Something to think on …
The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.
— Jiddu Krishnamurti, born on this in 1895
Wednesday, May 10, 2023
James Dickey
Deliverance is one of those novels that I had long avoided: I'd heard enough about the movie to understand that it wouldn't be a pleasant read. And it's not. It's a gruesome read: full of violence, depravity, and gore. I must say, I'm not sure what to make of novels like this: books which lean so heavily toward plot and character, but which are less focused, perhaps, on what might be called "themes." True, Dickey introduces a number of motifs, including the tension between urban and rural populations; and there is an exploration of masculinity in the model age, too. All of this is present and apparent. But beyond that, it was a lot of plot, and a lot of rowing down the river. I don't necessarily fault Dickey for this: Deliverance is full of suspense, and well narrated. I wish, though, that it had gone beyond the violence and despair, and had explored the emotional landscape of its characters. After all, these characters are pushed to the limit, and after being exposed to such sudden acts of savagery, I thought that Dickey would cast more of a light into their emotional response. That response is not always present in Deliverance, but the brutality is: and perhaps that's the point -- there's no escaping it.
Influences …
… Of Songs and Stories: What Bruce Springsteen Learned From Flannery O’Connor. (Hat tip, Zoe Colvin/Higgie.)
How could a believer such as O’Connor see the world as she portrayed it in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” “Good Country People,” “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”? “To the hard of hearing you shout,” O’Connor explained, “and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.” Grotesques, really. “The characters are not ‘likeable,’” Joseph O’Neil writes inThe Atlantic, “but my God they are alive.” The very same thing could be said of characters one finds in Nebraska.
The drama of exile …
… “The Unkillable Poor”: Dana Gioia and Alexander Voloshin at the Crossroads. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
The conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it.
— Ariel Durant, born on this date in 1898
Tuesday, May 09, 2023
Something to think on …
The real magic wand is the child's own mind.
— José Ortega y Gasset, born on this date in 1883
Monday, May 08, 2023
Something to think on …
The greatest love story of all time is contained in a tiny white Host.
— Fulton J. Sheen, born on this date in 1895
Sunday, May 07, 2023
Insightful …
… An American’s View of the Coronation.
If the coronation of Charles III seemed quaintly anachronistic, it was also moving in an irreducibly pertinent way. All the antiquities involved in the event—the 12th-century wooden coronation chair, the silver coronation spoon from the same era—were more than stage props. They, like the ceremony as a whole, were so many cords of memory binding the nation together through time.
FYI …
… The Instructive Obscurity of Scripture - The Catholic Thing. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I knew one institution … that had at least a plausible claim to such an authority. It was the religious institution I had been originally raised in. That institution, the Catholic Church, had an extra-biblical, historical claim to interpretive authority, one I could evaluate without claiming to be the ultimate judge of the Bible’s meaning.
Something to think on …
It is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple.
— Rabindranath Tagore, born on this date in 1861
Saturday, May 06, 2023
Very interesting …
… Did Fulton Sheen Prophesy About These Times?| National Catholic Register.
There is only one path out of the chaotic conditions, the concerned bishop revealed. “The only way out of this crisis is spiritual, because the trouble is not in the way we keep our books, but in the way we keep our souls. The time is nearer than you think.”
Something to think on …
Every oak tree started out as a couple of nuts who stood their ground.
— Henry David Thoreau, who died on this date in 182
Friday, May 05, 2023
Good for her …
.… she interviews three fellow journalists: Michael Isikoff, Jane Mayer, and Mark Leibovich. All three rhapsodize about the good old days of typewriters and beer in the newsroom. Yet all three reporters themselves exemplify how the media have killed themselves over the last several years and why the rise of the internet and social media has stripped reporters of the credibility they used to have. The ink-stained wretches just can’t get away with anything anymore.
Something to think on …
The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.
— Søren Kierkegaard, born on this date in 1813
Exceptional insights …
… Curtis Sittenfeld is the great American observer. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Sittenfeld (born 1975 in Ohio) is a novelist. Like all the great ones, her perceptions are more accurate about real life than most nonfiction writers’ could claim. In Prep (2005), she skewered American class in the story of a Massachusetts boarding school; Sittenfeld herself went to private school at Groton. In Rodham (2020), a novel about Hillary Clinton, she nailed today’s politics. And, in her best book to date, American Wife (2008), a thinly disguised novel about George and Laura Bush, she filleted the American approach to inherited money, and the swaggering confidence it produces. Now, in Romantic Comedy, we get the Sittenfeld insight into a new phenomenon — celebrity of the modern age