Thursday, August 31, 2023
City life …
… Gritty Photos of Life on New York's Subway in the 1970s and 1980s. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Have a look …
… Beats connection: Allen Ginsberg’s inner circle – in pictures. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
For those who believe and those who don’t …
… Mystical precision | The New Criterion. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Espaillat’s precision with regard to language exists to show language’s limits. This is the revelation she offers for religious readers: spiritual truth is not, at the end of the day, reducible to language.
But Espaillat has a revelation for agnostic readers as well.
Something to think on …
We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are part of the universe and are connected with each other to form one whole unity,
— Maria Montessori, born on this date in 1870
Wednesday, August 30, 2023
Poem …
Discernment
Amid the darkness place the sun,
That veteran god, from deepest night
Evoking brightest day. Make plain
Imagination’s gestures are
But acts of faith, and loss of faith
An absence of imagination.
Merely perceiving misperceives:
We must invite what our eye bears —
Sunflower, catbird, passing cloud —
Into the tabernacle of the heart,
There where the lamp of vision flares.
I think the God hypothesis is sounder …
… Is our universe a simulation and, if so, is it breaking down?
Aquinas and Augustine were pretty sharp cookies. James Joyce read a page of Aquinas in Latin every day. And Joyce was a pretty sharp cookie. If it’s all a simulation, then the simulators must be behind religion. Wonder why? Maybe Somebody created the simulators.
In case you wondered …
… How to Save Hollywood With This 1 Weird Trick.
This isn’t rocket surgery. Some of the biggest box office successes — including the original “Star Wars” — were shot on budgets that wouldn’t even pay the caterering crew on “Thor: Love and Thunder.” While there’s still plenty of room for big-budget summer blockbusters, regularly spending $200 million or more on things like a Snow White reboot that can’t afford more than one dwarf is a bit much.
Much in what he says …
… (12) The cult of victimhood - by Tom Knighton.
People seem to figure out all the ways they can be oppressed, all the ways they can be victimized, just so they can have some kind of status.
Once upon a time, a guy cams walking toward me opening a switchblade. I positioned my walking stick (it used to be a fashion statement, but now is a utility) in a way that caused him to pause. I said to him — yes, really — “Go ahead, make my day,” That’s when he realized I was planning to take out one of his eyes. If you’re coming at me with a knife, I have no reason to be nice to you. He folded up the knife, turned around, and walked away.
Talk about nuts …
… Climate change outrage erupts when Martha Stewart uses iceberg as cocktail garnish on vacation cruise - TheBlaze.
It ain’t Martha who’s nuts. It’s the people who think using a little bit of iceberg for a cocktail contributes to “global warming.” Get real.
Annotated Joyce …
… Arruginated. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
One of the great values of this huge book, two and a half times the length of Ulysses itself, is to interrogate this idea. In the introduction, the authors quote Stephen Dedalus in the Scylla and Charybdis episode: ‘A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are portals of discovery.’ But only half this last sentence is true. Joyce’s errors in Ulysses were not volitional or even versions of his unconscious; he would have corrected them had he known of them.
Something to think on …
A theory that you can't explain to a bartender is probably no damn good.
— Ernest Rutherford, born on this date in 1871
Something to think on …
There are no generalizations in American politics that vested selfishness cannot cut through.
— John Gunther, born on this date in 1991
Fairy tale opera …
… Solo Opera Takes on a Big Project With Lori Laitman’s The Three Feathers. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
“This is a fairy tale that is both archetypal and unfamiliar,” said Gioia. “It’s about an old king who has to pick an heir. In the original Grimm story, he has three sons; our version has three daughters. One daughter is very domineering, one is extravagant, and the youngest is a bookworm who no one takes seriously. He then says he has the perfect solution, [and for that] I’ve written a good aria, ‘The Treasure Song,’ which is a patter song [about] his box with three magic feathers.”
Tuesday, August 29, 2023
Poem …
Pilgrimage
Pray the journey lasts long enough
To be enriched with lingering detours
Along paths beckoning to villages
Where time holds no sway, until
You find yourself, grateful at last,
To learn there won’t be any heading home.
The marriage of arrogance and stupidity …
… San Francisco Police Union Blasts Bakery for Refusing to Serve Cops in Uniform - The Messenger.
I hope, if they’re ever robbed, they have the decency not to call the police.
So much for impartiality …
… Associated Press Coverage of Courts, Climate Bankrolled by Dozens of Left-Wing Foundations.
Small wonder trust in the media is so low.
Hmm …
Even among Biden’s innumerable lies, this one sets a new standard for mendacity, as every detail of it is false: the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, eight and a half years before Biden entered the Senate, Thurmond voted against it, and the segregationist senator didn’t die until nearly forty years later. Is it the dementia? Or is it just Joe being Joe? It’s increasingly hard to tell the difference.
Tracking the decline …
… How therapy turned on itself. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
What’s happened to psychotherapy is, writ small, what’s happened to western education, healthcare, left-of-center governments and NGOs, as well as the civil service, the sciences and the arts. By its nature, this nihilistic doctrine corrupts from within every sphere it invades. CSJ resembles the fibrous, species-threatening fungus in The Last of Us, which smothers cities and takes malign control of human minds. At length, elites oppose the very purpose of their professions. Hence the National Trust despises the culture it’s pledged to preserve. The British Museum gives away its artifacts. Doctors reject western medicine for indigenous superstitions. Classicists denounce the Greeks and Romans as too white. English professors renounce Shakespeare. Therapists renounce therapy.
Something to think on …
The great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.
— James Baldwin, born on this date in 194
Things these days …
… (12) Bears, Boston and the Gods of the Copybook Headings.
We need only look at the treatment of such other topics as crime, terrorism, and warfare to see examples of the same sort of misplaced sentimentality and willful ignorance. Tolerance of criminality leads to more crime; tolerance of terrorism leads to more terrorism; efforts to appear defenseless lead to war, subsidies for homelessness produce more homeless people.
Monday, August 28, 2023
Blogging note …
I spent the greater part of today being by very nice young gentleman from Belgium. I learned a lot from our conversation
Something to think on …
Conversation in its true meaning isn't all wagging the tongue; sometimes it is a deeply shared silence.
— Robertson Davies, born on this date in 1913
Being and revelation …
… A Poet of Philosophy and Prayer. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The scholar Cynthia Haven remarks on her blog for Stanford that, “Helen became preoccupied with the Thomistic notion of esse, and sees ‘nothingness’ as the primary temptation of humankind.”
Sunday, August 27, 2023
Oops, just saw this …
… Althouse: "Musk has become a hyper-exposed pop-culture figure, and his sharp turns from altruistic to vainglorious, strategic to impulsive, have been the subject of innumerable articles..."
The comments are priceless — and accurate. Ronan can write. He comes up short on thought. And the New Yorker isn’t what it used to be.
Also some commenters claim got his start 200 million dollars from his old man. Do some research.
Trump’s old man didn’t have the kind of money. He did, however, lend his so 1 million dollars — at interest. I like his dad.
Another blogging note …
I’m not feeling well. May blog some more tonight, but otherwise I’m off until tomorrow. Debbie is also not feeling well either.
Welcome to old age, which ain’t for sissies and demands a sense of humor.
Something to think on …
The work is with me when I wake up in the morning; it is with me while I eat my breakfastin bed and run through the newspaper, while I shave and bathe and dress.
— C. S. Forester, born on this date in 1899
Saturday, August 26, 2023
Really?
… Pennridge educators warn they aren’t ready to teach a curriculum crafted by a Hillsdale College-connected consultant.
So we have a bunch of teachers who don’t feel up to teaching basic American history, which I gather they haven’t been teaching. I became an avid reader of history when I was in grade school, thanks to being about it in class.
Something to think on …
Only those who are capable of silliness can be called truly intelligent.
— Christopher Isherwood, born on thi date in 1994
More crankiness …
… How to write a biography without biographical information | Washington Examiner. (Hat tip, Dave lull.)
I’m not sure I get the point of this …
… Saint of What? - Taki's Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I’m no saint. So I think it would be unwise of me to pass judgment on those who may be saints.
Friday, August 25, 2023
Something to think on …
Love isn’t an act, it’s a whole life..
— Brian Moore, born on this date in 1921
Thursday, August 24, 2023
Much in what he says …
… Jerry Willbur: Does politics attract big liars, or does it create them?
In my view, we have the worst political class in our history.
Take a look at these …
… Incredible Nature Photography by Pepe Soho | Moss and Fog. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Hmm …
… 10 U.S. Place Names NOT Pronounced Like Their Worldly Inspirations.
Some years ago, when I was on assignment in Elko, NV, I quickly learned (and reported) that the local pronunciation of Nevada was Nevaada, not Nevahda, when in Rome …
Something to think on …
Think of this - that the writer wrote alone, and the reader read alone, and they were alone with each other.
— A. S. Byatt, born on this date in 1936
A true innovator …
… Dorothy Liebes, the “Mother of Modern Weaving”. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
One of the most fascinating aspects of Liebes’ life was her close association with the renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright and his wife Olgivanna.
Wednesday, August 23, 2023
Hmm …
… Amazon’s Tucker-Disappearing Act. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
According to an August 16 press release by All Seasons Press, Amazon received 7,523 copies of Tucker. On the book’s publication date, August 1, Amazon listed it as “Sold Out” within minutes. And yet BookScan, a firm that tracks book sales, reported only 3,227 sales of Tucker during its first week.
Something to think on …
The finder of his theme will be at no loss for words.
— J. V. Cunnungham, born on this date in 1911
Tuesday, August 22, 2023
Yes indeed …
… Should the Philadelphia D.A.'s Office Have Been Sanctioned for Failing to Protect Crime Victims' Rights?
Worst DA in this city’s history.
Something to think on …
Treasure this day and Treasure yourself, truly, neither will ever happen again.
— Ray Bradbury, born on the date in 1920
Monday, August 21, 2023
Declining reading habits …
… what you read matters: Is the state of literary studies really so dire?
I read as much as ever, but mostly Kindle versions. The type in books these days is so small a guy with ripening cataracts can’t read them
Sorting ourselves out …
… The Return of Country Protest Songs. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
"America is growing more geographically polarized — red ZIP codes are getting redder and blue ZIP codes are becoming bluer," NPR noted last year a decade and a half after Bill Bishop literally wrote the book on the phenomenon. "People appear to be sorting."
Something to think on …
It takes only one man to make an artist, but forty to make an Academician.
— Aubrey Beardsley, born on this date in 1872
Sunday, August 20, 2023
This explains a lot …
… Without Belief in a God, But Never Without Belief in a Devil. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Community is a safeguard against frustration. Hoffer suggests that those who see themselves as part of a close-knit group are less likely to be attracted to mass movements. The sense of accountability that comes from being part of a community and the reciprocal actions required to sustain membership counters the urge to lose oneself in a larger collective identity. The book points out that although mass movements can be seen as a kind of community, they differ in that they require only belief and identity, rather than reciprocal obligations and accountability
Appreciation …
… Champagne wishes. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In “Careful,” a man named Lloyd whose marriage has fallen apart is staying alone in a shabby apartment, where he’s trying to get his drinking under control by drinking only champagne. This detail is one of Carver’s many knowing alcoholic references, and it’s funny too. Champagne, of all drinks, in that sad place, being drunk alone. The story shows us a person in decline, a decline that everyone around him is worried about but that he is not fully in on himself. He’s in the “so what” part you eventually get to on the long way down.
Something to think on …
Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith.
— Paul Tillich, born on this date in 1886
Saturday, August 19, 2023
Friday, August 18, 2023
Talk about pushback …
… Whitlock: Only the illiterate believe Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy ‘blindsided’ Michael Oher.
You can’t read “The Blind Side” and rationally believe the Tuohy family deserves the criticism or lawsuit Michael Oher has dumped at their door.
RIP …
… James L. Buckley (1923-2023).
I don’t think I ever met, but I knew his brither Bill, a wonderful person. I learned so much from him.
In case you wondered …
… Why “Rich Men North of Richmond” Resonates.
The popularity of this song should be taken seriously. Why? Because, frankly, it sounds like a prelude to a revolution. History has shown that when a people are continually pushed down while their elites live lives of corrupt hedonism, pressure builds to dangerous levels. Sadly, the answer of many elites to the people’s discontent is to just push down more. Eventually, however, the pressure becomes so great that an explosion happens.
Against the grain …
… but quite intriguing: Follow the Science, Not the Crowd - Crisis Magazine.
From conception, there is a wide-reaching, permanent impact of biology on every system of the body. Each of our seventy trillion cells with a nucleus is stamped “XX” or “XY,” and hard science demonstrates the enduring influence of that biological reality on the brain and every other organ system.
Thursday, August 17, 2023
That’s not asking too much …
… Tell Amazon to Stop Selling Anti-Christian Products.
Bet they wouldn’t sell a bath mat with Mohammed on it (and I would sign a petition about that too — I have Muslim friends).
Hmm …
… Medical School Professor Says Trans Kids Can Identify as 'Gender Hybrids' Like 'Minotaurs'.
Where do they find these people? Last time I checked, minotaurs were still regarded as mythological.
Tracking the decline …
… THE VATICAN’S CHINA DEAL UNRAVELS FURTHER.
I am what is called a cradle Catholic. But i have reminded myself recently that the head of the Church remains Jesus. The Pope is a stand-in. The current one is rather a poor stand-in. And plenty of cardinals these seem to me to be rather dubiously orthodox. The Church seems in a bad way.
Getting to know him …
… Book Review – Inside Tucker’s World. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The bottom line, which Moore conveys vividly, is that Tucker, who I’ve always vaguely gathered was a scion of wealth, was in reality the son of Lisa, a spoiled rich San Francisco girl turned hippie (now deceased) who abandoned her husband and her two sons when the boys were little, and Dick, who began his life in a Massachusetts orphanage, raised his boys on his own, went on to be a TV news anchor in San Diego and a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, and is still going strong in his eighties.
Pondering the grass
… Rank Yellow Rectangle. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… if I were asked to explain the main difference between me and my late brother, he a bohemian atheist, I a suburban Christian, I think that the simplest way of expressing it would be to ask my listeners to imagine Christopher mowing the lawn. It was unthinkable to me, a bit like picturing Bob Dylan playing croquet, or Mick Jagger taking up ballroom dancing.
Only too true …
… Bruce Charlton's Notions: Effects of an illness - temptation to sin. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Everybody succumbs to sins; and potentially, any of these sins could develop into a mind-set that would block salvation.
Wonderful …
… Watch Nina Simone's Flawless Tribute to Johann Sebastian Bach on The Ed Sullivan Show (1960) | Open Culture. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Nins Simone studied for a while with my late friends, harpsichordist Temple Painter and composer Harold Boatrite.
Appreciation …
… Robbie Robertson: presiding genius of the New Americana - Engelsberg ideas. (Hat tip, Rus. Bowden.)
Wednesday, August 16, 2023
Family differences …
… Was Tolstoy An Enemy of Love? On the Russian Great’s Animosity Towards Desire. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Should you wonder why Tolstoy belongs in a book called In Defense of Love, think of Tolstoy as a not-well-recognized enemy of love. A new perception to me prompted by the startling surfacing in 2010 of an “answer novel” to Lev’s Kreutzer Sonata by Tolstoy’s wife, Sofiya. Her novella, called Whose Fault?, put a spotlight on the animus to women, sex, love, marriage, and human reproduction Lev portrayed in The Kreutzer Sonata. Such a critique of Lev’s dark, hate-filled final works had rarely been on the cultural radar, which has tended to exalt Tolstoy’s saintly “wisdom” uncritically.
Something to think on …
An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.
— Charles Bukowski, born on this date in 1920
Socrates on the screen …
… (11) Roberto Rossellini's "Socrates" - by William F. Vallicella.
One ought to meditate on the fact that the two greatest teachers of the West, and two great teachers of humanity, Socrates and Jesus, were unjustly executed by the State. This is something contemporary liberals, uncritical in their belief in the benevolence of government, ought especially to consider.
Tuesday, August 15, 2023
Amen …
… (10) Oliver Anthony - Rich Men North Of Richmond - YouTube.
I may have ended up as a journalist, but I am the offspring of a factory worker and a cop. I also worked for quite a while in construction. When you have a wife and kids, you take whatever job is available. Also makes you a better journalist, since you get to know people who aren’t journalists. When I worked at The Inquirer my colleagues would often ask me, “Is there a job you haven’t had?” That made me feel great.
Monday, August 14, 2023
No kidding …
… Biden DOJ's Threats to Pro-Lifers and Catholics Are Unhinged.
And this clown tries to pass himself off as a devout Catholic.
Back to authenticity …
… Back to Nebraska With Bruce - The American Conservative. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I’ve been thinking about Bruce since reading the excellently titled Deliver Me from Nowhere, Warren Zanes’s new book about the making of Nebraska (1982)—the “rural” album that is the oddest entry in the Springsteen oeuvre
Something to think on …
Love has no age, no limit; and no death.
— John Galsworthy, born on this date in 1867
Sunday, August 13, 2023
In case you wondered …
… Whatever Happened to Culture? - Joseph Epstein, Commentary Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Where once it was the glory of the novelist—of Tolstoy, of Melville, of Willa Cather—to have all the world for his or her subject, now No Trespassing signs have been placed upon nearly all subjects outside the writer’s own ethnic, racial, and sexual identity. The loser here, of course, is literature and the culture generally.
Recalling transcendence …
… zmkc: Halcyon Days. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
At the centre of what I see as our current misunderstanding and undervaluing of human procreation may be our state of disenchantment, an attitude of banal practicality that most of us are schooled in from birth. We are immersed in a noisy world of distractions and novelty - screens and gadgets and all the other flashy stuff we are encouraged to waste our attention on. In this world, while we understand more and more about the mechanics of existence, the mystery at its very heart is rarely acknowledged.
Something to think on …
If there is no God, nothing matters. If there is a God, nothing else matters.
— H. G. Wells, who died on this date in 1946
Saturday, August 12, 2023
Surprise, surprise …
…EXCLUSIVE: Vaccinated Outbreak at CDC Conference Bigger Than Reported.
I did not get vaccinated.I am in the top 1 percent of the population to die of heart attack as my father did). The two mRNA vaccines were known to sometimes cause cardiomyopathy. I was tested, however, numerous times, since my wife was in and out of hospitals, rehabs, and assisted living facilities. Always negative.
Getting to know him …
… The Lamp Magazine | Learning to Listen. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
To move Augustine to center stage by writing his biography was a new sort of history writing for me. I would find myself in the company of a solitary giant—a religious genius, whose thoughts still ran, for good or ill, in the bloodstream of all western European Christians (Catholics and Protestants alike); the most prodigious author in the entire history of Latin literature; and—behind all this, it seemed to me as I came to know him in the course of those years—a person of magnetic charm and riveting originality, whose quality of mind was unmistakable even in his smallest turn of phrase and most routine writing.
Something to think on …
I came to the Greeks early, and I found answers in them. Greece's great men let all their acts turn on the immortality of the soul. We don't really act as if we believed in the soul's immortality and that's why we are where we are today.
— Edith Hamilton, bornon this date in 1867