Tuesday, October 31, 2023
Tracking the decline …
… I Said Hamas Raped and Beheaded. The Yale Daily News Issued a Correction..
Unlike the Nazis, who took pains to hide their actions, Hamas broadcast them to the world. Live videos of the horrors were circulating on the internet—and on broadcast television—on the day of the attack. For those with lingering doubts, or inclined to split hairs about whether victims were beheaded or simply found with severed heads, international reporters were on the ground in Israel within 48 hours to chronicle the atrocities
A poem for today …
My Darling, My Jack-o-lantern
By Jennifer Knox
My darling, my jack-o-lantern. No need
to waste your love upon the dead.
For when you give that unrequited smile
There stirs an errant fire within your head.
And what a merry chase the dead can give!
Run, and run by black grasping branches wild,
by blowing, flickering flames of autumn leaves.
I chased love, and got a jack-o-lantern's smile.
Yes, suddenly this jack-o-lantern turns,
And offers up a listing leer for love.
For the first time I feel hoarfrost,
And never will pursue this bitter cold.
Good evening zombie, zombie of my love!
My flame is hot — yours cold as the stars above.
Something to think on …
Like all religions, love has more believers than practitioners.
— Natalie Clifford Barney, born on this date in 1876
Monday, October 30, 2023
Appalling …
… Death Of Shani Louk Confirmed, Was Kidnapped And Driven Through Gaza Streets Mostly Naked To Jeering Crowds.
And the Associated Press doesn’t want Hamas referred to as a terrorist organization. Maybe we should stop giving a damn what the AP wants.
Something to think on …
An attitude of permanent indignation signifies great mental poverty. Politics compels it votaries to take that line and you can see their minds growing more impoverished every day, from one burst of righteous indignation to the next.
— Paul Valéry, born on this date in 1872
Not exactly progress …
… Bryan Appleyard: No one should trust the camera in the age of AI. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Technology cheats, and increasingly often simply lies. Sometimes benignly, as in art photography. This was most spectacularly and well meaningly demonstrated by Boris Eldagsen when he won a photography competition. He declined the prize because this was not a photograph, it was an AI-generated image.
Sunday, October 29, 2023
Pathetic …
… Harvard’s Double Standard on Free Speech.
Once upon a time, journalists and scholars on both the left and right were staunchly devoted to free speech and academic freedom, if only out of self-interest. Liberals like Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice defended the rights of Klansmen and Nazis because they knew the First Amendment was their profession’s paramount principle. But in the past decade, that bipartisan devotion has been disappearing, particularly at elite colleges. Harvard’s journalists and scholars adopted the principles that Hentoff criticized in the title of one of his books: free speech for me, but not for thee.
Something to think on …
The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made.
— Jean Giraudoux, born on this date in 1882
Saturday, October 28, 2023
Something to think on …
Only a very few can be learned, but all can be Christian, all can be devout, and – I shall boldly add – all can be theologians.
— Erasmus, born on this date in 1466
Friday, October 27, 2023
Thursday, October 26, 2023
Just so you know …
… The Whole of the 'Whole Earth Catalog' Is Now Online | WIRED. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Reading Scripture …
…Perspicuity at the Bar of History | The Russell Kirk Center. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… Chalk’s humblest argument turns out to be his most effective. Even if the Bible testified to its own perspicuity, it cannot be denied that as a practical matter, disputes cannot usually be settled by simply appealing to the Bible. Only an authoritative teaching office can settle disputes definitively
Something to look forward to …
… Paul Davis On Crime: British Book Launch of Nicholas Shakespeare's New Biography Of The Late, Great Thriller Writer Ian Fleming.
Much classified information about Royal Navy Commander Ian Fleming and the British Naval Intelligence Division in WWII has been declassified since the previous biographies of the creator of James Bond, and Nicholas Shakespeare includes the newly declassified information in the book.
Something to think on …
I said to the almond tree, 'Sister, speak to me of God.' And the almond tree blossomed.
— Nikos Kazantzakis, who died on this date in 1957
Sounds reasonable to me …
… Decolonize Academia Now!.
On campuses across America — and not just at the college level — students march while chanting “From the river to the sea,” an explicit call for the annihilation of Israel and its so-called “colonizers.”
If it’s decolonization they want, then we should accommodate them.
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
Appreciation …
… Hieratic Hecht, by Adam Kirsch | The New Criterion. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
What makes Late Romance an exemplary literary biography is the way Yezzi—a poet and a former editor of The New Criterion who now teaches at Johns Hopkins—connects Hecht’s aesthetic ideals with his personality and experiences. If Hecht flourished in his chosen “hieratic tradition” while others chafed against it, he did so because, as Yezzi writes, he “discovered in language the ‘hidden law’ that bestows an implicit order on the world, without which, like Lear, ‘we shall go mad.’” For Hecht, madness wasn’t just a Shakespearean allusion, but an ever-present possibility, and his best poems rely on formal strictness to contain an intimate knowledge of chaos and evil.
Parlous times …
… Autumn Road by James Matthew Wilson | Articles | First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In case you wondered …
… How Bob Dylan Blurred the Boundaries Between Literature and Popular Music. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
One must be ruthless with one's own writing or someone else will be.
— John Berryman, born on this date 1913
Tuesday, October 24, 2023
Just so you know
… What Hamas Wants - The Lid.
“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind the stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, ‘O Muslims, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him’.” (Hamas Charter, Article 7)
Something to think on …
Both art and faith are dependent on imagination; both are ventures into the unknown.
Denise Levertov, born on this date in 1923
Monday, October 23, 2023
In case you wondered …
… What Hamas Wants - The Lid.
“Why can’t world leaders understand that Hamas wants to drive Israel ‘into the sea’ and kill all the Jews? Don’t believe me, believe Hamas; below are excerpts of the Hamas charter.”
Something to think on …
It's not evil that's ruining the earth, but mediocrity. The crime is not that Nero played while Rome burned, but that he played badly.
— Ned Rorem, born on this date in 1923
Sunday, October 22, 2023
Something to think on …
A simple grateful thought turned heavenwards is the most perfect prayer.
— Doris Lessing, born on this date in 1919
Vanishing treasures …
… The Old Curiosity Bookshop - Joseph Epstein, Commentary Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The bad news about the United States only gets worse. According to Jeff Deutsch, author of the recent In Praise of Good Bookstores, in 1994 there were 7,000 independent such shops in America; a quarter century later, that number had shrunk to 2,500, “and of those few bookstores left, even fewer sell books exclusively.” That was 2019. The number must be far lower today.
Saturday, October 21, 2023
Something to think on …
An undevout poet is an impossibility.
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge, born on this date in 1772
Friday, October 20, 2023
Something to think on …
Only divine love bestows the keys of knowledge.
— Arthur Rimbaud, born on this date in 184
Thursday, October 19, 2023
A 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 back.
Appalling …
… Trudeau's Liberal Party blocks bill that would have prevented Canada from euthanizing the mentally ill: 'An indelible stain' - TheBlaze.
I am also opposed to capital punishment, for the reason Auberon Waugh mentioned in his autobiography: It’s wrong to kill people.
I fear it may be so …
… The Holocaust 2.0 Is on the Horizon, and a Lot of Americans Are Okay With It.
Americans like to say, “If I was alive in Germany back in the 1930s, I would have done something.”
Good news, now is your chance to prove it.
Hmm …
…PETER HITCHENS: Are the Left's thought police about to cancel George Orwell? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
Schooling deprived of religious insights is wretched education.
— Russell Kirk, born on this date in 1918
Dealing with controversy …
… An Afternoon with Michel Houellebecq. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In our interview, Houellebecq insisted that French criticism of mass migration was not rooted in concerns about seeing one’s own culture displaced by another, but only in the link between migration and crime.
Wednesday, October 18, 2023
Something well worth being reminded of …
… The Neglected History of Israel’s Independence. [Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Gaza is a special tragedy in that it possesses many of the finest beaches in the whole of the Mediterranean. It is a natural tourist destination. Of course, this is impossible though, as Hamas will not permit people to walk about in bikinis and one-pieces. Nor is it receptive to the idea of liberal democracy
Something to think on …
Great works are done when one is not calculating and thinking.
— D. T. Suzuki, born in this date in 1870
Tuesday, October 17, 2023
Something to think on …
The poet's first job of work is to put bread on the table.
— Yvor Winters, norn on this date in 1900
Monday, October 16, 2023
Truly profound …
… Pope proposes the spirituality of the Little Flower for Church's mission.
I think I finally get this Pope. He is more like me than I had noticed. He lives his faith — which requires much improvisation and imperfect phrases. Do it long enough though, and insights start to visit.
Something to think on …
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.
— Oscar Wilde, born on yjis date in 1855
Sunday, October 15, 2023
Sounds good to me …
… Rethinking the Civil Service - by Glenn Harlan Reynolds.
Prior to the adoption of the Pendleton Act in 1883, government employment operated according to the “spoils system,” which meant that hiring in the executive branch was controlled by the Executive. When a new administration came in, everyone’s job was up for grabs, at least potentially. This “rotation in office” had several advantages, which were widely appreciated at the time, and propounded by presidents from Jefferson to Jackson to Lincoln.
In case you wondered …
… Did PG Wodehouse succeed in creating a world beyond class? | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
There's no mistaking his world is a privileged one, but the warmth of his writing and his characters make it difficult to protest
Something to think on …
There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature.
— P. G. Wodehouse, born on this date in 1881
Saturday, October 14, 2023
Something to think on …
Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back.
— Katherine Mansfield, bor on this date in 1888
It just so happens, it my birthday too. Number 83.
It may well be ……
… Is Everything Suddenly Going to Hell?
A few years ago most of our society was sleepwalking toward disaster. Now more and more people are awake and noticing.
Appreciation …
… Mystical Realism. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Some have compared Fosse to Samuel Beckett, but the Norwegian’s prose is far more accessible than the Irishman’s. No doubt it owes much to the strain of modernism that tends toward minimalism, but the spirit and intent of this stripping down is more warmly human and approachable than that of his twentieth-century influences. Fosse might be considered an acquired taste, but the bar of entry isn’t high: Septology is the kind of novel that teaches you how to read it. The mental adjustment is entirely manageable.
Friday, October 13, 2023
Graham Swift
Maybe it's something about British authors of a certain age, but there's no way around the fact that Graham Swift's Mothering Sunday and Julian Barnes's Sense of an Ending both feature a dollop of semen as a main character. Because really, the semen emerges as more than a theme: it's a character in its own right.
I've written about Graham Swift on the blog before, and Waterland is one of my favorite books: for what it has to say about England, and about history, I can't think of many novels which are more compelling or insightful. There are parts of Mothering Sunday, too, which cut deep, and which say a great deal about the constraints of class in Britain. Mothering Sunday is something of a time capsule, too: a short novel frozen in the past, anchored in the years between the war, when country estates maintained their pull. In some ways, Mothering Sunday reminded me of Remains of the Day, Ishiguro's novel of the landed gentry and those in its service. Except, of course, that Mothering Sunday presents a specific moment, whereas Remains of the Day offers a vision, a larger universe.
Mothering Sunday is successful, but barely: it's beautiful, but flirts with a floral quality. It jumps to the present, but as a way to introduce meditations on writing and the writing life. The most compelling parts of this book focus on the sexuality it introduces at the start, and the lasting implications of decisions made by the body -- as opposed to the mind. Mothering Sunday can be read quickly: it is worth the effort.
The last word is reserved for Swift: "The expression in his eyes as if he were seeing something far off that was also deep inside."
Something to think on …
Man tends always to satisfy his needs and desires with the least possible exertion.
— Albert Jay Nock, born on this date in 1870
Thursday, October 12, 2023
Poem …
The old man and the computer
The machine in the ghost
I couldn't remember the name
Of one of the great Irish poets,
So recognizable. known to all.
The name, the name---the name!
I know the title of one of the poems
I can recite the lines word for word.
I've lived thar poem.
I know that poem as well
As I know anything.
I had an inspiration, rare these days,
I said, " I'll look it up on the computer!"
In my mind I saw a screen and a keyboard.
I said " Song of the wandering Aengus. "
Instant answer.
" William Butler Yeats!"
The connection was made
In a computer that wasn't turned on.
C. 2023 Alexander Marshall
Something to think on …
Just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God's hands and leave it with Him.
— Edith Stein, born on this date in 1899
In case you wondered …
… (12) How the literary sausage gets made - by Ruth Franklin. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Wednesday, October 11, 2023
Something to think on …
That is the mystery of grace: it never comes too late.
— François Mauriac, born on this date in 1885
Tuesday, October 10, 2023
Blogging note …
Debbie, my wife, has been moved to a nursing home in the suburbs. One of her aides is about to drive me out there to see her. Blogging has to take a back seat today.
Something to think on …
There is a feeling of disbelief that comes over you, that takes over, and you kind of go through the motions. You do what you're supposed to do, but in fact you're not there at all.
— Frederick Barthelme, born on this date in 1943
Monday, October 09, 2023
Jorge Luis Borges
It's been many years since I read Borges's Ficciones -- but I will say that, even after all this time, his focus in that book on history, and the ways it is written, has stayed with me. There is an element of this, too, in Labyrinths, another collection of his stories which I've just finished. Like Calvino, who was a generation younger than his Argentine counterpart, Borges had a way of imagining works of history which were themselves not real: and yet, in his stories, they appear anything but false. There is a web connecting these imagined works, and it's the strength of that web which forges a universe -- an entirely believable universe -- of thought. Borges did more, though, than invent works of history: he played at all moments with the idea of historical narration, and the ways historians tell their stories. In Labyrinths -- perhaps more than in Ficciones -- Borges is sensitive to mathematics and the recurring nature of events over time. There is a geometric quality to Labyrinths, a sense in which Borges, having confronted the hall of mirrors, concludes that history is as labyrinthine as the narrative structures used to present it. I did not enjoy Labyrinths as much as Ficciones, despite the fact that there is a lot of overlapping material. That said, it would be difficult not to appreciate Labyrinths: there is in the book a complexity which is both hopeless and hopeful, and it is navigating this balance which yields meaning and appreciation. The last word is reserved for Borges: "I felt...that my narration was a symbol of the man I was as I wrote it and that, in order to compose that narration, I had too be that man and, in order to be that man, I had to compose that narration, and so on to infinity."
Something to think on …
Even the most painstaking history is a bridge across an eternal mystery.
— Bruce Cattin, born on this date in 1899
Sunday, October 08, 2023
Something to think on …
Even against the greatest of odds, there is something in the human spirit - a magic blend of skill, faith, and valor - that can lift men from certain defeat to incredible victory.
— Walter Lord, born on this date in 1917
Saturday, October 07, 2023
The magic of perception …
… Pear Tree by H.D. - Poems | Academy of American Poets
She is the poet who made me try to be a poet.