Friday, May 31, 2024
Something to think on …
Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you.
— Walt Whitman, borh on this date in 1819
Thursday, May 30, 2024
I fear this may be so …
… (18) The Most Dangerous Day in the History of Our Country in Our Lifetimes.
This sort of thing is very dangerous. Leave things like this to the voters. Be interesting if Trump is on the ballot and wins. I’m an old man, so I probably won’t be around tomwitness the consequences.
Blogging note …
I am not feeling well. Blogging will resume when I feel better. Please bear in mind I am 82 years old.
Something to think on …
A good discussion increases the dimensions of everyone who takes part.
— Randolph Bourne, born on this date in 1886
Wednesday, May 29, 2024
Being — by oneself …
… Alone Again, Unnaturally.
I spent a lot of time alone when I was a kid. My mother and grandmother worked. My brother started working by the time I was 10. I made my own breakfast and lunch, and took care of myself. Later on, I lived by myself in Dayton, Ohio, and in Gaithersbeg, Maryland. I enjoy hanging out, but I also enjoy being by myself.
Break out the guillotine …
… 'De-Growth': Communist Urges Cuts for Meat, Cars, Travel.
It’s telling that the elites who spread climate alarmism most aggressively are the same who blatantly and egregiously violate their own rules. We’re told our few-and-far-between vacations are turning the planet into a burning ball of fire, even as our accusers perpetually travel the world in polluting private jets. We’re assured oceans are rising by elites buying up massive beachfront mansions. Climate alarmists eat pricey steak and lobster at events aimed at restricting all meat consumption for us ordinary citizens. Evidence supports the argument that there is no climate crisis. Why the propaganda?
Something to think on …
Original sin is the only doctrine that's been empirically validated by 2,000 years of human history.
G.K.Chesterton, born on this date in 1874
Tuesday, May 28, 2024
Spiritual journey …
… My Journey from Christianity.
In the end, I realized that if Christianity relied on people not asking difficult questions and thinking too hard on the problem of evil, the unfairness of the doctrine of original sin, and the ridiculousness of blood sacrifice for our sins, then it would not be for me.
The young man who wrote this wonderful piece is obviously smart and authentic. I think he is jusr starting upon a long journey. I hope to hear more about it.
Author and film a match …
… Capturing a Misfit: A Review of “Wildcat” - Word on Fire. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Just as Wise Blood was not a conventional novel, Wildcat is not a conventional film. It is not a documentary, nor does it attempt to tell complete short stories verbatim; rather, it is the dramatic action of the mystery that is Flannery O’Connor’s intense and intelligent young life told primarily through judiciously chosen sections of her stories, essays, letters, and prayers, and a liberal dose of splendid acting, which come together in one beautiful and remarkable motion picture.
Time for a song …
… "It's All Over" (Lyrics: Judith Fitzgerald; Music: Cris Cuddy) (Hat tip,
Dave Lull.)
I presume the lyricist is the same JudithnFitzgerals I used to corresond with.P
Something to think on …
You can get all A's and still flunk life.
— Walker Percy, born on this date in 1916
Faith as creative achievement …
… Flannery O'Connor's Leap of Faith | City Journal. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Known for her uncompromising Catholicism from behind enemy lines, whether among Georgia evangelicals or New York bohemians, the Southern writer retained a rich, almost mystical prayer life, documented in a journal published in 2013.
Monday, May 27, 2024
In honor of this day …
… In Flanders Fields by John McCrae | Poetry Foundation.
I first read this in grade school. It appeared regularly in the newspaper.
Before I forget …
… I want to express my gratitude to all those patriots who are honored today. I was born just a few weeks before Pearl Harbor. The troop trains went by across the street. Our butcher had spent time in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. What an ordeal they had to have undergone.
Witness to reality …
… A Black Scholar Who Opposes the “Diversity” Mania.
Swain … explains that racial preferences have a detrimental impact on their supposed beneficiaries. For one thing, young blacks tend to do less than their best, since they know that they have the advantage of racial preferences behind them. Swain writes that she encouraged her sons never to rely on the crutch of preferences.
The rule of sadism …
… The masterpiece of our time | The New Criterion. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
As millions were forced to confess to crimes everyone knew were fabricated, interrogators soon found the daily torture routine boring. “The fact is that the interrogators like some diversion in their monotonous work, and so they vie in thinking of new ideas.” The types of torture were unregulated, Solzhenitsyn says, and “every kind of ingenuity was permitted, no matter what.” What happens to a person who can literally do anything to others? Tolstoy wrote about the “attraction” of power, Solzhenitsyn recalls, but for Soviet interrogators, “attraction is not the right word—it is intoxication!”
Something to think on …
More history is made by secret handshakes than by battles, bills and proclamations.
— John Barth, born on this date in 1930
Sunday, May 26, 2024
A Poem …
Facing Up
He finds himself adrift in memory,
Which proves elusive. And that’s OK.
Life is elusive, though he’d thought he’d have
A better grasp of things by now.
Something to think on …
A poet is a man who puts up a ladder to a star and climbs it while playing a violin.
— Edmond de Goncourt, born on this date in 1822
Saturday, May 25, 2024
Something to think on …
What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, born on this date in 1803
Friday, May 24, 2024
Something to think on …
The eye identifies itself not with the body it belongs to but with the object of its attention.
— Jodeph Brodsky, born on this date in 1940
Thursday, May 23, 2024
Q&A …
… Nearing the Origin - by A.M. Juster - Wayfare. (Hat tip, Dave Lull)
… I’m grateful that many of the people you mentioned at BU reached out and befriended me, such as Christopher Ricks, who encouraged both my poetry and my scholarship, even long after I’d left. Carne-Ross in particular made me a protégé. Silber, along with one of his vice-presidents, Peter Schweich, changed my life by going out of his way to offer me my first job when I was very young and (on paper) underqualified
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
Lively correspondence …
… “To be alive, is power”: Emily Dickinson’s Letters. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In their welcome new edition of The Letters of Emily Dickinson,[1] Cristanne Miller and Domhnall Mitchell demonstrate through their concise, non-intrusive annotations how the “thought” she recorded in her correspondence does not “walk alone,” but keeps company with a multitude of authors …
Just so you know …
… Mauna Kea, Not Mount Everest, Is the Tallest Mountain From Base to Summit. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Wednesday, May 22, 2024
This sounds worrisome …
… Human Sacrifice Is Now Legal in Indiana - Secular Pro-Life.
As an illegitimate child, I was theoretically a candidate for abortion, though I’m sure it never crossed my mother’s mind. But I don’t see why rape should be a cause for abortion, since baby and mother are both victims.
Appreciation …
… 10 Facts About Hermann Hesse to Celebrate His Birthday | by Loren Mayshark | Medium.
Of course, today is not Hesse’s birthday. But I came upon the piece and liked it.
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
RIP …
… Testament to doomed media - Engelsberg ideas. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The agent of change is obvious: the internet. This has eviscerated the newspaper business, draining advertising revenue and circulation, and it will continue to do so. Newspapers have been turning themselves into online subscription services, but online ads are worth a lot less than print. Furthermore, subscriptions are now a very crowded market and buyers are finding themselves choosing between the Mail Online and Disney Plus. Media author Andrey Mir speaks of the problem of ‘subscription fatigue’: ‘People get more and more annoyed by digital services of all kinds seeking to sneak and charge them pennies for a subscription to something.’
Something to think on …
Form is never more than an extension of content.
— Robert Creeley, born on this date in 1926
Monday, May 20, 2024
Wallace Stegner
Please excuse my silence on the blog. I've been knee deep in Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose. A reminder: this is six-hundred page novel! But I've now emerged. And with some thoughts to share:
- This is a strangely constructed book: you have the novelist -- Stegner -- who imagines that he's inherited a cache of letters from his grandmother; he -- the novelist -- quotes directly from those letters in order to provide the basic scaffolding for his book. The rest of the novel is narrated in a traditional fashion; these sections include dialogue, description, and the like, and attempt to bridge the gap between letters. And then on top of all this, you have the life and times of the novelist, whose own story becomes part of the larger book, which includes sections focused on his own evolution and relationships.
- All of which is to say: parts of this work, but parts do not; and to the extent that Angle functions as an epistolary novel, it does so with only partial success. The reason for this, I think, is strange: at times, Stegner seems to invalidate his own narrative, calling into question the dialogue he's created, wondering whether what he's presented is realistic or reasonable. For me, this became a distraction -- as I soon wondered whether any of the dialogue I was reading could be considered "believable."
- And more: this is a long novel, but strangely, it was not long enough. Stegner seems to finish, in my reading, about half way through: his characters are still very much in a state of development when the novel ends, and the result a rushed effect: Stegner concludes that his own life -- his own decisions and mysteries -- resemble those of his grandparents. But this can only be so true, as we are forced to imagine what shape the final fifty years of their lives took.
- I don't want to be too critical of Stegner: there were parts of Angle, certainly, which I enjoyed and which I found to be quite emotional: this is the 1880s and 1890s in Idaho and Colorado. Life is brutal: even the wealthy had few comforts (or comforts as we would know them). When Stegner's characters feel disappointment, it's real: that emotion is raw and believable.
- And the title itself was evocative and emotive: this is the angle at which we suspend action; at which we no longer roll; at which, I suppose, we die. But I did not take it that way: not with such emphasis on death. For me, the title was about the great push -- the emphasis in our lives on action and accomplishment; and then, the moment when we decide that enough is enough, or that we have accomplished enough, and that we are willing to let things lay.
Just so you know …
… All Is Not Quiet In the Library Catalogs. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In the discussions I mentioned above, fellow catalogers were unabashedly stating that certain marginalized groups should get to decide how a book should be labeled. If a cataloger who is a member of a marginalized social group believes the book in question is harmful or offensive, he is fully in the right to add a note in the catalog stating his beliefs. Thus we now have four books in the international catalog (used by libraries worldwide) with the label “Transphobic works”. Several books that are critical of the current gender affirmation care model now have the subject heading “Transphobia”. These books are not about transphobia, so the subject heading is likely being used as a way to warn the reader of the record (and potentially the librarian choosing which books to order for the library) that these are “bad books” and should not be read or purchased.
Something to think on …
I saw not till now what sin brings with it - that we must tread others underfoot.
— Sigrid Undser, born on this date in 1882
Sunday, May 19, 2024
Screwez vous …
… Robert Kennedy Jr.: We need laws to 'punish global warming skeptics' - Washington Times..
There are actually sound reason for being skeptical of global warming, not the least of which is that we have only a couple of centuries worth of accurate thermometer data. Also, try reading the First Amendment asshole.
Once upon a time …
… A Tale of Two Composers | The Hudson Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
This is a brilliant piece. Do listen to the music. Why woukdn't one want to hear Leontyne Price? And Cheryl Studer is also wonderful. I’m from the generation that watched Amahl and the Night Visitors every Christmas..
In the tradition of. Robert Frost …
… Taking the Road Less Traveled | The Russell Kirk Center. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
I wish to live because life has within it that which is good, that which is beautiful, and that which is love.
— Lorraine Hansberry, botn on this date in 1940
Saturday, May 18, 2024
Blogging note …
My friend Katherine is here helping me to get ready for my move. So blogging will again be delayed.
Sometthing. to think on …
Anything you can do, I can do meta
— Rudolf Carnap, born on this date in 1891
Friday, May 17, 2024
Vignette …
He is eighty-two. And lately wonders how he became who it is he happens to be. It occurs to him how that’s just the sort of thing one of his all-time favorite writers did. That would be Michel de Montaigne, father of the essay.
Now plenty of autobiographical discourses had been written before Montaigne wrote his essays. What make his essays different is their focus. They amount to a phenomenology of himself. There’s nothing especially egotistical about it. He simply records his observations of himself as if he were watching pears ripen on a window sill.
In praise of formal poetry …
… The Nature of Things Fragile: A Review - Ad Fontes. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Almost all of the poems in The Nature of Things Fragile are metrical, and most of them also use rhyme. His diction usually lacks the ornamentation of Auden and Hecht; his style seems closer to the plain language of Robert Frost. His book demonstrates mastery of most of the major received forms, but his most inventive work may be in his epigrams.
To hell with the NFL …
… Time for the Bud Light Treatment: NFL Denounces Player for Advocating Traditional Values.
He was speaking at a Catholic college. I’m not proud to be straight. I had nothing to do with it. It’s just the way I happen to be. The NFL clowns should take a look at the First Amendment. And I’ve had plenty of gay friends. In fact I shared power of attorney for a gay couple.
Blogging note …
Uncharacteristically, I overslept this morning. So I am behind schedule. I must take my morning walk and run some errands. Blogging will resume this afternoon.
Something to think on …
The woman from the depths of her rags, a waif, a martyr — smiled. She must have a divine heart to be so tired and yet smile.
— Henri Barbusse, born on this date in 1873
Thursday, May 16, 2024
Where we are …
(18) Harrison Butker, Harbinger? - by Glenn Harlan Reynolds.
The point is that the population collapse that I was writing about nearly 20 years ago, and that Philip Longman was writing about in Foreign Affairs even before that, has now become obvious to everyone. We’re headed for the biggest global population drop since the Black Death, and that’s going to produce dramatic social changes. (As indeed did the Black Death.)
A history lesson …
… for latterday ignoramuses: (18) Two Unlikely National Liberation Collaborators: Ho Chi Minh and David Ben-Gurion.
The lure of the skies …
… Gazing at the eclipse in Walt Whitman's perfect silence. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
More and more we are into communications; and less and less into communication.
— Studs Terkel, born on this date in 1912
Wednesday, May 15, 2024
They should sue …
… Atheist complaint forces Florida elementary school to shut down Christian club | Fox News.
They will win. Here’s what the first amendment says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Something to think on …
I write of love and death. What other subjects are there?
— Arthur Schnitzler,, born on this date on in 1862
Sounds interesting …
… Buried But Not Quite Dead: Forgotten Writers of Père Lachaise. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Tuesday, May 14, 2024
This ia very worrisome …
… The Backdoor to Control the Internet | Mind Matters.
Thankfully, this was discovered before it had major impacts. Nobody knows who Jia Tan is, and we are probably never going to find out. But this does put software developers on alert to the fact that bad actors, whether individuals or part of a state organization, are willing to play the long game to get malicious software installed on everything.
Something to think on …
The most dangerous tendency of the modern world is the way in which bogus theories are given the force of dogma.
— Jean Daniélou, born on this date in 1905
Monday, May 13, 2024
A Poem …
Hindsight
Being old proves a mystery.
So much time spent watching
Reruns, listening to the music helped
Shape his being, reminded of paintings
He had sat before over and over.
Writers at dinner …
… How Evelyn Waugh’s ‘cantankerous’ Catholicism clashed with America’s literary scene at a dinner party in Florence. (Hat tip, Dave. Lull.)
One example of his appalling rudeness will be more than sufficient. A friendly American told him how much she had enjoyed his novel Brideshead Revisited, whereupon he rolled his eyes and replied: “I thought it was good myself, but now I know that a vulgar, common American woman like you admires it, I’m not so sure.”
Beyond words …
… Saying the Unsayable, and Listening to Silence: Jon Fosse on How Writing Plays Transformed His Craft. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… when I wrote plays, I could use silent speech—I could use silence—in a completely different way. All I had to do was write ‘pause’ and the silent speech was right there. This word ‘pause’ is without a doubt the most important word in my plays, and the one I use the most often: “long pause,” “short pause,” or just “pause.”
Sounds like a must-read …
… Jeremy Clarke, Low Life review: laughing in the face of death. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
Writing every book is like a purge; at the end of it one is empty ... like a dry shell on the beach, waiting for the tide to come in again
— Daphne du Maurier, born on this date in 1997
Sunday, May 12, 2024
In case you wondered …
… From Austen to Larkin: Why Writers Could Be More Prone to Hypochondria. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden,)
Lovely …
… Wildpeace by Yehuda Amichai | Poetry Foundation. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Amichai would have turned 100 on May 3.
A fresh look at S.J. Perelman …
… A Review of Crazy Like a Fox and Cloudland Revisited - Believer Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Words beget words, syllepsis begets syllepsis: the Julian calendar turns into an old acquaintance named Julian Callender, the evening’s violet hush turns into a seductive companion named (what else?) Violet Hush, and walking past rows of female film extras turns into a stroll down Mammary Lane.
A poem …
… Our Daughter Beside the Sea: Blue Hill, Maine by Ben Myers | Articles | First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank.
— Dante Gabriel Rossetti, born on this date in 1828
Saturday, May 11, 2024
In case you wondered …
…How Netflix's A Man in Full changed the book's ending. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I met Tom Wolfe once — at the White House of all places. He seemed very nice.
Blogging note …
I have some errands to run this morning. So I won’t be blogging until this afternoon.
Something to think on …
Intuition is the whisper of the soul.
— Jiddu Krishnamurti, born on this date in 1895