… is a reprise. The idea of this feature is that the modern works linked to deserve to be in the repertoire. So they need to be revisited from time to time, not just linked once. Today is the anniversary of Samuel Barber's birth. So here, again, is his piano concerto.
Monday, March 09, 2015
Sound advice...
...Thickening Your Skin
When I write personal essays, I sometimes leave out mitigating information to make myself look worse, make the situation more extreme. I think it’s worth a few stones thrown to stir debate, to rile up the readers, to make them say “That’s wrong. This is what I believe and here is why.” I want to provoke discussion, clicks, links, and best of all, other essays in response. It’s a fine balance, to thicken my own skin while remaining open to valid critique. Angry comments aren’t going to teach me anything…but my reaction to them might.
Like no other …
… The World’s Weirdest Library - The New Yorker. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In the past several years, the Warburg’s future has been fiercely contested. It is in some senses a small and parochial struggle, right out of Trollope’s Barchester novels, and in others about something very big—about the future of private visions within public institutions, about what memory is and what we owe it, about how to tell when an original vision has become merely an eccentric one. It is the tale that has been told, in another key, about moving the Barnes Foundation from Merion to Philadelphia, and about expanding the Frick Collection, in New York. The question is what we owe the past’s past, what we owe the institutions that have shaped our view of how history happened, when contemporary history is happening to them.
Something to think on …
Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle. They read it to get to the end. If it's a letdown, they won't buy anymore. The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book.
— Mickey Spillane, born on this date in 1918
Hmm …
… Everything That Rises - G.K. Chesterton on Pope Francis (with an Assist from Garry Wills). (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Happily, the head of the Church remains Christ. The occupant of the Papal throne is always just a stand-in. As Hilaire Belloc put it, "the Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine — but for unbelievers a proof of its divinity might be found in the fact that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight."
Happily, the head of the Church remains Christ. The occupant of the Papal throne is always just a stand-in. As Hilaire Belloc put it, "the Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine — but for unbelievers a proof of its divinity might be found in the fact that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight."
Sunday, March 08, 2015
FYI …
… yesterday's Something to think on entry seems to have raised some doubts as to its authenticity. Here is where it comes from, in a translation by Daniel Ladinsky: Thomas Aquinas.
Life and death in consort …
… Heirs of history – or its orphans? Michael Krasny in conversation with Robert Harrison | The Book Haven.
Robert recalled leafing through his father’s school yearbook – the teenagers were “fully grown adults – youngish, but fully grown adults. I hardly see that in my undergraduates today.” Similarly, the faces of boys in developing countries who look like “weathered, fully formed adults. Dignfiied, majestic, senile traits – in the First World, we hardly ever acquire them.” Senile, that is, in the classic OED sense – “characteristic or caused by old age” opposed to puerile, “like a boy.” Our older people crave youth, and our youth are born into a vacuum. Are we the heirs of history – or its orphans?It is perhaps worth recalling that the Black Prince was 16 when he led the English to victory at Crécy and Poitiers.
Saturday, March 07, 2015
RIP …
… Beyond Eastrod : Updated and Revised: What the hell just happened? -- the death of an American college.
I pretty much agree with the suggestions listed in the post, in particular, I think college teachers should be hired to teach, period. You can pay them year-round, though, and they can use summer vacation for research and whatnot.
I pretty much agree with the suggestions listed in the post, in particular, I think college teachers should be hired to teach, period. You can pay them year-round, though, and they can use summer vacation for research and whatnot.
Our political class …
… to say nothing of our professorial class:
This is the man John Gray tells us is "an immensely sane leader." I just returned from shopping for produce. Happily, I am licensed to carry rutabagas.
" 'There are neighborhoods that it’s easier for you to buy a handgun and clips than it is to for you to buy a fresh vegetable,' [President Obama] said."
This is the man John Gray tells us is "an immensely sane leader." I just returned from shopping for produce. Happily, I am licensed to carry rutabagas.
The language of landscape …
… Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane, review: 'passionate and magical' - Telegraph. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
If few readers are likely to memorise 50 terms related to peat and turf, none will forget that in North Yorkshire steams rising from a wet moor under bright sun are called “summer geese”. Macfarlane is beguiled by a fiery light produced by sun on hoar frost, called an “ammil”, at least in Devon, but his purpose is anything but whimsical. “We have become experts in analysing what nature can do for us, but lack a language for what it can do to us,” he writes.
Mixed bag …
… John Gray on Critiques of Utopia and Apocalypse | Five Books | Five Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I don't know where Gray gets his information about American politics — probably the Guardian — but when he touches upon the subject he invariably slips into ignorance and cliché. He should take another look at the Constitution, where the idea is of a federal government at the service of the states, not the other way around. In particular, he might ponder the 10th Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." That's the entire amendment, and I for one would like to see it observed. The Tea Party is not the problem in this country. The problem is that we are burdened with the worst political class in our history.
Something to think on …
How can we live in harmony? First we need to know we are all madly in love with the same God.
— St. Thomas Aquinas, who died on this date in 1274
Friday, March 06, 2015
A most intelligent conversation …
… Kazuo Ishiguro: By the Book - NYTimes.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I have a section devoted to westerns. Given the centrality of the frontier myth in America’s collective memory, I’ve long been puzzled by the reluctance of the U.S. literary community to embrace this genre more wholeheartedly. I sense nervousness, evasion and self-consciousness whenever the topic comes up in polite circles. Is it just that the western seems to be owned so much by the cinema? Or is there a deeper unease about the territory it inevitably occupies? On my shelf I can see “True Grit”; “The Ox-Bow Incident”; “Blood Meridian” (masterpiece); “Lonesome Dove” (probably ditto); “Deadwood”; “Butcher’s Crossing”; “St. Agnes’ Stand”; “Riders of the Purple Sage”; and others. All really fine novels. But don’t tell me about “The Virginian.” Strong first two chapters, but then it’s really quite poor.
It is like the British uneasiness over class. I have always been surprised at how often English commentary on Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited centers on its alleged focus on the upper classes. Given English history, it is odd they do not notice that the dialectic at the core of the book is one of reverence, of a sort that both Thomases — More and Cranmer — would have understood immediately: Crown or Church, Piety or Power, God or Caesar, World or Devil.
Alter egos …
… Philip K. Dick's Androids - Reason.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
But for many, these days, the world and being are understood in mechanistic terms. And isn't art, these days, mostly about technique (which, by the way, is not the same as craft)?
But for many, these days, the world and being are understood in mechanistic terms. And isn't art, these days, mostly about technique (which, by the way, is not the same as craft)?
Thanks to Dave …
… here is the review of mine that I mentioned in connection with this post yesterday: Memoirs of a Midget - Review in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Jovially surreal …
… ‘Lives of the Saints’ Review: Better to Laugh Than Weep - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
Relativism is the solution of one who is incapable of putting things in order.
— Don Colacho
Thursday, March 05, 2015
Endearing corruption …
… Erik Larson Picks ‘The Maltese Falcon’ for WSJ Book Club - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A hoping agnostic …
… Philosophers and their religious practices, part 1: Homilies for a hoping agnostic The Philosophers' Cocoon. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
I personally think the only epistemically defensible position is Agnosticism, not atheism. Related to this, I think it is unfortunate because, as a Hopeful Agnostic, I tend to think it’s precisely here—in the realm of uncertainty between Belief and Disbelief—where the really interesting questions are in philosophy of religion.I would say that the stronger epistemic position is theism. As mathematician John Lennox says, "the mathematical intelligibility of nature is evidence for a rational spirit behind the universe." It seems more in accordance with things as we experience them to presume a Logos or Tao.
Fiat lux …
… first light Photo by tomasz solinski -- National Geographic Your Shot. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Missing reviews …
… 'Outline' by Rachel Cusk is a disappointing read.
… Bad news on the arts delivered in a clear way.
These did not manage to make it on to Philly.com when they should have.
… Bad news on the arts delivered in a clear way.
These did not manage to make it on to Philly.com when they should have.
Yes …
… Let Kelly Gissendaner Live | Christianity Today.
Thomas R. Marshall, Woodrow Wilson's Vice-President, turned me against capital punishment. “I do not believe it rests in human hands to say when a life shall cease,” is how Marshall put it, and I think he was right.
Thomas R. Marshall, Woodrow Wilson's Vice-President, turned me against capital punishment. “I do not believe it rests in human hands to say when a life shall cease,” is how Marshall put it, and I think he was right.
The rhythms of speech …
… Anecdotal Evidence: `Musical, Practised, Well-Burnished and Affecting'. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I have been a fan of de la Mare's since I first read "The Listeners" in grade school. I wrote about Memoirs of a Midget when it was reissued by Paul Dry Books some years ago (but the article seems no longer available online). His poem "Ghost" I gather is where Scott-Moncrieff got his title for the sixth volume of Proust's novel. This article has a nice selection of his poems.
I have been a fan of de la Mare's since I first read "The Listeners" in grade school. I wrote about Memoirs of a Midget when it was reissued by Paul Dry Books some years ago (but the article seems no longer available online). His poem "Ghost" I gather is where Scott-Moncrieff got his title for the sixth volume of Proust's novel. This article has a nice selection of his poems.
Something to think on …
The Christian of the future will be a mystic or he will not exist at all.
— Karl Rahner, S. J., born on this date in 1904
Wednesday, March 04, 2015
Openness …
… Unbelievable - why we believe and why we don't - Philosophy and Life. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Coleridge argued that imagination creates a potential space that can be then filled with something actual, be that tangible or intangible. This human capacity is required to do everything from carving figurines to composing symphonies. Belief is also a political issue, in the sense that a community of believers - scientists, artists, philosophers, church-goers - play a crucial role in deciding what is believable. This insights helps unpack the depth of the challenge for theists in circles that are broadly atheistic. Evidence or arguments for the existence of God are not enough because there is the prior issue of whether such cultures are predisposed to believe in theism at all. To put it another way, lives transformed or arts that show transcendence are more likely to open an individual to perceiving the divine because such experiences address the issue at the right level. Reason then comes in to aid discernment.
Tuesday, March 03, 2015
Looking for thrills …
… Paul Davis On Crime: Sapper: A Look Back At H.C. McNeile, Creator of "Bulldog' Drummond.
... Despite the fame he received from his wartime reminiscences (to say nothing of his monetary gains), McNeile must have still felt the need to create, for in 1920 he published "Bull-Dog Drummond", a novel. The novel's centerpiece is the recently demobilized British Army officer Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond. Drummond, a former Captain in the fictitious Loamshire Regiment, is an independently wealthy, strong, and albeit somewhat ugly young man whose desire for action has not been satiated by the hostilities in Europe.
Facebook and political correctness …
… Is Obesity the New Obscenity?Facebook Censored Leonard Nimoy’s Photograph of Nude Women on my FB Page. - Daniel Grotta & Sally Wiener Grotta.
In fact, it was a picture from The Full Body Project, a book of photographs by Leonard Nimoy, which is Amazon’s number one best seller in Women’s Studies. What’s more, my posting wasn’t just of the photograph, but a link to a lovely tribute to Mr. Nimoy in the New York Observer — My Friend Leonard Nimoy was a Fervent Feminist by Abby Ellin.
Blind faith …
… What scares the new atheists | John Gray | World news | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… Though not all human beings may attach great importance to them, every society contains practices that are recognisably religious. Why should religion be universal in this way? For atheist missionaries this is a decidedly awkward question. Invariably they claim to be followers of Darwin. Yet they never ask what evolutionary function this species-wide phenomenon serves. There is an irresolvable contradiction between viewing religion naturalistically – as a human adaptation to living in the world – and condemning it as a tissue of error and illusion. What if the upshot of scientific inquiry is that a need for illusion is built into in the human mind? If religions are natural for humans and give value to their lives, why spend your life trying to persuade others to give them up?But suppose it is not an illusion, but an intuition imperfectly apprehended.
Something to think on …
There [is] no little vigour and force added to words, when they are delivered in a neat and fine way, and somewhat out of the ordinary road, common and dull language relishing more of the clown than the gentleman. But herein also affectation must be avoided; it being better for a man by a native and clear eloquence to express himself, than by those words which may smell either of the lamp or inkhorn.
— Lord Herbert of Cherbury, born on this date in 1583
Monday, March 02, 2015
Well, good for her …
… Why I’m Coming Out as a Christian - The Daily Beast.
Good thing she's not scared that non-believers will make her feel like an outcast, because, judging by a lot of the comments, they're sure not sympathetic. I think she'll find that for most Christians faith is far more important than ideology. May God bless her.
Good thing she's not scared that non-believers will make her feel like an outcast, because, judging by a lot of the comments, they're sure not sympathetic. I think she'll find that for most Christians faith is far more important than ideology. May God bless her.
Fragments and ruins …
… A kingdom in splinters by Eric Ormsby - The New Criterion.
… traditional philology nowadays is less a ruin than the shadow of a ruin; no, even less than that, the vestige of a shadow. Turner acknowledges, and laments, this from the outset; he notes that “many college-educated Americans no longer recognize the word.” He adds that, “for most of the twentieth century, philology was put down, kicked around, abused, and snickered at, as the archetype of crabbed, dry-as-dust, barren, and by and large pointless academic knowledge. Did I mention mind-numbingly boring?” Worse, “it totters along with arthritic creakiness.” With friends like these, we might ask, can philology sink any further into oblivion than it already has? But the unspoken question here—“shall these bones live?”—is one that Turner poses and resolves triumphantly. He breathes life back into philology. There is not a dull page in this long book (and I include here its sixty-five pages of meticulous and sometimes mischievous endnotes). He accomplishes this by setting his account firmly in a detailed if inevitably brisk historical narrative interspersed with vivid cameos of individual scholars, the renowned as well as the notorious, the plainly deranged alongside the truly radiant.
History as an organic tradition …
… The University Bookman: In Communion with All the Past. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
It is interesting how technology and industrialization — in other words, mechanization — are so closely associated with dehumanization. How explain, then, the popularity of mechanistic philosophy?
It is interesting how technology and industrialization — in other words, mechanization — are so closely associated with dehumanization. How explain, then, the popularity of mechanistic philosophy?
Grand allusions …
… John McPhee on Writing - The New Yorker. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I've known about sprezzatura since I was in high school and read the Modern Libray edition of Burckhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Ran into it again in college. I'm surprised it's not better known.
I've known about sprezzatura since I was in high school and read the Modern Libray edition of Burckhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Ran into it again in college. I'm surprised it's not better known.
Shh …
… The Call of Silence - Philosophy and Life. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The Quakers' silence is one thing. I don't know what the Occupy people's silence was. They sounded noisy enough to me.
At any rate, silence comes from within. The more you focus, the less you notice the noise.
The Quakers' silence is one thing. I don't know what the Occupy people's silence was. They sounded noisy enough to me.
At any rate, silence comes from within. The more you focus, the less you notice the noise.
Today's music …
Here is a piece I wrote many years ago that has some bearing on many of the recordings I have been linking to: 'Living Presence' Series Is Living Again On Cd.
(Don't know how the music got dropped off. But here it is.)
(Don't know how the music got dropped off. But here it is.)
Something to think on …
Myth is an attempt to narrate a whole human experience, of which the purpose is too deep, going too deep in the blood and soul, for mental explanation or description.
— D. H. Lawrence, who died on this date in 1930
Sunday, March 01, 2015
Just a thought …
The flaw in mechanistic philosophy is the metaphor underlying its premise. A machine is an artifact, usually a tool. It is something made to do something. Mechanistic philosophy posits that the world is composed of machines that just happen to be. Artifacts without any artificer, machines needing no mechanic. How is this any more plausible than the notion that the world derives its being from a necessary and intelligent being logically and causally prior to it? That would seem to better account for consciousness and personality, not qualities generally associated with machines.
Today's music …
Very engaging piece by a composer who died young and about whom I can find virtually nothing.
Inquirer reviews …
… 'Moral Arc' is a myopic rationalist fairy tale.
… Jenifer Ringer's 'Dancing Through It' chronicles a ballerina and her body.
… Charles Baxter's new book of stories stresses human interdependence.
There is also a review by Katie Haegele and another by Peter Dobrin that I would like to link to, but I can't find either of them on the wondrous Philly.com.
… Jenifer Ringer's 'Dancing Through It' chronicles a ballerina and her body.
… Charles Baxter's new book of stories stresses human interdependence.
There is also a review by Katie Haegele and another by Peter Dobrin that I would like to link to, but I can't find either of them on the wondrous Philly.com.
Something to think on …
The book which you read from a sense of duty, or because for any reason you must, does not commonly make friends with you.
— William Dean Howells, born on this date in 1837
Man and writer...
...Karl Ove Knausgaard: ‘Writing is a way of getting rid of shame’
“It put such doubt in me that I’ve never really recovered from it,” he says. “I have all these notions of what it is to be a man. You shouldn’t cry for instance [he spends many pages crying or trying to conceal his tears] and you shouldn’t talk about feelings. I don’t talk about feelings but I write a lot about feelings. Reading, that’s feminine, writing, that’s feminine. It is insane, it’s really insane but it still is in me.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)