‘I was a very devout little Catholic when I was at school because it was the air I breathed’ he said ‘and as I’m grown older I find it less easy to believe in any fixed faith though I will still, in times of anxiety, pray.’ He received last rites shortly before his death and requested a Catholic mass to be said at his funeral.
Saturday, November 13, 2021
Lovely …
… Michael Septimus Waugh: Eulogy | The Evelyn Waugh Society. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
There is nothing but God's grace. We walk upon it; we breathe it; we live and die by it; it makes the nails and axles of the universe.
— Robert Louis Stevenson, born on this date in 1850
Friday, November 12, 2021
Poet in exile …
… “A Home in the Neon Heat of Nature”: A New Biography of Czesław Miłosz.
Miłosz felt that the United States, specifically the American West, could provide that lofty vantage, that distance, that relative stability from the “demoniac doings of History.” He would live in the Golden State for 40 years, from 1960 to 2000, but according to Czeslaw Miłosz: A California Life, Cynthia Haven’s deeply considered new biography of the poet, Miłosz’s move to America was predicated on a fundamental error. “In immigrating to the United States, and specifically to California in 1960,” Haven writes, “he thought he was coming to the timeless world of nature. However, Berkeley was about to become a lightning rod for […] the world of change […] and he would be in the thick of it.”
Something to think on …
Man does not exist prior to language, either as a species or as an individual.
— Roland Barthes, born on this date in 1915
Maybe Eastwood’s last …
… Lumpily scripted and poorly plotted: Cry Macho reviewed | The Spectator. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Thursday, November 11, 2021
Thank you for your service …
… Paul Davis On Crime: Sailors Hunting Sharks In Loch Fyne.
The basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus) is the world’s second largest shark, but despite its size and looks, the shark is quite docile and passive and eats plankton rather than people. The small-brained creatures are called basking sharks due to their swimming slowly and feeding near the surface, which makes them appear to be “basking” in the sun.
Maybe …
… Law is Hell - Econlib. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
My own experience is that if you don’t let some lawyer intimidate you, you’ll have no trouble and the lawyer will go home with his tail between his legs.
Hardly surprising …
… The nearest thing to Paul McCartney’s autobiography: his guide to the Beatles’ songbook. (Hat tip, Dave.)
The Lyrics, presented in two huge volumes in a slipcase, is at once engrossing and frustrating. It is the closest McCartney is likely to come to an autobiography: 154 song lyrics, ranging from a scrap from a fourteen-year-old hand in 1956 to songs from McCartney III at the end of last year. His comments on each song and the circumstances of its composition are drawn from edited interviews with Paul Muldoon that point towards his muses (his parents; Lennon; Linda.
Something to think on …
To love another person is to see them as God intended them to be.
— Fyodor Dostoevsky, born on this date in 1821
Q&A …
… Guilt Is Fecund: The Millions Interviews Frank Bidart - The Millions. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Wednesday, November 10, 2021
As well they should …
… “Working People” Resist.
The great divide in America today is between middle-class “working people” on the one hand and the educated elites and their pet “marginalized” peoples on the other. The elites are insulated from the consequences of the policies they espouse. The “marginalized” people are the beneficiaries (in theory) of the elites’ compassion. By contrast, the “working people” (of whatever race) are the ones who pay the price when neighborhoods become unsafe, when schools fail to teach, when taxes go up, when electric rates increase, when gasoline prices double, when hamburger costs $2 more per pound, and when their daughters get raped in high school bathrooms.
Wonderful …
… The Archies - Sugar, Sugar (Old Movie Stars Dance) - YouTube.
This — shall we call it a collage? — is simply a masterpiece. Matching the scenes to the song is wondrous. This is a new art form.
A meditation on death …
… AS YE ARE NOW. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Of the three moments when I have come closest to death, two have been on the road, where you may be hurled into eternity with almost no warning, and one was on assignment in a chaotic place. What I remember about all these is the swift withdrawal into an inner silence and powerless immobility, once I realized how bad it was.
Four years ago, a physician came to me in the cubicle in the ER, where I had spent the night, and told me I had a life-threatening condition and needed to be operated on immediately. I had no affect. He might as well have told me it was pretty cloudy and there could be rain that afternoon.
About time …
THE BULL AGAINST LITURGISTS. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
*But not against “[. . .] those fine men and women, but mostly men, who, out of deep faith and abiding antiquarian interest, reach into papyri, codices, sacramentaries, missals, pontificals, breviaries, consuetudinaries, antiphoners, vesperales, nocturnales, diurnales, and other suchlike tomes, books, volumes, or collections, and therein find the most interesting tidbits and colorful rituals for the delectation of, for the most part, similarly minded young men, but even the whole world. To such people, We give Our heartiest Apostolical Approbation and Encouragement.”
Something to think on …
Ceremonies are different in every country, but true politeness is everywhere the same.
— Oliver Goldsmith, born on this date in 1728
Tuesday, November 09, 2021
Lidsten in …
… Bob Dylan - Every Grain of Sand (Cleveland, OH) - NOV 5 2021 - YouTube. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In case you wondered …
… How Sweden swerved Covid disaster - UnHerd.
During the year that followed, the virus continued to ravage the world and, one by one, the death tolls in countries that had locked down began to surpass Sweden’s. Britain, the US, France, Poland, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Spain, Argentina, Belgium — countries that had variously shut down playgrounds, forced their children to wear facemasks, closed schools, fined citizens for hanging out on the beach and guarded parks with drones — have all been hit worse than Sweden. At the time of writing, more than 50 countries have a higher death rate. If you measure excess mortality for the whole of 2020, Sweden (according to Eurostat) will end up in 21st place out of 31 European countries. If Sweden was a part of the US, its death rate would rank number 43 of the 50 states.
Promising debut …
… Read Robert Frost’s first published poem, written when he was 18. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
To desire and expect nothing for oneself and to have profound sympathy for others is genuine holiness.
— Ivan Turgenev, born on this date in 1818
Sounds good …
… University of Austin founded by writers and entrepreneurs.
Frustrated with how modern universities stifle free thought and academic diversity, a group of writers and entrepreneurs announced Monday that they are launching their own institute of higher learning: The University of Austin. Joe Lonsdale, a partner at 8VC and a founder of Palantir, Addepar, Resilience Bio, and other multi-billion dollar technology companies, is one of the founders. Here, in an exclusive for The Post, he outlines the school’s mission.
Monday, November 08, 2021
A poem …
The Owl
Elusive you are, as if I've done wrong.
From madmen, there is a faraway din.
As deep in the forest comes your hooting song,
And then I feel naked, as though I have sinned.
When flying, you gesture to the wise old tree
That is the gateway to my mystical walk.
In a vision your face comes to me.
I want to befriend you, but to that you would balk.
Later, as I am driving home, I see a shaft of sunlight
Connecting heaven and earth with a deity's nod.
I pray for the owl,perhaps he prays for me,
While my car sends up smoke signals to God.
Then the owl rends forth a heart-wrenching scream.
Right as rain. Here that? We're all right as rain.
— Jennifer Knox
Blogging note …
I am not feeling well today. Took my morning walk, but knees were not cooperative. Have spent much time since just lying down. Blogging may resume later should I feel better. Otherwise, see you tomorrow, folks.
Something to think on …
A garden isn't meant to be useful. It's for joy.
— Rumer Godden, who died on this date in 1998
Sunday, November 07, 2021
Good for them …
… MIT Caves to Wokeness | City Journal.
We owe much to our alma mater and have donated to it regularly.
No more.
The current MIT administration has caved repeatedly to the demands of “wokeness,” treating its students unfairly, compromising the quality of its staff, and damaging the institution and academic freedom at large.
Very nice …
…A Parisian Roof Garden in 1918 by Natalie Clifford Barney - Poems | Academy of American Poets. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Barney had a fifty-year relationship with Romaine Brooks, one of my favorite painters.
Something to think on …
I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live as if there isn't and to die to find out that there is.
— Albert Camus, born on this date in 1913
Saturday, November 06, 2021
Yes …
… Songs as poems: Lennon-McCartney, ‘Eleanor Rigby’. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I was teaching at the University of Dayton when you heard the song just about whenever you turned on the radio. I told my students to listen to it carefully, that it was a poem.
Something to think on …
What is philosophy for the Catholic but the way intelligence lives its faith?
— Don Colacho
The mystery of the gift …
… Stories on the Side of Grace. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Theroux seeks to crush our illusions and fantasies. He pulls back the veil and shows humanity in all its arrogance and cruelty and, yes, stupidity. While grace is possible, it is not guaranteed
Friday, November 05, 2021
Virginia Woolf
I took a break recently from fiction to read a collection of essays by Virginia Woolf. Let me say, they did not disappoint.
It's clear while reading the essays just how gifted Woolf was, and how attuned she was to the art of narration. Woolf enhances many of her essays by introducing imagined characters (even, at times, imagined dialogue). The result is tremendous: here is an essay, focused on the politics of writing, which incorporates fictional digressions in order to further an argument which in itself is only loosely connected with literature.
In other essays, Woolf is ahead of her times, prescient and perspicacious. On any number of issues -- including women's rights and capitalist inequality -- Woolf offers insights which appear decidedly modern. I would not overstate the case: Woolf does not proceed as a contemporary feministic might. But there is a very evident strain in her work which focuses on looking ahead, on envisioning what could be.
And of course, there's the writing itself. Over and over again, Woolf delights with a clever aphorism here, a memorable turn of phrase there. The essays are metered and deliberate, but build, in almost all cases, toward a crescendo. Woolf loved literature, it is clear. But she also had a real admiration for England, and for London. Those emotions, and others, are on display in her essays -- which I found uncluttered and refreshing.
The last word is reserved for Woolf:
"And what greater delight and wonder can there be than to leave the straight lines of personality and deviate into those footpaths that lead beneath brambles and thick tree trunks into the heart of the forest where live those beasts, our fellow men?"
Blogging note …
I am very preoccupied right now. My youngest daughter is ill, my wife is in rehab, among other things. Blogging, I fear, must take a back seat for now.
Something to think on …
If we have never been amazed by the very fact that we exist, we are squandering the greatest fact of all.
— Will Durant, born on this date in 1885
Thursday, November 04, 2021
Hmm …
… Of Possums and Pomposity: T. S. Eliot’s “Complete Prose”. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I remember going to Leary’s Book Store — a legendary used bookstore that when it closed was thought to be the oldest in the country — and buying Eliot’s Collected Poems 1909 to 1939 and reading on the El “Preludes” and realizing that poetry didn’t have to be about daffodils, that the city was poetic also. I have always liked his funereal readings of his poetry. In short, I remain a fan. I don’t get from this review the sense I have had of Eliot all these years. And I suspect Eliot would have been delighted with his Tony Awards for Cats.
Interesting …
… Legendary Photos: The Stories Behind 5 of David Hume Kennerly’s Iconic Images. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Hmm …
… Covid-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… for researchers who were testing Pfizer’s vaccine at several sites in Texas during that autumn, speed may have come at the cost of data integrity and patient safety. A regional director who was employed at the research organisation Ventavia Research Group has told The BMJ that the company falsified data, unblinded patients, employed inadequately trained vaccinators, and was slow to follow up on adverse events reported in Pfizer’s pivotal phase III trial. Staff who conducted quality control checks were overwhelmed by the volume of problems they were finding. After repeatedly notifying Ventavia of these problems, the regional director, Brook Jackson, emailed a complaint to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Ventavia fired her later the same day. Jackson has provided The BMJ with dozens of internal company documents, photos, audio recordings, and emails.
Something to think on …
Poems have a different music from ordinary language, and every poem has a different kind of music of necessity, and that's, in a way, the hardest thing about writing poetry is waiting for that music, and sometimes you never know if it's going to come.
— C. K. Williams, born on this date in 1936
Another cave myth …
… Light by C. K. Williams | Poetry Foundation. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
C. K. Williams was born on this date in 1936. He used to hang out at Dirty Frank’s.
Calling evil evil …
… Boo to the Boo-Hurrahs: how four Oxford women transformed philosophy - Prospect Magazine.
(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Lipscomb’s book succeeds wonderfully in presenting a particular era in philosophy, and the huge influence of, in particular, Anscombe and Foot in the field of ethics. One area not explored much is that of sex and gender. In a way, this mirrors the women’s writing. Lipscomb notes that only Midgley wrote anything about the (philosophical) question of “women,” and then mostly in the context of being allowed to think and to work.
Wednesday, November 03, 2021
Blogging note …
Very preoccupied today with having my wife transported from Pennsylvania Hospital to a rehab facility. Have been on the phone most of the day getting in touch with this person and that. So blogging is taking a back seat today.
Something to think on …
In the realm of human destiny, the depth of man's questionings is more important than his answers.
— André Malraux, born on this date in 1901
Tuesday, November 02, 2021
Hmm …
… Twain’s Indians.
This compulsion among many of our contemporaries to pass judgment on our forebears strikes me as unwise. We can learn from their mistakes, which is why we study history, but we should never presume we are not making different but equally grievous mistakes.
The new journalism …
… To Protect Fauci, The Washington Post is Preparing a Hit Piece on the Group Denouncing Gruesome Dog Experimentations. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I wonder. does Jeff Bezos read the paper that he owns?
The new Puritans …
… as bad as the old ones, and probably more ignorant: Twitter Suspension of Quin Hillyer is Absurd | National Review.
I canceled my Twitter account awhile because I don’t want to encourage an ass like Jack Dorsey.
As well she might …
… Campus Reform | Condoleezza Rice has harsh words for CRT.
“And let me be very clear; I grew up in segregated Birmingham, Alabama. I couldn’t go to a movie theater, or to a restaurant with my parents. I went to segregated schools till we moved to Denver,” Rice continued.
“My parents never thought I was going to grow up in a world without prejudice, but they also told me, ‘That’s somebody else’s problem, not yours. You’re going to overcome it, and you are going to be anything you want to be.’ And that’s the message that I think we ought to be sending to kids.”
In memoriam …
… The Tragedy of Eva Cassidy - by Ted Gioia - The Honest Broker. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
How can you watch this poignant video [of “Over the Rainbow”], and not think of that place beyond the rainbow as the fame she never tasted, the successes she never knew about because they happened too late, or the years and decades robbed from her by illness—and just a month after the Blues Alley gig, doctors told her that the cancer was terminal.
Watch and listen …
… Tom Stoppard on 'the strange art form' of theater - CNN Video. (Hattip, Dave Lull.)
Speaking of haecceity …
… So there I was … (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
In the last generation, with public Christianity in headlong retreat, we have caught our first, distant view of a de-Christianized world , and it is not encouraging.
— Paul Johnson, born on this date in 1928
Sounds useful …
… Book Review: The Babylon Bee Guide to Wokeness | Stand Firm. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The subtitle How to Take Your Wokeness to the Next Level by Canceling Friends, Breaking Windows, and Burning It All to the Ground tips off the book’s approach. It purports to be a guide by the woke on how to become woke. In so doing, it time and again comes very close to or even repeats what the woke crowd actually advocates – which makes the humor that much more effective and increases the chances that the dullards at Snopes, Facebook and elsewhere will be fooled again.
Monday, November 01, 2021
I remember this …
… though I was only nine years old: POTUS escapes assassination attempt at Blair House.
Something to think on …
It is incredible how as soon as a people become subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and willingly that one is led to say that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement.
— Étienne de La Boétie, born on this date in 1530
Appreciation …
… Ken Dodd, Stockhausen and Psycho: unlocking Paul McCartney’s musical genius. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The depth and durability that are the hallmarks of McCartney’s lyrics derive from the combination of two seemingly irreconcilable forces that I characterise as the “physics” and the “chemistry” of the song. The physics has to do with the song’s engineering. One estimate has the Beatles playing nearly 300 times in Germany between 1960 and 1962. That sheer exposure to the business of how songs are constructed lies at the root of the word “poet”, a version of the Greek term for a “maker”. It’s no accident that one Scottish term for a poet or bard is makar.
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