Davenport was a friend of my late friend John Davison.
Thursday, January 11, 2024
There are more than you may think …
… Open Access Journals in Philosophy - Daily Nous. (Hat ip, Rus Bowden.)
Wednesday, January 10, 2024
Appreciation …
… RIAN JOHNSON ON THE GENIUS OF JOHN DICKSON CARR JOHNSON ON THE GENIUS OF JOHN DICKSON CARR. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The first quality that blows your hair back in any of Carr’s novels is so fundamental that it’s easy to take it for granted: beyond the plotting or the puzzling, beyond the mystery itself, first and foremost the man is just one hell of a writer. Like walking into a well-put-together room, when you’re in the hands of a good writer you can just feel it. His prose is genteel without being fussy, brisk but rich, funny while keeping your feet in the dirt, and all of it woven with that effortless breeze of step that we as readers recognize and happily fall in behind.
Something to think on …
Long live freedom and damn the ideologies.
— Robison Jeffers, born on this date in 1887
Tuesday, January 09, 2024
Monday, January 08, 2024
Pathetic …
… Park Service To Remove Statue of William Penn From Philadelphia Park, Replace It With More ‘Inclusive’ Displays. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
No matter that he founded the city.
Something to thing on …
It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterwards.
— Baltasar Gracián, born on this date in 1601
Sunday, January 07, 2024
Change of plans …
As it happens, Katherine and I have decided to go to thev 5 PM Mass and to dinner afterwards. I will be going out shortly to do some shopping, but I shouldn’t e out tat long.
Blogging note …
It is Sunday, and I will shortly be taking off for Mass. my friend Katherine will be oining me thee and will be going to brunch afterwards. So blogging will not resume until sometine later.
Something to think on …
There is no first world and third world. There is only one world, for all of us to live and delight in.
— Gerald Durrell, born on this date in 1925
Saturday, January 06, 2024
RIP …
… Lauded writer and emeritus professor Fred Chappell is remembered� - UNC Greensboro . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Blogging note …
My internet has been down until just a short while ago, which is why I haven’t posted anything until now. Ikll try to catch up later.
Something to think on …
The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.
— Kahlil Gibran, born on this date in 1883
Friday, January 05, 2024
Something to think on …
Fear prophets and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them.
— Umberto Eco, born on this date in 1932
A must-read for sure …
… Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death | Aeon Essays. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Gödel believed the world’s deep, rational structure and the soul’s postmortem existence depend on the falsity of materialism, the philosophical view that all truth is necessarily determined by physical facts. Gödel believed the world’s deep, rational structure and the soul’s postmortem existence depend on the falsity of materialism, the philosophical view that all truth is necessarily determined by physical facts.
Thursday, January 04, 2024
Something to think on …
Mothers are inscrutable beings to their sons, always.
— A. E. Coppard, born on this date in 1878
Wednesday, January 03, 2024
Something to think on …
If you do not believe in a personal God, the question: 'What is the purpose of life?' is unaskable and unanswerable.
— J. R. R Tolkien, born on this date in 1892
Tuesday, January 02, 2024
Something to think on
When I die, I will send down a shower of roses from the heavens, I will spend my heaven by doing good on earth.
— St Thérèse of Lisieux,, born on this date in 1873
Appreciation ~
… All Hail Cate Blanchett - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… I finally viewed Tár on New Year’s Eve. It was worth the wait. Blanchett plays a fictional character named Lydia Tár, a middle-aged American woman who since 2013 has been the conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. We open with Tár being interviewed in New York, in front of a stylish audience, by Adam Gopnick of the New Yorker. Gopnick’s introduction is one big giant shameless dose of exposition: Tár, he says, is “one of the most important musical figures of our time.” A graduate of the Curtis Institute, Harvard (where she was Phi Beta Kappa), and the University of Vienna, she’s a protégé of Leonard Bernstein, did several years of “ethnographic field work” in Peru, won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony for her conducting and compositions, and led all of the Big Five U.S. philharmonics (Cleveland, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, and New York) before landing, in 2013, her current gig in Berlin.
Monday, January 01, 2024
Learned humor …
… P.G. Wodehouse’s literary canon. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The first is that many of his cultural allusions, wholly familiar to the English middle classes, especially English public schoolboys, from the 19th century to the 1980s, are now forgotten. They need rescuing, or rather, for scholars have ploughed this furrow, re-rescuing.
Something to think on …
The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has — I'm not kidding.
— J. D. Salinger, born on this date in 1919
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