Tuesday, December 15, 2020
Something to think on …
The public has a distorted view of science because children are taught in school that science is a collection of firmly established truths. In fact, science is not a collection of truths. It is a continuing exploration of mysteries.
— Freeman Dyson, born on this date in 1923
In case you wondered …
… and some obviously do: Who should be called Dr? Probably not Jill Biden. Just as lawyers like me aren’t. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I suppose the titling business is more important to some people these days because the title has become more important than the education it is supposed to reflect. Given the nonsense taking place in higher education larely, I am not inclined to reflexively respect anyone just because he can attach some letters to his name. Years ago, at my house in Germantown, we frequently had parties with lots of people who had doctorates and were professors (some were M.D.’s). I don’t remember any of them introducing themselves or being introduced with anything other than their given names. Should I run into some Ph.D. who insists upon being called doctor I can assure you I won’t be impressed. Quite the contrary.
I should also point out that my previous post was a link to an article in the Babylon Bee, a satire site.
Monday, December 14, 2020
Hear, hear …
… Reviews and Reflections: 'Would to God we could find another Harry Truman'.
I was 11 when Harry left office. The guy who succeeded hims wa pretty good, too.
Hmm …
… Poll Shows Why Church Is Essential During a Pandemic.
While Americans’ mental health overall declined in 2020, frequent churchgoers did not experience a mental health decline at all and were the only group in the U.S. not to. In fact, they saw a slight increase, with 46 percent rating their mental health as excellent in 2020, a 4-point increase over 2019.
My own mental health remains stable. I'm still crazy after all these years.
A rather sad tale …
… Review: 'The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart' | National Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I took my daughter Jennifer to see Saturday Night Fever when it came out and she was in high school. We were both surprised at how good it was
No mention is made of Barry Gibb's teaming up with Barbra Streisand, Here's a reminder:
Happy birthday …
… Edna O’Brien on turning 90: ‘I can’t pretend that I haven’t made mistakes.’ (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Where many writers retreat into themselves as they age, O’Brien has instead embraced risk, something she attributes to her short-story writing, in particular a story about an Irish workman, which saw her conduct interviews across north London pubs. “It changed the way I wrote – everything I’ve written since then I’ve researched intensely,” she says. “I would hope that the pulse of my writing is about feeling, about going inside it and bringing it back out. The authors I love [who include everyone from Russian master Anton Chekhov to experimental Scottish writer David Keenan], they do it too. I do think one has to keep learning and it does get harder because you are harder on yourself. You don’t want to repeat yourself – it has to be fresh.”
Edna O'Brien turns 90 tomorrow.
Hmm …
… Smashing Poetry to Pieces. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I’m inclined to agree with James Matthew Wilson’s assessment of the Cantos. It is also interesting that Belz offers nothing from the Cantos to back up his assessment.
A living portrait …
… Encounter with a Real Borges | The Russell Kirk Center. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… Parini provides in Borges and Me a very human rendering of a man who has for many assumed a nearly mythical stature. And not human simply in that we understand Borges’s motivations or his feelings, but because we are also able to understand and feel his vulnerabilities, both physical and emotional.
Something to think on …
Inequality is the inevitable consequence of liberty.
— Salvador de Madariaga, who died on this date in 1978
What's in a doctorate?
… not a hell of lot these days: Is There a Doctor in the White House? Not if You Need an M.D. - WSJ. (Hat ti[p, Dave Lull.)
The Ph.D. may once have held prestige, but that has been diminished by the erosion of seriousness and the relaxation of standards in university education generally, at any rate outside the sciences. Getting a doctorate was then an arduous proceeding: One had to pass examinations in two foreign languages, one of them Greek or Latin, defend one’s thesis, and take an oral examination on general knowledge in one’s field. At Columbia University of an earlier day, a secretary sat outside the room where these examinations were administered, a pitcher of water and a glass on her desk. The water and glass were there for the candidates who fainted. A far cry, this, from the few doctoral examinations I sat in on during my teaching days, where candidates and teachers addressed one another by first names and the general atmosphere more resembled a kaffeeklatsch.
Sunday, December 13, 2020
Blogging note …
The day turned out to being even busier than I thought it would.i will resume blogging tomorrow.
Blogging note …
I have much to do today that has nothing to do with blogging. So I'll be blogging again later today.
Something to think on …
The men of the past had convictions, while we moderns have only opinions.
— Heinrich Heine, born on this date in 1797
Saturday, December 12, 2020
Christmas vs. Xmas
… The glorious curmudgeon of Christmas by Steve Morris | The New Criterion. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Lewis’s 1955 essay “Xmas and Christmas” sets the tone and content of his main critique of the holiday. In it, he imagines a strange barbarian place called “Niatirb” (that’s Britain spelled backwards). In this oddly familiar parallel universe, the Niatirbians celebrate a winter festival called Exmas. It takes fifty days of exhausting preparations, which the natives call the “Exmas Rush.” On the big day itself, they struggle to get up before noon and then spend their waking hours gorging themselves on food and feeling dissatisfied. Thankfully, there are a few locals who hold a different festival on the same day—“Chrissmas.” These folk rise early, go to certain temples for a sacred feast, and understand what it is really all about.
Contrarians …
… The women who argued against their right to vote | Spectator USA. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The lady Antis came at the question from several directions but met upon the common ground that the grubby world of politics — the struggle to gain coercive power over others — sullies one’s hands and stains one’s soul. Government, as Radcliffe professor Elizabeth Jackson argued, was grounded in ‘compulsion’ and awash in ‘selfishness, cruelty, and hate’. It was a male thing, so let the boys have it. Far better for women to tend to ‘culture’, whose domain included ‘the home, the church, the newspaper, and the public school’.
Something to think on …
All you have to do to make something interesting is to look at it long enough.
— Gustave Flaubert, born on this date in1821
Friday, December 11, 2020
Another selection …
… The 40 Most Influential Fiction Books of All Time | Influence Publishers. (Hat top, Jon Caroulis.)
I’ve read at least 25 of them.
In Case you wondered …
… Why 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' remains beloved by both Christians and non-believers. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The one common thread these specials had was that they were for everyone. And for everyone, I mean Christians and non-Christians alike. While they were about Christmas, they had zero religious content to them. In the world of Frosty and Rudolph, Christmas was a celebration that included everything (Santa Claus, presents and snow) but Jesus. That made for a more inclusive audience, allowing millions of non-Christians, agnostics and even atheists to enjoy these shows.
William Carlos Williams
It's not often that I'll read a collection of poetry, but I've done that recently with William Carlos Williams's Red Wheelbarrow. Part of my interest in Williams stems from the simplicity of his most famous poems, among them the titular poem in this collection as well as 'This is Just to Say.' These poems resonate as a result of their ease, their clarity. There are several other poems in the collection, including 'The Term,' which achieve something similar: insight into the familiar, delivered intelligibly. The cleanliness of Williams's poems -- because that's really what I think it is, a sort of hygiene -- is one thing which sets them apart, and which has helped secure his place, I gather, in American letters. I don't know that this is my favorite set of poems, and some of them certainly, I think, wander off course, but reading it was refreshing: there's very little pretense here; the words largely exist as they are written. This, in itself, is reason for celebration. The last word is reserved for Williams: "And no whiteness is so white as the memory of whiteness."
Unfashionable heroes …
… ‘Heroes of the Fourth Turning’ Review: A Culture-War Conversation Piece. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Part of what makes Mr. Arbery’s play so good is that its characters are portrayed on their own terms.
Something to think on …
Such as it is, the press has become the greatest power within the Western World, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and judiciary. One would like to ask; by whom has it been elected and to whom is it responsible?
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, born on this date in 1918
Thursday, December 10, 2020
Mutual admiration …
… Evelyn Waugh Loved Perry Mason With All His Heart | CrimeReads. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I'm disappointed …
… PA Gov. Tests Positive For Covid - Headline Health.
I tweeted him, encouraging him to check in to the nearest nursing home.
Matters of style …
… BY THEIR EPITHETS SHALL YE KNOW THEM. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The right adjective—in other words, the adjective that subverts our expectations and stands in tension with the noun—can be the shining pebble that enlivens the whole sentence.6 And there is nothing better than an adverb or an adjective for teasing out comic implications.
Among the uses of poetry …
… On Poetry: Folklore brings light, tradition in history's dark times | Lifestyles | record-eagle.com.
The best poems are always contemporary. They articulate a timeless center of human feeling, beyond doctrine, beyond dogma, beyond local circumstance, beyond the individual speaker.
… The Oxen.
(Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Grief, lament, and the celelbration of life …
… London Grip Poetry Review.
FARMERS, QUEENS, TRAINS AND CLOWNS : Charles Rammelkamp finds both lament and celebration in a character-filled collection by g emil reutter.
Something to think on …
Any faith in Him, however small, is better than any belief about Him, however great.
— George MacDonald, born on this date in 1824
Wednesday, December 09, 2020
Favorites …
… Classic Books Bucket List: 25 of the Best Must-Read Novels. (Hat tip, Jon Caroulis.)
I’ve read at least 14 of them, including one — The Catcher in the Rye — that I don’t happen to think much of.
Listen in …
… The Virtual Memories Show — Episode 411 – Lisa Kohn.
“There’s nothing as intoxicating as knowing the truth (quote-unquote), and that’s what cults offer. It’s the best drug ever. Walking away from that is terrifying.”
Another casualty …
… Literary Review’s Bad Sex in Fiction Award. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
First the Olympics, then Wimbledon, then Taylor Swift’s Lover Fest tour…
And now the Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award 2020.
After weeks of deliberation, the judges of the Bad Sex in Fiction Award 2020 have taken the difficult decision to cancel this year’s prize.
Hmm …
… Was Nobel author Albert Camus murdered? New book in English says yes. | The Book Haven.
In Prague in about 2010, Catelli found a “crystal clear clue” which revealed unambiguously that Camus had been murdered by the KGB. The clue was a passing mention in the memoirs of the poet and translator Jan Zábrana (Cély život, A Whole Life, 1992) who had been told by a well-informed, well-connected but, alas, unnamed man that agents had placed a device inside a tyre of Gallimard’s car which would blow it at a pre-set high speed.
Not mere cosy escapism …
… Linking Christianity to classic crime - Catholic Herald. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Many people have wondered about the link between Christianity and classic crime. The great poet WH Auden wrote an essay on the subject entitled The Guilty Vicarage. There is a lot of truth to his argument that detective stories tend to reflect an orderly, law-governed world which can be disrupted, spoiled and attacked by the forces of evil, but not overcome. They therefore closely reflect the Christian understanding of the universe.
Something to think on …
Nothing conveys the feeling of infinity as much as stupidity does.
— Ödön von Horváth, born on this date in 1901
Tuesday, December 08, 2020
That's the spirit …
… My Readers Hated Me. Good. | BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog.
What I wasn’t expecting was the vitriol from young women—not all young women, of course, but some of them hated the book and seemed especially mad at me for writing it. One young woman wrote a 1,200 word-review, twice as long as this post. These women, the very ones I thought I was penning a love letter to, were very passionate, indeed, but in their anger.
Cowardly new world …
… Covid and the New Age of Censorship - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Although I was a reporter at the Times for a decade and I am no conservative, almost no one there spoke up for me when Amazon refused to publish my Covid booklets. Fortunately, business leaders like Elon Musk and independent-thinking media figures like Glenn Greenwald came to my defense. Amazon eventually relented. But many other people and ideas are still being suppressed.
Methinks it's time for Congress to invite Jeff Bezos in for a chat.
Something to think on …
You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.
— James Thurber, born on this date in 1894
Monday, December 07, 2020
Because their aim is no longer freedom, but power?
… Why Do Progressives No Longer Defend Free Expression?
So, the First Amendment of the once-freest nation in the world is comatose. This time its enemies are not hooded Klansmen seeking to intimidate African Americans or right-wing conspiracy theorists rooting out supposed communists.
No, the culprits are progressives and leftist elites in publishing, the media, Silicon Valley, academia, entertainment, and government. They so lack confidence in the logic and persuasiveness of their own arguments that, in fear, they increasingly try to ban whatever bothers them.
I think they are going to be facing some serious pushback. And the people pushing back may just prove to be tougher than the "Progressives" flatter themselves that they are.
Something I forgot …
Yesterday was the Second Sunday of Advent. I should have posted this week before that.
Advent
The leaves are fallen, but the sky is clear
(Though winter’s scheduling an arctic flight).
The rumor is a rendezvous draws near.
Some say a telling sign will soon appear,
Though evidence this may be so is slight:
The leaves are fallen, but the sky is clear.
Pale skeptics may be perfectly sincere
To postulate no ground for hope, despite
The rumor that a rendezvous draws near.
More enterprising souls may shed a tear
And, looking up, behold a striking light:
The leaves are fallen, but the sky is clear.
The king, his courtiers, and priests, all fear
Arrival of a challenge to their might:
The rumor is a rendezvous draws near.
The wise in search of something all can cheer
May not rely on ordinary sight:
The leaves are fallen, but the sky is clear.
Within a common place may rest one dear
To all who yearn to see the world made right.
The leaves are fallen, but the sky is clear.
The rumor is a rendezvous draws near.
Appreciation …
… Natural Selection | an essay on Carmine Starnino's Dirty Words: Selected Poems by Jim Johnstone - The Manchester Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
An incisive critic, Starnino has positioned himself as a tastemaker who isn’t shy about making value judgements or sharing his poetic sensibilities. His era-defining anthology, The New Canon, made waves when it was published in 2005, and is still the most rigorous compilation of Canadian poetry published in the new century. But Starnino’s work as an editor and critic—borne of a love of the art, and picking up where essayists like Eric Ormsby and David Solway left off—has to some extent coloured the reception of everything else he’s done. This includes his poetry, which has been lauded for its “wit and nuance” (Abby Paige), “relishing puns” (George Elliott Clarke), and being “emotionally compelling” (David Godkin), but has also been judged “boring” (Jacob Bachinger), or worse, in a conspicuous review by Lynn Crosbie, “weak and gutless.” Both the Bachinger and Crosbie quotes come from articles that reference Starnino’s critical practise, illustrating how his work in multiple genres can be conflated, or at least produce bias.
Things in heaven and earth …
… Reviews and Reflections: Speaking to the dead with Arthur Conan Doyle.
But, as Thoreau said on his deathbed. "One world at a time."
Grace and the grotesque …
… Lessons from Flannery O'Connor | Dominicana. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
O’Connor recognized that the world is not a fairy tale. She unabashedly exposed its grotesqueness and, at the same time, revealed the grace at work in it. Her writings clearly show that she understood the dynamic of grace and nature: “The fiction writer presents mystery through manners, grace through nature, but when he finishes there always has to be left over that sense of Mystery which cannot be accounted for by any human formula” (Ibid.). In other words, O’Connor knew that what makes the grotesque so captivating is the way God uses it.
What every Catholic should know …
… Mr. Biden and the Matter of Scandal | Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. | First Things.
Public figures who identify as “Catholic” give scandal to the faithful when receiving Communion by creating the impression that the moral laws of the Church are optional. And bishops give similar scandal by not speaking up publicly about the issue and danger of sacrilege.
Something to think on …
It takes a great deal of experience to become natural.
— Willa Cather, born on this date in 1875
A hero’s tale for Pearl Harbor Day …
… Doris Miller | Biography, Facts, & Role at Pearl Harbor | Britannica.
Amazing that nobody has made a movie about him.
Sunday, December 06, 2020
Appreciation …
… Elizabeth Bishop’s class at Harvard: “She wanted us to see poems, not ideas,” says Dana Gioia.
“Memorize poems?” one of the dismayed students asked. “But why?” Miss Bishop’s reply was modest and sincere. “So that you’ll learn something in spite of me.”
Something to think on …
On every level of life, from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgment and efforts to get things done, hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur.
— Evelyn Underhill, born on this date in 1875
Saturday, December 05, 2020
God bless him …
… Have You Told Van Morrison Lately That You Love Him? | The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.
Of course, people in our generation had balls.
A season’s gifts …
… First Known When Lost: Late.
As ever in the World of beautiful particulars, departures are followed by arrivals, there is no loss without an attendant gain.
A very scary and very contemporary tale …
… Work Ethic.
The con man promised me a job. A job that would pay my rent and carry me through 2021. It turned out to be a lie and a scam. I learned later that the guy had bamboozled three other people. He used a Gmail and a Telegram account. I reported the account to both. But, of course, I never received an acknowledgment from either company. And there is, of course, no phone number at either Google or Telegram that I can call. No person I can speak to. That’s how these scammers operate. They find the services in which they can’t be shut down because these libertarian techbros believe they know best and extirpate all customer service options. And the scammers steal from victims with impunity.
Mark thy calendat …
THE GREEN LINE CAFÉ POETRY SERIES on ZOOM
Tuesday, December 15, 2020, 6-7:30 PMEST
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8796
Meeting ID: 879 6952 2062
Passcode: 235328
Leonard Gontarek
reading from his new book
The Paris Poems Of Jim Morrison
James Feichthaler
reading from his new book of poems
The Rise of the COVFEFE
Presented by POETRY IN COMMON, Peace/Works & The Green Line Café
Philadelphia PA USA
Purchase The Paris Poems Of Jim Morrison here:
https://moonstone-arts-center.
You can purchase "The Rise of the COVFEFE" here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08L
The new sentimentalism …
… The Real and the Bogus - Taki's Magazine - Taki's Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Oscar Wilde said that only a man with a heart of stone could read of the death of Little Nell without laughing. But sentimentality comes in many forms, and one of them, nowadays the most prevalent, is the deliberate elevation of emotion over thought.
It is also fashionable these days to be afraid. We live in unbecoming times.
Of a piece with the times …
… Our Literary Drought | National Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull)
Perhaps a great part of the absence of powerful literary talent in our day is explained by the loss of attention span sparked by the many forms of distraction now everywhere available — distraction that puts literary endeavor into the shade, if not shadow. One such distraction has been politics. Several American magazines that once were thought of as general-interest publications — among them The Atlantic, Harper’s, most sadly The New Yorker — have given over more and more of their space to politics, to the detriment of their former cultural and literary interests. The Trump years have intensified this tendency. Reading these magazines in their current incarnations often feels like nothing so much as watching CNN or MSNBC, on the page instead of the screen, which is not all that edifying an experience.
It isn't just literature, though. It's all of the arts. How many pople know who Anselm Kiefer is?
Something to think on …
The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.
— Werner Heisenberg, born on this date in 1901
Friday, December 04, 2020
J. P. Donleavy
I don't know much about J. P. Donleavy, but I do know one thing: his Ginger Man is an exceptional novel. Set in Ireland in the aftermath of the Second World War, this is a lewd, lascivious book; it's one brimming with humor and jest, but it's also one full of violence and poverty. The Ginger Man hit me like a ton of bricks -- largely because it's so successful in its attempt to chart a path down the ladder, to show how beholden we are to money, and how committed we remain, despite our penury, to a sense of humanity. For me, Ginger Man was part Down and Out in London, and part Tropic of Cancer: there was that element of want and anger captured by Orwell, and yet, at the same time, there was an equal focus the sexuality and physical impulse made famous by Miller. The result is a novel which moves with unrelenting speed, which dares levity in the face of darkness, and which depicts, I'm sure, a representative image of Dublin following the war. This is a novel to be wrestled with, yes. But mostly, it's a novel to be savored and enjoyed.
Not typical of Hollywood …
… Oliver Stone, America Firster | The American Conservative. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
At root, Oliver Stone is a patriot who despises the American Empire for corrupting his country. JFK, his fantasia on the Deep State, echoes Dwight Eisenhower’s warning that “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence” by “the military-industrial complex.” Platoonand Salvador bespeak an old-fangled American anti-interventionism in an age when that tendency, once the default position of ordinary Americans, is a virtual thoughtcrime.
Something more than a nature poet …
… Andrew Young’s Real Info. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
“The Slow Race” is what we might call a light poem. It is not particularly philosophical, even if the river is life, and the walking is living. Yet, there is something right in Young’s description of the river, even if we have never seen it. The weir is a comb. The water is silver hair. The river is weighted down with “sky and earth.” A “flawed” turn does push the river back. Something true and irreducible about the inner qualities of the observable world has been stated.
Something to think on …
God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night. These are the words we dimly hear: You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. Flare up like a flame and make big shadows I can move in. Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don't let yourself lose me. Nearby is the country they call life. You will know it by its seriousness. Give me your hand.
— Rainer Maria Rilke, born on this date in 1875
Thursday, December 03, 2020
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