Friday, December 02, 2022
A movie about poetry …
… Paterson and Poetic Fidelity - Front Porch Republic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I liked the film a lot. I was surprised, though, when some people found the scene near then when Paterson lays out a guy waving a revolver with one punch. A bus driver with a proclivity for poetry? Well, he doess seem also to habeen a cobat veteran in Iraq.
Something to think on …
I am what I am because early in life I decided that I would please at least myself in all things
— Edmond Rostand, who died on this date in 1918
Thursday, December 01, 2022
December Reviews at North of Oxford …
… These Days of Simple Mooring by Florence Weinberger
… The Girl Who Quit at Leviticus by Sueanne Rhodenbaugh.
… Under the Raging Moon – A Drama in Four Acts by Peter Thabit Jones.
… La Clarté Notre-Dame’ and ‘The Last Book of the Madrigals by Philippe Jaccottet (Trans. John Taylor).
… The Vanguards of Holography by Annie Christian.
… New from Poetry Editor, Diane Sahms - City of Shadow & Light (Philadelphia).
… .
A wise priest …
… Fr. Marvin O’Connell: A Historian Who Saw the Past & Future.
O’Connell could be sharp-tongued. He could also be wrong. Several times in the volume he hinted at his own skepticism about the Church’s teaching on contraception. But he also had a bit of the prophet in him. His 1990 address to the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, “An Historical Perspective on Evangelization in the United States: Shifting Concentration of Interest,” looks remarkably prescient three decades later. At a time when Catholics in the United States had achieved a remarkable degree of power and prestige, O’Connell noted the already cratering numbers of priests, baptisms, and weddings. He thought that the American Church had returned to the state of its earliest days—a quest for “survival.”
Wisdom …
… though maybe nor comprehensible to today’s airheads: The Care And Feeding Of The Mind : Jacques Barzun : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.
Something to think on …
Labels are for the things men make, not for men. The most primitive man is too complex to be labeled..
— Rex Stout, borm om this date in 1886
Exactly like us …
… A Poem by Adam Zagajewski: 'A Provincial Roman Town' - The Atlantic. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Wednesday, November 30, 2022
My sentiments exactly …
… A Unified Theory of “Backwardism.”
This sort of either/or thinking is absurd, but they appear to believe this. Such is the only explanation I can conceive for why it is better to close down healthy parishes if the only way they can be salvaged is to fill them with Latin Mass Catholics, or to let seminaries and religious orders die if the only way to perpetuate them is to restore traditional theological or liturgical practices to them. Better to let the Church die off, apparently, than have it fall into the hands of people you think are fundamentally evil.
I am at a loss as to why Jesus doesn’t call the Pontiff home and have s chat. Happily, I remember that Jesus remains the head of the Church. Francis is only a stand-in.
Something to think on
Political correctness does not legislate tolerance; it only organizes hatred.
— Jacques Barzun, born on this date in 1997
Tuesday, November 29, 2022
A nightmare painting …
… Review of "Leopoldstadt," by Tom Stoppard | City Journal. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Politics, for Stoppard, can only go so far in extricating us from the scourge of politics. A playwright preeminently of ideas, in such works as The Real Thing (1982), Arcadia (1993), and The Invention of Love(1997), Stoppard in Leopoldstadt shows his audience the vanity of ideas, especially political ones, when confronted by the monstrous evil of race hatred.
Something to think on …
The most dangerous ideas in a society are not the ones being argued, but the ones that are assumed.
— C. S. Lewis, born on this date in 1898
Monday, November 28, 2022
Hear, hear …
Are their own voices so compelling that the rest of us are expected to listen, heeding advice which overturns two-thousand years of Catholic Christianity? Are the witness of countless saints and scholars, popes and martyrs, to count for nothing? The authority, no less, of Christ Himself, who made provision for none of the changes being proposed today?
Q&A …
… A Universe Reveals Itself From Within: An Interview with Anthony Bukoski — Hypertext Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Over a period from, say, 2007-2012, I’d come to the end of the line. J. W. Beecroft, the independent bookstore which hand-sold my books, closed in late 2007. My beloved editor of eighteen years had tired of my work. Then in 2010, Southern Methodist University Press, my home all those years, suspended operations. Sometime during this period, the midwestern representative for Publishers Weeklyhinted she might profile me for the magazine but instead profiled Marilynne Robinson, a better choice. After publishing four short-story collections with SMU Press, I’d gotten to the end.
Something to think on …
There is nothing more vindictive, nothing more underhanded, than a little world that would like to be a big one.
— Stefan Zweig, born on this date in 1881
Sunday, November 27, 2022
Seems like there may just be …
… Is There a Science of Musical Transformation in Human Life? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
For our purposes here, it’s more important to focus on the two very different ways our competing hemispheres have of changing the world. For the left hemisphere, we change the world by manipulating and controlling it. For the right hemisphere, we go out into the larger environment and transform both ourselves and our world in a way that feels more like merging or transcending. That is precisely the hero’s journey described in this book, and songs are better tools for that transformation than a hammer or a gun.
Something to think on …
As a whole part of "psychological education" it needs to be remembered that a neurosis can be valuable; also that "adjustment" to a sick and insane environment is of itself not "health" but sickness and insanity.
— James Agee, born on this date in 1909
Saturday, November 26, 2022
Birds and a legend …
… A. E. Stallings: Two Poems: Crows in the Wind & The Younger Memnon. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A singular masterwork …
… Cole Porter’s Lasting Song of Longing. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Porter’s unconventional harmonic shift from the first to the second theme surprises the listener. His second delivers a gift: instead of the standard 32 bars, we get 48, heightening the lyric’s expression of passion.
Something to think on …
It is a lesson we all need — to let alone the things that do not concern us. He has other ways for others to follow Him; all do not go by the same path. It is for each of us to learn the path by which He requires us to follow Him, and to follow Him in that path.
— Katharine Drexel, born on this date in 1858
Friday, November 25, 2022
She could well be …
… Therese of Lisieux, dangerous saint - Aleteia.
Therese takes away every excuse, dismissing every good reason we can give for not being holy, for not at least striving after sanctity. She’s proof that great holiness is possible for every soul, and so our lack of sanctity is a matter of our own will, rather than our luck or our circumstances. In other words, Therese’s message is this: If we’re not holy it’s because we don’t want to be.
Something to think on …
To have passed through life and never experienced solitude is to have never known oneself. To have never known oneself is to have never known anyone.
— Joseph Wood Krutch, born on this date in 1893
Anniversary …
… things that matter: His organ donations would lesson the pain of the sermons.
The Holmesburg Library, where I spent a lot of time when I was a kid, was endowed by Carnegie
Just so you know …
… The Ten Best Photography Books of 2022 | Arts & Culture| Smithsonian Magazine. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Appreciation …
… Dr Henry Marsh - Oldie Brainbox of the Year. By Dr Theodore Dalrymple - The Oldie. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Neurosurgery entails what for most of us would be would be an intolerable burden of risk and responsibility; of no type of surgery is it more true that the surgeon should have the eye of a hawk, the heart of a lion and the hand of a lady.
Thursday, November 24, 2022
Wednesday, November 23, 2022
Something to think on …
I’ve carved the puppet, and I manipulate the strings, but while it’s on stage, the show belongs to the puppet.
— Guy Davenport, born on this date in 1927
Tuesday, November 22, 2022
A sad day those alive at the time will always remember…
… things that matter: We all know where we were when it happened.
I was a senior in college chatting with the pretty girl at the school switchboad.
Something to think on …
A patriot without religion in my estimation is as great a paradox as an honest Man without the fear of God. Is it possible that he whom no moral obligations bind, can have any real Good Will towards Men?— Abigail Adams. Born on this date in 1644
Monday, November 21, 2022
Something to think on …
To be a religions man and to pray are really one and the same thing. To join in the thought of God with every thought of any importance that occurs to us ; in all our admiration of external nature, to regard it as the work of His wisdom ; to take counsel with God about all our plans, that we may be able to carry them out in His name ; and even in our most mirthful hours to remember His all-seeing eye ; this is the prayer without ceasing to which we are called, and which is really the essence of true religion.
— Friedrich Schleiermacher, born on this date in 1768
Sunday, November 20, 2022
I will soon be reading them …
… The gospels according to E.V. Rieu - George Hunka. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I just ordered a copy of Rieu’s translation. I have made my way through a chunk of the Gospels in Greek. They are very impressive.but I want to see what Rieu has to ffer. You can never stop learning.
Well worth watching …
… things that matter: Enjoying a detour while reading about the revolution.
I have probably mentioned in the past that I once spent a delightful afternoon at lunch with David McCullough. A genuinely learned gentleman.
I’m afraid so …
… Servility Will Cower to Force - by William F. Vallicella.
And yes the people are ovine and servile and will cower to power. That has been amply demonstrated of late by the masses' mindless donning of useless masks. Don we now our fey apparel! Let us signal our specious virtue and adherence to the party line of Lord Fauci and his minions. And when the party line shifts, we shift with it!
Weighed in the balance …
… and often found wanting: A sentimental education by William Logan | The New Criterion.(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
Nothing on earth can make up for the loss of one who has loved you.
— Selma Lagerlöf, born on this date in 1858
Saturday, November 19, 2022
Q&A …
… Claire Hamner Matturro interviews poet Lola Haskins - Southern Literary Review (Hat tip, Rus Bowden,)
If you think sounding musical and/or stringing turns of phrase together is enough, AI can write poetry. But since for me poetry is so much more than surface effects, I’d argue that it can’t. And that, furthermore, it won’t be able to for a long time, if ever. And why not? Because we don’t know how to code emotion, intuition, and understanding of context. And they’re essential. The first is what makes the reader feel something. The second enables the leaps that when you read them leave you breathless for days. And without the combination of those two and the third, poetic wit and humor would be impossible.
A most interesting story …
… Embracing Grace: Amy Ford Shares A Powerful ‘Pro-Love’ Message.
At the Care Net conference, Ford shared a testimony about the reconciliation that eventually happened with the pastor who refused to marry the young couple when she was first pregnant.
“He asked my husband for forgiveness and said it was the worst mistake he has made as a pastor,” recalled Ford.
A couple of years later, Amy Ford was asked to speak at that pastor’s church for a Mother’s Day service. After she spoke, the pastor asked Ford and her son Jess, who was 16 at the time, for forgiveness in front of his congregation.
“He was very open about what he had done years before. He said that he had a religious spirit, a pharisee heart,” Amy Ford said.
In an apology to Jess Ford, the pastor said, “While you were in your mother’s womb, I rejected you. Will you forgive me?”
“It was such a powerful moment,” Amy Ford said. “You could feel church wounds being lifted in the room. The fact that the pastor would humble himself in that way was so amazing. And he has his own [testimony] about grace and mercy and what God did in his heart.”
In case you wondered …
… The Dirt on Pig-Pen | Elif Batuman. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In the 1954 strips, Schultz establishes the basic rules of Pig-Pen’s dirtiness. Pig-Pen doesn’t dislike baths; he just prefers getting dirty. He doesn’t try to get dirty; he just doesn’t go out of his way to stay clean. Dirtiness, if not precisely an elected state, is one Pig-Pen can initially control — sometimes to fantastical precision. At one point he tricks Patty into leaving him alone by seeming to have washed his face; when she walks away, we see that the other half of his face is dirty.
Something to think on …
Your preschool child will chatter endlessly to you. If you half-listen and half-reply the whole conversation will seem, and become, tediously meaningless for both of you. but if you really listen and really answer, he will talk more and what he says will make more sense— Penelope Leach, born on this date in 1937
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