Friday, September 02, 2016
Centenary …
… Harold Mohn, World War II vet, poet turns 100 | News | witf.org. (Hat tip, G. E. Reutter.)
No indifference in this case, though …
… Algeria: 2-Year Sentence for Facebook Poem | Human Rights Watch. ((Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Judging what's on the tube …
… Review: Clive James, ‘Play All: A Bingewatcher’s Notebook’. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
The proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.
— J. R. R. Tolkien, who died on this date in 1973
Thursday, September 01, 2016
Well, I sure in hell would …
… Colorado professors advise students to drop class if they question climate change - Washington Times.
I'd probably also start looking for another college. God knows where they find clowns like this. If these people want to teach dogma, they should take up theology.
I'd probably also start looking for another college. God knows where they find clowns like this. If these people want to teach dogma, they should take up theology.
Hmm …
… ‘The Relic Master,’ by Christopher Buckley | Brandywine Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Well, I trust Lars's judgment, but as for Christopher Buckley, if he is a lapsed Catholic, it's probably because he's been mauvaise foi for quite some time.
Well, I trust Lars's judgment, but as for Christopher Buckley, if he is a lapsed Catholic, it's probably because he's been mauvaise foi for quite some time.
Large questions …
… Solitary Praxis: Emily Dickinson on the Soul's distinct connection with immortality.
I haven't the time just now to address the question raised in Tim's post. But I am pretty much in agreement with Thomas Aquinas on the matter. Recently, moreover, I had an experience that convinced me at least that there is a soul and that it is not identical with the body.
I haven't the time just now to address the question raised in Tim's post. But I am pretty much in agreement with Thomas Aquinas on the matter. Recently, moreover, I had an experience that convinced me at least that there is a soul and that it is not identical with the body.
Genuine outsider …
… Albion Awakening: Colin Wilson and the English. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
When Wilson's first book (The Outsider) came out, I think it was misunderstood to be in the despair-inducing tradition of Continental existentialism; which the Establishment was keen to promote. But when it became clear, with Religion and the Rebel, that Wilson was seeking a new spiritual and religious energy and optimism - then the attempt was made to demoralise him by a mixture of shunning and mocking.
Something to think on …
The single fact of existing is already a true happiness.
— Blaise Cendrars, born on this date in 1887
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Portrait of an artist …
… Obscured American: Felix the Artist, Ex-Grocer and Ex-Hospital Worker - The Unz Review.
I know Felix. His work is authentic and original. It deserves to be better known.
I know Felix. His work is authentic and original. It deserves to be better known.
Federal stupidity …
… zmkc: Born in the USA.
If this woman's parents were not citizens of the US, neither is she, whether she was born here or not. Is my country claiming that anyone born on our soil is a citizen? That would be news to everyone. Surely, there must be some Australian authority who can intervene on this lady's behalf — and maybe suggest the law be corrected. This must be another example of our increasingly shabby political class passing a law before bothering to read it.
Something to think on …
The child who concentrates is immensely happy.
— Maria Montessori, born on this date in 1870
Let those who can read, read …
… No, the national anthem is not about slavery | Brandywine Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Earning trust …
… Anecdotal Evidence: `The White Light of Idleness'.
I think I have mentioned before that I once introduced Geoffrey Hill at a reading he gave at the the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan. He told the audience at one point not to bother themselves too much with his allusions, that he sometimes forgot them himself. He thought it best to just read the poems on their own terms, and that the allusions would take care of themselves sooner or later.
Blogging post …
I am in a waiting room at Pennsylvania Hospital. My wife is scheduled to have cataract surgery shortly. Blogging is likely to be spotty.
Hmm …
… Paradoxes logical and literary | OUPblog. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Now, at first glance we might think that this second, literary notion of paradoxicality has little to offer the logician – after all, it is a literary notion, not a logical on. But the opposite is in fact true. We can see this by considering the Literary Liar:
“This sentence is not a paradoxL”
The Literary Liar is either uncontroversially true, and hence is neither kind of paradox, or it is a paradoxP (and henceforth neither true nor false), but not a paradoxL.I don't get this. The sentence doesn't sound like a paradox to me, and admits as much.
Hmm …
… Illusion of Choice: The Myth of Free Will | Psychology Today.
Libet et al.2 authored a study in the early 1980s that has served as an academic foundation for years of subsequent research into the question of free will. I essentially replicated the experimental design when I asked you to arbitrarily choose an eye to wink.
Libet et al.2 authored a study in the early 1980s that has served as an academic foundation for years of subsequent research into the question of free will. I essentially replicated the experimental design when I asked you to arbitrarily choose an eye to wink.
Findings from Libet’s experiment demonstrated that the conscious experience of having chosen a particular arm to raise occurred nearly 500 milliseconds after neural mechanisms involved in arm raising had already begun the process.2
Haggard and Eimer3 updated this experimental design and showed that the conscious experience of having initiated a voluntary action coincided not with the neural preparation for the action, but instead occurred later during the actual execution of the action. In other words, Haggard and Eimer showed that your brain chose which eye to wink before both your eye winked and before you had the conscious experience of having made a choice between left and right.
I chose not to wink at all. Explain that.
Coupling …
… Poet explores the explosive potential of the bikini | PBS NewsHour. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Getting the news in line …
… How Does the Language of Headlines Work? The Answer May Surprise You. | JSTOR Daily. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I wrote headlines for quite a few years, and my only journalism award was for writing. But I never thought about them much, probably because it would have interfered with writing them.
I wrote headlines for quite a few years, and my only journalism award was for writing. But I never thought about them much, probably because it would have interfered with writing them.
Something to think on …
Mental events such as perceivings, rememberings, decisions, and actions resist capture in the net of physical theory.
— Donald Davidson, who died on this date in 2003
Monday, August 29, 2016
Much in what he says …
… We Don’t Know What We Are Talking About When We talk about Religion – Medium. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
That the word religion is used in all sorts of imprecise ways, even by those who think of themselves as religious, is certainly true. But I think Rudolf Otto was on to something in The Idea of the Holy. For Otto, religion is grounded in an experience of the numinous, what he calls the mysterium tremendum et fascinans, the fearful and fascinating mystery of the Wholly Other, which inspires fear because of its power, but fascinates because it is merciful.
Something completely different …
… which is what language may be: In Tom Wolfe's 'Kingdom,' Speech Is The One Weird Trick : NPR. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Sic transit …
… Is It Here to Stay? — Rock'n'Roll Considered | commentary. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I was 14 when Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" was released. I routinely turned on Bandstand when I came home from school (I watched it before Dick Clark became its host). So I think it fair to consider myself as having been present at the creation of rock music. And I certainly listened to enough of it. But I find, now that I am an old man, that it is the music I heard before rock came along — music that I heard when I was very young, the music of the '40s and early '50s — that I listen to more and more. Go figure.
Nothing stays popular forever, and by the ’90s, rock had in turn been supplanted by hip-hop as America’s top-selling pop-music genre. But the splintering of our common culture prevented hip-hop from developing into the new lingua franca. Instead, we now have many popular musics, none of which has anything remotely approaching the cultural dominance that was enjoyed by rock and roll for more than a quarter-century.
I was 14 when Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" was released. I routinely turned on Bandstand when I came home from school (I watched it before Dick Clark became its host). So I think it fair to consider myself as having been present at the creation of rock music. And I certainly listened to enough of it. But I find, now that I am an old man, that it is the music I heard before rock came along — music that I heard when I was very young, the music of the '40s and early '50s — that I listen to more and more. Go figure.
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Take the longer way …
… Ayahuasca, Plato, and this summer of drugs - Philosophy and Life.
Well, I certainly did my share of drugs back in the day. Just about any you'd care to name (including the hard ones). But I can't say I ever experienced anything particularly transcendent from them. Pleasant times, good highs, little more than that. I get far more now from the active prayer life I have finally managed to achieve. I am surprised almost every day.
Act of gratitude …
… for Geoffrey Hill: Anecdotal Evidence: `I Have Not Finished'.
I have been reading Hill's The Mystery and Charity of Charles Peguy. I met Hill once, and reviewed The Orchards of Syon.
I have been reading Hill's The Mystery and Charity of Charles Peguy. I met Hill once, and reviewed The Orchards of Syon.
Saturday, August 27, 2016
A poem
Discernment
Amid the darkness place the sun,
That veteran god, from deepest night
Evoking brightest day. Make plain
Imagination’s gestures are
But acts of faith, and loss of faith
An absence of imagination.
Merely perceiving misperceives:
We must invite what the eye bears —
Sunflower, catbird, passing cloud —
Into the heart's sanctuary,
And watch while revelation flares.
Masterful …
… At Home with the Irrational by Glen Baxter | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
That piece "Paying Attention" is extraordinarily well-crafted.
A lovely volume …
… Nigeness: Bird, Beast and Flower.
I just bought a copy for 16 cents (of course, the shipping charges are much greater).
I just bought a copy for 16 cents (of course, the shipping charges are much greater).
Faith and doubt …
… Solitary Praxis: Emily Dickinson on religion.
I think this is her way of saying what Cardinal Newman said: "Faith means being capable of bearing doubt." But doubt is always subordinate to faith.
I think this is her way of saying what Cardinal Newman said: "Faith means being capable of bearing doubt." But doubt is always subordinate to faith.
'Twas ever thus …
… The Bloody History of the True Crime Genre | JSTOR Daily. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Between 1550 and 1700, British authors and printers produced an unprecedented number of publications that reported on capital crimes. As literacy rates expanded and new print technologies emerged, topical leaflets began to circulate among newly literate and semiliterate consumers. Hundreds of crime pamphlets—short, unbound books of roughly six to 24 pages, usually detailing horrific murders—circulated during this era. But these pamphlets were not the sole form of crime reportage. Ballads—narrative verses recounting the dastardly deeds of England’s Most Notorious—were printed on broadsides and posted around cities and towns. Trial accounts also provided a broad swath of society with details of juridical proceedings.
Something to think on …
With a few flowers in my garden, half a dozen pictures and some books, I live without envy.
— Lope de Vega, who died on this date in 1635
Friday, August 26, 2016
Hmm …
… How climate change challenged, then strengthened my faith (COMMENTARY) | Religion News Service. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Most Scientific Findings Are Wrong or Useless. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Or:
She sees a bogus documentary produced by a failed politician and takes that as science. Someone should remind her that she lives on a planet that revolves around a star and that there have been several geologic epochs characterized by different climatic features. This is ignorant sentimentality mistaken for religious faith. Has she ever gardened? It's a good way of getting a real feel for weather. Perhaps she should read this:
Most Scientific Findings Are Wrong or Useless. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A 2015 editorial in The Lancet observed that "much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue." A 2015 British Academy of Medical Sciences report suggested that the false discovery rate in some areas of biomedicine could be as high as 69 percent. In an email exchange with me, the Stanford biostatistician John Ioannidis estimated that the non-replication rates in biomedical observational and preclinical studies could be as high as 90 percent.
Or:
Consider climate change. "The vaunted scientific consensus around climate change," notes Sarewitz, "applies only to a narrow claim about the discernible human impact on global warming. The minute you get into questions about the rate and severity of future impacts, or the costs of and best pathways for addressing them, no semblance of consensus among experts remains." Nevertheless, climate "models spew out endless streams of trans-scientific facts that allow for claims and counterclaims, all apparently sanctioned by science, about how urgent the problem is and what needs to be done."
Blogging note …
I have obligations to meet this morning. So my blogging will resume sometime this afternoon.
Hmm …
… 18 More Classic Literature Characters Who Will Bamboozle You With Their Gay Gayness | Autostraddle. (Hat tip, G. E. Reutter.)
I think some of them are a stretch.
I think some of them are a stretch.
Hmm …
… Beyond Radical Secularism: How France and the Christian West Should Respond to the Islamic Challenge - VoegelinView. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… the first thing I want to note about this topic is how many people will reflexively reject the idea that there is any such topic worth discussing. “French Muslims,” they will say, “are no different then any other French person: they are rights-bearing individuals who are citizens of the French nation, and more importantly, of Europe. And even to suggest that there could be some issue of the relationship of the French nation as such to the Muslim community as such is probably an indication of racism or Islamaphobia.”
But Manent sees such a response as a symptom of an ideological delusion, a deliberate refusal to look at reality. France is an historical entity, not an abstraction, and to be French is much more than to simply possess certain rights. And Muslims do not see themselves as atomic individuals adrift in a Gallic sea of other atomic individuals, but as members of a community of believers, the Ummah, who together share a moral way of life. Thus, the secular liberal response of denying there can even be an issue of how the nation of France relates to its Muslim population is doubly false, and starting, even with great intentions, from a doubly false view of a situation, one typically only makes a further botch of it, like one who is trying to operate on his pet frog, with his eyes closed, while repeating to himself that the frog is actually a pocket watch.
Thursday, August 25, 2016
So very true …
… With Perry Como’s Music, Dig Deeper Than ‘Hot Diggity’ - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Actually, I remember liking "Hot Diggity" when it came out (I was 14 — and yes the tune is derived from Chabrier's España). As the sales indicate, so did lots of other people. Nothing wrong with "Silly Love Songs," right? By the way, I once dated a young lady who grew up next door to the Comos in Port Washington, NY. Apparently, he was just as he seemed — laid-back, kind, and unassuming. An exemplary Catholic, too, I gather.
… there was nothing somnolent about Como’s unassuming, soft-spoken vocalism, which was intensely musical. His phrasing was unostentatiously elegant, his diction flawless, and though he wasn’t a jazz singer, he floated atop the beat so effortlessly that he was able to sing Brazilian bossa-nova songs like Antônio Carlos Jobim’s “Dindi” and “Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars” with the same unhurried poise that he brought to the pre-rock standards that he loved best.Here's some proof:
Actually, I remember liking "Hot Diggity" when it came out (I was 14 — and yes the tune is derived from Chabrier's España). As the sales indicate, so did lots of other people. Nothing wrong with "Silly Love Songs," right? By the way, I once dated a young lady who grew up next door to the Comos in Port Washington, NY. Apparently, he was just as he seemed — laid-back, kind, and unassuming. An exemplary Catholic, too, I gather.
Good for them …
… Univ. of Chicago pushes back on trigger warnings, safe spaces | Intellectual Takeout. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so called ‘trigger warnings,’ we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.
Connecting with Jesus …
… By the Light of the Cross: Christian Wiman’s “My Bright Abyss”. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Our moments of contact with God are often moments when we notice that we are being perceived and comprehended by Someone outside ourselves.
Hmm …
… Better To Reign In Hell: Literature's Unpunished Villains : NPR. (Hat tip, G. E. Reutter.)
I think what we have here is a standard misreading of Milton, whose Satan is certainly interesting, but gets away with nothing. He demonstrates C. S. Lewis's point that the door to Hell is locked from the inside.
What exactly is she getting at?
… Solitary Praxis: Emily Dickinson on a puzzling, pushing, piercing, puncturing anguish.
I think the only way to get to the bottom of a poem like this is to treat it as Alan Watts said we should regard a Zen koan: as a pebble dropped in the well if the mind.
I think the only way to get to the bottom of a poem like this is to treat it as Alan Watts said we should regard a Zen koan: as a pebble dropped in the well if the mind.
Begging to differ …
… Cynthia Ozick Has Issues — And So Do We - Culture – Forward.com. (Hat tip,
Dave Lull.)
Dave Lull.)
I’d like to say these judgments remind me of Edmund Wilson, and not in a good way; his 1945 New Yorker essay “Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?” dismissed crime fiction in similarly elitist terms, as “a kind of vice that, for silliness and minor harmfulness, ranks somewhere between smoking and crossword puzzles.” But then, such a comparison relies on precisely the sort of equivalencies that Ozick claims reviewers (as opposed to critics) are not equipped to identify.
Seaside reading …
… Top 10 seaside novels | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
John Banville's The Sea is a wonderful book.
John Banville's The Sea is a wonderful book.
Something to think on …
What of us lies in the hearts of others is our truest and deepest self.
— Johann Gottfried Herder, born on this date in 1744
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Perhaps of interest …
I learned today how to post links to Google docs that I choose to publish. The Inquirer has long since erased the complete version of an interview I did of Michael Crichton some years ago, though the print version (which can still be found online) refers readers to it.
Well, here is the full text.
Well, here is the full text.
God's mysterious ways …
…Charming Billy and Me | City Journal. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Returning to a book that you love can be risky. Time and experience distort memory. A reader matures, his perspective changes, but the other members of McDermott’s holy trinity—writer and narrator—remain as they always were, preserved between paper covers in black and white. When I read Charming Billy again, a decade had passed since the whimpering conclusion of my Hollywood adventure. I’d practically become a different person in the intervening years. My politics had changed, as had my career ambitions. I’d married and fathered a child. I was on my way back to the Catholic Church. Feeling the weight of expectation, dreading the possibility of failure, I was again in the market for something on which to anchor myself.
Hmm …
… Pew: Americans giving up on God, miracles | Washington Examiner.
As Somerset Maugham said, "Most people think little."
As Somerset Maugham said, "Most people think little."
What poetry is …
… Solitary Praxis: "The Poet and the Golem" by Marly Youmans.
Even I am not so glib as to offer commentary on such as this after a single reading. This must be lived with for a while.
Even I am not so glib as to offer commentary on such as this after a single reading. This must be lived with for a while.
Time present and time past …
… About Last Night | TT: Ghost world.
As I walked into the theater, I realized that it had been thirty-four years to the day since I’d last seen a performance of The Fantasticks. I always meant to catch it at the Sullivan Street Playhouse but never got around to doing so, just as I’ve never been to Radio City Music Hall or the Central Park Zoo. Like most New Yorkers, I figured it would run forever, and so took its existence for granted until it was too late.
Certain words …
… First Known When Lost: Songs.
As I have noted here in the past, the choice is ours to make: we can live in an enchanted World or in a disenchanted World. Although, come to think of it, I'm not sure that this is a matter of choice. One feels that there issomething immanent within, beneath, and behind the beautiful surface of the World or one does not. I do not say this in a judgmental fashion. Our emotional sense of how we fit into the World is a wholly mysterious thing, and I am only qualified to speak of how the World feels to me.
The word's the thing …
… On Self-Translation - Los Angeles Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… it isn’t enough to learn a language; one must internalize it, make it fully one’s own. We internalize a language when we organize the world around us based on its parameters. It isn’t that we know words to describe things but that things come to us through their respective words. This is only achieved through time, by letting oneself be absorbed (and, maybe, absolved) by a language’s metabolism.
The subject was consciousness …
… Friday Afternoon in the Universe — The Barnes & Noble Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… Old Angel Midnight is a record of listening, of hearing beyond, or beneath, language, of seeking to engage a cosmic beat.It seems that Kerouac's star is again on the rise.
Something to think on …
Anything that is worth doing has been done frequently. Things hitherto undone should be given, I suspect, a wide berth.
— Max Beerbohm, born on this date in 1872
Hmm …
… Hot Tomorrow: The Urgency and Beauty of Cli-Fi — The Barnes & Noble Review.
On the other hand, there's this and this.
On the other hand, there's this and this.
It is also worth noting that one of the first cli-fi books (though the name hadn't been coined yet) — Michael Crichton's State of Fear — was critical of climate fear-mongering. And Crichton had some actual scientific credentials, a medical degree and a degree in anthropology.
Speaking of State of Fear, here is my review of it.
Speaking of State of Fear, here is my review of it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)