Tuesday, May 11, 2021
Good idea …
… Instead Of Canceling 'Snow White,' Learn To Read Fairy Tales.
The very obvious response is that if the prince hadn’t kissed Snow White, she would have remained asleep for all eternity, which is, you know, bad. Satire site The Babylon Bee ran the hilarious headline, “Disney To Remove Problematic Kiss From Classic Movie, Snow White Will Now Remain Dead.”
Standing up
… Brearley dad urges parents to fight 'antiracism' in schools.
This is not an academic debate between liberals and conservatives or a political skirmish between Republicans and Democrats. This is a fight for the soul and for the future of our country. If we lose this battle, I fear that we risk losing the freedoms and the prosperity we take for granted, and eventually I believe our country will fracture. And make no mistake: We are losing this battle. We are losing in our schools and universities, in our corporations and workplaces, in our government and military, and in the media and online.
Monday, May 10, 2021
The dark side of journalism …
… How Mollie Hemingway Time-Traveled to Stymie the New York Times and Save Our Timeline | The Stream.
A new book puts this incident in grim historical context. Go get The Gray Lady Winked: How the New York Times’s Misreporting, Distortions and Fabrications Radically Alter History. It shows how reporters for the New York Times have been actively changing history by manipulating stories for over a century. They could have done it again in the fall of 2019. Except that Hemingway prevented it. She saved a sitting Supreme Court justice from getting destroyed by slander.
Bizarre …
… “Tomato is a vegetable, not a fruit,” says Supreme Court.
I’ll stick with the botanical definition.
Hmm …
… Bruce Springsteen’s Glory Days. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
“In Catholicism, there existed the poetry, danger and darkness that reflected my imagination and my inner self,” Springsteen wrote in his 2016 memoir, Born to Run. More than anything else, the tension of Springsteen’s Catholic upbringing – and its complex resonance through his life – has sustained his art. Letter to You, released in October 2020, is Springsteen’s most spiritual album yet, and reveals that he is one of the essential contemporary Catholic artists.
I'm not sure I’d go that far. But I’ll leave it up to God.
The pursuit of awe …
… Church of One: A review of American Divine by Aaron Poochigian by Andrew Frisardi. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The subject matter of Poochigian’s poems can be anything he observes in his surroundings – urban, suburban, or rural. They are often autobiographical, although, after his first collection, The Cosmic Purr (2012), seldom “confessional” in the sense of psychologically probing or memoirish.
Something to think on …
The person who knows only his side of the argument knows little of that.
— Karl Barth, born on this date in 1886
Sunday, May 09, 2021
Encounter …
… ‘My Dinner with Larry’: Steve Glines recalls a dinner with poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Q&A …
… James Matthew Wilson Lights A Candle | The American Conservative. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Many of the conventions of contemporary literary writing are unsatisfactory and uninspiring, however, and much of the academy, as is only too well known, is hostile both to a classical vision of the liberal and fine arts and to a Christian vision of the world.
Something to think on …
The metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man.
— Jose Ortega y Gasset, born on this date in 1883
A charmed life …
… NEW TITLE, SAME BOSS. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
“Monsignor,” said my grandfather, before correcting himself, “I’m sorry, I mean Bishop!”
“That’s all right,” said Sheen magnanimously, “New title, same boss.”
Please note.
Saturday, May 08, 2021
Hmm …
"I never thought I'd live to see the day when the right wing would become the cool ones giving the middle finger to the establishment, and the left wing become the sniveling self-righteous twatty ones going around shaming everyone."
— John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten of The Sex Pistols
I, however, will continue to refer …
… to my mother as my mother, thank you very much: The Democratic Party Wishes You a Happy 'Birthing People' Day.
This sort of thing deserves relentless ridicule.
Lovely …
… The Gardener 85 by Rabindranath Tagore | Poetry Foundation. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Yesterday was the 160th anniversary of Tagore’s birth.
Trying to make it …
… On the Friendship and Rivalry of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
… in 1950s America, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton met for the first time. Both were emerging poets, and both were hugely ambitious women in a cultural moment that did not know how to deal with ambitious women. They realized that to pursue their desire to be writers would require determination, energy, and resilience. Operating in a male-dominated discipline was not easy, and their rebellion against the status quo seethed just below the surface.
Something to think on …
It's impossible to lose your footing when you're on your knees.
— Fulton Sheen, born on this date in 1895
Friday, May 07, 2021
Brilliant …
… The American Graduate (2020) - Intercollegiate Studies Institute. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
For a little perspective see this.
Something to think on …
Beauty is simply reality seen with the eyes of love.
— Rabindranath Tagore, born on this date in 1861
Hmm …
… In defense of William Logan’s criticism. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I tend to find Logan’s criticism predictable and pedantic. Everything he weighs in his balance is found wanting.
Thursday, May 06, 2021
Goethe
I won't attempt here to analyze Goethe's Faust: the academic corpus surrounding this important work is extensive. That said, I'd like to offer a response to the Oxford edition of Part One: Goethe's play -- if that's what it can be called -- was more poetic that I was expecting. And for David Luke to translate this work so effectively is truly something to be celebrated. I can't imagine it's easy to translate eighteenth and early nineteenth century German in modern English, but that's exactly what Luke has done. I found Faust to be full of life: Goethe's language and characters are defined in equal measure by their movement, their sense of momentum. Again, I won't pretend to offer an academic analysis of Part One; I'll only say how surprised I was by the play: both in terms of how approachable I found it to be, but also in terms of how much I enjoyed its attempts at moral conjecture. This is a piece rich with European tradition and culture. I'm committed -- I think I am, at least -- to Part Two.
Hear, hear …
… In defense of dandelions - The Spectator. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Wordsworth may have been banging on about daffodils, but there is no objective reason why a dandelion, which supports far more wildlife than a daffodil, should be considered lesser.
The rise of photography …
… Obscura No More: How photography rose from the margins of the art world to occupy its vital center. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
From the medium’s beginnings, starting in 1839, photographers sought to have their work recognized as art. Indeed, the modern history of photography has been written as a kind of pilgrim’s tale, a major plotline of which is a progressive discovery of the medium’s unique artistic nature following a series of unsatisfying imitative encounters with the arts of painting and drawing.
Something to think on …
Our spaceship is a tiny bubble in a glass of God.
— Harry Martinson, born on this date in 1904
Wednesday, May 05, 2021
Sounds promising …
… 'Deplorable' professor creates 'anti-indoctrination mill' with new education startup | Just The News. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
American Scholars will "challenge the ideologies that are being purveyed" in mainstream schools, including critical race theory, postmodernism and socialism, he said. It wants to prepare students for the "political outlook" they are likely to face in college.
Hmm …
… EXCLUSIVE: Classified study found COVID-19 could have originated in Chinese lab | WJLA.
… Chinese leaders “have not been forthcoming through this process,” and that U.S. analysis “is not based on an assumption that what they say is true.”
Something to think on …
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
— Søren Kierkegaard, born on this date in 1830
Rejected no longer …
‘He’s got a wee spring in his step’: 92-year-old grandfather becomes bestselling poet. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
McCulloch’s son William told the Guardian that his father was “over the moon” at the sales. “He has been writing poetry for years, and sent it to different places, but always got rejected,” he said.
Tuesday, May 04, 2021
Blogging note …
I have to take Debbie to a doctor's appointment/ So I won't be blogging again until later.
Reason to hope …
… Capitalist Havens of Free Speech | City Journal. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… After [Andrew] Sullivan left New York, he quickly attracted some 60,000 subscribers to his new newsletter on the independent online platform Substack; he more than doubled the income he was earning at the magazine, he said. One media critic described Sullivan’s success as “gut curdling” to other journalists. Substack reportedly recruited Yglesias, offering him a hefty advance to join after news of his clashes within Vox emerged. Among the other popular features on Substack are Mounk’s free-speech newsletter Persuasion, which aims “to persuade, rather than to mock or troll, those who disagree with us” and gained about 25,000 subscribers just weeks after it debuted in April 2020; and former Rolling Stonereporter Matt Taibbi’s widely read media criticism, published under the rubric TK News.
Smile, though your heart is aching …
… Paul Davis On Crime: A Little Humor: Olongapo R&R.
Olongapo in 1971 was Dodge City, Las Vegas, and Sodom and Gomorrah all rolled into one. Subic Bay was called “Septic Bay,” by the sailors due to the high rate of VD cases.
Something to think on …
Time is, as you are probably aware, merely a convenient fiction. There is no such thing as time.
— E. Nesbit, who died on this date in 1924
RIP …
… The death of the French intellectual - UnHerd.
When the talented Le Figaro columnist, Eugénie Bastié, recently asked Éditions Gallimard’s residing sage Pierre Nora, 89, what he thought of the state of intellectual life in France today, Nora couldn’t find enough epithets to characterise his disdain. “Do we have an intellectual life left? It has collapsed. Well, subsided, really. Shrunk… Ran out of steam… French intellectual life is provincialised.” (And no worse insult is possible from the heart of the Septième Arrondissement.)
In case you don’t remember …
… 50 years of failed doomsday, eco-pocalyptic predictions; the so-called ‘experts’ are 0-50.
More than merely spotlighting the failed predictions, this collection shows that the makers of failed apocalyptic predictions often are individuals holding respected positions in government and science. While such predictions have been and continue to be enthusiastically reported by a media eager for sensational headlines, the failures are typically not revisited.
Monday, May 03, 2021
Papa and the Game …
… The Son Also Rises - BallNine.
In his memoir Papa Hemingway, A. E. Hotchner wrote the author “loved baseball and would go to any game (in Cuba) and occasionally he came to New York just to see a World Series.”
Bittersweet wistfulness and wistful bittersweetness…
… First Known When Lost: April.
April would not be April without its characteristic tinge of melancholy. All of those cherry, plum, and pear petals drifting down beneath a blue sky, carpeting the green grass and the sidewalks. It's wonderful how April and October share a similar bittersweet wistfulness and wistful bittersweetness, isn't it? Every six months, year after year, the falling of petals and the falling of leaves. Trying to tell us something
I just got a copy …
… Memoirs of a Woke Warrior - Daisy Waugh - The Oldie.
It will surprise no one that I am not a fan of wokeness.
But of course …
… Newsalert: The Kentucky Derby bested the Oscars and the SOTU in ratings? Wow.
It had more to offer than just horses’ asses.
Something to think on …
Religion is a way of walking, not a way of talking.
— William Inge, born on this date in 1913
Appreciation …
… In Praise of a Brazen Poet: On the Essays of Kay Ryan, Outsider. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
“Something nonsensical in the heart of poetry is the very reason why one can’t call poetry ‘useful’,” she explains at one point, and then adds, a little later, “This is why Auden and others can say with such confidence that poetry makes nothing happen. That’s the relief of it. And the reason why nothing can substitute for it.” We don’t expect critics to assert such truths anymore, let alone with such confidence. We expect them to “problematize,” to qualify. Ryan’s own confidence, then, is thrillingly anachronistic: obstinate, sure, but warming, too, as if a cast-iron stove were squatting in the middle of that valley.
Sunday, May 02, 2021
Not much blogging today …
After Mass at noon I had to pick some things up for Debbie and bring them to her. I just got back and have some other things to do now.
Something to think on …
If you will it, it is no dream; and if you do not will it, a dream it is and a dream it will stay.
— Theodor Herzl, born on this date in 1860
Saturday, May 01, 2021
Something to think on …
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.
— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, born on this date in 1881
These times …
… A Journey into Mask Country | The American Conservative. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Then it happened. Upon exiting the car in downtown Washington, I had one of those Charlton Heston end-of-civilization epiphanies. Here in the cool spring air were people who actually wore these things outdoors, as a matter of habit. “You maniacs!” I shouted more or less to myself, trying to remember when it had first been established beyond any reasonable doubt that there was no meaningful risk of outdoor transmission of the virus. I stumbled along in a daze past double maskers, a species I assumed were bred only in captivity, and a child wrapped in some kind of translucent garbage bag. Rain began to fall.
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