February 2010
1 post
7 tags
“And he said to me, as one who comprehends:
“Here one must leave behind...”
– Dante, Inferno, Canto III, Lines 13-18
April 2009
1 post
We already see so much
viz:
I walked through the mountains today. The weather was damp, and the entire region was grey. But the road was soft and in places very clean. At first I had my coat on; soon, however, I pulled it off, folded it together, and laid it upon my arm. The walk on the wonderful road gave me more and even more pleasure; first it went up and then descended again. the mountainous world appeared to me...
December 2008
4 posts
“I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.”
– Augusten Burroughs
November 2008
3 posts
“For some time in America we have, of course, been living under Kindergarchy, or...”
– Joseph Epstein (2007) (via viz)
“We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How...”
– Ray Bradbury
Dear Internet,
I need to vent. I met with a freshman student at the University Writing Center (my place of employment) this morning and our consultation was a very frustrating one.
The student brought in a paper for me to “check for grammar.” Her paper began by stating the problem of increased food prices, and that one of the major causes of this was poor people. By feeding poor people all over the world, she...
August 2008
2 posts
“Procrastinators seldom do absolutely nothing; they do marginally useful things,...”
– Structured Procrastination (thanks, Reihan) (via ayjay)
July 2008
4 posts
Why should the devil have all the good beverages? →
Books and Men
If I had been asked in my early youth whether I preferred to have dealings only with men or only with books, my answer would certainly have been in favor of books. In later years this has become less and less the case. Not that I have had so much better experiences with men than with books; on the contrary, purely delightful books even now come my way more often than purely delightful men. But the...
Food For Thought
The proposal, put slightly differently, is that our attitudes toward food—which nourishes and sustains us, which binds us most fundamentally to place, family, market, and community—provide a measure of our respect for what Russell Kirk called the “Permanent Things.” We are not just what we eat but how we eat. The cultivation and consumption of our meals are activities as distinctively human as...
Books to the ceiling, Books to the sky, My pile of books is a mile high. How I love them! How I need them! I’ll have a long beard by the time I read them.
—Arnold Lobel
June 2008
5 posts
How to Mark a Book →
There are three kinds of book owners. The first has all the standard sets and best sellers — unread, untouched. (This deluded individual owns woodpulp and ink, not books.) The second has a great many books — a few of them read through, most of them dipped into, but all of them as clean and shiny as the day they were bought. (This person would probably like to make books his own, but is...
"Just Smelling the Coffee May Wake Up Genes"
If you’re the type of person who perks up in the morning at just the smell of fresh-brewed coffee, you are not alone. There are some laboratory rats you should meet.
While countless studies have looked at what occurs when coffee is drunk, far fewer have examined the effects of sniffing the aroma, which contains many volatile compounds. So Han-Seok Seo of Seoul National University and colleagues...
feelin' bad
The case that things are basically pretty good? Unemployment is 5.5%, low by historical standards; income is rising slightly ahead of inflation; housing prices are down, but the typical house is still worth a third more than in 2000; 94% of Americans do not have threatened mortgages, and of those who do, most will keep their homes.
Inflation was up in 2007, but this stands out because the 16...
On Graduation and All The Rest of It
So here we are: you wondering what I’m going to say next, and me wondering what I can possibly say that you’ll remember as far as the bathroom, let alone next week or next month or on the day that you might actually need it. This whole enterprise of talking, when you consider it from that perspective — not what we can say, but what they will remember — seems so hopeless that I wonder...
May 2008
15 posts
Pierre
[…] Every sphere of work was, in his eyes, bound up with evil and deceit. Whatever he tried to be, whatever he undertook—evil and falsehood repulsed him and barred him from all paths of activity. And yet he had to live, he had to keep busy. It was too frightening to be under the burden of all the insoluble questions of life, and he gave himself to the first amusements that came along, only...
The illusions of television (no. 5 & 6).
And then (5) it’s ultimately of course not even actors we’re espying, not even people: it’s EM-propelled analog waves and ion streams and rear-screen chemical reactions throwing off phosphenes in grids of dots not much more lifelike than Seurat’s own Impressionist commentaries on perceptual illusion. Good Lord and (6) the dots are coming out of our furniture, all we’re really spying on is our own...
Are you not ashamed?
… Are you not ashamed that you give your attention to acquiring as much money as possible, and similarly with reputation and honor, and give no attention or thought to truth and understanding and the perfection of your soul? And if any of you disputes this and professes to care about these things, I shall not at once let him go or leave him. No, I shall question him and examine him and test...
Anatole
When an insecure man is silent at first acquaintance and shows an awareness of the impropriety of this silence and a wish to find something to say, it comes out badly; but Anatole was silent, swung his leg, and cheerfully observed the princess’s hairstyle. It was clear that he could calmly remain silent like that for a very long time. “If anyone feels awkward because of this silence,...
...it only seems rational...
Questions connected with the existence of God may be the most important that we can ask and try to answer. If God exists, then it is of the utmost importance that we come to know the fact; and it is also important to learn as much as we can about God and God’s plan. Implications follow that affect our understanding of the world and ourselves. If God exists, the world is not accidental, a product...
Timeline of Art History →
The arts, though, are important.
Christians might think that the confusions in the art world are no concern to them, simply another example of the vanity of this world. The arts, though, are important. We cannot escape them. They permeate our lives and our culture. The decor of our surroundings; the music we listen to; the entertainment we enjoy in books, television, and films are all manifestations of the arts. They influence us...
“Pelagianism is a creed for heroes, but Augustine’s emphasis on original...”
– Alan Jacobs, Original Sin, pg. 54.
“I can see many of you don’t agree with me; you’re giving me very...”
– What one of my profs said in class one day that I forgot about until studying for finals.
It must come to an end
When I saw burials, corteges passing under the windows of the house where I lived, I asked my mother what it meant for someone to be dead. “Why is he dead?” “He’s dead because he was ill.” I ended up believing that one died because one had had an illness, or an accident, at any rate that death was accidental, and that, on taking care not to be ill, to be well-behaved, in wearing a scarf, in taking...
“You know everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.”
– Will Rogers
April 2008
27 posts
I desire the better: I follow the worse.
Love urges one thing: reason another. I see, and I desire the better: I follow the worse. —Medea, Ovid’s Metamorphoses I follow whatever is bad for me And shun the things that might be good for me. When I’m in Rome I want to be at Tibur; When I’m at Tibur I want to be in Rome. —Horace, Epistles 1.8 (Trans. David Ferry) For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do...
from Rise From the Ruins by Pierce Pettis
Why so pale and wan, fond lover? Why so downcast and desperately sad? We can walk, we can talk, We ain’t yet pillars of salt. And we will rise from the ruins while we can.
Wendell Berry, from "The Body and the Earth"
The concept of health is rooted in the concept of wholeness. To be healthy is to be whole. The word health belongs to a family of words, a listing of which will suggest how far the consideration of health must carry us: heal, whole, wholesome, hale, hallow, holy. And so it is possible to give a definition to health that is positive and far more elaborate than that given to it by most medical...
Social Commentary, c1941
… it is upon fashions, cars, and gadgets, upon news and the advertising upon which news exists, that our present industrial and economic system depends for its proper functioning. For, as ex-President Hoover pointed out not long ago, this system cannot work unless the demand for non-necessaries is not merely kept up, but continually expanded; and of course it cannot be kept up and expanded except...
The Invisible Choir by Kris Delmhorst
The Choir Invisible
Oh, may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence; live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge men’s search To vaster issues. So to live is heaven: To make...
Masterpieces on the Internet?
Any facile comparison of “quality” across different media is asking for a kicking. But I’m going to do it anyway. It seems to me that blogs are the perfect medium for discussing highly topical matters in, say, technology or politics. There are many blogs that I admire and read regularly, and they often provide brilliant demolitions of official narratives, or superior analysis to that offered by...
from Galuppi Baldessare by Kris Delmhorst
Did the young folks take their pleasure? Was the ocean warm in May? Did the parties start at midnight, did they roll until midday? And did the ladies bloom like bellflowers, every time you’d start to play? Well I bet that they all loved you, I bet they stood around and cheered, saying “that’s what I call music, good for joy and good for tears, now let’s stop all this talking, and let it fill our...
from The Dry Bones Dance by Mark Heard
Every now and then I seem to dream these dreams Where the dead ones live and the hurt ones heal Touching that miraculous circumstance Where the blind ones see and the dry bones dance And I’m gone, gone, gone Carried away by the midnight wind And I long, long, long For a world without end The kind of thing that I’ve never seen But in my dreams
Our Friends Appear Like the Dawn by Bodies of...
Our friends appear like the dawn A flock of sheep and flock of boars And though I slept, my heart lay awake And cried out “Oh Lord, don’t delay” Then He spoke and the locusts came Water gushed out from the rock He breathed and the face of the earth was renewed The depths of the oceans convulsed You do not need to own guitars You do not need a set of drums All you need is your...
On the Enjoyment of Unpleasant Places
And this happened to me in the place of all others where I liked least to stay. When I think of it I grow ashamed of my own ingratitude.“‘Out of the strong came forth sweetness.” There, in the bleak and gusty North, I received, perhaps, my strongest impression of peace. I saw the sea to be great and calm; and the earth, in that little corner, was all alive and friendly to me. So, wherever a man...