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Wednesday, April 26, 2006
ALL THE BEES ARE DED and so is my computer. Posting will be very, very limited until next Wednesday. Meanwhile here is a link: From The Agitator: Torture and the Drug War more Sunday, April 23, 2006
LAST CALL FOR HAPPINESS: Music reviews, in both alphabetical and reverse-preferential order. Cat Power, The Greatest. OK... people are probably getting sick of my saying that Myra Lee and Dear Sir are the best things Cat Power's ever done, and nothing else holds up. So, given that I am even cooler toward this CD than I was toward its predecessor, what can I say that will catch your interest? There are some things Cat Power does in her awesome high-lonesome manner. Cat Power makes the following things real: alienation, and how existential alienation can distance us from other women the beauty of the United States below the Mason-Dixon line jealousy the Southern sinner's longing for redemption; the Southern sinner's complete incomprehension of how that redemption might be accomplished how, even though we don't want to admit it, lilacs and honeysuckle look better when you're a little bit drunk that tipsy feeling where you're not sure whether the world is shaping itself to your imaginings or you are seeing something beautiful and new and easy. Cat Power is, pretty much, a mint julep in music. Or three mint juleps. (...Or six.) She can turn a geeky memory into a moan of longing ("Bathysphere"). She can make the most pretentiously-titled songs as real as the girls on 15th Street at four a.m. ("Fate of the Human Carbine"). She's as real as your bare feet against the warm wooden slats of a creek bridge in summer, and so all of her albums are worth your time. But I still think her newest album moved further into the abstractosphere, away from the small desperations and sharp characterizations of her first two albums. I don't really know how to describe it, except to say that when I first heard her--singing "Rockets," from Dear Sir--I immediately asked, "Wow, who is this?" She was an ice-axe for the frozen sea within, for serious, exactly what Kafka meant. She broke through everything. Myra Lee and Dear Sir are like Walker Percy's Lancelot. This new album doesn't do any of that. I accept that I'll probably warm to it. I now kinda like the first half of her last album. It wouldn't make me start listening, but now that I'm here, it's... okay. But even there, I had a couple songs (like "Good Woman") to which I could cling. This album doesn't really give me anything to love. But she can be so much more. Delta 5, Singles and Sessions 1979-1981. The Delta 5 are kind of... I dunno... hippie new wave? They are artificial, but their melodies feel more natural than the new-wavery I love. I heard about them from a flyer from Riot Grrrl. They're awesome and spooky and different, relying on chimes and coordinated vocals to get their feminist effects, rather than the usual drums and raggedness. Everything they do is beautiful. So, these songs? ...Well, they're good. "Mind Your Own Business" is anthemic, in a good way and in a bad way (it's the sort of song you put on mix CDs for other people whose confidence you want to spur, but you don't necessarily listen to it that much yourself). "Shadow" is frightening and rushed and sharp; but this live version is no better than the studio version on See the Whirl'. That's true in general. So my recommendation would be: Absolutely, check out See the Whirl'. There are lovely songs there. The Weakerthans, Reconstruction Site. You need this!!!! (breathes slowly, tries to pretend to be usefully critical) Um, the sound is sort of rock-y, not in an especially exciting way. It's got guitars and drums and stuff. (no! tell them why it is so great!) It's... crazy geeks, with their Michel Foucault and their Ernest Shackleton (one of the best songs on the album) and their longing and their ability to recognize sublimity even when they can't quite enter into it (the heartbreaking "Hospital Vespers"). It's wandering through the snow trying to find the house you think you remember, it was right around here.... It's an album about need and inadequacy and what St Augustine would call the memory of Adam's happiness (and how we get that memory wrong, misinterpret it, corrupt it in a thousand ways). It's also hooky, full of tunes that will bother you for weeks. It isn't just about one or two great songs; it's about a whole album. Oh, you really need this. FRANK STRAUS MEYER'S REVIEW OF LOLITA. As usual, the founder of fusionism saw more clearly than most. I don't actually think fusionism does too much for us right now--it seems to rely on too many shared premises for a crazed and fractured culture--but I really respect it. Anyway: ...Vladimir Nabokov writes a novel, Lolita. With scarifying wit and masterly descriptive power, he excoriates the materialist monstrosities of our civilization — from progressive education to motel architecture, and back again through the middle-brow culture racket to the incredible vulgarity and moral nihilism in which our children of all classes are raised, and on to psychoanalysis and the literary scene. He stamps indelibly on every page of his book the revulsion and disgust with which he is inspired, by loathsomely dwelling upon a loathsome plot: a detailed unfolding of the long-continued captivity and sexual abuse of a 12-year-old girl. ... more WHEN TYRANTS TREMBLE: The Taiwanese ambassador to the Vatican was so impressed with seeing "an inner peace and happiness" in the Catholics he met while living and working in Rome that he decided to convert to Catholicism. more (via Amy Welborn) AMY WELBORN IS SMARTER THAN ME. So I haven't been following this whole Da Vinci Code craziness at all. But Amy makes key points in a post which is important for everyone, whether you've ever heard the phrase "Gospel of Judas" or not. ...I had a long conversation with a magazine reporter this morning about the appeal and impact of this, in which I reiterated the points I made in my piece at the Jesus Decoded website--that there are levels to readers' "belief" in DVC. Of those who buy the history presented within, there are those who indeed believe the Jesus/MM - bloodline business. There are more, however who fit it into what they've picked up from pop culture and even from their church's "religious education"--that the "real Jesus" is essentially unknowable, a construct of various communities, who all had different views and experiences, so this story is as good as any other. ... more! IF YOU ARE HET UP (AND YOU SHOULD BE) ABOUT CHINA'S INTERFERENCE WITH GOOGLE, and Google's collaboration with ditto, read about Tunisia. Watch all you rambling blogs of pleasure And ladies of easy leisure; We must say "Adios!" until we see Almeria once again... (Oh, what a fantastic song. In my mind, this song plays at all the dances in Heaven.) Hi people. My monitor has decided that now would be an excellent time to wig out, and only works properly for brief intervals prompted by lifting it, pressing on its face, propping it up unevenly on comic books, and other irksome home remedies. So I'm not sure how much I'll be able to post in the coming days. We'll see. For now, here is a blogwatch.... erudito: Why did Rome fall? ...Comments-thread fun, via Oxblog, I haven't read yet due to aforementioned monitor madness. And from the Washington Post: ...Heit is a doctor. Today he's a pain and addiction specialist in Fairfax, but once he was an up-and-coming gastroenterologist, a football player, a jock. That was before his auto accident, the one that changed his life and taught him about pain problems the very hard way -- as a patient who often didn't get the help he so badly needed. more I really hope pro-lifers can get together with libertarians on this one. The demand for euthanasia is driven not only by an ideology that despises neediness, but also by the much more practical and easily-attacked problem of underprescription of pain medication. In a mighty prose For Almighty ends, He thrust at his foes, Quarreled with his friends, And served his Master, Though with complaint. He wasn't a plaster sort of a saint. But he swelled men's minds With a Christian leaven. It takes all kinds to make a heaven. --from "The Thunderer," a poem on St Jerome. Via Mark Shea. Thursday, April 20, 2006
Theeeeeere's a blogwatch on the rise... The Agitator: If you're in the D.C. area, you might consider coming to the Cato book forum I'm hosting this Thursday for Maia Szalavitz's new book, Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids. I missed the forum, but you can listen to it here. Two charity links: Two Texan servicemen are raising money for disabled veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. Rush Vann, an Infantry Officer in the Army National Guard, and David Broyles, a Pararescueman in the Air Force, will be attempting to swim the 13 miles of the Gibraltar Strait from Spain to Morrocco. (via) and, from Donors Choose: For the Blogger Challenge, bloggers can visit our website, look through a list of projects that teachers are requesting for their classrooms, and select one or more to ask their readers' help to fund. ... And R.I.P. Muriel Spark--Joseph Bottum on her take on individuality, Kelly Jane Torrance on making art. KITCHENETTE ADVENTURETTES: WE ARE FANCY CHEESE, IF YOU PLEASE. Some very simple, delicious things to do if you have some cheese. 1. Fake Caprese. So I had this really good Bufala mozzarella, and this tomato that was fairly good but not excellent, and no fresh basil. What to do?? I ended up slicing about half the tomato (see below for what happened to the other half) and sauteing it in ex-virgin olive oil for just a little while--until the slices were hot but not so softened that the skin began to slip off--with dried tarragon, crushed red pepper flakes, black pepper, and ground oregano. And maybe dried basil, I don't remember. I was not sure whether this spice combination would work, but actually it was great. I sliced the mozzarella, made my fake-Caprese thing by alternating slices of mozzarella and slices of tomato, and poured the rest of the spiced olive oil over the slices. Yum yum. 2. Yet Another Sandwich. I really love toasted sandwiches. This is a simple open-faced one: Slice a rosemary roll in half. (Or some other herbed roll would work.) Cover each half with sliced tomato and mozzarella. Put on foiled tray in toaster oven and toast as desired. 3. Macaroni and Cheese, Only Easier. You need a tomato, some fusilli, and some good cheddar cheese--I used Cabot extra sharp cheddar. It should be at least room-temperature and slightly soft. Thickly slice a tomato--like, really thick slices or wedges. Heat oven to 375. Cover a baking tray with foil, put the tomato wodges on it, put it in the oven. Cook fusilli. Dice cheese. When fusilli is cooked, drain it, mix in the cheese cubes, and top with the roasted tomato. Oh, this is so yummy. Admittedly, it's lazier than for-real macaroni and cheese, but... mmmmmmm. POETRY WEDNESDAY: Better Extraordinarily Late Than Extraordinarily Never edition. A Road in Kentucky via Angevin2 Monday, April 17, 2006
I wish I was him, he gets the girls at his feet (with all his cool friends) he gets his blogwatch for free I wish I was him He has no enemies I wish I was him... Um... if I can think of interesting Lenten/Easter reflections, I'll post them. For the moment I want to get these links up. This thing I wrote a couple years ago is doubtless better than whatever I'd come up with right now. Cacciaguida: A Cacciason is coming home from Iraq. Wonderful news. We are so grateful for his service. Claw of the Conciliator: What is Toad, that his friends should be mindful of him? Lovely post on Christianity and individuality. Colby Cosh: "So that's what the logo at upper left is for: it gives me an excuse to do a roundup of the world English-language press four or five times a week and drop it here on the site. (A ColbyCosh.com no-prize** goes to the first overeducated person who can identify the semiotic significance of the logo.) Don't be afraid to send clippings, ideas for sources, or other suggestions." Lots of interesting links so far, including this on indentured servants in Israel (the US has them too)--"According to a study by the American Civil Liberties Union in Berkeley, California, trafficking for purposes of slavery in households is in second place in terms of the number of people involved, after trafficking for prostitution"--and this on a ban on fish sales in Kenya--"In Kenya omena is more important that human beings." Sean Collins: Distinguishing two Woody Allen movies, on questions of guilt and absolution. I can't make myself interested in Allen, but if you can, this post is likely very much worth your time (spoilers for Crimes and Misdemeanors and Match Point). Sed Contra could certainly use your prayers. And a post-Kelo roundup of states' actions to protect private property. Very important. Via Hit & Run. Monday, April 10, 2006
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Best notify my blog of watch, This wheel shall explode! The Rat: David Hockney and California dreaming. And the authority of the British Rabbit Council!!!! Unqualified Offerings: Blog! I should have told you all already, but Dappled Things--a new, online Catholic literary/cultural journal--has its Lent/Easter issue out now. I was published in their last one. More importantly, the journal is focused on cultural renewal, and seems to pay a lot of attention to the Catholic blogosphere, so if you find yourself reading a lot of Catholic blogs you should definitely head over there. PASSION: Amy Welborn's intermittent "What did you hear at Mass?" thread. Some excerpts: 1. You know, the constant use of palms as swords [by children] surely indicates that the sensus fidelium finds a deep connection between the palm branches of the children of Israel and the weapons they wished to bear against Rome. Perhaps we are being told that, just as Jesus' kingdom is not of this world, so Jesus' swords are not made of metal but of living branches of the Vine. Perhaps it is meant to say that the palm of victory over death is our surest weapon against the world. Or maybe the palm branches represent the sword of Peter, and thus mothers and fathers everywhere must recreate Jesus' loving admonition to put the dang thing down. I also comment. THE BEST HAND-CLAP RHYME EVER: In the land of Oz why did my playground not feature this magnificence???? Saturday, April 08, 2006
STOP SWEARING, DOGGONEIT!: Quoth the Maven takes on one of my recurring growl-targets: We get all hinkity about obscenities, but think profanities are no big deal. That seems ass-backwards to me. ...At this point, after some serious effort, I rarely say "d--n" or "g-d---n," although I'm not proud to admit that I still cuss like a sailor at times. (Dappled Things might be amused to note that I seem to have replaced the exclamation of "crap" with "Cromwell!" I promise I was not seriously trying to do that--it just happened....) NOTES FROM A WEEK AT PRINCETON AND ELSEWHERE: 1. The "Russia's Age of Elegance" show here is really excellent. The portrait room was the most poignant for me--all these people with their birthdates in Russia and their deathdates in exile. 2. Puck needs to be played with some menace, especially because you'll eventually get to that final speech, where you'll really want to have built up some degree of unseelie credit with the audience. (2a. Gay bondage fairies, while a common temptation for contemporary directors of Shakespeare, are never necessary. The audience just thinks, "Ooh, I'm glad I don't have to squat in my underwear for an entire scene.") 3. I also saw "The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?" There, I said it. It's reactionary to a degree that's kind of awesome. The student director clearly thought it was liberationist, but it's just not. There would be ways to make it liberationist (for example, playing up the "why does love become bad when you add sex?" angle), but those aren't the angles Albee plays. He makes the main character completely, consistently self-indulgent. (At one point I was genuinely worried that I might snap and yell at the stage, "Shut up! Just stop talking!") The last act fails. I don't want to explain why, because in fact, the play is worth seeing (oh how skeptical I was of this beforehand), but I don't know how you end this story without going full-on either Secretary or "I was cured, all right." ...And I still don't know that the basic idea works. It's bravura, but that doesn't make it on-target. 4. The End of the Affair is excellent. I need to let it sit for a while, but I think it might be my favorite Greene thus far (after Brighton Rock, which has amazing opening and closing segments separated by a slack and boring middle; The Comedians; and The Power and the Glory, maybe in that order). For most of its length I thought it might be too blatant, too much an attempt to hit the audience on the head with a clue-by-four. But actually I think it's subtle and really moving. Be interested in others' views. Friday, April 07, 2006
In dreams I'll blog with you In dreams I'll watch with you In dreams you're mine all the time.... Claw of the Conciliator: Continuing series on science fiction, fantasy, and religious faith. Includes really useful suggestions on where to start reading authors who are new to you--I've already added a couple things to the Reading List That Ate Cincinnati. Family Scholars: A lot of links on the legal issues surrounding gay parents; and an egg donor reflects, 10 years later. Relapsed Catholic: The Catholic Educators' Resource really needs financial help. They host excellent articles like this one, and serve as a general clearinghouse on all things Catholic. Consider whether you can help.... Interview with Iraqi writer Kanan Makiya, on, basically, What Is Going On. God of Desire--a site dedicated to teaching the theology of the body, with an emphasis on ministry to single people. Have only poked around here a tiny bit, so cannot speak to its merits, but it looks good so far. Via E-Pression. Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Monday, April 03, 2006
I'M GOING TO VISIT THE RAT for a week, so blogging will be light. A couple links before I pack: a blog all about the Church fathers (via Amy Welborn); and Emily from After Abortion on her relief work in hurricane-devastated areas: ...The church itself is gone except for the white steeple, which lies on its side in front of the site. Behind the steeple is a jury-rigged assortment of tents, trailers, quonset huts, pathways over the red mud built out of scrap wood. If you've ever seen the movie "Swiss Family Robinson", that captures the flavor. more Sunday, April 02, 2006
WHEN YOU'VE BEGUN TO THINK LIKE A GUN: Review of Jonathan Shay's Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character. Yeah, I promised this a million years ago. You get it now. This book is an unexpected combination: more than half literary study of the Iliad, more than half attentive, personal description of traumatized Vietnam veterans, from the perspective of a psychiatrist who worked with many of them. It is 100% compelling on both grounds. I will talk first, and quickly, about why you need to read this. I will try to be very brief about its major and minor flaws, but really, the key thing is that this is one of the few necessary books. AIV does a close reading of the Iliad to reveal what we know about Achilles' character prior to the Trojan War, and the specific betrayals that transformed him from an honorable warrior into a berserker. It then maps Homer onto the testimony of Vietnam veterans. The book honors specificity: We get a lot of the veterans' own words, a lot of careful description of which features of their combat experience would be similar to or different from combat experience in other wars (both Homeric and modern). It describes the contemporary soldier's dependence on others, his immersion in an undefined battlefield where seemingly harmless objects can be traps and weapons, his experience of fate or luck and of dehumanization of the enemy. So, you need to read it. Its flaws are two, and neither are in any way central to its argument: First, it takes the story of combat trauma and berserker rage as the only story of war. This only comes out briefly, though. Second, there's a chapter dedicated to tracing the roots of dehumanization of the enemy to the Bible (and the roots of American involvement in Vietnam to the Catholic Church--this is a fairly hideous irony, the way some people's pain matters in this chapter and others' does not--you could easily read this chapter and come away thinking no one ever fled Communist Vietnam due to religious persecution, there were no refugee camps, etc). This chapter just does not work on any level. Shay is able to write about religious belief and doubt with empathy--there's a compelling passage about the image of the Pieta, before the lousy chapter focusing on religion. So it's even more irksome that his main chapter on religion is so awful. A few very brief thoughts (condensed from a long rant, which I'm sparing you): 1. There are far fewer direct quotes from his patients, actual veterans, in this chapter. It's a lot more him and a lot less them. 2. If you've read about religious rhetoric in the Civil War, or (say) read The Song of Roland, you will easily suss what's wrong with this chapter. 3. Blaming dehumanization on Christianity absolves actual racism, yo! The Vietnamese just become generic furriners, Philistines, with no attention whatsoever to the specific history of racism in the West. 4. Guy didn't even pick the most hardcore Biblical passages to fight. David and Goliath? Whatever, dude, read the Book of Joshua.... 5. Christianity is not Judaism. It isn't not-Judaism, either; but you can't write about Christianity and its relationship to enemies! and pretend the New Testament never happened. (pant, pant) OK, so my only substantive problem with his discussion of dehumanization (as vs. the annoying anti-Christian digression) is that I'd like more evidence that it isn't optimistic. Shay provides, I think, excellent evidence that dehumanizing enemy soldiers is ultimately demoralizing and traumatizing for soldiers. He does less well demonstrating that dehumanizing "enemy" women is similarly harmful for soldiers. I would really like to be able to say, "If you rape Iraqi women you will be much more likely to come home broken on the inside." But I don't think Shay closes that case. Overall: This is an immensely important book. It's also very easy to read. Very plain-spoken and clear. It's compassionate, its literary judgment is acute--really what more do you need to know? You should read it. (ps: I learned about this book--and John Keegan's Mask of Command--from Minisinoo.) I WANNA KNOW WHAT LOVE IS: So a couple people have asked when I will post my notes from last week's Theology of the Body seminar. The answer is that for whatever reason (I blame, in this order, the lack of free coffee and my own crapulence), my notes are sparse and boring, so you don't get to see them. However, I was thinking today about the differences in approach between TOTB and Deus Caritas Est. These differences, as I hope will be obvious, are not invitations to read one "against" the other. But they're intriguing to me, and possibly to y'all, so here's my take in a nutshell: TOTB starts in the Bible as a whole--most notably, Genesis read through the lens of the New Testament--and moves from there outward to contemporary concerns. DCE starts with contemporary self-understandings and -misunderstandings, and works to draw seekers back to the Cross and the Eucharist. You can see the DCE focus not just in the namechecking of Nietzsche, but in small moments like the sympathetic treatment of the motives of Julian the Apostate. Benedict is starting from the perspective of a non-Christian, I think, and ending at the foot of the Cross. JPII starts deep within the Biblical tradition, and then redescribes the perspective of this tradition in terms that appeal to the contemporary desire for roles and a "story," a narrative of one's own self and life and purpose--sort of, starting at Cana and ending at your local church. These approaches complement each other, and, really, rely on each other. TOTB feels more "literary" to me, more focused on symbolism, on the human person as a word spoken by God. DCE feels more like a homily, clinging a bit closer to both experience and to abstract categories, rather than the roles and icons and characters found in TOTB. But these are exaggerations to show a contrast; it would be a huge error to miss the role of experience in TOTB--in the intro to Love and Responsibility, I think it is, the future JPII notes how much of his theology is rooted in his experience as a confessor--and similarly to miss the role of narrative in DCE's description of human history as the "love story" of God and man. She [the Church] has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice, which always demands sacrifice, cannot prevail and prosper. --Deus Caritas Est Saturday, April 01, 2006
GEOFFREY CHAUCER HAS A REQUEST: ...Todaye ys the firste daye of Aprille. Bifor it was the cruellest moneth (quatever that meneth!), it was a moneth of coloures and cries, and pilgrymages. Yt was, I sholde saye, myn favourite moneth. more (via Angevin2) |