IN SEARCH OF LOST PANTS: Search requests bringing people to this ramshackle blog. In chronological order.
george washington fanfiction [Richard Brookhiser says, “Oh score, this one’s a ‘Desperate Housewives’ crossover!”]
How do people feel about bacon [Is OM NOM NOM NOM!!! a feeling?]
human stain pilsner urquell
funny definition of a conservative
tame gay
what position is a bat in when his fingers make a hat above his head
allan Bloom V for Vendetta
are a lot of teens lazy worthless and immoral
how to make a light saber from foam pool noodles
VOWS BIATCH
I want to help the needy but not my spouse
FISH OF FATE
last unicorn objectivism [“Men don’t always know when they’re happy.”]
judith martin miss manners cia training agents
liberation theology song irish catholic punk
ways to raise one’s social status
cayenne as treatment for homosexuality
that happened in the 20th century heidegger [from Tel Aviv]
which group of workers are looked after by the patron saints called dismas ["'Tis no sin, Hal, to labor in one's vocation."]
zero mostel socrates plato
why do conservative men love goth girls [It's the romance of decline.]
pictures of front porsche of old colonial momes [all azaleas and outgrabe]
bloom criticizes the mousetrap
slap tybalt with a fish
radio salmon [I actually wrote about this!... sort of]
which elephant trauma might be prevented
some random guy shanking people
funny anecdotes involving forklifts
ron weasley et ronald reagan
Monday, May 14, 2007
I INTERVIEWED DAVID BLANKENHORN on his new book, The Future of Marriage. I highly recommend the book. It has flaws--I'd say the beginning and the end are the weakest parts, oddly enough--but it's absolutely worth your time if you are at all interested in the nature of and controversy over marriage and family structure.
Oh, and since I can, here's what I think was the most interesting thing cut (for length reasons) from the version of the interview I submitted to the Post:
[Eve says: It's pretty fascinating to see the degree to which The Future of Marriage is shaped by Blankenhorn's memories of the civil rights movement, and his identity as a Southern liberal.]
Oh, and since I can, here's what I think was the most interesting thing cut (for length reasons) from the version of the interview I submitted to the Post:
Q: What’s in this book that is unusual?
A: Being against gay marriage should not mean you’re against gay people. I talk about the equal dignity of sexual love, extending acceptance to gay and lesbian people. I separate myself from my religious tradition on this issue.
[Eve says: It's pretty fascinating to see the degree to which The Future of Marriage is shaped by Blankenhorn's memories of the civil rights movement, and his identity as a Southern liberal.]
GENERAL PETRAEUS WRITES:
HEADQUARTERS
Multi-National Force—Iraq
Baghdad, Iraq
APO AE 09342-140010
May 2007
Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen serving in Multi-National Force—Iraq:
Our values and the laws governing warfare teach us to respect human dignity, maintain our integrity, and do what is right. Adherence to our values distinguishes us from our enemy. This fight depends on securing the population, which must understand that we—not our enemies—occupy the moral high ground. This strategy has shown results in recent months. Al Qaeda’s indiscriminate attacks, for example, have finally started to turn a substantial portion of the Iraqi population against it.
In view of this, I was concerned by the results of a recently released survey conducted last fall in Iraq that revealed an apparent unwillingness on the part of some US personnel to report illegal actions taken by fellow members of their units. The study also indicated that a small percentage of those surveyed may have mistreated noncombatants. This survey should spur reflection on our conduct in combat.
I fully appreciate the emotions that one experiences in Iraq. I also know firsthand the bonds between members of the “brotherhood of the close fight.” Seeing a fellow trooper killed by a barbaric enemy can spark frustration, anger, and a desire for immediate revenge. As hard as it might be, however, we must not let these emotions lead us—or our comrades in arms—to commit hasty, illegal actions. In the event that we witness or hear of such actions, we must not let our bonds prevent us from speaking up.
Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. They would be wrong. Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary. Certainly, extreme physical action can make someone “talk”; however, what the individual says may be of questionable value. In fact our experience in applying the interrogation standards laid out in the Army Field Manual (2-22.3) on Human Intelligence Collector Operations that was published last year shows that the techniques in the manual work effectively and humanely in eliciting information from detainees.
We are, indeed, warriors. We train to kill our enemies. We are engaged in combat, we must pursue the enemy relentlessly, and we must be violent at times. What sets us apart from our enemies in this fight, however, is how we behave. In everything we do, we must observe the standards and values that dictate that we treat noncombatants and detainees with dignity and respect. While we are warriors, we are also all human beings. Stress caused by lengthy deployments and combat is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign that we are human. If you feel such stress, do not hesitate to talk to your chain of command, your chaplain, or a medical expert.
We should use the survey results to renew our commitment to the values and standards that make us who we are and to spur re-examination of these issues. Leaders, in particular, need to discuss these issues with their troopers—and, as always, they need to set the right example and strive to ensure proper conduct. We should never underestimate the importance of good leadership and the difference it can make.
Thanks for what you continue to do. It is an honor to serve with each of you.
David H. Petraeus
General, United States Army
Commanding
commentary here
HEADQUARTERS
Multi-National Force—Iraq
Baghdad, Iraq
APO AE 09342-140010
May 2007
Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen serving in Multi-National Force—Iraq:
Our values and the laws governing warfare teach us to respect human dignity, maintain our integrity, and do what is right. Adherence to our values distinguishes us from our enemy. This fight depends on securing the population, which must understand that we—not our enemies—occupy the moral high ground. This strategy has shown results in recent months. Al Qaeda’s indiscriminate attacks, for example, have finally started to turn a substantial portion of the Iraqi population against it.
In view of this, I was concerned by the results of a recently released survey conducted last fall in Iraq that revealed an apparent unwillingness on the part of some US personnel to report illegal actions taken by fellow members of their units. The study also indicated that a small percentage of those surveyed may have mistreated noncombatants. This survey should spur reflection on our conduct in combat.
I fully appreciate the emotions that one experiences in Iraq. I also know firsthand the bonds between members of the “brotherhood of the close fight.” Seeing a fellow trooper killed by a barbaric enemy can spark frustration, anger, and a desire for immediate revenge. As hard as it might be, however, we must not let these emotions lead us—or our comrades in arms—to commit hasty, illegal actions. In the event that we witness or hear of such actions, we must not let our bonds prevent us from speaking up.
Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. They would be wrong. Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary. Certainly, extreme physical action can make someone “talk”; however, what the individual says may be of questionable value. In fact our experience in applying the interrogation standards laid out in the Army Field Manual (2-22.3) on Human Intelligence Collector Operations that was published last year shows that the techniques in the manual work effectively and humanely in eliciting information from detainees.
We are, indeed, warriors. We train to kill our enemies. We are engaged in combat, we must pursue the enemy relentlessly, and we must be violent at times. What sets us apart from our enemies in this fight, however, is how we behave. In everything we do, we must observe the standards and values that dictate that we treat noncombatants and detainees with dignity and respect. While we are warriors, we are also all human beings. Stress caused by lengthy deployments and combat is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign that we are human. If you feel such stress, do not hesitate to talk to your chain of command, your chaplain, or a medical expert.
We should use the survey results to renew our commitment to the values and standards that make us who we are and to spur re-examination of these issues. Leaders, in particular, need to discuss these issues with their troopers—and, as always, they need to set the right example and strive to ensure proper conduct. We should never underestimate the importance of good leadership and the difference it can make.
Thanks for what you continue to do. It is an honor to serve with each of you.
David H. Petraeus
General, United States Army
Commanding
commentary here
All very well for blogs to have their watch...
GetReligion: This post makes me yearn to write a novel about American public life, in the style of The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini.
The Rat: I wasn't as hard on the technical/length aspects of The Good Shepherd as Ratty was, but that's largely because she'd already warned me about them. I thought it was surprisingly good. I agree with her that the wife and son lacked characterization; that this damaged the movie, but it's hard to know how it could have been fixed; and that the final ambiguity is really well-done. ...Rattus also links to a page about 19th-c French tours d'abandon, where women could anonymously leave their newborns.
Friends of St. John the Caregiver: Catholic org providing support to people caring for the elderly, especially aging parents. Via Mark Shea.
GetReligion: This post makes me yearn to write a novel about American public life, in the style of The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini.
The Rat: I wasn't as hard on the technical/length aspects of The Good Shepherd as Ratty was, but that's largely because she'd already warned me about them. I thought it was surprisingly good. I agree with her that the wife and son lacked characterization; that this damaged the movie, but it's hard to know how it could have been fixed; and that the final ambiguity is really well-done. ...Rattus also links to a page about 19th-c French tours d'abandon, where women could anonymously leave their newborns.
Friends of St. John the Caregiver: Catholic org providing support to people caring for the elderly, especially aging parents. Via Mark Shea.
The court was very cool and a little damp, and full of premature twilight, although the sky, high up overhead, was still bright with sunset. The middle one of the three windows was half-way open; and sitting close beside it, taking the air with an infinite sadness of mien, like some disconsolate prisoner, Utterson saw Dr. Jekyll.
--Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
--Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Thursday, May 10, 2007
IS STUPID REALLY STUPID, OR A DIFFERENT KIND OF SMART?: Disputations, as usual, makes the necessary distinctions I didn't:
OK, yeah, I do think I was using "intelligence" to imply complexity, subtlety, doing a lot of sometimes-conflicting things rather than doing one thing really ferociously. Possibly that isn't a useful set of associations--I'm not sure. In general we tend to use "intelligence" very impressionistically, at least I do, and operate by feel more than by providing a checklist of qualities that make a work intelligent or not-so-much. Again, not sure if that impressionism illuminates more than it obscures....
I'm sure I did conflate writers and their work, as well, which was--how to say?--dumb.
Horrible Thoughts writes:
Thanks very much to both!
"Poe is kind of dumb, you know? He isn't complex."
Are these two sentences supposed to say the same thing? "Kind of dumb" = "not complex"?
In any case, I don't think there's any question that Poe the man was quite intelligent, and I think this comes out clearly enough in his writing. Without thinking it through, I wonder whether readers generally think that, if the author is intelligent, the
story is intelligent.
OK, yeah, I do think I was using "intelligence" to imply complexity, subtlety, doing a lot of sometimes-conflicting things rather than doing one thing really ferociously. Possibly that isn't a useful set of associations--I'm not sure. In general we tend to use "intelligence" very impressionistically, at least I do, and operate by feel more than by providing a checklist of qualities that make a work intelligent or not-so-much. Again, not sure if that impressionism illuminates more than it obscures....
I'm sure I did conflate writers and their work, as well, which was--how to say?--dumb.
Horrible Thoughts writes:
This may sound like a stretch, but I would nominate Avram Davidson, particularly his Dr. Esterhazy stories, as thoughtful commentary on human nature under the guise of science fiction. If you’ve never read through The Inquiries of Dr. Esterhazy, you really ought to. In your stupid/fierce conception, he would probably not be either, but the oodles of intelligence that ooze out of the text make up for any lack of ferocity. I understand that he was once a Talmudic scholar. He is also the reason that I occasionally frustrate my wife by randomly proclaiming my implacable opposition to the “damned monophysites!” Often loudly, and in restaurants.
Thanks very much to both!
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
BOXING CLEVER: In defense of stupid writers.
One of the most cringe-inducing genres is the defense of a great writer on precisely the wrong terms. "Dickens is really a conservative!" "Eliot really liked the Jews!"
And, for exactly the same reasons, "Keats is so complex!"
No, he kind of desperately isn't. This is not the way to defend him.
You can defend Keats the way I defend Poe: When this guy hits a thing, it stays hit. Poe is a ferocious poet, not an intelligent one. "Annabel Lee" is obvious in the way a Childe ballad is obvious--and heartbreaking the way a Childe ballad is heartbreaking. And it's only our contemporary prejudice in favor of the individual quote-unquote genius, I think, that prevents us from seeing that Poe is a master. He knew how to say important things in a way that nobody else could manage. ("Hop-Frog," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Fall of the House of Usher"--and yeah, I do tend to think if your creation passes into the common vocabulary over at least a century, it's because you understood something deep and true about human nature.)
Poe is kind of dumb, you know? He isn't complex. Hans Christian Andersen is only marginally more intelligent. The thing that they mostly do is hit things very very hard.
Sometimes people can be intelligent and punchy. Emily Dickinson is the obvious example. And I'm not trying to argue that if you have to pick between hardcore and complex, you should always pick hardcore. I'm not arguing that Miss Lonelyhearts is better than Emma, even if the former is more blunt and the latter is more intelligent. (I strongly prefer the former, but this post is not, I hope, solely about my own preferences.) All I'm trying to do is suggest that something can be stupid and still great; really, all I'm trying to do is to keep people from defending astonishing but dumb works of art on the grounds that they're "deep." No. They're fierce--that really isn't the same thing.
ps: I would also be really interested in a discussion of deceptive works, which hide their complexity and intelligence under a heavy screen of genre. I'd argue that Donna Tartt's Secret History, most of the well-known Chandler, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and James Whale's "Bride of Frankenstein" fall into this category.
pps: Oh hey, I remembered that this post was supposed to be about Faulkner, actually. Um... yeah. He isn't that smart. But As I Lay Dying is still terrific. I'm sure there are smarter authors who couldn't hit horror as hard as he does there--I mean, honestly, I think probably Michael Chabon or somebody is straight-up smarter than Faulkner, but that's seven different kinds of not the point.
One of the most cringe-inducing genres is the defense of a great writer on precisely the wrong terms. "Dickens is really a conservative!" "Eliot really liked the Jews!"
And, for exactly the same reasons, "Keats is so complex!"
No, he kind of desperately isn't. This is not the way to defend him.
You can defend Keats the way I defend Poe: When this guy hits a thing, it stays hit. Poe is a ferocious poet, not an intelligent one. "Annabel Lee" is obvious in the way a Childe ballad is obvious--and heartbreaking the way a Childe ballad is heartbreaking. And it's only our contemporary prejudice in favor of the individual quote-unquote genius, I think, that prevents us from seeing that Poe is a master. He knew how to say important things in a way that nobody else could manage. ("Hop-Frog," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Fall of the House of Usher"--and yeah, I do tend to think if your creation passes into the common vocabulary over at least a century, it's because you understood something deep and true about human nature.)
Poe is kind of dumb, you know? He isn't complex. Hans Christian Andersen is only marginally more intelligent. The thing that they mostly do is hit things very very hard.
Sometimes people can be intelligent and punchy. Emily Dickinson is the obvious example. And I'm not trying to argue that if you have to pick between hardcore and complex, you should always pick hardcore. I'm not arguing that Miss Lonelyhearts is better than Emma, even if the former is more blunt and the latter is more intelligent. (I strongly prefer the former, but this post is not, I hope, solely about my own preferences.) All I'm trying to do is suggest that something can be stupid and still great; really, all I'm trying to do is to keep people from defending astonishing but dumb works of art on the grounds that they're "deep." No. They're fierce--that really isn't the same thing.
ps: I would also be really interested in a discussion of deceptive works, which hide their complexity and intelligence under a heavy screen of genre. I'd argue that Donna Tartt's Secret History, most of the well-known Chandler, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and James Whale's "Bride of Frankenstein" fall into this category.
pps: Oh hey, I remembered that this post was supposed to be about Faulkner, actually. Um... yeah. He isn't that smart. But As I Lay Dying is still terrific. I'm sure there are smarter authors who couldn't hit horror as hard as he does there--I mean, honestly, I think probably Michael Chabon or somebody is straight-up smarter than Faulkner, but that's seven different kinds of not the point.
COMFORT, COMFORT YE MY PEOPLE.
Yeah, I, uh... don't agree with this. Not that I think Ross is wrong--just that his emotional response here is pretty much three hundred percent the opposite of mine. It was when I converted, and it still is. Quite possibly this is an indication of my own lingering mistrust and/or self-protective loathing of God (I have never claimed I didn't have issues!), but there it is.
More on cold comfort; more on providence.
...Were I not a Christian, for instance, I'm pretty sure I would envy Christians their beliefs about the afterlife, since the survival of consciousness and the resurrection of the body more or less matches up with my deepest longings concerning what awaits after death. (This correlation is one of the many reasons, of course, why I am a Christian to begin with.)
Yeah, I, uh... don't agree with this. Not that I think Ross is wrong--just that his emotional response here is pretty much three hundred percent the opposite of mine. It was when I converted, and it still is. Quite possibly this is an indication of my own lingering mistrust and/or self-protective loathing of God (I have never claimed I didn't have issues!), but there it is.
More on cold comfort; more on providence.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
See you on the TV, call you every day,
Fly across the blogwatch just to let you get your way...
(I offer this song free to anyone [sister?] who wants an example of RPS in pop culture. My apologies if she is already on it.)
The Agitator: "Police are increasingly going to homes with agents from regulatory agents under the guise of 'code inspections.' Once inside, they then search for criminal misconduct. The process negates the need for a search warrant because it's allegedly a regulatory inspection, not a police search."
Alias Clio: Response to my woman-as-icon posts. A powerful post about the "trap of iconization"--I think this is totally true, but what I posted about is also true; and so anyone who finds himself (I think mostly it will be "himself"--?) drawn to either rejection or embrace of woman-as-icon should consider the ways in which this feminine iconicity is true and the ways in which it's false and hurtful.
In other words, if you're following this discussion at all, Clio's post is vastly worth your time. ...Comments also worth reading, especially since this is a good example of a discussion in which everyone is agreeing with everyone else but choosing different examples. So if you think either Clio's post or mine is simply missing something, check out her comments.
The intermittently-adorable Mickey Kaus on Maggie Gyllenhaal (scroll, y'all). I can't completely agree--I thought she was hot sauce like Tabasco in the excellent 1/3 of Secretary, and forgave the movie 1/3, though unfortunately the last third was the ending of the movie--but, yeah.
Mmmusing: "...This creates a special kind of conflict in the directionally-oriented structures of Western music. The music tells us we're going forward towards something, but our minds may get stuck in particular moments that have already passed." Via About Last Night. Ratty, read this! Tell me what you think! (...No, I'm totally not above exploiting my friends.)
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto: Hit & Run links to this story of troops bonding with their robots, and says, "The piece raises a lot of questions about the increasingly blurry lines that separate the human from the machine."
I'm skeptical of that, in part because I've heard vets talk about the troops' pet cat, etc., and they really didn't seem to think that loving that cat like crazy blurred the lines between feline and human. Like, at all. I think soldiers are probably capable of figuring out that the robot is not a person. (I'm pretty sure the strong emotional responses to tests that would blow up robots described in the article, for example, would apply to the troops' pet furry beasties as well. And animals have been awarded medals, if memory serves. Doesn't mean soldiers who cuddle kittens think cats are people.) ...You could either take this as my statement that robots are normal, or my statement that pets are weird. (I still miss my old dead horrible psycho cat.)
Unqualified Offerings, unsurprisingly, has the best quote.
Is it Faulkner, or is it Memorex? Acecakes in awesomesauce. Via About Last Night. I scored only 58%, despite actually recognizing one WF quote. More on him in a bit.
Top 25 Noir Films via ditto. "And I live in New York, New York the city that never shuts up...."
Churches in the Great War. Via Daniel Mitsui.
And in last place, Grindhouse-style posters for classic movies. ZOMG, more awesome than your mind can possibly handle. The colossal squid of awesome movie-poster-parody links.
Fly across the blogwatch just to let you get your way...
(I offer this song free to anyone [sister?] who wants an example of RPS in pop culture. My apologies if she is already on it.)
The Agitator: "Police are increasingly going to homes with agents from regulatory agents under the guise of 'code inspections.' Once inside, they then search for criminal misconduct. The process negates the need for a search warrant because it's allegedly a regulatory inspection, not a police search."
Alias Clio: Response to my woman-as-icon posts. A powerful post about the "trap of iconization"--I think this is totally true, but what I posted about is also true; and so anyone who finds himself (I think mostly it will be "himself"--?) drawn to either rejection or embrace of woman-as-icon should consider the ways in which this feminine iconicity is true and the ways in which it's false and hurtful.
In other words, if you're following this discussion at all, Clio's post is vastly worth your time. ...Comments also worth reading, especially since this is a good example of a discussion in which everyone is agreeing with everyone else but choosing different examples. So if you think either Clio's post or mine is simply missing something, check out her comments.
The intermittently-adorable Mickey Kaus on Maggie Gyllenhaal (scroll, y'all). I can't completely agree--I thought she was hot sauce like Tabasco in the excellent 1/3 of Secretary, and forgave the movie 1/3, though unfortunately the last third was the ending of the movie--but, yeah.
Mmmusing: "...This creates a special kind of conflict in the directionally-oriented structures of Western music. The music tells us we're going forward towards something, but our minds may get stuck in particular moments that have already passed." Via About Last Night. Ratty, read this! Tell me what you think! (...No, I'm totally not above exploiting my friends.)
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto: Hit & Run links to this story of troops bonding with their robots, and says, "The piece raises a lot of questions about the increasingly blurry lines that separate the human from the machine."
I'm skeptical of that, in part because I've heard vets talk about the troops' pet cat, etc., and they really didn't seem to think that loving that cat like crazy blurred the lines between feline and human. Like, at all. I think soldiers are probably capable of figuring out that the robot is not a person. (I'm pretty sure the strong emotional responses to tests that would blow up robots described in the article, for example, would apply to the troops' pet furry beasties as well. And animals have been awarded medals, if memory serves. Doesn't mean soldiers who cuddle kittens think cats are people.) ...You could either take this as my statement that robots are normal, or my statement that pets are weird. (I still miss my old dead horrible psycho cat.)
Unqualified Offerings, unsurprisingly, has the best quote.
Is it Faulkner, or is it Memorex? Acecakes in awesomesauce. Via About Last Night. I scored only 58%, despite actually recognizing one WF quote. More on him in a bit.
Top 25 Noir Films via ditto. "And I live in New York, New York the city that never shuts up...."
Churches in the Great War. Via Daniel Mitsui.
And in last place, Grindhouse-style posters for classic movies. ZOMG, more awesome than your mind can possibly handle. The colossal squid of awesome movie-poster-parody links.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
In the crowded court of your love
I was now a blogwatcher...
(Oh, now that loses something in the translation.)
Daniel Mitsui:
more; I think he may be unfair to the sky, but that's possibly b/c I am a huge fan of El Greco.
First Things: Really fascinating look at a ferocious Virginian Calvinist fictional detective.
Ross Douthat: "The seamless garment of death."
I was now a blogwatcher...
(Oh, now that loses something in the translation.)
Daniel Mitsui:
...A perspectival painting is, in many ways, not realistic at all. Some of these ways are obvious. The subjects do not move. Neither can the person looking at the painting move, or the failure of objects within the painting to move in relation to each other will reveal its artifice. The frame, usually rectangular, is unlike the actual periphery of our vision. And a perspectival painting is the view of a Cyclops; images do not double into two transparent parts when the two eyes focus on something nearer or farther away. Nor do they blur or sharpen dramatically; in reality, an object inches from the eyes and an object ten feet away cannot be seen in detail at the same time. A perspectival painting accurately presents what a man will see if he looks through a frame, with one eye closed, not moving, at something that does not move and that is far enough away for his eyes to focus on it in its entirety. Not surprisingly, the trick box that Filippo Brunelleschi invented to demonstrate his discovery of the technique created all of these conditions!
But there are more important ways in which a perspectival painting is unrealistic; it presents things as they are seen to be, rather than as they are known to be. It does not accommodate the vision of the mind's eye. Children draw in the same manner as cultures that have not adopted perspective in their art; they draw what is important. If they know of something present on the other side of a wall, or beyond the scope of their vision, they will draw it anyway if it is necessary to what they seek to communicate on paper. And its relative importance to that message will determine its size and placement in the drawing. This is the natural manner of composition in human artistry, whereas perspective is something that must be learned.
more; I think he may be unfair to the sky, but that's possibly b/c I am a huge fan of El Greco.
First Things: Really fascinating look at a ferocious Virginian Calvinist fictional detective.
Ross Douthat: "The seamless garment of death."
Friday, April 27, 2007
REPUBLIC OF LETTERS: Stuff from the ethereal mailbag. Thanks to all who have written, including those to whom I still owe replies....
From James A., and from weeks and weeks ago, sorry!:
A reader who may want anonymity, on the missing pants:
From Bill Loughlin, on Dali:
From James A., and from weeks and weeks ago, sorry!:
...Re: year-old comments on Theology of the Body seminar that you linked t'other day: 'All the platypus has to do to fulfill its telos is, like, be its weird-ass mammal egg-laying self, whereas humans can't get away with just being "human, all-too-human." We actually have a task which we can either accept or refuse.'
This reminded me a lot of Epictetus the Stoic's comments on praising God (from the Moral Discourses of Epictetus): 'For what else can I do, a lame old man, than sing hymns to God? If then I was a nightingale, I would do the part of a nightingale; if I were a swan, I would do like a swan. But now I am a rational creature, and I ought to praise God. This is my work; I do it, nor will I desert this post, so long as I am allowed to keep it, and I exhort you to join in this same song.'
A reader who may want anonymity, on the missing pants:
...[W]hy hasn't the judge hearing the case found a way to dismiss it? If I were the judge (or the clerk) on this case, I would be working feverishly to see if the law allowed me to somehow cap the amount of damages or dismiss the whole thing. Maybe the lawyer -- who is an administrative law judge, by the way -- could be given onerous sanctions.
From Bill Loughlin, on Dali:
Until a year or two ago I just thoght Dali ... was just another self-
indulgent artist. Then while I was in St Petersburg FL my wife and I went to the Dali museum there. Now, having seen a broad spectrum of his work, and learned so much more about him, I think he is one of the great artists of history. His religious works are incredible, reminiscent of El Greco, and have to be seen in person to be appreciated--you could never see everything in one of his huge canvases by looking at it in a book or online. He converted from atheism and communism rather late in life, and it really seemed to cause a creative explosion.
Now I have to figure out how much to save to be able to buy an edition...
THE EARTH LOOKS BETTER FROM A STARLET: A couple reader responses to my posts on "Ana Ng" and woman-as-icon.
From Dean Abbott:
From Jeremy:
From Dean Abbott:
...In your latest post these sentences drew my attention: "...don't marry a girl just because the sunlight caught in her hair one afternoon and you thought suddenly of God. You'll still have to live with her and do the washing-up, you know."
I can see where you're coming from, but as a married man I can tell you there's another side to it. If a man really thinks this woman has ever served as an icon, then he doesn't think the light in her merely caused him to think of God, the way seeing a priest in the street might. Instead, he believes her beauty actually served as a portal through which he truly saw into some realm
mysterious and celestial.The memory of that vision is sometimes what makes the mundane details of marriage, the "washing-up" as you put it, bearable. The iconic moment reassures the soul of the promises of scripture and theology. It makes faithfulness a little easier when we remember not just what we have read and heard, but what we have see with our own eyes.
This is especially true, I think, if we know that what we saw in the iconic moment was a glimpse of the permanent reality of the person. As we get to know a specific concrete human being, what we encounter is her sin. Having had an inkling of the glory that will remain when that is all burned away by grace makes living with the reality of a spouse a lighter load to bear.
From Jeremy:
Eve, your post about woman-as-icon reminds me of Richard Wright’s novel The Outsider where the protagonist Cross is sexually attracted to women because they represent “woman as image of woman”. (I think I have that quote right. It’s something like that.)
Of course, Wright is talking here about a sort of existential lust, which is different than what you’re discussing. But the concept is interesting in that Cross lusts after that “iconic woman” and only has desire for the actual women in his life in as much as they embody that icon. Because he fails to ever personalize his conception of his wife or mistress or landlady, and only desires something beyond them that they imperfectly represent, he is constantly treating them with terrible cruelty in an almost offhand way.
Slightly off topic, but interesting.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Although he smiled, the tears in his eyes kept blogwatching...
Alias Clio: John Betjeman on evil and childhood.
Holy Whapping: More HWTV!!! House, O.P. and much much more. This is really awesomely awesome. "Meanwhile, Christina Rossetti concocts an elaborate scheme to falsify her street-address so she can order Supreme Flounder from the local Chinese take-away." Plus making fun of Veronica Mars; Baron Corvo refs; "The Knights of Poverty"; and lots more. Via Amy Welborn.
A restaurant without a cash register:
more (via Thunderstruck)
"Lawyer's Price for Missing Pants: $65 Million." This is really terrifying, you know--that someone could plunge you into this kind of nightmare. Via SERD and Ratty.
Alias Clio: John Betjeman on evil and childhood.
Holy Whapping: More HWTV!!! House, O.P. and much much more. This is really awesomely awesome. "Meanwhile, Christina Rossetti concocts an elaborate scheme to falsify her street-address so she can order Supreme Flounder from the local Chinese take-away." Plus making fun of Veronica Mars; Baron Corvo refs; "The Knights of Poverty"; and lots more. Via Amy Welborn.
A restaurant without a cash register:
...Pay what you think is fair, the Birkys tell their customers. Pay what you can afford. Those who have a bit more are encouraged to drop a little extra in the donations box upfront. Those who can't pay at all are asked to work in the kitchen, dicing onions, scrubbing pots, giving back any way they can.
The Birkys could probably feed more hungry people, with far less effort, by donating the cash they spend on groceries to a homeless shelter.
That's not the point.
"It's not just the food," Libby says. "Often, homeless people, people in need, don't receive the same attention and care. Here, someone recognizes them, looks them in the eye, talks to them like they're just as valuable as the next person in line. That's why we do this."
more (via Thunderstruck)
"Lawyer's Price for Missing Pants: $65 Million." This is really terrifying, you know--that someone could plunge you into this kind of nightmare. Via SERD and Ratty.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
If you don't watch what you blog about your mirror is gonna find out...
Lots of really excellent stuff here, of all different kinds.
Salvador Dali's Sacra Biblia. Phenomenally ace. Go look at these!!! You can surf around here and here. Via Disputations.
Ebert: We spend too much time hiding illness:
David Kaiser on prison rape:
more--please read (via The Corner)
British dialect and accent map, with sound links. Also via The Corner.
Cultural Revolution kitsch. Also via TC. It's like a cookie jar of evil.
Ravens play wild boar rodeo. That is not a metaphor! Via Ratty.
Lots of really excellent stuff here, of all different kinds.
Salvador Dali's Sacra Biblia. Phenomenally ace. Go look at these!!! You can surf around here and here. Via Disputations.
Ebert: We spend too much time hiding illness:
...I was told photos of me in this condition would attract the gossip papers. So what?more (via Amy Welborn)
I have been very sick, am getting better and this is how it looks.
David Kaiser on prison rape:
...DeParle writes, "Since 1980 the murder rate inside prisons has fallen more than 90 percent, which should give pause to those inclined to think that prisons are impossible to reform." We could similarly reduce the incidence of rape in prison.
We know how. To some extent, stopping prisoner rape is simply an issue of better prison management. In facilities where the chief official cares about it, and ensures that his or her subordinates take it seriously, rates of sexual abuse go down dramatically. This is accomplished by, for example, providing vulnerable inmates with nonpunitive protective housing at their request, and establishing confidential complaint systems that encourage inmates to report sexual violence without increasing their risk of future assault or retaliation, from any party.
Perhaps the most important thing detention facilities can do is employ classification systems that effectively separate likely rape victims from likely sexual predators. ... But no matter what the architecture, effective surveillance of inmates is essential, and meaningful rehabilitative programs such as GED courses—leading to the equivalent of a high school diploma—which used to be much more common in American prisons than they are now, have been shown to reduce all sorts of violence.
more--please read (via The Corner)
British dialect and accent map, with sound links. Also via The Corner.
Cultural Revolution kitsch. Also via TC. It's like a cookie jar of evil.
Ravens play wild boar rodeo. That is not a metaphor! Via Ratty.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
...THE NEXT VOICE YOU HEAR: Casting actors to do the voices for the New Testament. They're having some trouble casting Satan, apparently. (Via Ratty.) I totally can't help myself, so I'm going to have some fun here and do my own casting (in utter innocence of the laws of time and space). Keep in mind that I really liked Edward G. Robinson in "The Ten Commandments," and I don't care what you say!
Satan: actual possibility: John Malkovich. He has the ability to sound really frighteningly elsewhere, like there's nothing going on behind his eyes: chalky and dissociated.
crack-addled possibility: Jennifer Saunders.
Peter: Edward G. Robinson. You heard me.
Paul: Cary Grant? I mean, Paul does keep telling you he's a Roman citizen.... He'd be a decent Herod though, too. I could also see Lee Marvin as a very different take on Paul.
Judas: Tony Curtis. "Match me, Sidney."
Herodias: Katharine Hepburn. (I know, she has one line in the actual Bible. Still!)
John the Baptist: ...Johnny Cash?
Mary: I... I have no idea. Candace Hilligoss???
Narrator: I'd want either someone light-voiced, intimidated, in-over-his-head (Danny Kaye???), or passionate and I-don't-care-what-you-think (Joanna Lumley?? Spike Lee???).
Your suggestions?
Satan: actual possibility: John Malkovich. He has the ability to sound really frighteningly elsewhere, like there's nothing going on behind his eyes: chalky and dissociated.
crack-addled possibility: Jennifer Saunders.
Peter: Edward G. Robinson. You heard me.
Paul: Cary Grant? I mean, Paul does keep telling you he's a Roman citizen.... He'd be a decent Herod though, too. I could also see Lee Marvin as a very different take on Paul.
Judas: Tony Curtis. "Match me, Sidney."
Herodias: Katharine Hepburn. (I know, she has one line in the actual Bible. Still!)
John the Baptist: ...Johnny Cash?
Mary: I... I have no idea. Candace Hilligoss???
Narrator: I'd want either someone light-voiced, intimidated, in-over-his-head (Danny Kaye???), or passionate and I-don't-care-what-you-think (Joanna Lumley?? Spike Lee???).
Your suggestions?
CATHY YOUNG ON ASSAULT BEHIND BARS:
more
...Hulin’s mother, Linda Bruntmeyer, says that her own complaint to the warden was brushed aside with a matter-of-fact statement that rapes in prison happen and her son needed to grow up.
In an email exchange, I asked Fleisher whether enough was being done to address the prison rape problem and what further steps could be taken. His reply: “Correctional administrators are serious about all aspects of prison administration and management.” This optimistic assessment is undermined by much evidence that correctional staff too often see sexual coercion as a part of the prison culture that inmates have to either accept or handle on their own.
Changing this culture will take more than federally mandated posters reminding inmates that sexual assault is a crime and urging them to break the code of silence. At present, it is very difficult—virtually impossible in some states—for inmates who have been raped to collect damages from the prison system. Guards who neglect or even condone inmate-on-inmate assaults run virtually no risk of punishment. Other serious measures to combat prison rape would include both “conservative” solutions (stricter prisoner supervision) and “liberal” ones (less overcrowding).
Even lower-end estimates given by correctional organizations suggest that 20,000 to 40,000 inmates are sexually assaulted in American prisons every year. Those are figures no civilized society should accept.
more
Mind you, I can hardly blame them;
These are probably the worst pies in Blogwatch...
Hit & Run: Good, basic post on drug prohibition, alcohol prohibition, and trade-offs.
Virginia Postrel: "...I guess that makes Tom Simon and me kidney sluts, since we didn't even charge. Having gone through the process, I can in fact imagine that selling a kidney would be for many people, especially the young and healthy, a far more desirable option than, say, giving up a home and certainly better than becoming a hooker. Within the U.S. transplant system, where laparoscopic surgery is the norm and malpractice and financial protections are in place, paying for organs would not mean exploitation of donors--any more than paying firefighters means exploitation of desperate men with a taste for danger and doing good."
And Mark Shea's "New Catholic" Wish List.
These are probably the worst pies in Blogwatch...
Hit & Run: Good, basic post on drug prohibition, alcohol prohibition, and trade-offs.
Virginia Postrel: "...I guess that makes Tom Simon and me kidney sluts, since we didn't even charge. Having gone through the process, I can in fact imagine that selling a kidney would be for many people, especially the young and healthy, a far more desirable option than, say, giving up a home and certainly better than becoming a hooker. Within the U.S. transplant system, where laparoscopic surgery is the norm and malpractice and financial protections are in place, paying for organs would not mean exploitation of donors--any more than paying firefighters means exploitation of desperate men with a taste for danger and doing good."
And Mark Shea's "New Catholic" Wish List.
Baby Blogwatch feels the best...
Disputed Mutability watches Peterson Toscano's "Doin' Time at the Homo No Mo' Halfway House."
Holy Heroes!!--I will be contributing, at some point, to this Christian comics blog. (I will be playing the Villain.)
The American Scene guys and Jane Galt (Megan McArdle) are blogging at Andrew Sullivan's site, hooray! Megan is also profiled here.
I promise I will post your emails re woman-as-icon soon. Sorry....
Disputed Mutability watches Peterson Toscano's "Doin' Time at the Homo No Mo' Halfway House."
Holy Heroes!!--I will be contributing, at some point, to this Christian comics blog. (I will be playing the Villain.)
The American Scene guys and Jane Galt (Megan McArdle) are blogging at Andrew Sullivan's site, hooray! Megan is also profiled here.
I promise I will post your emails re woman-as-icon soon. Sorry....
Saturday, April 14, 2007
It's coming up roses,
every blog you watch, red roses...
Daniel Mitsui: The broken spears of the sea; and an introduction to the artist.
The cartoon killed from Killed Cartoons:
surprise, surprise (via Journalista; and, I hope obviously, not meant to suggest that the Marlette cartoon is some kind of brilliant incisive hilarious talented sensitive troubled Mr. Ripley, because that's completely not the point.)
every blog you watch, red roses...
Daniel Mitsui: The broken spears of the sea; and an introduction to the artist.
The cartoon killed from Killed Cartoons:
...Even "Killed Cartoons" faced its own bout of censorship. An editorial cartoon by Doug Marlette, entitled "What Would Mohammed Drive?" and featuring an Arab man driving a van packed with a nuclear warhead, was removed from the book by the publisher for what Wallis calls "fear of fatwa."
surprise, surprise (via Journalista; and, I hope obviously, not meant to suggest that the Marlette cartoon is some kind of brilliant incisive hilarious talented sensitive troubled Mr. Ripley, because that's completely not the point.)
Friday, April 13, 2007
The arrow tells the target:
Be my light.
The target answers the arrow:
Love me.
--Aleksander Wat; whole poem here
Be my light.
The target answers the arrow:
Love me.
--Aleksander Wat; whole poem here
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
WHEN I SEE YOU, A THOUSAND EYES TURNING BLUE: Cacciaguida asks:
Ha, good catch! He's referring to one of my problems with the "Goblet of Fire" movie. But yeah, I think it is different. Let me try to marshal theology to defend my aesthetic preferences!
The first, most obvious difference is that in the woman-as-icon moments, the seeker usually doesn't attain the lady. The aching absence and sense of persistent lack helps to give those moments their spiritual heft.
Moreover, "he saw her across a crowded room" IMO substitutes iconicity for individuality, in situations where individuality is required. I mean, to date an actual human female, you should probably be interested in her as something other than an icon. Actually, my biggest problem with the Stephen Fry thing mentioned in the previous post is precisely that it's "he saw him across a crowded room"--the personality of the beloved is both unknown and irrelevant, and yet that doesn't suggest to the lover that perhaps something other than this particular human individual is what's really being sought.
If you fall in love with an icon seen standing at her window, you might be "in love with love," or you might be in love with something you see through the window of this woman. But you definitely aren't in love with that particular woman, because you don't actually know anything about her other than how she looks. So attempts to write a realist romance based on the iconic vision, rather than e.g. a psalm, are going to fail because you... get stuck in the window (to carry this metaphor well past where it should stop), instead of moving through it to a deeper desire.
Or in other words, don't marry a girl just because the sunlight caught in her hair one afternoon and you thought suddenly of God. You'll still have to live with her and do the washing-up, you know.
Is "the woman-as-icon moment" the same as "the across-a-crowded-room thing"?
Ha, good catch! He's referring to one of my problems with the "Goblet of Fire" movie. But yeah, I think it is different. Let me try to marshal theology to defend my aesthetic preferences!
The first, most obvious difference is that in the woman-as-icon moments, the seeker usually doesn't attain the lady. The aching absence and sense of persistent lack helps to give those moments their spiritual heft.
Moreover, "he saw her across a crowded room" IMO substitutes iconicity for individuality, in situations where individuality is required. I mean, to date an actual human female, you should probably be interested in her as something other than an icon. Actually, my biggest problem with the Stephen Fry thing mentioned in the previous post is precisely that it's "he saw him across a crowded room"--the personality of the beloved is both unknown and irrelevant, and yet that doesn't suggest to the lover that perhaps something other than this particular human individual is what's really being sought.
If you fall in love with an icon seen standing at her window, you might be "in love with love," or you might be in love with something you see through the window of this woman. But you definitely aren't in love with that particular woman, because you don't actually know anything about her other than how she looks. So attempts to write a realist romance based on the iconic vision, rather than e.g. a psalm, are going to fail because you... get stuck in the window (to carry this metaphor well past where it should stop), instead of moving through it to a deeper desire.
Or in other words, don't marry a girl just because the sunlight caught in her hair one afternoon and you thought suddenly of God. You'll still have to live with her and do the washing-up, you know.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
THE POLITICS OF DANCING: ALL ALONE AT THE '64 WORLD'S FAIR. It's been a while since we've done this thing, where I hijack pop music for my own nefarious agenda. Previous examples include: The Cramps, "Eyeball in My Martini"; Cat Power, "Say"; Queen, "Princes of the Universe"; and They Might Be Giants, "Where Your Eyes Don't Go." Here we have TMBG again, with "Ana Ng."
This song seems like a direct translation of the story of the round people. And you guys know that I have a big problem with the round people, right?
But this post isn't about the weird self-centricity of that story, or of the "soulmate" mythology generally. Instead, I want to talk about the really compelling aspects of the myth, which "Ana Ng" draws out beautifully.
First, the sense that the yearning we feel is not for an abstraction but for a particular person. The keyhole in our soul has a shape; we didn't make it up, it isn't formless, and we can try to trace its contours. All of philosophy, I think, is the equivalent of the episode in The Great Brain at the Academy where the Great Brain uses a bar of soap to make a duplicate key so he can sneak into the academy's kitchen. We know the soap key, being human-made, isn't quite as strong as the original key; but we hope it can get us where we need to go anyway.
Second, that this keyhole is not only in our soul but in our flesh. Our longing is romantic and even erotic, while also bearing the shadow of a hidden, shy, spiritual meaning.
Third, that the entire world (represented by the World's Fair? or am I trying too hard for a "close reading" here??) is filled with signs that love was here, but has gone away. Who was at the DuPont Pavilion? Why was the bench still warm--who had been there?
Fourth, I note that the longing of a man for a woman is one of the most common representations of spiritual yearning in Western culture. Dante looking at Beatrice is only the most famous example. Woman-as-icon, in the Eastern Orthodox terminology of an icon as a window to the Divine, is a consistently recurring trope in our culture.
I don't entirely know what to make of that. I sympathize with it greatly--not least because it so perfectly reflects my own experience! And I end up writing about this woman-as-icon moment a lot, in my fiction.
But I wonder if my readers have any thoughts on variants on this moment. I can think of moments when a man sees another man as in some way both erotic and revelatory (Stephen Fry's autobiography is the most obvious example I can think of at the moment, even though I have a lot of problems with the way he presents love in that book, and if he were to draw the eros/religious awe parallel his theology would be turbo-skewed), or a man to a boy (Death in Venice is the most obvious example here--are there examples where the boy isn't an anti-icon, an image or expression or target of thanatos?), though none of a woman to a woman. I don't raise this as a polemical point, but as a request: Are there Great Moments in the Iconic Gaze that I'm forgetting, or never knew?
But yes: "Ana Ng" is a terrific pop-music representation of that intense, personal, erotic and spiritual loneliness. This, despite also rocking quite a bit. There's hope for us all!
This song seems like a direct translation of the story of the round people. And you guys know that I have a big problem with the round people, right?
But this post isn't about the weird self-centricity of that story, or of the "soulmate" mythology generally. Instead, I want to talk about the really compelling aspects of the myth, which "Ana Ng" draws out beautifully.
First, the sense that the yearning we feel is not for an abstraction but for a particular person. The keyhole in our soul has a shape; we didn't make it up, it isn't formless, and we can try to trace its contours. All of philosophy, I think, is the equivalent of the episode in The Great Brain at the Academy where the Great Brain uses a bar of soap to make a duplicate key so he can sneak into the academy's kitchen. We know the soap key, being human-made, isn't quite as strong as the original key; but we hope it can get us where we need to go anyway.
Second, that this keyhole is not only in our soul but in our flesh. Our longing is romantic and even erotic, while also bearing the shadow of a hidden, shy, spiritual meaning.
Third, that the entire world (represented by the World's Fair? or am I trying too hard for a "close reading" here??) is filled with signs that love was here, but has gone away. Who was at the DuPont Pavilion? Why was the bench still warm--who had been there?
Fourth, I note that the longing of a man for a woman is one of the most common representations of spiritual yearning in Western culture. Dante looking at Beatrice is only the most famous example. Woman-as-icon, in the Eastern Orthodox terminology of an icon as a window to the Divine, is a consistently recurring trope in our culture.
I don't entirely know what to make of that. I sympathize with it greatly--not least because it so perfectly reflects my own experience! And I end up writing about this woman-as-icon moment a lot, in my fiction.
But I wonder if my readers have any thoughts on variants on this moment. I can think of moments when a man sees another man as in some way both erotic and revelatory (Stephen Fry's autobiography is the most obvious example I can think of at the moment, even though I have a lot of problems with the way he presents love in that book, and if he were to draw the eros/religious awe parallel his theology would be turbo-skewed), or a man to a boy (Death in Venice is the most obvious example here--are there examples where the boy isn't an anti-icon, an image or expression or target of thanatos?), though none of a woman to a woman. I don't raise this as a polemical point, but as a request: Are there Great Moments in the Iconic Gaze that I'm forgetting, or never knew?
But yes: "Ana Ng" is a terrific pop-music representation of that intense, personal, erotic and spiritual loneliness. This, despite also rocking quite a bit. There's hope for us all!
Ana Ng and I are getting old, and we still haven't watched
in the blog of each other's majestic presence...
Daniel Mitsui: Oh wow. St. Michael, looking kind of intergalactic.
MCNS/Irish Elk: Dismas, who is (predictably!) one of my favorite saints:
more (via Mark Shea)
in the blog of each other's majestic presence...
Daniel Mitsui: Oh wow. St. Michael, looking kind of intergalactic.
MCNS/Irish Elk: Dismas, who is (predictably!) one of my favorite saints:
...Newsman MacMurphy's fortunes advanced. Finally he became the News's business manager. Every March 25 his St. Dismas piece crept a little nearer the front page. And on that day MacMurphy would write again the homely praises of his favorite saint: "There are so many better advertised saints, all specialists, that few mortals bother much with this hoodlum saint, who roams the outfield of eternity, making shoestring catches of souls—a saint who has no following to speak of, no medals, no propaganda. There's nothing to recommend him, really, except the fact that to no other saint in the calendar did the Son of God make the witnessed statement: 'You fill the bill.' Which helps explain why those who do believe in Dismas believe in him all the way."
more (via Mark Shea)
NEW BLOG!: "Alias Clio," from someone who's written in to this site before. "[B]ooks, history, God, and Catholicism." Hie thee thither.
KITCHEN ADVENTURES: FEAST!: This is what I've been eating to celebrate Easter. Ridiculously, it includes none of the food I gave up for Lent (meat and artichoke hearts); but it is much fancier and pricier than my usual fare, and definitely more so than the very simple food I ate during Lent. And yes, I know that actually you're supposed to give the money you save during Lent as alms, rather than using it to buy Camembert. I will do that too. Anyway--onward to the adventures!
Warm Camembert with Wild Mushroom Fricassee: This, like most of the following recipes, was based on a recipe from Food and Wine's 2007 cookbook. I made changes to the ingredients (they want you to use walnuts and walnut oil, and different herbs) and the preparation (they omit the aluminum foil, which I just don't understand). Still, I never would have thought to do this without F&W, so they receive much of the credit for this really delicious dish.
what: one 8-oz wheel of ripe Camembert in its wooden box; most of a package, or however much looks good to you, of mixed wild mushrooms, chopped into big pieces; s&p; olive oil, chopped garlic, fresh rosemary, fresh Thai basil, aluminum foil.
how: Heat oven to 300. Take Camembert out of its wrapping, and then put it back all naked in the bottom half of its box. Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil and put the box on the sheet, then bake for ten minutes, or until soft. Unless you time it better than I did, the cheese will melt out of its box a bit, hence the foil.
Meanwhile, saute the mushrooms, garlic, s&p, and fresh herbs in the olive oil.
When the cheese is ready, dump it out (or as F&W says, "invert" it) onto a platter and spoon/pour the mushrooms over it. Serve with sourdough toasts. (I used a toasted French roll, because I stupidly forgot that I'd bought sourdough bread for exactly this purpose; the roll was fine, but I think sourdough would have been better.)
why: This was so good! Equal parts messy and classy. The herbs really worked: I used a fork to scrape cheese from a big rosemary sprig, then spread the cheese and some 'shrooms on toast, and was shocked at how delicious it was. No kidding, this is some great food. It's supposed to serve four as an appetizer, but... I just had it for dinner. Mmmmm.
Squid Ceviche: what: 1/2-lb. cleaned squid, bodies cut into rings, tentacles left whole; two thin chili peppers (I'm not sure what they were--they were red and green respectively, and long and thin, but only about as hot as a jalapeno), diced; chopped ripe tomato (I used two baby Roma tomatoes because that's what I happened to have on hand); a lemon; sliced red onion; half a diced avocado (you could totally use more--I saved the other half for the queso fundido, see below); chopped fresh cilantro.
how: Bring a pot or large pan of salted water to a boil. Fill a bowl with ice water. Cook the squid for 30 seconds in the boiling water, then drain the squid and put it in the ice water. Note: I screwed this up kind of a lot, due to failures of equipment (my freezer doesn't work, so no ice water for me) and imagination (didn't figure out how to manage the pan properly). So I ended up cooking the squid for maybe 45 seconds in water that was coming back to the boil, rather than actually at a rolling boil, and then once the water was starting to boil again rinsing the squid under cold water in the colander. This seemed to work okay.
In a dish, combine the squid, a bit of salt, and the diced peppers, and refrigerate for 30 mins. Then add the juice of the lemon, cilantro, and red onion to the ceviche, mix well, and refrigerate for two hours, stirring twice. Add the avocado and tomato, and serve.
why: This was good! I'd never made ceviche before. It's very easy, or at least this version is. I will say that I underestimated how much of a very powerful-tasting dish this would make: I was eating ceviche for breakfast the next day, and for snacks, etc. I ate the first round of ceviche with...
Queso Fundido a la Leftovers: what: olive oil, chopped tomato, two of those mystery chilis diced, chopped red onion, leftover chipotle corn bisque from a box, leftover "Mexican blend" cheese (actually quite bland--Monterey Jack, colby, and something else--I would have preferred my favorite, Sargento's Mexican blend), chopped fresh cilantro, 1/2 (or more) a diced avocado, toasted French roll.
how: Saute the tomato, chilis, and onion until they're about how you want 'em. Add everything else, stir, cookity, decant, serve with toasts.
why: Simple, filling, delicious, and uses up leftovers. It shouldn't be hard to find ingredients to substitute for the bisque: a splash of tequila, various sauces or marinades, etc. I'm guessing that the Trader Joe's mojito simmer sauce I praised in this space would work very well.
Panko-Crusted Mushrooms: Okay, for this one I followed the F&W recipe more or less to the letter, so here it is. I acknowledge that my kitchen sk1llz are limited, so the fact that I did not love these should not reflect poorly on F&W. For whatever reason, I thought the panko coating was kind of bland (maybe next time I will mix it with peppers and/or spices?) and it was hard to get the larger mushrooms to cook through. I ended up dumping the leftover egg mix into the pan and having a kind of bizarre mushroom omelet, which was actually not a bad idea. Other people could probably make these better than I did.
Savory Banana Split!: I'm so proud of this idea, even though the recipe is still a work in progress. This started out as a plan to make F&W's recipe for goat cheese-stuffed roasted figs, but it... evolved.
what: a big ripe plantain, spreadable goat cheese, fresh Thai basil, sliced red onion, a toaster oven.
how: Peel the plantain and slice it in half crosswise, then lengthwise. Spread the cut sides with goat cheese. Cover your toaster-oven tray with aluminum foil and make sandwiches, like so: plantain, cheese, basil, onion, cheese, plantain. Toast the sandwiches until you think they're done. (I think I did about ten minutes at 375, but I could be misremembering--I was judging by smell, mostly.) Eat with a knife and fork.
why: OK, this was not as savory as I'd like: Plantains are sweeter than I'd thought. More goat cheese next time, to cut the sweetness, I think; and maybe black pepper, cayenne, and/or some other herbs and spices. Nonetheless, this was very tasty. The creamy textures of the cheese and toasted plantain worked really well with the tart crunch of the red onion. And seriously: It's a banana split! If I can think of ways to incorporate other banana-split items, I will be even happier with this fun, wiggy snack--sliced baby Roma tomatoes instead of sliced strawberries, for example. Mole sauce??
Now I go back to eating leftovers and pinching pennies. But I had a lot of fun making and eating this stuff, and I hope some of you will also enjoy them!
Warm Camembert with Wild Mushroom Fricassee: This, like most of the following recipes, was based on a recipe from Food and Wine's 2007 cookbook. I made changes to the ingredients (they want you to use walnuts and walnut oil, and different herbs) and the preparation (they omit the aluminum foil, which I just don't understand). Still, I never would have thought to do this without F&W, so they receive much of the credit for this really delicious dish.
what: one 8-oz wheel of ripe Camembert in its wooden box; most of a package, or however much looks good to you, of mixed wild mushrooms, chopped into big pieces; s&p; olive oil, chopped garlic, fresh rosemary, fresh Thai basil, aluminum foil.
how: Heat oven to 300. Take Camembert out of its wrapping, and then put it back all naked in the bottom half of its box. Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil and put the box on the sheet, then bake for ten minutes, or until soft. Unless you time it better than I did, the cheese will melt out of its box a bit, hence the foil.
Meanwhile, saute the mushrooms, garlic, s&p, and fresh herbs in the olive oil.
When the cheese is ready, dump it out (or as F&W says, "invert" it) onto a platter and spoon/pour the mushrooms over it. Serve with sourdough toasts. (I used a toasted French roll, because I stupidly forgot that I'd bought sourdough bread for exactly this purpose; the roll was fine, but I think sourdough would have been better.)
why: This was so good! Equal parts messy and classy. The herbs really worked: I used a fork to scrape cheese from a big rosemary sprig, then spread the cheese and some 'shrooms on toast, and was shocked at how delicious it was. No kidding, this is some great food. It's supposed to serve four as an appetizer, but... I just had it for dinner. Mmmmm.
Squid Ceviche: what: 1/2-lb. cleaned squid, bodies cut into rings, tentacles left whole; two thin chili peppers (I'm not sure what they were--they were red and green respectively, and long and thin, but only about as hot as a jalapeno), diced; chopped ripe tomato (I used two baby Roma tomatoes because that's what I happened to have on hand); a lemon; sliced red onion; half a diced avocado (you could totally use more--I saved the other half for the queso fundido, see below); chopped fresh cilantro.
how: Bring a pot or large pan of salted water to a boil. Fill a bowl with ice water. Cook the squid for 30 seconds in the boiling water, then drain the squid and put it in the ice water. Note: I screwed this up kind of a lot, due to failures of equipment (my freezer doesn't work, so no ice water for me) and imagination (didn't figure out how to manage the pan properly). So I ended up cooking the squid for maybe 45 seconds in water that was coming back to the boil, rather than actually at a rolling boil, and then once the water was starting to boil again rinsing the squid under cold water in the colander. This seemed to work okay.
In a dish, combine the squid, a bit of salt, and the diced peppers, and refrigerate for 30 mins. Then add the juice of the lemon, cilantro, and red onion to the ceviche, mix well, and refrigerate for two hours, stirring twice. Add the avocado and tomato, and serve.
why: This was good! I'd never made ceviche before. It's very easy, or at least this version is. I will say that I underestimated how much of a very powerful-tasting dish this would make: I was eating ceviche for breakfast the next day, and for snacks, etc. I ate the first round of ceviche with...
Queso Fundido a la Leftovers: what: olive oil, chopped tomato, two of those mystery chilis diced, chopped red onion, leftover chipotle corn bisque from a box, leftover "Mexican blend" cheese (actually quite bland--Monterey Jack, colby, and something else--I would have preferred my favorite, Sargento's Mexican blend), chopped fresh cilantro, 1/2 (or more) a diced avocado, toasted French roll.
how: Saute the tomato, chilis, and onion until they're about how you want 'em. Add everything else, stir, cookity, decant, serve with toasts.
why: Simple, filling, delicious, and uses up leftovers. It shouldn't be hard to find ingredients to substitute for the bisque: a splash of tequila, various sauces or marinades, etc. I'm guessing that the Trader Joe's mojito simmer sauce I praised in this space would work very well.
Panko-Crusted Mushrooms: Okay, for this one I followed the F&W recipe more or less to the letter, so here it is. I acknowledge that my kitchen sk1llz are limited, so the fact that I did not love these should not reflect poorly on F&W. For whatever reason, I thought the panko coating was kind of bland (maybe next time I will mix it with peppers and/or spices?) and it was hard to get the larger mushrooms to cook through. I ended up dumping the leftover egg mix into the pan and having a kind of bizarre mushroom omelet, which was actually not a bad idea. Other people could probably make these better than I did.
Savory Banana Split!: I'm so proud of this idea, even though the recipe is still a work in progress. This started out as a plan to make F&W's recipe for goat cheese-stuffed roasted figs, but it... evolved.
what: a big ripe plantain, spreadable goat cheese, fresh Thai basil, sliced red onion, a toaster oven.
how: Peel the plantain and slice it in half crosswise, then lengthwise. Spread the cut sides with goat cheese. Cover your toaster-oven tray with aluminum foil and make sandwiches, like so: plantain, cheese, basil, onion, cheese, plantain. Toast the sandwiches until you think they're done. (I think I did about ten minutes at 375, but I could be misremembering--I was judging by smell, mostly.) Eat with a knife and fork.
why: OK, this was not as savory as I'd like: Plantains are sweeter than I'd thought. More goat cheese next time, to cut the sweetness, I think; and maybe black pepper, cayenne, and/or some other herbs and spices. Nonetheless, this was very tasty. The creamy textures of the cheese and toasted plantain worked really well with the tart crunch of the red onion. And seriously: It's a banana split! If I can think of ways to incorporate other banana-split items, I will be even happier with this fun, wiggy snack--sliced baby Roma tomatoes instead of sliced strawberries, for example. Mole sauce??
Now I go back to eating leftovers and pinching pennies. But I had a lot of fun making and eating this stuff, and I hope some of you will also enjoy them!
Monday, April 09, 2007
"Boys call up girls and say, 'Would you like to go to a blogwatch?'
And the girls say, 'Yes, I would like that very much.'
Have you come to take me to a blogwatch, Linus?"
"Good grief, no!"
"...Isn't he the cutest thing."
Amy Welborn: Amazing Easter pictures from around the world. And the same for Good Friday. And:
more
and
more (every now and then I remember I wasn't worthy of the philosophy degree)
Daniel Mitsui:
more
Disputations:
more
Mark Shea: What has Easter changed?:
more
Mixolydian Mode: Lilacs and frost.
[edited because I wasn't sure what I wanted to say]
Unqualified Offerings: I haven't read the entire post from which this is taken. But I will sign on to this part:
And the girls say, 'Yes, I would like that very much.'
Have you come to take me to a blogwatch, Linus?"
"Good grief, no!"
"...Isn't he the cutest thing."
Amy Welborn: Amazing Easter pictures from around the world. And the same for Good Friday. And:
"I didn't want to be a Catholic, but I couldn't get away from it. It was a feeling that when I went against it, it didn't feel right."
more
and
...Once I had arrived to this "safer" prison, I had met an inmate who strongly encouraged me that I needed to read and study my way out of prison. He strongly encouraged me to read the classics and study Philosophy. To which, I fell in love with the written word and the quest for truth and meaning in my life.
more (every now and then I remember I wasn't worthy of the philosophy degree)
Daniel Mitsui:
...The story of first millennium Christianity is one of continuous failure and attrition; the Church suffered from Christological and Trinitarian heresies in steady succession, and as easy as it may be to distance the Church from them after the anathemas have been read, all of these heresies arose within the Church. There was a time before the anathemas were read, when each had not yet been condemned, when it was openly professed at all levels of the Church. To live as a Christian in the first millennium, especially in any of the eastern patriarchies, as often as not meant having Christological or Trinitarian heretics for bishops and priests, and most of the faithful either themselves professing the errors or too cowardly or indifferent to oppose them. ...
There is no refuge in the Church Militant.
more
Disputations:
...We think of Jesus' word, "Woman, behold thy son," as proof of His loving care for His mother, who would otherwise be alone in the world, and it is that. But I'd suggest that it is also an instruction to her, that she must now reach out to others with that very love she had for Jesus; given at a moment when all she "would have" wanted to do is look to her Son, it may even have caused her some pain.
But no one, not even the Blessed Virgin, gets to set their own terms as a disciple of Christ. We may wish to remain at the foot of the Cross, our eyes never leaving Jesus. But that grace was not even given to those who physically were at the foot of the Cross. We must take all that we gain from the Cross to others; that's the only way for us to love Him now as Mary did then.
more
Mark Shea: What has Easter changed?:
A reader recently wrote me to say, “I have Jewish friends who ask, ‘How can Jesus be the New Adam and the Messiah when it is painfully clear that everyone is still suffering from original sin? How can he have conquered death when the penalty for Adam’s sin — death — is still being inflicted on everybody?’ Is this a common issue for Jewish people? How do I respond to it?” ...
We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners “in Adam” as Paul put it. We can’t save ourselves. We need the help of Christ’s Spirit.
Curiously, this notion of “corporate personality,” of being “in Adam” (and, for the Christian, “in Christ”) is deeply Jewish. The prophets are full of the notion that the nation of Israel and the man Jacob are somehow bound up with one another. Likewise, other figures from the patriarchal period (Ishmael, Esau, Ham, Ephraim, Judah, etc.) are somehow “summed up” in their descendants.
So the concept of original sin, while not a feature of modern Judaism, is deeply rooted in this peculiarly Old Testament way of seeing the human family. Christianity simply elaborates on it and holds that we are bound up, not only with the primordial tasks of Adam (marriage, fruitfulness, rule, work and worship) but in his fall as well. ...
Christianity is not about the cancellation of death, but about the transformation of death. It has likewise always insisted that the main thing Adam suffered was spiritual death: the loss of God.
more
Mixolydian Mode: Lilacs and frost.
[edited because I wasn't sure what I wanted to say]
Unqualified Offerings: I haven't read the entire post from which this is taken. But I will sign on to this part:
I have this rule of thumb, which I recommend to everyone: if Solzhenitsyn recounts some practice as one employed in coercive interrogations at Lubyanka, it’s torture.more
Thursday, April 05, 2007
I HAVE DRIFTED OUT OF THE ARENA OF THE UNWELL, but into the arena of the Triduum, so expect no further posts until Easter Monday. At that point, I should have movie reviews, a blogwatch, a fast-breaking kitchen adventure, and Something Unexpected, as well as whatever else shuffles across my keyboard. Until then: the Anima Christi.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
TWO LINKS: Unqualified Offerings looks at his March 2003 archives; and Disputed Mutability begins a series on "Why I Forsook Gay Identity." DM is extremely forthright, and always worth reading. I'm grateful that a kind of obnoxiously short and elliptical post from me spurred her to put her own thoughts down at length. Plus, c'mon--how can you resist "forsook"?
Saturday, March 31, 2007
YOU'RE GONNA NEED SOMEONE ON YOUR SIDE: Catholics talk a lot about the need to pick up your cross and follow Christ. And that isn't wrong. But I wonder if they notice that Christ Himself didn't carry His cross alone?
He had St. Simon of Cyrene, a.k.a. some dude. He had someone he didn't know, not an apostle, not anyone expected--just a guy, shanghai'd into carrying the Cross that would bring life to sinners. Someone needed him--and responding to that need is what made him a saint.
It's kind of terrifying to me how ashamed we are by our neediness. We are dependent. We are on our knees at the foot of the Cross. Like the man said, we can't do it by ourselves any longer. And we feel awful because we can't save ourselves. We feel (I feel) deep, miserable, abiding shame because we think we should be Pelagians. We genuinely believe we should be able to save ourselves by being sinless.
Oh, good luck with that, honey. You let me know how that works out for you.
Maybe it would be easier to ask for help.
He had St. Simon of Cyrene, a.k.a. some dude. He had someone he didn't know, not an apostle, not anyone expected--just a guy, shanghai'd into carrying the Cross that would bring life to sinners. Someone needed him--and responding to that need is what made him a saint.
It's kind of terrifying to me how ashamed we are by our neediness. We are dependent. We are on our knees at the foot of the Cross. Like the man said, we can't do it by ourselves any longer. And we feel awful because we can't save ourselves. We feel (I feel) deep, miserable, abiding shame because we think we should be Pelagians. We genuinely believe we should be able to save ourselves by being sinless.
Oh, good luck with that, honey. You let me know how that works out for you.
Maybe it would be easier to ask for help.
Friday, March 30, 2007
WE ALL FEEL BETTER IN THE DARK: Unless we're watching the movies Netflix has sent me recently. Why did I put together such a depressing line-up?? Anyway, the report:
The Battle of Algiers: Documentary-style movie about terrorists vs. torturers in the last years of French rule in Algeria. The black and white graininess is amazing--b&w is made for faces--and the characters are totally compelling. I don't really have anything to say about this other than that you should watch it. ...Ennio Morricone did the music, if that helps.
Maborosi: Hirokazu Koreeda on thanatos or the rapture of the deep. The movie is gorgeous--very comic-booky, like color-drenched Jaime Hernandez, maybe Chester Square-era--and the lead actress, Makiko Esumi, is deerlike and strangely beautiful. I got a slight Audrey Hepburn vibe from her: the same ability to be ridiculous and then suddenly graceful. (She's a model, apparently, and her modeling photos look pretty normal, but she had a real otherworldly air in the movie.) But yes, this is an intensely depressing movie. The Netflix blurb tried to make out like it ends with hope, but I didn't really see that--I saw "life goes on," yeah, but that's not the same thing.
Nobody Knows: More Koreeda cinemisery. Based on the true story of several children whose single mother abandoned them in a small Tokyo apartment. It doesn't have the distinctive look of Maborosi, but the child actors are terrific. It's really well-paced, especially given that it's more than two hours long. And more or less unrelentingly painful. ...The title is really grim as well, since one of the noticeable things about the movie is how many people--including adults--knew about the children's situation but do nothing or virtually nothing to help them. Anyway, this is a pretty amazing movie, and you should see it if you can take it.
Grey Gardens: Does what it says on the tin: "Documentary pioneers the Maysles brothers (Gimme Shelter) capture poignant moments in the lives of Edith Bouvier Beale (Big Edie) and her middle-aged daughter, Little Edie -- relatives of Jackie O -- at their decaying estate, Grey Gardens. The ladies shut out their bleak present by recalling richer times and lost loves, and while Little Edie confides that she'd like to leave, the camera captures a co-dependency destined to continue."
I can see why so many people are into this movie: It has enough layers and themes that you can pick out whichever ones speak most personally to you. For me, it was about the unchosenness of family; but also the way that we make choices, and then deny to ourselves that we ever made them, pretending that the outcomes were always inevitable.
And also about living in fantasy--Augusten Burroughs has a quick, sharp note about that, in his autobiography Dry (which you should check out): "I have accepted Pulitzer Prizes, Academy Awards, met wonderful people, and had healthy relationships, all in my mind, all while drinking." Grey Gardens is gentler than that; but still....
The Battle of Algiers: Documentary-style movie about terrorists vs. torturers in the last years of French rule in Algeria. The black and white graininess is amazing--b&w is made for faces--and the characters are totally compelling. I don't really have anything to say about this other than that you should watch it. ...Ennio Morricone did the music, if that helps.
Maborosi: Hirokazu Koreeda on thanatos or the rapture of the deep. The movie is gorgeous--very comic-booky, like color-drenched Jaime Hernandez, maybe Chester Square-era--and the lead actress, Makiko Esumi, is deerlike and strangely beautiful. I got a slight Audrey Hepburn vibe from her: the same ability to be ridiculous and then suddenly graceful. (She's a model, apparently, and her modeling photos look pretty normal, but she had a real otherworldly air in the movie.) But yes, this is an intensely depressing movie. The Netflix blurb tried to make out like it ends with hope, but I didn't really see that--I saw "life goes on," yeah, but that's not the same thing.
Nobody Knows: More Koreeda cinemisery. Based on the true story of several children whose single mother abandoned them in a small Tokyo apartment. It doesn't have the distinctive look of Maborosi, but the child actors are terrific. It's really well-paced, especially given that it's more than two hours long. And more or less unrelentingly painful. ...The title is really grim as well, since one of the noticeable things about the movie is how many people--including adults--knew about the children's situation but do nothing or virtually nothing to help them. Anyway, this is a pretty amazing movie, and you should see it if you can take it.
Grey Gardens: Does what it says on the tin: "Documentary pioneers the Maysles brothers (Gimme Shelter) capture poignant moments in the lives of Edith Bouvier Beale (Big Edie) and her middle-aged daughter, Little Edie -- relatives of Jackie O -- at their decaying estate, Grey Gardens. The ladies shut out their bleak present by recalling richer times and lost loves, and while Little Edie confides that she'd like to leave, the camera captures a co-dependency destined to continue."
I can see why so many people are into this movie: It has enough layers and themes that you can pick out whichever ones speak most personally to you. For me, it was about the unchosenness of family; but also the way that we make choices, and then deny to ourselves that we ever made them, pretending that the outcomes were always inevitable.
And also about living in fantasy--Augusten Burroughs has a quick, sharp note about that, in his autobiography Dry (which you should check out): "I have accepted Pulitzer Prizes, Academy Awards, met wonderful people, and had healthy relationships, all in my mind, all while drinking." Grey Gardens is gentler than that; but still....
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Mirrors on the ceilings, and blogwatch on ice...
The Agitator: A reader asks, "Is there an organization advocating against paramilitary raids as a specialty? More generally, who [ACLU?] can one support that in some way is fighting against these daily raids?"
Church of the Masses: Pictures from Gethsemane.
Grylliade: More horror songs! (And yes, the title of this post is also a suggestion.)
Hit & Run: "When I went into [Stasi chief Erich] Mielke's office, I saw it had the number 101, which in 1984 is the number of the torture chamber. 1984 was banned in the G.D.R. but of course, Mielke and Honecker had access to banned material. The guide told me that Mielke wanted this number so much that even though his office was on the 2nd floor, he had the entire first floor renamed the Mezzanine so that he could call his room 101."
Julian Sanchez: Interesting post on negative vs positive liberty, though I'm pretty sure the last sentence only makes sense if you substitute "rights" for "the right." (Insert "a lot of things make sense if you do that!" joke here....)
The Rat: RD Laing on the stranger with my face.
The Agitator: A reader asks, "Is there an organization advocating against paramilitary raids as a specialty? More generally, who [ACLU?] can one support that in some way is fighting against these daily raids?"
Church of the Masses: Pictures from Gethsemane.
Grylliade: More horror songs! (And yes, the title of this post is also a suggestion.)
Hit & Run: "When I went into [Stasi chief Erich] Mielke's office, I saw it had the number 101, which in 1984 is the number of the torture chamber. 1984 was banned in the G.D.R. but of course, Mielke and Honecker had access to banned material. The guide told me that Mielke wanted this number so much that even though his office was on the 2nd floor, he had the entire first floor renamed the Mezzanine so that he could call his room 101."
Julian Sanchez: Interesting post on negative vs positive liberty, though I'm pretty sure the last sentence only makes sense if you substitute "rights" for "the right." (Insert "a lot of things make sense if you do that!" joke here....)
The Rat: RD Laing on the stranger with my face.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
HOW DOES IT FEEL NOW YOU'VE BEEN UNDRESSED/BY A MAN WITH A MIND LIKE THE GUTTER PRESS: So, "Wilde," starring Stephen Fry as aforementioned and Jude Law as co-respondent. Some thoughts:
1. It was a lot less sentimental than I expected. Admittedly, this is a bar so low Namor gets drunk here every night, but still. I loved the first and final scenes. Only the on-the-nose use of "The Selfish Giant" conformed fully to my expectations.
2. No, let's back up. Before I talk about this movie at all, I should really say that biopics and biographies of all kinds creep me out like whoa. These projects say so much more about their creators than about their subjects--and so often lack all self-overhearing--that I feel like I'm pawing through the underwear drawer of an entire culture. I feel about biographies the way some people seem to feel about fanfiction: Isn't this really distressingly derivative?
3. OK, but so given that, "Wilde": Fry is unexpectedly awesome. I like him always, but kind of thought the political/cultural weight of the project might sink him. And it almost does. I think possibly he has too much dignity in this role. But he also has this brilliant face, where you can see thoughts moving under a still surface--I don't know how you do that. And he does a thing where he bites his lower lip, which I don't remember as a Fry tic but which works perfectly here: Check it out esp. in the scene with the first kiss-this-guy moment.
Jude Law was made for this, as well. He's so pretty that I always forget that he can act. His accent felt really fake to me--and for all I know it's his real one, and he's been Upper-Class Twit of the Year fifteen years running, but still it felt fake (and not an in-character kind of fake)--but man, he was perfect as Lord Alfred Douglas.
But I think that to do what it seemed to want to do, the movie needed to be a four-handed piece: Wilde, Douglas, Constance, and Robert Ross. And while that's super awesome and much more what I'd want than a pure Wilde/Douglas movie, I thought both the writing and the acting for Constance and Ross weren't a match for Fry-Wilde and Law-Douglas. Constance just comes across as totally inscrutable and bland (and there's a weird acting/lipstick choice where she seems to be smiling in the Wildes' prison conference, which just doesn't work at all). Ross is ridiculous, a spaniel, and while that actually intrigued me (you totally understand why no one listened to him when he told Wilde to drop the feud with the Marquess; and his ridiculousness underlines the sacrifice-dignity-for-love theme), still the character needed to be stronger or more memorable in order to carry the weight the script required of him. He does get the very last line in the aftertitles, quite poignant.
Also, it was pretty interesting to watch this right after "Edward II," since the plots are vaguely similar. The juxtaposition suggests that you can completely Bizarro-World reverse the personalities of Constance/Isabella and Ross/Mortimer and still get the same result--from a secular perspective. But "Wilde" is much less secular than "EII."
4. I had expected the movie simply to ignore the religious drama of Wilde's life. It doesn't. Instead, it sets up that drama beautifully in the first half of the movie--and then totally drops it. What?? Both the themes and the pacing of the movie are badly thrown off by the decision to bring in the Marquess's atheism, Ross's Catholicism, and Wilde's awesome Cath-symp provocations... and then forget them.
Overall: If you don't already want to see this movie, don't bother. If you do already want to see it, don't take it off your list. It's significantly better than it needed to be.
1. It was a lot less sentimental than I expected. Admittedly, this is a bar so low Namor gets drunk here every night, but still. I loved the first and final scenes. Only the on-the-nose use of "The Selfish Giant" conformed fully to my expectations.
2. No, let's back up. Before I talk about this movie at all, I should really say that biopics and biographies of all kinds creep me out like whoa. These projects say so much more about their creators than about their subjects--and so often lack all self-overhearing--that I feel like I'm pawing through the underwear drawer of an entire culture. I feel about biographies the way some people seem to feel about fanfiction: Isn't this really distressingly derivative?
3. OK, but so given that, "Wilde": Fry is unexpectedly awesome. I like him always, but kind of thought the political/cultural weight of the project might sink him. And it almost does. I think possibly he has too much dignity in this role. But he also has this brilliant face, where you can see thoughts moving under a still surface--I don't know how you do that. And he does a thing where he bites his lower lip, which I don't remember as a Fry tic but which works perfectly here: Check it out esp. in the scene with the first kiss-this-guy moment.
Jude Law was made for this, as well. He's so pretty that I always forget that he can act. His accent felt really fake to me--and for all I know it's his real one, and he's been Upper-Class Twit of the Year fifteen years running, but still it felt fake (and not an in-character kind of fake)--but man, he was perfect as Lord Alfred Douglas.
But I think that to do what it seemed to want to do, the movie needed to be a four-handed piece: Wilde, Douglas, Constance, and Robert Ross. And while that's super awesome and much more what I'd want than a pure Wilde/Douglas movie, I thought both the writing and the acting for Constance and Ross weren't a match for Fry-Wilde and Law-Douglas. Constance just comes across as totally inscrutable and bland (and there's a weird acting/lipstick choice where she seems to be smiling in the Wildes' prison conference, which just doesn't work at all). Ross is ridiculous, a spaniel, and while that actually intrigued me (you totally understand why no one listened to him when he told Wilde to drop the feud with the Marquess; and his ridiculousness underlines the sacrifice-dignity-for-love theme), still the character needed to be stronger or more memorable in order to carry the weight the script required of him. He does get the very last line in the aftertitles, quite poignant.
Also, it was pretty interesting to watch this right after "Edward II," since the plots are vaguely similar. The juxtaposition suggests that you can completely Bizarro-World reverse the personalities of Constance/Isabella and Ross/Mortimer and still get the same result--from a secular perspective. But "Wilde" is much less secular than "EII."
4. I had expected the movie simply to ignore the religious drama of Wilde's life. It doesn't. Instead, it sets up that drama beautifully in the first half of the movie--and then totally drops it. What?? Both the themes and the pacing of the movie are badly thrown off by the decision to bring in the Marquess's atheism, Ross's Catholicism, and Wilde's awesome Cath-symp provocations... and then forget them.
Overall: If you don't already want to see this movie, don't bother. If you do already want to see it, don't take it off your list. It's significantly better than it needed to be.
Fights blogwatch with
bigger blogwatch--
Family Scholars: Hee!
The Rat: "For Couples, Reaction to Good News Matters More than Reaction to Bad." [You're taking relationship advice from a rat?--ed. We treat them all as equals, just like any other pest!]
bigger blogwatch--
Family Scholars: Hee!
The Rat: "For Couples, Reaction to Good News Matters More than Reaction to Bad." [You're taking relationship advice from a rat?--ed. We treat them all as equals, just like any other pest!]
Friday, March 23, 2007
DAPPLED THINGS will have a print edition! You can subscribe here to the Catholic lit/arts magazine foolish enough to publish one of my short stories.
AND THE SHADOW BEHIND WALKED WITH HIM: This week's Horror Roundtable looks at the best horror songs. How awesome. I can't confine myself to only one; so here are ten. These are off the top of my head, without rifling through the tape/CD collection. And I've declared ballads (e.g. "The Twa Corbies," "Allison Gross") off-limits, because we'll never get out of here otherwise. So, in no real order (except for the last, which is my favorite):
1. Delta 5, "Shadow." Classy, glossy stalker song.
2. Young Marble Giants, "Final Day." Not the ultimate apocalypse song--but the two contenders for that title, "99 Luftballons" and "The Man Comes Around," aren't really horror songs, whereas this might be. It's subtle, creepy and whistly, a whimsical and shivery song.
3. Martin Tielli, "I'll Never Tear You Apart." The tiger waits/in the bushes by the lake.
4. Jane Hohenberger, "Tooth Fairy." The only song I've ever seen someone cut off midplay because it was too scary. Her smooth gums gleam/with no teeth between,/Lisping, "You are mine! mine, mine mine mine...."
5. Diamanda Galas, a whole bunch of songs, including "You Must Be Certain of the Devil"; that one with the eight legs of the Devil crawling up her spine; and the one that starts, "Deep in my heart/I love you so," which I think might be called "Tony."
6. Dead Kennedys, "The Prey." Heh-heh-heh.
7. Two songs quoting Blake's "The Sick Rose"--that one from Coil (can't remember the name...), and the Raincoats' "Oh Oh La La La."
8. Nina Simone, "Sinnerman."
9. Siouxsie and the Banshees, "Gun." I don't know, I get a real Burroughs-Los Bros. Hernandez-SF-horror cartoony vibe from this.
10. Oh, you knew it was coming: The Cramps, "Eyeball in My Martini." I discuss its theological implications here. (The missing line is, "What's this burden that I bear?")
Hmm, this list seems to veer randomly from slow-and-creepy to camp-horror. I guess I'm in that kind of mood. ...And yeah, I really do love "Don't Fear the Reaper," too. Oh! and "Thriller," yeah! And "The End," and that Siouxsie song with the zombie rhumba ("Join Hands"?), and "Zombie Jamboree," and hey why not count "I Put a Spell on You," and and and and.... (HR link via Sean Collins.)
1. Delta 5, "Shadow." Classy, glossy stalker song.
2. Young Marble Giants, "Final Day." Not the ultimate apocalypse song--but the two contenders for that title, "99 Luftballons" and "The Man Comes Around," aren't really horror songs, whereas this might be. It's subtle, creepy and whistly, a whimsical and shivery song.
3. Martin Tielli, "I'll Never Tear You Apart." The tiger waits/in the bushes by the lake.
4. Jane Hohenberger, "Tooth Fairy." The only song I've ever seen someone cut off midplay because it was too scary. Her smooth gums gleam/with no teeth between,/Lisping, "You are mine! mine, mine mine mine...."
5. Diamanda Galas, a whole bunch of songs, including "You Must Be Certain of the Devil"; that one with the eight legs of the Devil crawling up her spine; and the one that starts, "Deep in my heart/I love you so," which I think might be called "Tony."
6. Dead Kennedys, "The Prey." Heh-heh-heh.
7. Two songs quoting Blake's "The Sick Rose"--that one from Coil (can't remember the name...), and the Raincoats' "Oh Oh La La La."
8. Nina Simone, "Sinnerman."
9. Siouxsie and the Banshees, "Gun." I don't know, I get a real Burroughs-Los Bros. Hernandez-SF-horror cartoony vibe from this.
10. Oh, you knew it was coming: The Cramps, "Eyeball in My Martini." I discuss its theological implications here. (The missing line is, "What's this burden that I bear?")
Hmm, this list seems to veer randomly from slow-and-creepy to camp-horror. I guess I'm in that kind of mood. ...And yeah, I really do love "Don't Fear the Reaper," too. Oh! and "Thriller," yeah! And "The End," and that Siouxsie song with the zombie rhumba ("Join Hands"?), and "Zombie Jamboree," and hey why not count "I Put a Spell on You," and and and and.... (HR link via Sean Collins.)
DISPUTATIONS WRITES: "The idea of each of our sins, however slight, being complicit in every evil experienced by everyone who ever lived is striking to me, too. That's why it became its own post, instead of just the two-paragraph intro to another post I'd originally planned.
"I'm not sure that it's *true*, though. I came by it through manipulating a principle of apocalyptic literature, and I'm not even sure I understand the principle as it applies directly to literature. Whether it has any metaphysical application at all, I don't know.
"But at the very least, pretending that it does preserves and highlights the simply stinky badness of sin, without which we're all (at best) Pelagians."
"I'm not sure that it's *true*, though. I came by it through manipulating a principle of apocalyptic literature, and I'm not even sure I understand the principle as it applies directly to literature. Whether it has any metaphysical application at all, I don't know.
"But at the very least, pretending that it does preserves and highlights the simply stinky badness of sin, without which we're all (at best) Pelagians."
AWESOME NUN: "...As a former orphan, however, her heart ached in a special way for poor young children in the capital city, especially those whose parents had been jailed. In those days, whole families were thrown into prison together, leaving the children bereft of any education or normal opportunities for socialization, and exposed to all manner of abuse.
"'You almost had to put them back in the womb and let them be born again, in order to make them normal,' she said. 'But it's amazing, even in a very quick time, what a huge difference love and care in their lives can make.'"
I love this, too: "Had this been a project of the community, I would have been under holy obedience. Now I could do things my way.'"
more
(via Amy Welborn)
"'You almost had to put them back in the womb and let them be born again, in order to make them normal,' she said. 'But it's amazing, even in a very quick time, what a huge difference love and care in their lives can make.'"
I love this, too: "Had this been a project of the community, I would have been under holy obedience. Now I could do things my way.'"
more
(via Amy Welborn)
Thursday, March 22, 2007
PRISONER RAPE AND THE WAR ON DRUGS: "Stories from Inside offers first-hand accounts by 24 prisoner rape survivors, all of whom were sexually assaulted while serving time for a non-violent drug-related offense. The report also offers an overview and analysis of the war on drugs, highlighting how it affects the sentences and prison experiences of hundreds of thousands of Americans and making policy recommendations."
The report is here (PDF). Link via Hit & Run. I'll keep linking to my old piece on prison reform until you read it....
The report is here (PDF). Link via Hit & Run. I'll keep linking to my old piece on prison reform until you read it....
"STRUGGLING ALONE"--First Things pc about the author's friend, a same-sex attracted college student seeking to live out his Christian faith in chastity. You can get my thoughts on the psychological stuff discussed in the pc here, here, and here; but the description of the near-total opposition and lack of support this guy faced on campus was really poignant, and is the reason I'm linking to this. Sexual orientation is considered a fundamental fact of one's identity, whereas religious faith is mere clothing, something to be discarded or reshaped in light of one's sexual desires.
Before I left New Haven, I tried to get Yale's guidebook for incoming freshmen to list the New Haven Courage chapter alongside its several "gay-affirming" resources. I left NH before I learned if I'd succeeded for the 2001-2 school year, and even if I did, I'd be shocked if that listing lasted into 2002-3.
FT link via Amy Welborn.
Before I left New Haven, I tried to get Yale's guidebook for incoming freshmen to list the New Haven Courage chapter alongside its several "gay-affirming" resources. I left NH before I learned if I'd succeeded for the 2001-2 school year, and even if I did, I'd be shocked if that listing lasted into 2002-3.
FT link via Amy Welborn.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
GUILTY PARTY GIRL: Last night I finished Rene Girard's study The Scapegoat, and then (re-)watched Derek Jarman's Edward II. It was a pretty awesome juxtaposition--Jarman's movie (it's been yonks since I read the play, so I'm confining comments to the movie for now) is all vengeance, no mercy. I'm pretty sure the love... rhombus, at the center, is an example of "mimetic desire," too, even though I still don't really know what that is. (I sometimes felt like Girard was trying to make everything mimetic desire, which seemed... unnecessarily confusing.)
And although there are scapegoats and victims in the movie, it was largely about one thing that I really felt was missing from Girard's book: guilty victims. I know he's hammering on the innocence of the scapegoats for a reason; but if you're going to have a comprehensive theory of victimization, and/or of Christian reconciliation (he seems to work hard to avoid the terms "mercy" and "forgiveness"), I really want to know what happens to the guilty people. I, uh, I take a personal interest, you know?
As for Edward II: The music is terrific. Tilda Swinton, for once, is awesome as a kind of Queen Bree van de Kamp, Homicidal Heterosexual Terrorist. I usually dislike Swinton's acting in general and her roles in Jarman movies in particular--he seems to use her as a Javanese shadow-puppet figure of Woman. And I have no problem with characters as silhouettes; but I do have at least potential problems with stories in which the men are allowed individuality, but the women get only iconicity. And that's happening in Edward II, I think, but I don't mind it because Swinton is so crazily compelling. ...Movie definitely falls into the typical Jarman traps described here. Despite the rancid atmosphere, it slid into sentimentality and self-pity, and I probably shouldn't've liked it as much as I did....
As for The Scapegoat: Although my fur was up and my claws out for the first half of the book, I eventually felt like I understood where Girard was going, and was pretty amazed by it. Still have problems with it, need to read it at least one more time, etc etc. Comments, recommendations and so on w/r/t Girard more than welcome. Am working on story about Herod now.
And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.
--Matt. 11:12
And although there are scapegoats and victims in the movie, it was largely about one thing that I really felt was missing from Girard's book: guilty victims. I know he's hammering on the innocence of the scapegoats for a reason; but if you're going to have a comprehensive theory of victimization, and/or of Christian reconciliation (he seems to work hard to avoid the terms "mercy" and "forgiveness"), I really want to know what happens to the guilty people. I, uh, I take a personal interest, you know?
As for Edward II: The music is terrific. Tilda Swinton, for once, is awesome as a kind of Queen Bree van de Kamp, Homicidal Heterosexual Terrorist. I usually dislike Swinton's acting in general and her roles in Jarman movies in particular--he seems to use her as a Javanese shadow-puppet figure of Woman. And I have no problem with characters as silhouettes; but I do have at least potential problems with stories in which the men are allowed individuality, but the women get only iconicity. And that's happening in Edward II, I think, but I don't mind it because Swinton is so crazily compelling. ...Movie definitely falls into the typical Jarman traps described here. Despite the rancid atmosphere, it slid into sentimentality and self-pity, and I probably shouldn't've liked it as much as I did....
As for The Scapegoat: Although my fur was up and my claws out for the first half of the book, I eventually felt like I understood where Girard was going, and was pretty amazed by it. Still have problems with it, need to read it at least one more time, etc etc. Comments, recommendations and so on w/r/t Girard more than welcome. Am working on story about Herod now.
And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.
--Matt. 11:12
UNDER THE SPREADING CHESTNUT TREE: If I'm understanding this thing from Disputations correctly (apologies for broken block-quotes)--
"Moreover, in each of our earthly sins we create a spiritual sin that is of a piece with Satan's fall. When I sin, I am in a certain way joining with and endorsing the devil's fall. Which is to say (if what happens in heaven happens on earth) that I am joining with and endorsing all the evil, moral and natural, that we experience in this life. War, famine, disease, death: it's all a small price to pay for me not helping my wife fold laundry."
--then every time we sin, we're complicit, specifically, in the suffering of those we love. In every sin, we're saying, "Do it to Julia!"
This particular acre of metaphysics isn't my field; but the post was striking to me, so I figured I'd throw this thought out there for your comments.
"Moreover, in each of our earthly sins we create a spiritual sin that is of a piece with Satan's fall. When I sin, I am in a certain way joining with and endorsing the devil's fall. Which is to say (if what happens in heaven happens on earth) that I am joining with and endorsing all the evil, moral and natural, that we experience in this life. War, famine, disease, death: it's all a small price to pay for me not helping my wife fold laundry."
--then every time we sin, we're complicit, specifically, in the suffering of those we love. In every sin, we're saying, "Do it to Julia!"
This particular acre of metaphysics isn't my field; but the post was striking to me, so I figured I'd throw this thought out there for your comments.
"IF I SEE YOU IN THIS DREAM AGAIN, I'LL KILL YOU." And more awesome designs from Spike Press. Via Journalista.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Beat on the brat with a blogwatch bat, oh yeah--
Not actually a blogwatch, really just two links from Hit & Run: Kultur-Terror vs. Godzilla!... and Jim Webb on incarceration rates. Here's my 2003 piece on prison reform.
Not actually a blogwatch, really just two links from Hit & Run: Kultur-Terror vs. Godzilla!... and Jim Webb on incarceration rates. Here's my 2003 piece on prison reform.
"THE SACRED CARDOON": I review the current Spanish art show at the Guggenheim. It is excellent, and it is closing March 28, so you should go see it now if you can....
This is another good review, focusing on different elements of the show.
This is another good review, focusing on different elements of the show.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
In Manhattan's desert twilight, in the death of afternoon,
We walked hand-in-hand down Blogwatch, like the first men on the moon...
We walked hand-in-hand down Blogwatch, like the first men on the moon...
My eternal Saint Patrick's Day post. A lot of people think the obvious American wannabe-ness, the green beer and all that, somehow make St Patrick's Day less awesome. I don't; why shouldn't there be a holiday that's really about America and immigration, even if it pretends to be about Ireland?
Amy Welborn: The Pope speaks with kids in a juvenile detention center. And why The Merchant of Venice is just unplayable now. (The Pacino version was about as good as I think you can get, really, and it was painful.)
Horror Roundtable: The best horror-movie soundtracks. My votes go to, probably in this order, Suspiria; Can of Worms Wide Shut; and La Chute de la Maison d'Usher. Via Sean Collins. (I'm not sure I'd count Vertigo as a horror movie--although I'm not sure I wouldn't--which is why it doesn't appear here.)
And I haven't yet read this First Things piece about Stephen King. But Pet Sematary and The Shining are among the most powerful novels I've ever read. The Dead Zone, Cujo, Christine, and even Misery have some pretty amazing moments. (Don't talk to me about IT.) Here--Stephen King and Dorothy Day, together at last!
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
So we knocked a blogwatch back...
The Agitator: America, Land Beyond Parody.
Family Scholars: David Blankenhorn's new book, The Future of Marriage.
"He Do the Police in Different Voices": Eliot's discarded title for The Waste Land. I did not know that. Via First Things.
The Agitator: America, Land Beyond Parody.
Family Scholars: David Blankenhorn's new book, The Future of Marriage.
"He Do the Police in Different Voices": Eliot's discarded title for The Waste Land. I did not know that. Via First Things.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
UNCOMMON-LAW MARRIAGES: I review Andrew Koppelman's Same Sex, Different States: When Same-Sex Marriages Cross State Lines for the New York Post.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
FOR A GOOD TIME CALL: Finished Tim Powers's most recent novel, Three Days to Never. Good stuff. Time-travel story about (I think) the difference between repenting something and erasing it--sort of the felix culpa played out in individual lives.
Also finally saw The Chimes at Midnight, which was fantastic--I'll blog more about the movie, and about Falstaff, probably this weekend.
Also finally saw The Chimes at Midnight, which was fantastic--I'll blog more about the movie, and about Falstaff, probably this weekend.
BUT LAST NIGHT THE PLAN FOR A FUTURE WAR WAS ALL I SAW ON CHANNEL 4: More or less via Gene Healy, a post in which I re-read my March 2003 archive and look at what I got wrong. It doesn't quite work, because I didn't spell out my changing views on Iraq very clearly (on the blog or, in some respects, to myself--see below). But you can look here and here, plus blogwatches here, here, here, here, to see what I posted then. The post where I came closest to spelling out my thoughts is actually from February, here.
The main thing that leaps out at me is that I thought I was being pessimistic about both war and not-war/status-quo/continuing-crisis. That isn't true. I was much too hopeful about the possible effects of war, and much too unwilling to accept that continuing-crisis might be the best of the bad options.
The blog posts don't get at the other bad features of my reasoning at the time: arrogance, and willful self-delusion about whether/to what extent the Iraq war was "pre-emptive." (That February post is a great example of the latter, in which I just totally refuse to engage the question.) But I wouldn't call those "mistakes" so much as sins.
I'm saying all this solely with regard to my own reasoning, not as a comment on other people's positions. But it should give you some idea of why I post on foreign policy hardly at all these days: I have a stronger sense of how much I don't know; and if I were somebody else, I'd see no reason to listen to me given my track record.
This is probably the best post I've made about war.
The main thing that leaps out at me is that I thought I was being pessimistic about both war and not-war/status-quo/continuing-crisis. That isn't true. I was much too hopeful about the possible effects of war, and much too unwilling to accept that continuing-crisis might be the best of the bad options.
The blog posts don't get at the other bad features of my reasoning at the time: arrogance, and willful self-delusion about whether/to what extent the Iraq war was "pre-emptive." (That February post is a great example of the latter, in which I just totally refuse to engage the question.) But I wouldn't call those "mistakes" so much as sins.
I'm saying all this solely with regard to my own reasoning, not as a comment on other people's positions. But it should give you some idea of why I post on foreign policy hardly at all these days: I have a stronger sense of how much I don't know; and if I were somebody else, I'd see no reason to listen to me given my track record.
This is probably the best post I've made about war.
Monday, March 05, 2007
THE SPOILS OF EGYPT: No matter how interesting or acute its analysis in other respects, I mistrust any Christian discussion of same-sex attraction that leaves out the good parts.
I know some people's experiences are very different from mine, but my experience of Sapphism was and is shot through with beauty, compassion, friendship, generosity, and forgiveness, like golden threads in cloth. Other people get that stuff without the problematic sexual stuff, but I can only work with the memories and experiences that I actually have, and many of my most intense experiences of recognizing beauty and being halfway okay at loving people come from being in love with ladies.
That's why I say that I'm "acting on my lesbian desires" when those desires prompt me to be less-horrible-than-usual about seeking Christ and serving Him and other people. Keep what you can, leave what you must, you know?
My fingers are dreaming and rolling in plunder
Of someone who waits only in memory,
Who calls in the rain and sighs in the thunder....
I know some people's experiences are very different from mine, but my experience of Sapphism was and is shot through with beauty, compassion, friendship, generosity, and forgiveness, like golden threads in cloth. Other people get that stuff without the problematic sexual stuff, but I can only work with the memories and experiences that I actually have, and many of my most intense experiences of recognizing beauty and being halfway okay at loving people come from being in love with ladies.
That's why I say that I'm "acting on my lesbian desires" when those desires prompt me to be less-horrible-than-usual about seeking Christ and serving Him and other people. Keep what you can, leave what you must, you know?
My fingers are dreaming and rolling in plunder
Of someone who waits only in memory,
Who calls in the rain and sighs in the thunder....
CLAW OF THE CONCILIATOR chooses the best Christian science fiction short stories. Comments-boxing ensues!
Sunday, March 04, 2007
"A DARFUR TREE IS HER NEWSSTAND":
more (via Virginia Postrel)
Nearly a decade ago, at 14, Isshag started publishing a handwritten community newsletter about local events, arts and religion. Once a month she'd paste decorated pages to a large piece of wood and hang it from a tree outside her family's home for passersby to read.
But after western Sudan plunged into bloodshed and suffering in 2003, Isshag's publication took on a decidedly sharper edge, tackling issues such as the plight of refugees, water shortages, government inaction in the face of militia attacks, and sexual violence against women. Her grass-roots periodical has become the closest thing that El Fasher, capital of North Darfur state, has to a hometown newspaper. More than 100 people a day stop to check out her latest installments, some walking several miles from nearby displacement camps, she said.
more (via Virginia Postrel)
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Once I knew a girl who looked so much like Judy Garland
that people would stop and give her blogwatch...
Hit & Run: Radley Balko comments on a Georgia bill to restrict "no-knock" raids. And an article I haven't read on private education in the Third World.
Sean Collins gets the last word on Eyes Wide Shut. I agree with him on some points and disagree on others, but honestly, if you care about the movie I suspect you will be better served just by the dialogue between us than by my attempt to fix it in place by responding again--so from here on, you're on your own! Link includes creepy pix of naked chix, so, you know, forewarned.
Some bishop surnamed Vasa says:
lots more (via Amy Welborn)
that people would stop and give her blogwatch...
Hit & Run: Radley Balko comments on a Georgia bill to restrict "no-knock" raids. And an article I haven't read on private education in the Third World.
Sean Collins gets the last word on Eyes Wide Shut. I agree with him on some points and disagree on others, but honestly, if you care about the movie I suspect you will be better served just by the dialogue between us than by my attempt to fix it in place by responding again--so from here on, you're on your own! Link includes creepy pix of naked chix, so, you know, forewarned.
Some bishop surnamed Vasa says:
...The Candidates recite the Creed and then add their personal attestation and commitment. It is this personal commitment which constitutes the heart of their conversion to the Catholic Faith. The phrase which is added is this: “I believe and profess all that the Holy Catholic Church teaches, believes and proclaims to be revealed by God.” It is a moment of great freedom; a moment of abandonment of oneself into the hands of God and into the teachings of the Catholic Church. It is an unconditional “yes” to Jesus while at the same time recognizing that we may never completely know all that this “yes” entails.
lots more (via Amy Welborn)
And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man, and begged him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the village; and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, "Do you see anything?" And he looked up and said, "I see men; but they look like trees, walking." Then again he laid his hands upon his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and saw everything clearly.
--Mark 8:22-25
Such a compelling moment, not only because of the humiliating nature of the healing touch, but also because this is a healing that proceeds in stages, rather than all at once. I'd guess that Jesus has that whole uncanny "Do you see anything?"/"I see men; but they look like trees, walking" exchange with us pretty often.
--Mark 8:22-25
Such a compelling moment, not only because of the humiliating nature of the healing touch, but also because this is a healing that proceeds in stages, rather than all at once. I'd guess that Jesus has that whole uncanny "Do you see anything?"/"I see men; but they look like trees, walking" exchange with us pretty often.
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