My colleague Philip Jenkins on Groundhog Day: “I will explain just how that bizarre celebration came into existence. My story begins in the Jewish Temple, with stops en route in Dark Age Ireland, medieval Germany, and Victorian Pennsylvania.”
T. S. Eliot, writing during WW2: “I see a great many American sergeants and they all write poetry: nobody realises that I HATE poetry.”
No, I do not want to install your app.
No, I do not want that app to run on startup.
No, I do not want that app shortcut on my desktop.
No, I do not want to subscribe to your newsletter.
No, I do not want your site to send me notifications.
No, I do not want to tell you about my recent experience.
No, I do not want to sign up for an account.
No, I do not want to sign up using a different service and let the two of you know about each other.
No, I do not want to sign in for a more personalized experience.
No, I do not want to allow you to read my contacts.
No, I do not want you to scan my content.
No, I do not want you to track me.
No, I do not want to click “Later” or “Not now” when what I mean is NO.
Me: “From the fall of 2011, when I first stared watching the Premier League regularly and intently, I had what might truly be called an object in fandom: to see Arsenal become champions of the the league.”
It’s easy to believe that words have greater power than they have — to think that if someone writes powerfully enough those who are Wrong will suddenly realize their Wrongness and change their ways. But that rarely happens. Often we can only wait until people realize that they’re just eating grass.
Music producer Joe Boyd:
Most music recorded today is created by performers – or operators – sitting beside the engineer; it passes directly on to a hard disk rather than reverberating in the air to be captured by microphones. As a result, the ‘studio’ room itself is often shrunk to a modest space for vocalists or single instruments. The ideal acoustic is now a dead one: digital reverb can supposedly synthesize any atmosphere from Madison Square Garden to your bathroom. In the quest for the perfect track, each part is added separately so that any mistakes can be easily corrected; inflexible rhythms are generated by a machine. Musicians in the sixties were still recording a large part of each track playing together in the same room at the same time, maintaining at least some of the excitement of a live performance, with vocals and solos usually added later. Rhythm sections breathed with the other musicians, accenting and retarding the beat as mood dictated. The acoustics of different studios varied widely, as did the styles of engineering and production. Computers theoretically let musicians and producers choose from an endless palate of varied sounds, but modern digital recordings are far more monochromatically similar to each other than were older analogue tracks.
I’m thinking of blogging more, this term, about what I’m teaching. In my class on Fantasy we’re starting with MacDonald’s Phantastes, and here are first thoughts.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Thoughts on the Day of the Baptism of Dietrich Wilhelm Rüdiger Bethge,” May 1944:
We thought we could make our way in life with reason and justice, and when both failed, we felt that we were at the end of our tether. We have constantly exaggerated the importance of reason and justice in the course of history. You, who are growing up in a world war which ninety per cent of mankind did not want, but for which they have to risk losing their goods and their lives, are learning from childhood that the world is controlled by forces against which reason can do nothing; and so you will be able to cope with those forces more successfully. In our lives the ‘enemy’ did not really exist. You know that you have enemies and friends, and you know what they can mean in your life. You are learning very early in life ways (which we did not know) of fighting an enemy, and also the value of unreserved trust in a friend. ‘Has not man a hard service upon earth?’ (Job 7.1). ‘Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle; my rock and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield and he in whom I take refuge’ (Ps. 144.1f). ‘There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother’ (Prov. 18.24).
Reorientation: on a practice that helps to give me a degree of much-needed equilibrium in a frenetic and troubling moment.
Machiavelli, Discourses I.42:
It should be noted, too, in the the affair of the Decemviri how easily men are corrupted, and in nature become transformed, however good they may be, and however well taught. Consider, for instance, how the young men whom Appius chose as a bodyguard, soon became the friends of tyranny for the sake of the small advantages which accrued; and how Quintus Fabius, one of the second Ten, though an excellent fellow, was after a while blinded by a little ambition and, under the evil influence of Appius, changed his good habits for bad and became like him.
Due consideration of this will cause all legislators, whether in a republic or a kingdom, to be all the more ready to restrain human appetites and to deprive them of all hope of doing wrong with impunity.
GOD standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.
How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah.
Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.
Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.
They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course.
I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.
But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.
Arise, O God, judge the earth: for thou shalt inherit all nations.
Phil Christman’s taxonomy of pastors. Pick your favorite!
Renovation on a bookshop in Guildford, England revealed a stunning medieval chamber, forgotten beneath the ground for some 700 years. Archaeologists have identified it as a Synagogue dating back to the year 1180. The oldest Synagogue remains in the British Isles.
Julian Lage’s new album Scenes from Above is FAB. Maybe his best record yet — adding John Medeski to his trio was a genius move. ♫
Collaboration: cherry farmers and kestrels.
I joked last week that it would make more sense if we found out that the team behind redesigning the UI for MacOS 26 Tahoe was hired by Meta not a month ago, but an entire year ago, and secretly sabotaged their work to make the Mac look clownish and amateur. More and more I’m wondering if the joke’s on us and it actually happened that way. It’s like MacOS, once the crown jewel of computer human interface design, has been vandalized.
I wrote about analog devices as luxury goods.