Crystal Palace’s Chris Richards: “I think growing up, I never watched the FA Cup. I’m from Alabama, so we definitely didn’t have that on TV.” Same. ⚽️
Despite Montaigne’s concerns, we cannot help but comment upon one another. We are irrepressible commenters. (In the essayist’s case, he simply turned to making learned comments about himself.) The trouble now is not that we make so many comments; it’s that we’ve lost the conversation partners — the IRL kind — implied in Bakhtin’s public scenarios. We make our comments while sitting alone at our tiny command centers, and increasingly the machines are the only ones attending.
I wrote about Pandaemonium, a unique book, brilliantly compiled by the documentary film director Humphrey Jennings. First of two (or maybe three) posts at the Hog Blog.
Jamie Smith on what to expect from an Augustinian pope:
Already in his first “Urbi et Orbi” address, for example, one could hear Pope Leo’s vision for faith on the move. “So let us move forward, without fear,” he encouraged the flock, “together, hand in hand with God and with one another.” When Pope Leo described himself as “a son of Saint Augustine,” he pictured faith as a pilgrimage: “So may we all walk together towards that homeland that God has prepared for us.” Faith as “walking,” discipleship as a journey, the Christian life as a long pilgrimage—these are deeply Augustinian metaphors.
Finished reading: Fantasy: A Short History by Adam Roberts. An outstanding survey. I’m amazed first of all by how many fantasy novels Adam has read, especially among the hyper-prolific and hyper-expansive post-Tolkienian set. Hundreds of thousands of pages, I imagine. The chapter on “Children’s Fantasy” is a particular highlight for me, but Adam is also notably brilliant on
- fantasy as a kind of displaced vision of Catholicism as seen by a Protestant culture
- similarly, Walter Scott’s medievalism as a predecessor and template for fantasy
- William Morris
- Michael Moorcock
- Jack Vance
- Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
- John Crowley’s Little, Big
I just wish he could have gone on longer about some of this stuff, but that’s what his various blogs are for. 📚
An interesting exercise: Ask several chatbots to do this: “Please summarize, with comparisons, the ethical concerns about each of the major AI platforms.” The responses are quite similar.
Google’s search results have become so bad that I recently subscribed to Kagi, and so far it’s been great. And because the subscription includes access to fairly high-level versions of all the major chatbots, I’ve been trying them out. So far my favorite is Anthropic’s Claude. A sample of the kinds of questions I ask:
- Is there consensus on when Terry Pratchett’s fiction began to decline in quality?
- What state parks in the USA compare in beauty and interest to the National Parks?
- Please provide, with quotations rather than summaries, some of Pope Francis’s statements about Catholic traditionalists.
- I like the Leica Q3 because of the high resolution and the fixed lens. Are there comparable cameras that cost less?
Claude gives clear, detailed answers with a list of sources at the end. I’m using it every day now.
Angus loves his crate.
The fact that professors and administrators as well as students are becoming inappropriately reliant on chatbots should tell us something: For most of the people involved, academia has become a bullshit job. If we don’t face that fact and commit ourselves to a serious re-imagining of the university experience, the American university won’t last much longer, not in a recognizable form anyway.
I wrote about a slightly comical musical experience.
Re: Ross’s column on the virtues of ideological art, I think there are far more virtues to art that resists or defies our familiar categories. But most readers/viewers/listeners when encountering a work that can’t be placed on their game board just call it “not relatable.”
TIL that the official title of King George III’s dentist was Operator for the Teeth.
My bet is that Nico Harrison will trade the rights to the number 1 pick to Cleveland in exchange for Tristan Thompson. 🏀
I had a good time corresponding with Phil Christman about John Milton, his great big poem, and Wlliam Blake.