Currently reading: Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fischer 📚
I keep seeing these petulant-to-angry stories in the London sports pages about how vast North America is and how hot — as though ICE had expanded the continent and heated it up to make Europeans uncomfortable. Sorry, but it’s always been this way. North America is more than twice the size of Europe (excluding Russia) and most of it is further south: London’s latitude = that of Calgary, Alberta; Chicago shares a latitude with Madrid and Kansas City with Rome. Miami is at the same latitude as Luxor, Egypt and Dubai. Also, Calgary, Chicago, and Kansas City are in the midst of an enormous continent with no ocean to moderate temperatures. This is reality.
Incidentally: Waco, where I live, is at the same latitude as Jerusalem. The Lord knoweth His own.
Over at Cosmos Malick, a post on the autobiographical elements in some of Malick’s films.
I have been interested in Faustina Kowalska’s experiences ever since I first read about them when I was eighteen. I am not usually much of a fan of modern-day (or even early modern) devotions, and I was never sure what to make of things like Lourdes, Fatima, Medjugorje, and so on. But for some reason I never had this lurking suspicion when it came to Faustina’s visions of Divine Mercy…. The Divine Mercy, which at the time was an intensely popular devotion – especially among Poles but also well beyond the Polish community – also seemed to have substantial theological content, in contrast to the vacuous platitudes characteristic of some modern devotions: ‘I am Lord in My essence and I know neither commands nor needs’, declares Christ to Faustina, ‘If I call creatures into existence – it is out of the immeasurable depth of My mercy’.
This is cosmic stuff, and in fact Faustina’s theology (or the theology revealed to her, or however you want to interpret it) represents a refashioning of familiar theological themes with God’s mercy as its interpretative key. God’s mercy is the prerequisite for our being, as well as our redemption. What may seem obvious, but is easily lost today, is that this elevation of mercy presupposes a starting point of recognition of the awe-fulness of God – a holy fear that God may not, in fact, choose to be merciful.
It might seem surprising, in a world of global stars, that the 6m Danes, many of whom are fluent in English, listen mainly to homegrown music. And until fairly recently they did not. In 2019 only five songs in Denmark’s top 20 were in Danish. By last year the figure was 18.
A similar trend is under way in other countries — and in other forms of entertainment. From Asia to the Americas, music charts are increasingly dominated by local sounds. Hollywood television-streaming companies are commissioning more local productions in foreign markets, causing consumption of American shows to fall. Social networks are connecting the whole world, but so far people are mainly using them to consume local content. And as video gaming expands, it too is becoming increasingly tailored to local cultures.
Marcin Wichary is right: Apple keeps talking about making things faster, but users just want things to work reliably.
Dorothy Leigh Sayers was born in Oxford on this date in 1893. The cover of my forthcoming biography of her might look like this:
I’m spending the day on a long-overdue task: going through all my unfinished drafts and deciding what to do with them, the three options being (a) post as-is to the Big Blog, (b) post as-is here, (c) discard. It’s dreary work but I’ll have a more orderly digital workplace when I’m done. And over the next few days more posts than usual will be showing up — I could spread them out in a weeks-long queue but then I’d be tempted to work further on them before they post. Can’t have that.
When I was a kid, my dad often bought these Ace Doubles, and they seemed magical to me. Read a book, flip it over, read another book. But I also often think of a comment made by the editor Terry Carr: If Ace were to publish the Bible they’d do it as a Double: on one side War God of Israel, on the other The Thing with Three Souls.
I love watching our male cardinals fetch seeds and suet from our feeder and bring them to their lady friends, who wait patiently and decorously. Such chivalrous young men; such appreciative young women.