Schools for Philosopher-Carpenters, by Alex Sosler:
The modern economy was built on the work of hands: agriculture, industry, manufacturing. We’ve shifted toward a head economy: accounting, management, information technology. We now have a choice: either become even more technological and technocratic, or find ways to return to a more human-centered, head-heart-and-hands economy. A robot can say, “Welcome home.” But it takes a whole and humane education to form people whose hearts and hands know how to truly make a home and extend a welcome.
I hate pushing books to the back of bookshelves — I like them lined up neatly along the front edge of the shelf. But now I am forced to push them back. Why? It’s Elon Musk’s fault. The SpaceX Rocket Development and Test Facility is in McGregor, fifteen miles away, and sometimes when they’re testing everything in the house rattles. (Locally this is called “SpaceX Thunder.”) I have become genuinely afraid that my bookcases will topple and crush me, as happens to Leonard Bast in Howard’s End. So I’ve adjusted their weight distrubution in the cause of safety. Damn you, Elon!
I’ve had it with the Santafication of my neighborhood, this arrant Clausism. I stake my claim: not Santafication but JUSTIFICATION by faith in the one who was born long ago in Bethlehem! Hier stehe ich; Ich kann nicht anders.
I’m not sure I’ll often shoot with film, because (a) it’s expensive and (b) I make a lot of mistakes, but film really does produce a certain character (even in bright sunlight) that’s hard to replicate digitally.
Phil Christman on Adam Roberts: “That Roberts, who can do humor, pathos, style, and big ideas with such dazzling effectiveness, in book after book, is not already universally acknowledged as one of the finest living English-language writers is probably another effect of our fear of wonderful and complex things.”
A post about family — the first of several to come.
