This Nick Carr post is closely related to two essays of mine (one of which he quotes): “Something Happened By Us” and “Some Enchanted Evening.” As I write in the first essay, “Any freedom from what torments us begins with a proper demonology. Later we may proceed to exorcism.”
My massive essay on Thomas Pynchon covers the same territory, as it should, since Pynchon is our greatest demonologist.
In the end, [Milosz’s] The Captive Mind also speaks to those left on the other side of the curtain, warning them against letting the tension of their political reality replace their own internal tensionโacknowledging their captive times but maintaining the inner life that animates their loves, fears, and fantasies. Miลosz cautions the artists and writers living under repressive regimes not to let the outer pressure determine their inner core. The times may be captive, but the thinking has to remain free.
Ancient writers at their desks. Even back then some people knew how to apply ass to chair.
My dear friend Wesley Hill has written a lovely brief book about Easter.
[In the seventeenth century] John Aubrey, the first person to make a serious study of stone circles, put his finger on the problem: โThese Antiquities are so exceeding old that no Bookes doe reach them.โ He developed a more effective method. Using measurements and comparative surveys of different circles with notes โwritt upon the spottโ, he was able to work out that megalithic monuments were of distinct types and that they predated the Romans, Saxons and Danes. He thus, almost single-handedly, created the concept of prehistory and invented field archaeology.
Re: Oliver Burkeman’s 70% rule โ “If youโre roughly 70% happy with a piece of writing youโve produced, you should publish it. If youโre 70% satisfied with a product youโve created, launch it” etc. โ nothing could be more alien to how my mind works than the quantification of mixed feelings.
Hey kids! Let’s play Uranium Rush! Don’t forget the Geiger counter!
Next month I’ll be leading a retreat at Laity Lodge where the artist-in-residence will be Dana Tanamachi. Her “book covers” that illustrate Michiko Kakutani’s Ex Libris are just wonderful. And she did an illuminated Bible! โ which I have a copy of and really love. It’ll be an honor to work with her.
Over at my big blog, I wrote a couple of Kane-related posts: one on an interesting audio technique, and one on what Mank did and didn’t do.
“Mister Kubrick, I’m ready for my close-up”
I’ve kept this boxed set around for nearly fifty years just so I can show people the order the Narnia books are meant to be read in. CC: @frjon
I wrote about the best alternative to “trying to get Management to take your side”: persuasion.
As I pulled into the parking garage this morning I had the strangest feeling that I was being watched.
Iโll just say one thing before putting this phone in another room: Itโs remarkable how many usable hours there are in a day when youโre not farting around on the internet.
Related: Prayer v. Electricity
Watching Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Assassin (2015) is like watching a wuxia movie made by Tarkovsky. I’ll have to see it at least once more before I know precisely what I think about it, but it’s certainly one of the most gorgeous films I’ve ever seen. (Shot on film ๐ฅ, hooray)
For people who want to understand our moment not just in terms of politics, but also in historical, moral, and spiritual terms, this essay by Mana Afsari is absolutely essential. (Also, essays like this are the very raison d’รชtre of The Point.)