The Morning Oil

The Immanence of God

2011-03-12T16:30:00.001-08:00

This semester marked my first foray into the novels of Graham Greene. Although his books have been recommended to me for some time, I believe my delay in reading The End of the Affair and The Power and the Glory worked in his favor.

There are elements in both novels that are (and of a right should be) repellent and to which an imagination in formation ought not be exposed. Greene, along with most other authors of his century, walks a shadowy line between degradation that does not bear speaking of and the agonizing truths of the human condition and our own age in particular. After rumination on both the aforementioned novels, it seems clear to me that Greene's portrayal of human frailty, vivid and harrowing as it is, more powerfully drives home the need and reality of God's grace.

The End of the Affair follows the sordidly mundane adultery of Sarah and the narrator as they find solace in each other and in their daily sin. Their situation is posed in such a way that the reader might almost sympathize; after all, Sarah's husband is dull and oblivious, while her lover understands her and needs her as much as she him. Greene is able to turn this on its head by Sarah's abrupt ending of the affair.

Greene's craftsmanship is marvelous as he follows the narrator's journey through confusion and sorrow to the full recognition that Sarah has chosen someone else over him. Just who that Someone is remains murky for him up to the end, as he continues to tempt Sarah to lapse back to their comfortable debauchery. The grace that saves her at the end is as sudden and difficult for him to understand as that grace which pulled her out of the relationship in the first place. In both instances, Greene manages to convey the jarring reality and harrowing nature of miracles and our unavoidable need for grace.

Grace glimmers through the entirety of The Power and the Glory as well. Disturbing in its portrayal of priests as drunkards and cowards, the novel reinforces the reality of ex opere operato. As a human being, the priest at the center of the story is perhaps even more flawed and sinful than the average Catholic Mexican. But the true importance of his role as a priest in the ravages of persecution in 1930's Mexico comes across with clarity, force, and beauty. This weakling somehow manages to stumble from village to village, confessing, baptizing and saying Mass; in spite of his worst vices, he understands that he is still "able to put God into their mouths." In the manner of a true classic, this message remains incredibly pertinent in the current age. This generation has more cause than many to understand the all too human frailty of our clergy, and it has never been more necessary to understand that the reality of the Blessed Sacrament is not predicated on the sanctity of the priest, thank God, thank God.

deep magic

2011-03-11T17:57:00.000-08:00

Wendell Berry, that romantic, controversial, novel distiller of very old truths, set my mental cogs a-turning today. In Life Is a Miracle he offered a definition of a "classic": a work whose themes resonate with a sort of eternal freshness from age to age, one whose meaning does not grow old with the volume itself.

This definition has significant merit to it and especially recalls the task those in the Academy engage and pursue. Berry rightly (and in harmony with a multitude of prior essayists) condemns the mindless, obsessive demand for originality in current scholarly work, with the ever persistent cry for new discoveries in an arena whose proper field is truth, not novelty. Such a warning of course does not preclude man's perennial desire to know, identified by Aristotle as a basic human characteristic. However, it does illuminate a difference between those who view colleges or universities as institutions for data transferral or instruction and those who understand education as the cultivation of those particular mental habits which make humans the beings they are.

What a world it would be if college professors understood their vocation; that is to say, actually stood under their discipline and looked up in awe at the knowledge handed down to them, willing to be mastered by that truth so that they could actually lead their students out of the multitudinous caves of ignorance. As it is, the modern research university is dominated by those who prefer to stand in arrogance atop their discipline, looking down upon it as so much material to be dissected, mastered, and handed to their unfortunate pupils as discrete, unappealing bundles of information which neither enlarge their souls nor order their loves.

I believe there once was an ideal of liberal learning largely held by most civilizations which knew that there were things that it behooved a free person to know. After hearing Crassus expostulate on the need for an orator to be well educated and thus combine learning with eloquence, his interlocutor bursts out "But you have led me straight to the heart of the Academy!" In a flash of rhetorical brilliance, Cicero makes clear the goals of education: both to find the truth and express it well. Thus is De Oratore a classic, making apparent as it does the eternal verity of human education and the role of the Academy. We must "sing a new song to the Lord," releasing anew the intelligibility of the created world with our own particular song--a unique expression using an ancient medium, freshly communicating the permanent things.

If we accept that to be is to be intelligible, then in truth there are things to be discovered and known. But the hysteria for unique discovery has unleashed a tendency to focus on newness to the fatal exclusion of an entire inheritance of knowledge and wisdom that civilization has accumulated across the centuries. Knowledge is to adequate one's intellect to reality, not to divorce man's individuality from the integrated created order.

I will show you fear...

2011-03-09T18:07:00.000-08:00

All over the world today, millions upon millions of Christians received Eliot's handful of dust upon their foreheads, reminded yet again of their inescapable mortality.

Ash Wednesday was a little different for me this year, since I put together and directed the music for tonight's Mass, the first time I've ever conducted a Mass like this. Mr. Applegate, my beloved choir director of ten years, was very much in my mind as I waved my arms about in an unconscious echo of his conducting style. Despite my own schedule and the various schedules of the students in my intrepid band of choristers, we were able to rehearse some Lenten gems on three different occasions. College students having their own idea of what constitutes sufficient notice of absences, there was a moment earlier in the week when I felt sure that I was going to pull together this program through sheer will power alone. But from the moment those haunting chords of Allegri's Miserere thrilled through the church, I knew Providence had sanctified our efforts.

Miserere domine, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam

So many of the treasures in the Church's storehouse of liturgical music have that uncanny ability to trap the meaning of the words in unforgettable phrases and chords that inevitably re-echo in your head once you happen upon the prayer in a different context. Measured, sad, inexorable, and shot through with just a hint of supernatural beauty, Allegri's Miserere encapsulates the cry of the penitent throwing himself upon the unfathomable mercy of his Creator. The repetitive nature of the verses captures the essence of persistence in prayer, while the soprano solo (the one facet of the piece that defies any listener's apathy) seems almost to leap from the church itself to the gates of Heaven, begging admittance with its unexpected and agonizing beauty. When the notes of the final resolution fade from the sacred space which suspends them, one ineluctable thought takes hold of every mind in the congregation:

Memento homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris

Wrath

2010-10-30T21:57:00.000-07:00

I was in the throes of writing a paper on Sophocles' magnificent tragedy Ajax when I stumbled on this comment from one of my sources:

Menis, famous as the first word of the Iliad--indeed one can say it is the first word in European literature--generally implies sustained, enduring wrath with a desire for revenge.

This struck me powerfully. I'm not sure why entirely, but I think it has interesting implications for Man's motives in the larger sense. Anger is such an interesting and puzzling emotion; why spurs it and where does it lead? Aristotle was more sympathetic to overwhelming anger than to other, baser desires: in the Ethics he stated that those who are swept away by anger still somehow have control over their reason.

It also made me think about the glory of those opening lines of the Iliad! "Sing, goddess, the rage of Achilles! The baneful wrath that wrought much sorrow for the Achaeans..."

Of course it loses rather a lot in translation. The music of the Grecian phonetics is irreplaceable:

Μηνιν άείδε θεά Πηληίαδεω Άχιληος...

There is something in those opening lines which exudes the terrible wrath that accompanies terrible pride; the pride of a civilization that would go to war for a slight and take up arms for honor, not security. The men of the Iliad are larger than life, more full of personality and insanity and glory than any other characters from any other work in the Western Canon of Literature. Their names, first uttered thousands of years ago, still resound on college campuses across the world. And somehow those names still conjure up such concrete images: Achilles, fuming by the wine-dark sea; Diomedes, lord of the war cry, driving back the god Ares into the fray; Ajax, standing as the lone bulwark against the Trojan tide as he protected the ships; Odysseus, the wily one, planning the most famous strategic move in military history...

dead men tell no tales

2010-06-16T11:51:00.000-07:00

THIS article caught my eye for a number of reasons. The Spanish Civil War, always fascinating and frustrating, defies historical accuracy as few other conflicts in Western society do. Passions still run high when discussing the war and its aftermath and the accusations predictably pile up quickly. Generalissimo Franco is sometimes (although not in this article) accused of killing 75,000 Spaniards, sometimes of slaughtering 150,000. The difference in quantity may not matter to an inflamed commentator, but then it might matter to the spare 75,000 who were or were not killed.

One particular claim in this article captures a striking difference in perspective on The Valley of the Fallen:

"But lacking enough bodies of his own supporters to fill it, his regime ordered that remains from the mass graves of Republican soldiers and sympathisers should be transferred there."

That's an interesting departure from the story I took from Warren Carroll's The Last Crusade, where Carroll reported that Franco had "allowed" the family members of fallen soldiers on both sides to bury their dead under the mountain. In such a scenario, Franco's decision has all the qualities of Christian mercy to the enemy and paternal concern for any slain Spaniard.

So which story is true?

Unfortunately, there is no Edvard Radzinsky of the Spanish world, there are no first hand accounts or letters available to the casual investigator. But the headline of the article is telling: "Spain to rebury Franco victims". Franco's victims, as though he personally executed them. Last I checked, casualties are a common side effect of wars, so I'm disinclined to attribute the deaths of these Republican soldiers to Franco's personal whimsy.

Here is another instance of varying interpretation:

"Some 15,000 prisoners from the losing left-wing Republican side in the war were made to work on the construction of the mausoleum, often under harsh and dangerous conditions."

Call me medieval, but I think constructing a church that will be staffed by monks and priests ceaselessly praying for the souls of the victims of a recently concluded bloody conflict is actually peculiarly appropriate for prisoners of war. True, modern standards of imprisonment would include internet access and a wide screen TV. However, I find church-building a more fitting occupation for a group of compulsive church-razers.

The truth about the Spanish Civil War may remain murky still, but it is not difficult to find the shade of bias coloring any given speculator. The fact is that I am a Catholic who believes in temporal punishment, prayers for the dead, and just war. Of course this affects my take on the situation. However, it might also make me a more qualified observer of Catholic Spain than the average secular journalist.

My Brightest Diamond

2010-05-20T10:36:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Sophie for pointing this out.

Sports Type Redesign

2010-05-11T20:53:00.000-07:00

This would make me watch sports more. As it is now, I often have a lot of trouble figuring out where the information I want is. The swooshing, whirling effects don't help any either. In fact, those really make it feel like they're trying to make things more exciting than they are. Too bad this proposal didn't get implemented. Not "dynamic" enough, I suppose.

Interview here
More examples here

Albert Khan

2010-05-09T22:26:00.000-07:00

Beautiful. A collection of some of the first color photographs ever taken, from as early as 1909, by a man named Albert Khan, who set out to create "a photographic inventory of human life on Earth." It appears the world was not black and white before 1930.

Link

Lego Robot Solves Rubix Cube!

2010-05-09T22:12:00.001-07:00

Drooooool.

Men Without War Cries

2010-04-26T13:30:00.001-07:00

Having recently finished a very dry and technical linguistic paper on the noun-epithets of one of Homer's most gloriously awesome characters--Diomedes--I feel called to wax rather more poetical about him than the boundaries of my research paper allowed. This is also influenced by our reading of C. S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man in Philosophy last week. But more on that later. As anyone who has gotten through the Iliad is well aware, Diomedes is generally known to the enraptured audience as "Diomedes, Lord of the War Cry" (which is more literally, but in a less cool fashion, translated as "good at the war cry"). Presumably this means he scared the living daylights out of his victims by screaming like a banshee before dispatching them. Besides apparently terrifying the Trojans more successfully than Achilles (see the prayer of the Trojan women to Athena in Book 6. It's actually hilarious) he also did something Achilles never dared to do: attacked not one, not two, but three gods in the course of a single book. As I look up from Homer's epic poetry and cast my gaze across campus, I realize that it's not exactly fair to begin comparing the average male college student with Diomedes, Son of Tydeus, Lord of the War Cry, Shepherd of His People, Horse Tamer, Spear-famed, the Staunch in Battle, best by far of the Achaeans. But I'm going to do it anyway. The first deity Diomedes confronts is Aphrodite. The goddess of love doesn't fair too well at his hands (she irritated him by removing his opponent from view) and retreats in panic after he gouges her arm with his spear. Would that we lived in a culture that made it easier for today's young men to deal thus with the lies that are so widely promulgated about the status of chastity. I have noticed that for whatever reason, it can be tentatively accepted that a girl might want to remain a virgin until marriage. Strange, but acceptable. But for men, to remain a virgin is somehow a sign of incompetence and weakness, a stigma to be mocked and a condition to escape at the earliest possible convenience. Tragically, for the herd of jocks (and their number is legion) that swaggers across today's college campuses, the realization that chastity requires far more strength and manhood than succumbing to animal instincts does not compute. This might have to do with the cranial capacity of guys who spend more time in the gym than in intelligible (not even asking for intelligent here) conversation. But I suspect it has more to do with popular culture, the sickening music and vile television shows that are given as entertainment and taken as gospel truth. After Aphrodite flees the scene, Diomedes turns his attention to Apollo (who caught the guy that Diomedes was originally trying to kill after Aphrodite dropped him...the situation gets a little out of hand). And here we have a situation I think I can relate more to my experience at this particular school than the problem with Aphrodite. I choose (for reasons having to with his job as Sun god) to associate him with badly formed philosophical minds. I am no philosopher; but my moral imagination is solid enough at this point to detect really bad taste. So when an ill-advised young man fishes a copy of Hegel out of his backpack and proceeds to expound upon the wonders to be found therein; or if another individual calmly tells me that he has found a fallacy in Thomas Aquinas' argument for Natural Law that dismantles the whole thing, I generally turn away and marvel in silence at the peculiar predilection in young men to philosophical posturing. This kind of posturing causes the young men I'm thinking of to defend everything from James Joyce to Rothko to Fight Club, not because they have any rational basis on which to ground these opinions, but because they want to seem on top of things. On the topic of literature, art, or film, the examples above will elicit an immediate reaction: the head tilts back, the eyes narrow, the back straightens, the hands come together, and in an unintentionally dramatic tone of voice, the young man will say something to the effect of "Ah, yes. Genius." I don't hear much else anymore; usually my head is buried in my arms at that point. The third god Diomedes meets and then causes to flee in terror is one which I hope in particular to best in battle, although its flight is no more likely than that of profligate jocks or pretentious sophists. Ares, although once the god of war, resembles to me nothing so much as the kind of politically minded students who are intent on crafting their GPA's and extracurricular activities for purposes of resume building rather than education. I have met young men who use the rhetoric of the Western Tradition without the slightest conception of the thought or real ideals behind it. Young men who understand America and their very lives as economic functions, and who hope to plunge into the Beltway directly after college with a shiny GPA and experience as president of the College Republicans as their ticket to fame and glory. This is the kind of young man who will read Plato's Republic because it is "the done thing" and is only another brick in his path to conservative power. This kind of person reads Plato without understanding that the worthiest to lead do not wish to lead, so that if ever he has the misfortune to be placed in a position of power, he will have absolutely nothing to offer her. He will have instructed rather than educated himself; and because he has a resume instead of an intellect, he will remain a politician and never amount to a statesman. There are those who have fought these evils, to be sure. But to be Lord of the War Cry you must be good at it. In a world of livejournals, blogs, online forums, and publications innumerable, your War Cry must stand out, preferably in such a way as to drive your enemies to "thoughts of terror". My hope is that as I progress through college, graduate school, and my doctorate, I will be able to hone my writing and rhetoric so that one day I will give the kind of War Cry that will inspire and animate the apathetic and silence Aphrodite, Apollo, and Ares.

Ironing Techniques

2010-03-09T16:58:00.000-08:00

Strangely beautiful and mesmerizing. Watching professional craftsmen do their job is something I rarely pass up. The sound is what really makes it.

Lego - The Force Unleashed

2010-03-03T11:42:00.000-08:00

Smoothest, best-animated Lego short I've seen yet.

Analog and Digital Magnification

2010-03-03T10:38:00.000-08:00

Look at the difference in data density between a CD and a record. A CD is a series of on/off directives, while a record has a directly analogous wave form carved into matter. See more at synthgear.

Clips from The Illusionist

2010-02-26T17:40:00.001-08:00

Hot Pockets!

2010-02-25T16:50:00.000-08:00

via GetJustin

Necktie Mathematics

2010-02-23T18:18:00.000-08:00

About a week ago, I realized that I didn't know how to tie a tie. I mean, I did something to the tie when I put it on, but I'm not sure what. It ended up looking alright though. Anyhow, I decided enough was enough, so I went online to learn for myself the full range of tie knots, expecting maybe three or four. I soon discovered that two physicists, Yong Mao and Thomas Fink, had set out in 2001 to unravel a mathematical model for understanding tie knots. Based on the supposition that there are three different moves one can make with a tie (cross to the left, right or go down through the top) and the two possible directions a tie can face, they figured out that there are exactly 85 different ways to tie a tie, about a dozen of which are really aesthetically pleasing.

I take a weird delight in seeing an element of fashion reduced down to mathematical principles to be dissected. By denoting each move by a pair of letters (Li, for instance, means go to the Left, facing In) Mao and Fink are able to set out the instructions for a tie knot simply and concisely. For instance, the Windsor knot is Li Co Ri Lo Ci Ro Li Co T, which translates to:

For a full explanation, plus how to tie all 85 knots, go to Fink's homepage, or buy his book The 85 Ways to Tie a Tie (not cheap; I recommend looking for it used). If you are further intrigued, read his summary Designing Tie Knots by Random Walks, or the full paper that inspired the book, Tie Knots, Random Walks, and Topology.

(I do not endorse the ad at top in any way, other than that I think it's funny.)

Hell of Sand

2010-02-18T09:16:00.001-08:00

A strangely addicting sandbox-type game. Play around with it to get the idea. To start out with, try making a line of "Spout" all along the top, and then a line of "Plant" all along the bottom. Wait and see what happens.

Thanks to Kate for the tip.

Visual Poetics

2010-02-17T10:25:00.000-08:00

Some beautiful examples of typographic expression from the late 1800s and early 1900s can be found in the essay Typographic Innovation in Visual Poetry and Advertising by Vicki Litvinov. Just seeing the tricks typographer and advertisers came up with back in the days of text-only printing is stunning and inspiring.

Via Uppercase

Magazine Titles

2010-02-16T11:57:00.000-08:00

People still say that print magazines will be dead within a decade. These people are wrong. Print magazines will be around probably forever, for the same reason that books will be. People like carefully-made, individual instances of things, even things that could be abstracted to their forms. What this will mean, of course, is that any magazine people were buying just for its content will be moved online. This has been happening for a while. On the other hand, the magazines (and books) that survive will do so with an increased attention to design and tactile beauty.

A few of the magazines that especially intrigue me are the culture magazine The Believer, the literary magazine McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, and the just-founded culinary journal Fire and Knives. This last has an amazing name, by the way. Superbly concrete and expressive. Instead of calling it Food or Kitchen, or some such, it simply names two of the most ancient and essential implements for making food. From reading the title, you know that it must concern food, but the way that it moves around the subject hints that it will be about more than just recipes. And it is. Plus, it's fun and dangerous to say. Try it. Fire and Knives. Awesome.

The Believer and McSweeney's, of course, boast catchy and memorably names as well, and are distinguished by excellent, highly varied writing and gorgeous, ever shifting covers. The Believer's cover art is done by illustrator and graphic novelist Charles Burns, and McSweeney's changes entirely with each publication. They're all certainly worth a look. I especially love that the page for ordering the first issue of Fire and Knives informs its audience that the magazine is set in Perpetua and Gill Sans. Who does that? A magazine that knows its audience.

Via Magculture

Old Spice Manmercial

2010-02-16T10:58:00.000-08:00

Genius. Sheer sidesplitting genius. Don't smell like sunsets and baby powder. Smell like jet fighters and punching. Ad by Portland agency Weiden and Kennedy.

FedEx

2010-02-16T10:18:00.000-08:00

Most people have noticed by now that the FedEx logo has a negative space arrow tucked between the E and X. This is a neat touch, and one that would seem unique to the Roman alphabet. I was amused to notice, however, that the Arabic version of the logo also had the same symbol, going from right to left of course. I don't enough about the Arabic alphabet to know if they had to mangle the letters to get it in there, but it looks as if they did, which is too bad. It ought to be natural or not used at all. Now let's see them do it in Japanese kanji!

T-Shirt War

2010-02-16T10:01:00.000-08:00

Fun!

Out of a Forest

2010-02-15T08:49:00.000-08:00

A magical stop-motion short by Tobias Gundorff Boesen. Music by The National - "Slow Show."

Sylvain Chomet - La Vieille Dame Et Les Pigeons

2010-02-12T10:43:00.000-08:00

Sylvain Chomet's trademark blend of humor, absurdity, and the grotesque is in full swing in this 1998 short. The attention to detail in environment and character approaches Miyazaki.

The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello

2010-02-12T10:31:00.000-08:00

Adventure, skyships, evil scientists, Lovecraftian monsters...what more could you ask for?

Winter Solstice, Camelot Station

2010-02-09T19:16:00.000-08:00

Here is a poem by SF master John M. Ford. It won the World Fantasy Award for short fiction in 1989. The image of Arthur in the age of rail is burned in my mind now, and the sounds of strange engines pulling into the station at Camelot amid the snow, on the longest night of the year...

Winter Solstice, Camelot Station

Camelot is served
By a sixteen-track stub terminal done in High Gothick Style,
The tracks covered by a single great barrel-vaulted glass roof framed upon iron,
At once looking back to the Romans and ahead to the Brunels.
Beneath its rotunda, just to the left of the ticket windows,
Is a mosaic floor depicting the Round Table
(Where all knights, regardless of their station of origin
Or class of accommodation, are equal),
And around it murals of knightly deeds in action
(Slaying dragons, righting wrongs, rescuing maidens tied to the tracks).
It is the only terminal, other than Gare d'Avalon in Paris,
To be hung with original tapestries,
And its lavatories rival those at the Great Gate of Kiev Central.
During a peak season such as this, some eighty trains a day pass through,
Five times the frequency at the old Londinium Terminus,
Ten times the number the Druid towermen knew.
(The Official Court Christmas Card this year displays
A crisp black-and-white Charles Clegg photograph from the King's own collection.
Showing a woad-blued hogger at the throttle of "Old XCVII,"
The Fast Mail overnight to Eboracum. Those were the days.)
The first of a line of wagons have arrived,
Spilling footmen and pages in Court livery,
And old thick Kay, stepping down from his Range Rover,
Tricked out in a bush coat from Swaine, Adeney, Brigg,
Leaning on his shooting stick as he marshalls his company,
Instructing the youngest how to behave in the station,
To help mature women that they may encounter,
Report pickpockets, gather up litter,
And of course no true Knight of the Table Round (even in training)
Would do a station porter out of Christmas tips.
He checks his list of arrival times, then his watch
(A moon-phase Breguet, gift from Merlin):
The seneschal is a practical man, who knows trains do run late,
And a stolid one, who sees no reason to be glad about it.
He dispatches pages to posts at the tracks,
Doling out pennies for platform tickets,
Then walks past the station buffet with a dyspeptic snort,
Goes into the bar, checks the time again, orders a pint.
The patrons half turn--it's the fella from Camelot, innit?
And Kay chuckles soft to himself, and the Court buys a round.
He's barely halfway when a page tumbles in,
Seems the knights are arriving, on time after all,
So he tips the glass back (people stare as he guzzles),
Then plonks it down hard with five quid for the barman,
And strides for the doorway (half Falstaff, half Hotspur)
To summon his liveried army of lads.

* * *

Bors arrives behind steam, riding the cab of a heavy Mikado.
He shakes the driver's hand, swings down from the footplate,
And is like a locomotive himself, his breath clouding white,
Dark oil sheen on his black iron mail,
Sword on his hip swinging like siderods at speed.
He stamps back to the baggage car, slams mailed fist on steel door
With a clang like jousters colliding.
The handler opens up and goes to rouse another knight.
Old Pellinore has been dozing with his back against a crate,
A cubical, chain-bound thing with FRAGILE tags and air holes,
BEAST says the label, QUESTING, 1 the bill of lading.
The porters look doubtful but ease the thing down.
It grumbles. It shifts. Someone shouts, and they drop it.
It cracks like an egg. There is nothing within.
Elayne embraces Bors on the platform, a pelican on a rock,
Silently they watch as Pelly shifts the splinters,
Supposing aloud that Gutman and Cairo have swindled him.

A high-drivered engine in Northern Lines green
Draws in with a string of side-corridor coaches,
All honey-toned wood with stained glass on their windows.
Gareth steps down from a compartment, then Gaheris and Aggravaine,
All warmly tucked up in Orkney sweaters;
Gawaine comes after in Shetland tweed.
Their Gladstones and steamers are neatly arranged,
With never a worry--their Mum does the packing.
A redcap brings forth a curious bundle, a rude shape in red paper--
The boys did that one themselves, you see, and how does one wrap a unicorn's head?
They bustle down the platform, past a chap all in green.
He hasn't the look of a trainman, but only Gawaine turns to look at his eyes,
And sees written there Sir, I shall speak with you later.

Over on the first track, surrounded by reporters,
All glossy dark iron and brass-bound mystery,
The Direct-Orient Express, ferried in from Calais and Points East.
Palomides appears. Smelling of patchouli and Russian leather,
Dripping Soubranie ash on his astrakhan collar,
Worry darkening his dark face, though his damascene armor shows no tarnish,
He pushes past the press like a broad-hulled icebreaker.
Flashbulbs pop. Heads turn. There's a woman in Chanel black,
A glint of diamonds, liquid movements, liquid eyes.
The newshawks converge, but suddenly there appears
A sharp young man in a crisp blue suit
From the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits,
That elegant, comfortable, decorous, close-mouthed firm;
He's good at his job, and they get not so much as a snapshot.
Tomorrow's editions will ask who she was, and whom with...

Now here's a silver train, stainless steel, Vista-Domed,
White-lighted grails on the engine (running no extra sections)
The Logres Limited, extra fare, extra fine,
(Stops on signal at Carbonek to receive passengers only).
She glides to a Timkin-borne halt (even her grease is clean),
Galahad already on the steps, flashing that winning smile,
Breeze mussing his golden hair, but not his Armani tailoring,
Just the sort of man you'd want finding your chalice.
He signs an autograph, he strikes a pose.
Someone says, loudly, "Gal! Who serves the Grail?"
He looks--no one he knows--and there's a silence,
A space in which he shifts like sun on water;
Look quick and you may see a different knight,
A knight who knows that meanings can be lies,
That things are done not knowing why they're done,
That bearings fail, and stainless steel corrodes.
A whistle blows. Snow shifts on the glass shed roof. That knight is gone.
This one remaining tosses his briefcase to one of Kay's pages,
And, golden, silken, careless, exits left.

Behind the carsheds, on the business-car track, alongside the private varnish
Of dukes and smallholders, Persian potentates and Cathay princes
(James J. Hill is here, invited to bid on a tunnel through the Pennines),
Waits a sleek car in royal blue, ex-B&O, its trucks and fittings chromed,
A black-gloved hand gripping its silver platform rail;
Mordred and his car are both upholstered in blue velvet and black leather.
He prefers to fly, but the weather was against it.
His DC-9, with its video system and Quotron and waterbed, sits grounded at Gatwick.
The premature lines in his face are a map of a hostile country,
The redness in his eyes a reminder that hollyberries are poison.
He goes inside to put on a look acceptable for Christmas Court;
As he slams the door it rattles like strafing jets.

Outside the Station proper, in the snow,
On a through track that's used for milk and mail,
A wheezing saddle-tanker stops for breath;
A way-freight mixed, eight freight cars and caboose,
Two great ugly men on the back platform, talking with a third on the ballast.
One, the conductor, parcels out the last of the coffee;
They drink. A joke about grails. They laugh.
When it's gone, the trainman pretends to kick the big hobo off,
But the farewell hug spoils the act.
Now two men stand on the dirty snow,
The conductor waves a lantern and the train grinds on.
The ugly men start walking, the new arrival behind,
Singing "Wenceslas" off-key till the other says stop.
There are two horses waiting for them. Rather plain horses,
Considering. The men mount up.
By the roundhouse they pause,
And look at the locos, the water, the sand, and the coal,
The look for a long time at the turntable,
Until the one who is King says "It all seemed so simple, once,"
And the best knight in the world says "It is. We make it hard."
They ride on, toward Camelot by the service road.

The sun is winter-low. Kay's caravan is rolling.
He may not run a railroad, but he runs a tight ship;
By the time they unload in the Camelot courtyard,
The wassail will be hot and the goose will be crackling,
Banners snapping from their towers, fir logs on the fire, drawbridge down,
And all that sackbut and psaltery stuff.
Blanchefleur is taking the children caroling tonight,
Percivale will lose to Merlin at chess,
The young knights will dally and the damsels dally back,
The old knights will play poker at a smaller Table Round.
And at the great glass station, motion goes on,
The extras, the milk trains, the varnish, the limiteds,
The Pindar of Wakefield, the Lady of the Lake,
The Broceliande Local, the Fast Flying Briton,
The nerves of the kingdom, the lines of exchange,
Running to a schedule as the world ought,
Ticking like a hot-fired hand-stoked heart,
The metal expression of the breaking of boundaries,
The boilers that turn raw fire into power,
The driving rods that put the power to use,
The turning wheels that make all places equal,
The knowledge that the train may stop but the line goes on;
The train may stop
But the line goes on.

Popcorn Clouds

2010-02-09T17:10:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe these photos aren't paintings. I only wish there were more of them, and at a higher resolution, so I could use them as my desktop background. See the photostream here.

Pivot

2010-02-09T11:13:00.000-08:00

A slick, stylish, and surreal film from the Netherlands.

Paul Dempsey - Bats

2010-02-09T10:58:00.001-08:00

Great song, beautiful images.

Analog Music

2010-02-06T15:47:00.000-08:00

There's something magical about vinyl records. I've begun, for the first time, to listen to classical recordings in our music room on a record player instead of CD player. I love the experience of it, the physicality of the interaction between needle and wax, the very idea of analog recording. Digital recording feels false, somehow. To take one form, (the unique vibrations in the air that make up a piece) and then to scramble it into an artificial language that needs to be reinterpreted again to be played...I feel like something is lost in between.

To be sure, playing a vinyl is not the same as listening to music live. But the process is far more unified. Every indentation on the record has a direct correspondence to a particular sound. You can see the music there, etched into the surface. It keeps the music as it should be, a physical thing, as opposed to an ethereal digital code, teeming and multiplying on the internet.

With the demise of the CD, vinyl records are making a major resurgence. Consider: people can now essentially get any piece of music they desire for free, and yet they pay good money for a record. This, I think, is to be expected. I believe that it is only when the form of a thing becomes liberated that people begin to realize that it was exactly the limitedness, the scarcity of the thing in its embodied state that gave it is value. Matter imposes restrictions on how art can be experienced, and in the long run, we prefer it that way, because the restrictions of matter are fundamental to the human experience of life.

Having music and movies in digital form on my computer makes it tempting to skip through it, listen to a snippet here, a scene there. This sort of interaction is extremely destructive to the artistic experience. It encourages, as so much technology does, an ever increasing level of ADD in daily life. Facebook is bad enough, and things like Twitter make me sick. The notion that one day you will need nothing but your computer for entertainment, and that it will simply transform itself into what ever you wish as you need it strikes me as something horrible and very non-human. One of the reasons that philosophers and the Church have fought so hard to defend the right to private property is that they realize that the appropriation of the physical world to oneself is a very natural and human action. Our clothes, our land, our houses are an extension of ourselves, and I believe that when we begin to transform our possessions into immaterial shapes, we do injury to our own nature.

There is an analogy of sorts between this and other destructive trends in our century, such as contraception. The need for convenience and immediacy above all else blinds us to the fact that inconvenience and the limited nature of our lives, both in space and time, are what give rise to our richest experiences. Try to grow a plant in a space station and it will be a monster; grow it under the constraints of gravity and it takes on form, and resonates with purpose. Or look at the way we play games; the games in which one has the fewest kinds of moves, such as Go, provide the deepest and most rewarding experience.

This is one reason why I am so in favor of liberating music, books, and such on the internet. Reason and experience have both shown that doing so will only increase the exposure and appreciation for live concerts, physical records, and the beauty of the written and printed word. In the end, however much our Platonic urge flees from the physical, our material nature takes hold.

Note: Do you want a vinyl record player/recorder that's as beautiful as it is gloriously low-tech? Look no further.

and now for something completely different

2010-02-04T20:06:00.000-08:00

Given Ben's positively ferocious amount of recent activity, I feel as though I'm coming out of cybernetic hibernation! I am about to make a comeback; which means this blog will once again be split between fascinating offerings from the internet and long winded complaints about the various things in life that irk me. With any luck, my interruptions will not be completely irritating.

Issue of today is my run in with an articulate and polite person possessed of the most shocking opinions I've encountered in real life.

Opinion #1: Alexander VI was preferable to John Paul II in terms of damage done to the Church during stay in papal office.

It's even more ridiculous seeing it written out than hearing it in person, but this person was quite adamant...and quite sane. His argument, as far as I could tell, was that the damage done by John Paul II was of a less obvious nature than that exacted by Alexander VI. Apparently John Paul is responsible for ecumenism of an unconscionable degree (the Day of Prayer in Assisi incident), scandal (kissing the Koran), and yet more scandal (topless women at Mass in certain African countries).
Considering these two pontiffs together, it seems strange to me to disregard the fact that one gave only evidence of a debauched and deranged spirit, while the other gave every proof of holiness and divine favor. From his miraculous escape from assassination to his moving forgiveness of the man who tried to kill him, he constantly provided an example of virtue and blessedness that amazed and inspired the world.
Nor can we ever forget the tremendous role he played in toppling Communism, that most heinous of the 20th century's crimes. If that were the only contribution he gave to history, it would be enough to merit encomiums and monuments for decades to come.
Yet his most profound gift was the gift he gave of himself to Catholics around the world. He preached Christ's message in unceasing eloquence to all the nations of this world, and traveled to nearly every continent to spread the Gospel in a manner reminiscent of the original Apostles. He reached over the heads of bureaucratic bishops to reach his flock and touched the hearts of all to whom he spoke.
Administration may not have been his strength; in fact, I doubt there are many who would make that claim. He allowed other men to make appointments, send invitations, and make arrangements, which may explain the presence of Animists at the Day of Prayer. His focus was not on the liturgy, which partially explains the widespread downward trend in liturgical excellence during his pontificate.
But as little as I care for practices such as the Sign of Peace during the Mass, John Paul gave me a reason to reconsider my position on that. During his requiem Mass the world saw the Ayatollah of Iran turn round and clasp the hand of the Prime Minister of Israel. In that moment, the departed pontiff seemed powerfully present.

I do not feel that I can make a judgment concerning the kissing of the Koran. Somehow, a college student taking it upon himself to criticize a man of that stature does not sway me much. I cannot say it was the best idea, but I have never heard the Pope's reasons for taking that action.

As for topless ladies at Mass, I find that argument entirely irrelevant. Catholic missionaries never demanded European standards of modesty from the native cultures they evangelized. That's one of the reasons they were so markedly more effective than Protestant missionaries. In quite a few African cultures, that woman's attire would have been considered completely modest and appropriate. Of course, if it had happened in America, that would be a reason for outrage. But it didn't, and it should not be a cause of undue choler.

There is a consistent group of Catholics who find John Paul problematic; they tend to fall in the SSPX camp or be of that ilk. And to them I say this: You may feel confident that you have the authority to defy the Vicar of Christ, but let's take a little trip down memory lane. Remember Savanarola? Dominican Friar unpopular with complacent Christians because of his hellfire and brimstone attitude toward vice? He's a little like Lefebvre, in his "against the world" attitude. But when he was reprimanded by his Pope, he did what Lefebvre found so impossible. He bowed his head and submitted. He stopped preaching (I'm from the crowd that fully believes he only recommenced preaching because he thought the Pope had lifted the ban) and obeyed that profligate Pope, Alexander VI. Obedience can be a bitter thing, but it's what gave Christ "the name above every other name." We would do well to continue to imitate the only begotten Son of God.

Don't you think?

Bon Iver - The Wolves

2010-02-03T22:21:00.000-08:00

Xenofauna

2010-02-03T18:43:00.000-08:00

The Morae River was my first introduction to the concept of artificial ecosystems, but now I keep finding more and more about it. Apparently the internet is swimming with sites dedicated to things like alternate evolution, extrapolations of dinosaur development had they not gone extinct, and just full fledged alien worlds. Of course, a great deal of these are terribly illustrated, which, it seems to me, takes the whole fun out of it. There are a couple of bright spots though. The biggest is Snaiad, an alien world with a far greater catalog of fauna than the Morae River, with stunning and often disturbing illustrations, and a laboriously worked out anatomy. More so than the Morae River, it attempts to give a consistent and rational explanation for how unique evolutionary forces guided the creatures to where they are.

Other interesting works include After Man: A Zoology of the Future, and Expedition, which features the artwork of Wayne Barlowe. Of course, Avatar also features an extensive and detailed collection of original fauna, which you can watch on the big screen.

Best Animated Short: Oscar Nominees

2010-02-03T10:45:00.000-08:00

The fifth nominee is called Logorama, but it was a bit too R rated to post. Clever idea though.

Dear Mr. Watterson

2010-02-02T11:37:00.000-08:00

It's been fifteen years since Calvin and Hobbes ended. Since then, there have been other decent comic strips in newspapers: Mutts, Get Fuzzy, Pearls Before Swine, but none have come close to touching the pinnacle of cartooning excellence that Calvin and Hobbes represented. That's right, Calvin and Hobbes was the best thing that has ever been printed on a comics page. It's better than Windsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland, better than Walt Kelly's Pogo, and better that Georg Heriman's Krazy Kat. Bill Waterson, C&H's author, has remained reclusive, and has several times published papers or given talks on why he ended the strip after only ten years, and why he prefers to remain out of the public eye. Recently, however, he gave a short interview to the Cleavland Plain Dealer, which you can read here.

Also, watch the trailer above for the documentary Dear Mr. Watterson, a project in production on the creation and cultural impact of the work.

A great compilation of Watterson's writings can be found here, including his thoughts on Little Nemo, a review of Berke Breathed, and his now famous manifesto The Cheapening of Comics, where he tears into the current syndicate system, and presents his thesis that currently, cartooning is regressing into a more and more inane and primitive form. What Watterson could not have predicted, of course, was webcomics, which give their creators total control over their creations and unlimited space to do it in. Still, webcomics have a ways to go before they start producing really memorable work. At the moment, really exceptional series are few and far between, such as Buttercup Festival, Copper, and Rad Sechrist's Beneath the Leaves and Wooden Rivers.

The Nietzsche Family Circus

2010-02-02T10:26:00.000-08:00

The great epochs of our life come when

we gain the courage to rechristen our

evil as what is best in us.

Every time you refresh it, it gives you a new random pairing of a Family Circus image and a Nietzsche quote. It's about time someone found a use for that cartoon. Try it here.

Skhizein

2010-02-01T16:13:00.000-08:00

An unusual and cleverly made French animated short, made using both CG and 2D animation. Shortlisted for an Academy Award a few year ago.

Makerbot

2010-01-31T21:57:00.000-08:00

For less than a thousand dollars, you can now buy a 3D printer. That's about 124,000 dollars less than they used to cost. Makerbot started putting its DIY printers up for sale last year, and have gotten so many orders that they can no longer keep up with production. So they hired out a bunch of the Makerbots they'd already sold, and had them make more Makerbots. Creepy, and awesome. They send you the kit, you put it together, feed it some plastic, load a 3D file, and the machine will make it while you watch. The makerbot phenomenon has spawned a site, Thingiverse, dedicated to open source 3D files, and a large community who are only beginning to unravel what having a machine like this will mean for the future of manufacturing. Want a new toy for your kids? Print it. Need a new lathe for your workshop? Print it. Want a sculpture of Walt Disney's head for your living room? Print it.

Cory Doctorow is, of course, all over this, and put out a new book last year titled Makers, that takes as its very premise a near future where devices like this are omnipresent. As with all Doctorow books, you can buy it on Amazon, or download the ebook for free from the link above.

Read more on this and the DIY revolution at Wired Magazine.

The Road: A Comedic Translation, and Confessions of a Book Pirate

2010-01-31T00:14:00.000-08:00

For anyone who has read Comac McCarthy's The Road, this is a must. Thank goodness for The Millions. Great literary websites like this are nigh extinct now.

Another great article is this one, an interview with an anonymous internet book pirate. I won't get too into it now, as my anti-intellectual-property rant is currently being saved for my senior thesis, but the interview strikes many of the most important points in the issue: people who pirate the most are usually the people most in love with the medium, these people are also willing to pay for nice physical copies of the same works, these sorts people contribute more to the exposure and hence, the sales, of a work than almost any other factor, and in cases where authors and publishing companies have put their works up for free downloading, such as Cory Doctorow and the Baen Free Library, they have actually experienced increases in revenue.

Garance Doré

2010-01-30T23:17:00.000-08:00

Wouldn't you know it? The Sartorialist has a French girlfriend, Garance Doré, who is also a fashion photographer and illustrator. Her blog, with much wonderful photography and drawings, is being translated into English here. Worth a look.

Chomet, Tati, and The Illusionist

2010-01-29T10:40:00.000-08:00

Sylvain Chomet is the creator and director of Les Triplettes de Belleville, quite possibly the greatest western animated work of the last few decades. His next film, The Illusionist, is slated to be released this February. That is reason for excitement enough. However, the script was written by Jacques Tati, the director and star of the Hulot films, Les Vacances de M. Hulot, Mon Uncle, Playtime, and Trafic. The story takes place in Scotland, and follows an old-school stage entertainer, frustrated by how the rise of modern culture has turned the youth to rock and roll.

A plot like this is pure Tati, and Chomet is the perfect director; both Tati's and Chomet's films have a deep love for the beauty of the cinematic environment, are nearly wordless, and rely on visual gags and quiet, ironic humor for support. Since Tati stared in his own live-action films, it appears the the Illusionist will in fact be an animated version of Tati himself. I cannot express how excited I am about this.

The Invasion of America

2010-01-28T12:47:00.000-08:00

Some scans from Time magazine in 1942, mapping out possible routes Germany might take to conquer the U.S. Although logistically ridiculous given the actual situation, the maps have all the great design and typographical sensibilities of the era, along with its wonderfully blunt attitude. What's the first thing the Nazi war machine does upon setting foot on American soil? Reunify with its fifth column legions, naturally. Good times.

The Ptak Science Book website has a host of wonderful snippets from other old books as well, including this book of advice for girls on how to snare a man, and one on date technique so as to "attach him as a permanent decoration."

Unhappy Hipsters

2010-01-28T12:05:00.000-08:00

The octopus was full of judgment.

A short collection of clever photos, taken from modern home magazines, and juxtaposed with melancholy, Goreyesque captions. Very funny, mostly because they are so appropriate. Hipsters are a sad lot.

Unhappy Hipsters

Garuda

2010-01-27T10:41:00.000-08:00

A new short from the French animation school Gobelins L'Ecole de L'Image, which has invariably produced amazing shorts over the years. I love the Escheresque cityscape.

Two New Videos

2010-01-27T10:32:00.000-08:00

Perfect comic timing, great story. We need more animators like this guy.

In the vein of abstract visualizations of music, this one's another keeper. Music is "Warren" by The Flashbulb.

Thanks to Tommy Welsh for the tip.

Madame Tutli-Putli

2010-01-26T12:10:00.000-08:00

A very dark, very creepy shop motion short, by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, gorgeously shot and composed, filled with characters with astoundingly expressive eyes. The sense of weight and movement is superb.

The Vanishing Point

2010-01-26T11:19:00.000-08:00

A beautiful piece of abstract video art by Takuya Hosogane. Meticulous and entrancing. The song is “LePetitPrince” by cubesato.

via ISO50

ISPWP

2010-01-25T14:55:00.000-08:00

The International Society of Professional Wedding Photographers has the results of their latest photography competition up. Some truly beautiful images here. It's a revelation to some people that wedding photography can be much more than formal poses and heavily staged shots.

ISPWP Fall 2009 Competition

Hey Oscar Wilde...

2010-01-22T11:00:00.000-08:00

A huge collection of illustrative interpretations of literary characters and authors have been showing up for years on the awesomely-named blog Hey Oscar Wilde! It's Clobberin' Time!!! Some of my favorite illustrators, such as Jeff Smith and Scott Campbell, are featured, as well as my favorite writers, such as everyone's favorite Russian novelist, Dostoevsky.

reMIND

2010-01-21T11:34:00.000-08:00

Jason Brubaker, an illustrator at Dreamworks, has been showing off his art and graphic novel skills at his blog recently. It includes tips on creating a graphic novel of one's own, and a page-by-page release of his current project, reMIND. Unlike most webcomic artists, this guy can draw, and the story, which features lighthouse operator Sonja and her cat Victuals, is shaping up to be an intriguing read. I especially like the environments. They feel like a place somewhere between a Myst age and the planet Hillys from Beyond Good and Evil.

This Is Where We Live

2010-01-20T11:23:00.000-08:00

I'm liking this trend of paper animation...

The Morae River

2010-01-20T10:54:00.000-08:00

The Morae River is an invented ecological system devised by Brynn Metheney. Beautifully illustrated, with even the flora and fauna's scientific classifications worked out, this is one of the best examples of non-narrative world building I've seen. Metheney can count on me to buy her book when it comes out.

Metheney's sketchblog
Portfolio

Wes Anderson's Acceptance Speech

2010-01-20T10:24:00.000-08:00

Fantastic Mr. Fox? Great movie. Wes Anderson's acceptance speech? Just as awesome.

Fleet Foxes

2010-01-19T14:35:00.000-08:00

What a life I lead when the sun breaks free

As a giant torn from the clouds

What a life indeed when that ancient seed

Is a berry watered and plowed

Christopher Alexander

2010-01-19T10:45:00.000-08:00

Christopher Alexander is someone I discovered this fall, and whose books I cannot stop reading. The one I've read the most of, "A Pattern Language," is remarkable, revolutionary and entirely beautiful. It deals with, as most of Alexander's books do, the forming of living human environments, from the regional level, to the city, neighborhood, building, house, and room levels. It forced me to rethink how buildings ought to be made, and expressed in clear, methodical language why it is that certain houses and urban environments feel so "right," human, or whole.

His philosophy is deeply refreshing in its careful and disciplined insistence that the flourishing of human life and community ought to be at the very heart of architecture and urban planning. This might seem like a truism, but it is very much contested among modern architects and planners, as can easily be seen from modern architecture. In fact, I was startled at how closely related the ideals set out in A Pattern Language corresponded to the distributive ideal in Catholic circles. Government at a local level, an emphasis on small communities with strong cultures, the necessity of the integration of all ages of life together, the preservation of sacred places, the notion that families ought to grow food and not become alienated from their labor...it's all there, not as a utopian dream, but an ideal that can be gradually worked towards. The book is a wonder; almost every chapter (there are some 250 of them) makes one exclaim "Yes! Exactly!" as well as providing insights I'd never heard of.

Perhaps the best way to get a handle on Alexander is to read this debate between himself and Peter Eisenman, a modernist-deconstrictivist, who openly admits that Alexander's theory of architecture infuriates him. Keep in mind, that for the most part it is people like Eisenman who are in charge of providing the theory that underlies most "relevant" architecture done in the western world today.

Alexander: I don't fully follow what you're saying. It never occurred to me that someone could so explicitly reject the core experience of something like Chartres [Cathedral]. It's very interesting to have this conversation. If this weren't a public situation, I'd be tempted to get into this on a psychiatric level. I'm actually quite serious about this. What I'm saying is that I understand how one could be very panicked by these kinds of feelings. Actually, it's been my impression that a large part of the history of modern architecture has been a kind of panicked withdrawal from these kinds of feelings, which have governed the formation of buildings over the last 2000 years or so.

Why that panicked withdrawal occurred, I'm still trying to find out. It's not clear to me. But I've never heard somebody say, until a few moments ago, someone say explicitly: "Yes, I find that stuff freaky. I don't like to deal with feelings. I like to deal with ideas." Then, of course, what follows is very clear. You would like the Palladio building; you would not be particularly happy with Chartres, and so forth. And Mies ...

Eisenman: The panicked withdrawal of the alienated self was dealt with in Modernism -- which was concerned with the alienation of the self from the collective.

Eisenman repeats several times that architecture's purpose is to express the state of modern man: his alienation, fragmentation, etc. He finds it inappropriate to make architecture that serves man's basic nature, needs, and feelings, because, I suppose, that's just not where the world spirit is right now. It's like listening to Lucifer calmly describing the building code in Hell.

Read the full debate here

Read samples from Alexander's books below

A Pattern Language

The Nature of Order: The Phenomenon of Life

The Nature of Order: The Process of Creating Life

The Nature of Order: The Vision of a Living World

The Nature of Order: The Luminous Ground

New Zealand Book Council - Going West

2010-01-18T17:29:00.001-08:00

Snip snip snip. This gives me chills.

Create Amazing

2010-01-18T17:20:00.000-08:00

It seems I'm on a roll today. Since Catherine seems to be our essayist, I think I may be doomed to the role of "poster of internet oddities." Well, I'll see what I can do to change that, but not today. Today I bring your attention a charming and beautiful advertisement by HP. There is a shorter, more talky ad on Youtube, but the director's cut is also available, and I recommend you watch it first, even if it is a large file. The technique is called tilt-shift photography, which distorts the depth of field in a real scene, making it look like a model. The song, in case you wanted to know, is called "Rescue Song" by Mr Little Jeans.

Create Amazing

Lu Guang - Pollution in China

2010-01-18T11:49:00.000-08:00

The results of China's insane rate of industrial expansion have been cataloged recently by Lu Guang, who has been garnering acclaim for his work "Pollution in China". The consequences of treating a nation's populace and environment purely as capital-producing resources are laid out in stark detail.

Images here
and here

Delphic - This Momentary

2010-01-18T11:18:00.000-08:00

My fascination with abandoned environments continues unabated, and sparked my interest in this music video, composed of recent footage of Chernobyl and the Russian populace living in the region. Beautiful and haunting.

The Third & The Seventh

2010-01-16T14:08:00.000-08:00

This is something to experience. Fullscreen the video, turn down the lights, and turn up the sound.

The Return of Flannery and Chesterton

2010-01-14T18:56:00.000-08:00

By popular demand, the audio of Flannery O'Connor and G.K. Chesterton have returned. They can be downloaded from the links below.

Chesterton on Canada
O'Connor on Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Literature
O'Connor reads A Good Man is Hard to Find

The O'Connor audios are also available at Black Market Kidneys, where they can be found as mp3s. Thanks, guys!

I met a real live Russian today

2009-10-04T11:20:00.001-07:00

Sunday brunch became more interesting than usual when I met Hillsdale's own student from the Motherland. In the course of the conversation I mentioned that Russia has been my favorite country to read and hear about since I was three years old and he said, "...you are very strange." Which is, I suppose, undeniably true. But my fascination with that country remains with me to this day; and I would love to reach a point in my life where I could spend a year traveling all over that country which uses up one sixth of the Earth's landmass. I think what has always drawn me is the deep understanding of pain and suffering that permeates Russian art, music, literature, and history. From Dostoevsky to Rachmoninov, I feel connected to a people who have accepted and lived with suffering more completely than any other culture I've ever encountered.

In Memoriam

2009-09-22T19:36:00.000-07:00

Today we commemorate the thousands who fell under the sword and bullets of the Spanish Civil War. The Republican extremists slaughtered 13 bishops, over 6000 priests, and 4000 more religious, with the number of lay faithful as yet unnumbered. So many see this conflict in terms of political absolutes, fascism vs. democracy, that the element of religious persecution remains entirely neglected. Catholics should understand, as so few do, that this was the most intense, most ferocious persecution since the Roman Emperor Diocletian. Enemies of the Church, driven by a nearly indisputable demonic rage, razed hundreds of churches to the ground, mutilated statues, and subjected those they did not kill to unspeakable atrocities. While Franco's Nationalist army did not stay free from crimes and murders, their deeds strayed out of bounds in typical wartime actions. It should not be forgotten that it was the Republican tolerance of violence against the church and her faithful that precipitated the military uprising in the first place. Those who suffered martyrdom in that contest have not received due attention, partly due to the unwillingness of most media to accept that these events did indeed transpire. Even C. S. Lewis expressed doubt that the stories coming over the water about the intense persecution were true (this rankled Tolkien). Much of the crimes perpetrated by the Republican government and army remain shadowed in obscurity because it was (and is) so popular to be on the side of the elected government. It is a pity these same people do not recall that Hilter was also elected. May the beatified martyrs of the Spanish Civil War pray for us and this troubled world, that injustice everywhere may be fought, despite inconvenience or discomfort.

Hiroshima

2009-08-10T01:36:00.001-07:00

A collection of rare photos of the destruction of Hiroshima can be found on Design Observer, along with the story of their discovery. The images are haunting in a way similar to the emotions evoked by images of dead Chernobyl, but more intense because of the deliberate will behind them, and the sheer scale of the human slaughter under the blasted landscape. A visceral reminder of the consequences of total war, and the brutality possible when war is unhinged from Christian principles.

sometimes I can take good pictures

2009-07-17T20:44:00.001-07:00

Home, around 6:15 AM.

Cetaceous Conflicts

2009-07-14T22:55:00.000-07:00

Having recently completed the arduous task of reading Herman Melville's alleged masterpiece Moby Dick, I feel compelled to offer a few thoughts on it. Despite Melville's overwrought turn of phrase and fascination with beating an already tired metaphor into the ground, the book succeeded in revealing the dangerous and almost mystical world of whaling to an ignorant audience (namely, me). The idea of a handful of men in a tiny boat paddling furiously after a creature of such terrifyingly large proportions staggers belief (at least in my case). It seems to me to be an endeavor worthy of comparison to the scaling of Earth's most treacherous mountains. In both cases Man seeks to overcome a daunting force of nature, and I could not believe how paltry the equipment was on those whaling boats! A harpoon, some spears, and quite a quantity of rope, and off they went, risking life and limb to hunt a monstrously large animal in a lethal environs. Incredibly, they succeeded often enough to make it a profitable industry I know it is the custom these days to side with the whales and certainly if there is real danger of their extinction, I concede the case. But I have acquired a whole hearted admiration for the men who undertook such a perilous enterprise. And I hope the Makah will soon be able again to take to the open sea in a little canoe to spear the leviathan, as they did a few years ago. In a world of modern convenience and comfort I feel somehow relieved that there are still men who have the pluck and the nerve to dart over the waters after a creature as big as a house, armed only with small pointed sticks and their courage.

2009-07-13T19:24:00.000-07:00

We have followed this series for too long to let the new one go by without recognition. Therefore, just a reminder that tomorrow at 12:00: HP6. haven't they come a long way?

Strong Feelings Change Nothing

2009-07-03T23:53:00.000-07:00

That was the headline in a recent copy of the Reflector; I found it painfully applicable to a situation detailed in a different article. That article, titled instead "State invites comments on SR-502 project" explained just exactly what will happen when WSDOT turns 219th St into a four lane highway, changing the lives of everyone in the area. Let me quote the article itself, as it displayed unusual genius for listing each catastrophic effect in a numbingly banal fashion. "Create 28 acres of new impervious surfaces"--Well that's an incredible way to put it. A full 28 acres of asphalt poured between us and the ground. Hopkins wrote "nor can Man's foot feel, being shod". I think this lends new meaning to his poem...oh, the world is still charged with the grandeur of God, but in an age of progress and efficiency, society will try to keep God's handiwork to an absolute minimum while vaunting Man's creations to the utmost. How anyone can really view "impervious surfaces" as an improvement on grass remains mysterious to me. But then I was always the one asking why today's society values money over land. True value seems beyond anyone's ability to grasp these days. "Convert 54-60 acres of grassland, forest, and agricultural land to roadway"--Tell me I am not the only human being left on this earth whose heart does not cry out in agony at that chilling statement. I cannot further expound on it: it is devastation. "Displace 16-22 businesses and 20-30 homes"--Here we come to something I cannot regard as other than evil. I understand that Eminent Domain is within the government's prerogative, and that building roads is considered necessary for the common good. (Thank goodness there are still some who question the governement's power to arbitrariliy throw up strip malls where it chooses.) But something in me rebells at the thought of any man coming onto my property and telling me I must sell or the government will condemn my land and do with it whatsoever it pleases. It is vile to set a price on the roots we send into our land, to so calculatingly evaluate the deep and natural love we have for home. Vile and loathsome to tell a homeowner that his protests amount to nothing and that if he does not sell he will be forceably evicted. (Oh yes, with compensation. How kind.) "Adversely affect three historically significant properties"--At this point, that's just icing on the cake. Tomorrow is our independence day. I wonder how independent we can truly say we are when we, American citizens, cannot own property. We rent it from the government through property taxes and live there at the government's pleasure. If the day comes when the government decides it needs what we jestingly say we "own", it's a wry smile, wad of cash to the hand, and swift kick in the back. Do I have strong feelings about this? Strong feelings about the fate of those who live in places WSDOT has decreed should be highway instead? About the government's legal right and indisputable propensity to ruin lives? Yes I do. But as the headline so aptly stated, it changes nothing.

guess whose feast day it is!

2009-06-13T23:50:00.000-07:00

The Magnetic Fields song "All My Little Words" on a Gameboy

2009-06-13T01:30:00.001-07:00

2009-06-12T23:30:00.000-07:00

First I decided I had writer's block. Then I started thinking about beautiful my home environs is. So I thought I would post a picture and have done. But the more I think about my home, the less able I am to remain silent. It is in my personality to cling with fierce loyalty to that which is familiar and loved. I prefer my house to all others, my street to all others, my county, my state, my region of the country, and so on. However, I think even laying aside my natural bias, there is a strong case to be made here. The Pacific Northwest may be the most beautiful place in the world. I remember flying over the Willamette Valley as I came back from Michigan from the summer and actually catching my breath as the color hit me. Your eyes almost refuse to believe that anything could be that green. After months spent in the Midwest, it was all I could do to stop myself from believing my home was, in fact, enchanted. I don't deny that Michigan has a beauty all its own, but in comparison with Washington or Oregon it is staid and almost bland. There is something exotic and eerie about the forests and waterfalls here; something that makes you wonder if you aren't toeing the line between this world and the land of Ireland's Sidhe. I grew up surrounded by woods and water, bounded by the Ocean and in view of three massive volcanoes. Mountains were my horizon and I could smell the freshness and mystery of the sea with every breath. So I started google imaging the Pacific Northwest...you know, to post a picture. I had to cut myself off. There were just too many. As you can tell.

A Canticle Resung

2009-06-11T23:27:00.000-07:00

The first book of the summer for me was A Canticle for Leibowitz. It was the second time around, and definitely intensified upon the rereading. While before I was distracted by the strangeness of the setting and trying to figure out why a creature of primal innocence was frolicking in the wreckage of a nuclear disaster at the end, this time I was blown away by the power of its Catholic core. It is one of the most Catholic novels I have ever read, and were I to create a list of best Catholic novels ever written, it would go in my top three. It is an extraordinary work that masterfully propounds the Church's position on human life and man's relation to God. It also is the reason I first became intersted in the Wandering Jew, who is far and away the most memorable character of the story. The first time I read it, I did not catch how clearly he is supposed to be Lazarus (I don't know how I didn't notice--it's pretty blatant) and it prompted me to look up the Wandering Jew story on Wikipedia. It sounds like an interesting Medieval tale, and I'm very interested to further explore its relation to the Joseph of Arithemea Arthurian legends. I also found a Wandering Jew plant in Shorty's and have since found references to him in all sorts of literature.

you ain't no kind of man...

2009-06-10T23:37:00.000-07:00

...if you ain't got land. So spake Danny Glover's character in Silverado. I think he was right, at least in part. To me, wealth in the land you own is infinitely more valuable and defining than hard cash or stock options. Which is why Eminent Domain makes my skin crawl. Sure--the government will reimburse you for your loss. Sorry there's a highway running through your orchard, but here's a few thousand to ease the pain. This is, methinks, a pretty clear case of someone knowing the price, but not the cost. How can money mend the heartache of seeing something you've known and loved taken and changed unalterably? Memories cannot be bought, love is not purchasable. When you grow up or grow old with the land, the loss of it is beyond price. At that point, the idea of someone thinking they could make good the loss is almost insulting. There is a country road just two miles from my home that is going to be turned into a four lane highway sometime soon. Apparently our good representatives in the State legislature felt that the convenience of four lanes just couldn't be passed up. So those who live on either side of that road will bid farewell to ancient apple trees, blueberries, and other irreplaceable landmarks so that the devilishly impatient denizens of Battle Ground can whiz along to the freeway with even more reckless abandon. And don't worry! Not only will this be more convenient, the land "owners" whose land is being appropriated by the Department of Transportation will be compensated in full. I don't think the good folks in charge of this project have the faintest idea of what the cost will really be. In the words of the fantastically sarcastic Dirty Harry: "Marvelous."

This American Life

2009-06-10T23:32:00.000-07:00

For those of this blog's readers who are fans of This American Life (as I am), there is a nifty way to download any episode you like. Just type in http://audio.thisamericanlife.org/jomamashouse/ismymamashouse/EPISODENUMBER.mp3 to the search bar with EPISODENUMBER replaced with the episode you want. (1-382 currently). For a list of the best episodes to try, go here http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Favorites.aspx.

Love

2009-06-09T21:34:00.001-07:00

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning If I lack'd anything. "A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here"; Love said, "You shall be he." "I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear, I cannot look on thee." Love took my hand and smiling did reply, "Who made the eyes but I?" "Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame Go where it doth deserve." "And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?" "My dear, then I will serve." "You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."

So I did sit and eat. by George Herbert

University of Florida mascot terrorizes neighborhood

2009-06-08T21:05:00.000-07:00

You see? This is why I love Star Trek. Captain Kirk is whisked away to an asteroid to fight a man in an alligator suit with diamond eyes and what looks like a bullet hole in his head. There just so happens to potassium something and sulfer and a conveniently shaped piece of bamboo...Kirk turns into McGyver and makes a cannon with home made gunpowder from the aformentioned chemicals and some handy diamonds for projectiles. He then shoots and subdues said alligator. This is the best show ever.

French manners

2009-06-01T10:58:00.000-07:00

So France did not feel obliged to invite the Queen of England to the 65th anniversary of D-Day ceremony being held this June. Intriguingly enough, this means that of the major countries involved in the D-Day convention (France, England, and America), England, the country who lost the most during the invasion, does not get a special invitation. So Barack Obama and Sarkozy, neither of whom were even alive when this happened, will no doubt have a field day with the press and photographers while the Queen, who is literally a veteran of World War II, does not merit an invitation. Interesting. It is tragic to note that this has become a state function with little to no memory of just what it is commemorating. This should be more than a Kodak moment for politicians who are eager to appear in touch with history to their constituency. Their neglect has made all too apparent how ignorant and boorish they really are. This is supposed to be a memorial, not another red carpet event for Barack Obama that Sarkozy can sidle in on to bask in his glow. I'm not asking for Pericle's funeral oration or the Gettysburg address here; but is it too much to expect a basic understanding of the significance of the event and the people who were involved? Granted, neither Sarkozy or Obama have enough class to be rubbing shoulders with the Queen of England, but that's beside the point. I think the dead who are buried there will mind very much that they are denied her presence in favor of a couple of self congratulating and morally bankrupt politicians. But maybe that's just me.

Bloom County

2009-04-21T09:48:00.000-07:00

It's about time. My favorite comic strip (after Calvin and Hobbes) is finally being reprinted in complete form by IDW Publishing. I remember reading my parents' collections of these as a kid, most of the humor sailing right over my head (come to think of it, they were probably totally inappropriate for my maturity level) but loving the cartooning, and especially the characters Opus and Binkley. Too bad the recent "Opus" spin-off was a dud. The first volume releases in October.

The world is charged with the grandeur of God

2009-04-20T10:43:00.001-07:00

These celestial works of art, products of medieval man's quest to glorify God in ways that boggled the mind and suffused the senses, are familiar to all of us. We see them and understand immediately: stained glass rose windows, that could be in any one of dozens of cathedrals across Europe and even America. What of the picture above them? Maybe my sanity is slipping. But I see an uncanny resemblance between the view down the axis of an alpha, beta, or average strand of DNA and the song of colored glass that mankind thought fit to praise God. How could that be coincidence? My study of science has been so shallow; every time I dig even a little deeper, there is something to take my breath away. My mind is not wired scientifically and it doesn't come easily to me. Yet my brief sojourns so far have impressed upon me one thing at least: my education will be deficient if I don't pursue this. It may not fit in my schedule with credits, but I am determined then to audit science courses during the rest of my stay at Hillsdale. This discovery with the image of DNA reminded me of a quote from one of my favorite Psalms: "if I fly to the sea's furthest edge, You are there, Your right hand holds me fast". Science is often regarded as a haven for nonbelievers, those who shun faith and God. But "with unperturbed pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy" the Hound of Heaven follows us everywhere. As Eliot wrote:

"The dance along the artery The circulation of the lymph Is figured in the drift of stars"

Jesus said "the very stones would cry out" to praise His name. How clearly can we see that in all of creation's ceaseless, beautiful shout of joy to the Heavens.

Chesterton on Canada

2009-04-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

As a follow-up to the last Chesterton snippet, here's a rare and more substantial piece. Here, G. K. Chesterton gives an address to the Canadian Authors' Association, on December 31st, 1933.

Note: File has been re-uploaded as of January 15, 2010

Chesterton on Canada (12 min, 34 sec)

Chesterton!

2009-04-01T17:41:00.000-07:00

After the success of the audio recording of Flannery O'Connor's voice, I've decided to try and put up rare recordings of other famous literary figures. For the most part, these are very hard to find, so bear with me. First up, Chesterton. This is from Holy Cross College, Dec. 1930:

STUDENT - Mr. Chesterton, since you are one of the foremost crusaders in the modern world of letters, we wish to adopt you into the humble ranks of the Holy Cross Crusaders.

CHESTERTON -I have to thank you for this very great honor and I do so with all my heart. I can only say that I am not much of a crusader but at least I am not a Mohammedan and many people will testify to the fact. I should like to take this opportunity of thanking you all for your enormous kindness, especially Father Earl for having received me so hospitably today.

Student Audio

Chesterton Audio

Grim Fandango Extras

2009-03-31T17:33:00.000-07:00

This is a random post, but I feel compelled to post it, because I find it cool. I stumbled upon a .pdf of behind-the-scenes Grim Fandango documents, including original concept art, puzzle structures (including some that were not included in the game) and snarky comments by Tim Schafer.

What is Grim Fandango, you ask? Only the greatest adventure game ever! If you haven't played this epic tale of crime and corruption in the Land of the Dead, you ought to, right away. Beautiful art, an engrossing story, and characters you can't get out of your head. Probably my favorite game of all time.

Here's the .pdf

Where the Wild Things Are

2009-03-28T14:05:00.000-07:00

The trailer for Where the Wild Things Are is out on the Apple website. It's a beautiful piece of work (I especially like the Arcade Fire soundtrack) and I'm astounded at the creativity on display. It's my most looked-forward-to movie of the year so far. Trailer And if you haven't read the picture book yet (and if so, for shame) download and read it from here.

The Graveyard Book

2009-03-27T10:50:00.000-07:00

I'm on a Neil Gaiman kick, so here's a series of videos of him reading the entirety of his wonderful new novel "The Graveyard Book." It's not many authors that are as good at reading their works as they are at writing them...

The Dweller in High Places

2009-03-24T12:46:00.000-07:00

For fans of Susanna Clarke, here's a hard-to-find audio short story of hers. The Dweller in High Places

the last full measure

2009-03-23T13:23:00.000-07:00

Today at the end of class Dr. Birzer took us out to the Civil War memorial in between Lane and Kendall. Despite the sunshine, it seemed very solemn; Dr. Birzer's voice reverberated between the two buildings. He told us about the volunteers on both sides, that they made up the majorities of both the armies. And then he told us about Hillsdale's role in the war. We'd already heard about the faculty and administration of Hillsdale storming up to Jackson in 1854 and effectively forming the Republican Party. But I hadn't heard what happened here, on this very campus in April of 1861. The college wasn't much smaller back then, with a student body of about 1000. When Lincoln issued the call for troops in mid April, Hillsdale responded like no other college in the country. 500 of her boys signed up then and there. Half the student body, nearly every male student on campus, was gone within days. Not even West Point had a comparable percentage of volunteers. Those Hillsdale Students made their impact. At the battle of Gettysburg our regiment, the 24th Michigan, deliberately put themselves in harm's way at the low ground, braving the lines of Confederate soldiers to give the Union army time to take the high ground. In the first twenty minutes of that famed battle, that regiment had suffered over 80% casualties, and 400 Hillsdale men were dead. They had secured the high ground. Dr Birzer told us that no matter how long he taught at Hillsdale, he would never have the connection to those dead men that we did. We, as students at this institution, share an unbreakable bond with them. "That's your tradition. That's your legacy. Think about that when you decide what you're going to major in or what career you'll pursue. Ask yourself why they volunteered and what they sacrificed themselves for. And then ask yourself what you're living for." After ten days of spring break, I can't imagine a more intense "welcome back to Hillsdale".

Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver

2009-03-20T15:41:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Sophie at The Store Stump for this. La Blogotheque has an astounding collection of beautifully shot live performances of great new bands, all shot specifically for the web, and set in natural, often on-the-street settings. Amazing stuff. It great to watch The Shins wander the streets of Paris, and start playing their stuff for a random group of people at an open-air cafe. Check it out, especially the videos of two of my favorite new bands, Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver. Take-Away Shows

Joy

2009-03-11T20:03:00.001-07:00

There are moments in life where I am so absolutely, giddily ecstatic that I can't help but run around with a huge silly grin on my face. For instance: I am working on my paper about de Tocqueville and Andrew Jackson, about the spirit of democracy as opposed to, shall we say, responsible republicanism, and I think something snapped inside. But in a good way! I mean, there's the Western Heritage Reader lying in front of me, there's the American Heritage Reader next to it, and everything Russell Kirk wrote about America being the culmination of Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, and London bowled me over. I had just reread the passages from Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politics, and then immersed myself in de Tocqueville. The more I read him, the cooler he gets. And now I'm seeing all sorts of parallels between republicanism and Catholicism and democracy and Protestantism. So before I burst a blood vessel or started dancing around the room, I grabbed the music I had wisely stashed in my backpack and took off running to Howard. I burst out the doors of Kendall and almost immediately started laughing, full of what I think Dr. Birzer calls the "fire that animates". It was cold and clear, snow was falling in the most picturesque manner possible, and the clouds were "half revealing, half concealing" a full and luminous moon. I think it helped that I was listening to Radiohead; or at least, it leant even more atmosphere to the situation. I spent some energy singing plainsong and slamming out Chopin Nocturnes, and then danced back up the hill. (Literally, I kid you not) This is the best I can do to explain it all. I once heard that the Japanese had no way to say "I love you." I don't know what they said instead, but "I love you" didn't enter their language until after considerable contact with Westerners. Since coming to Hillsdale, I feel like I'm learning more and more about what makes this country what it is, and de Tocqueville, the Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independence, coupled with everything we covered in Western Hertiage, provided a new rush of understanding. I have always been one to feel deeply and am intensely emotional; but finding the words to express those feelings can be a challenge. Hillsdale is supplying the vocabulary. It is as if after years of stretching out my arms to America with shining arms and a full heart I have learned how to say "I love you." Now I have a paper to write.

perception

2009-02-12T07:18:00.000-08:00

"I am so coarse, the things the poets see Are obstinately invisible to me." So said C. S. Lewis, when he reflected in his poem "A Confession" that he was having a hard time appreciating the more modern sort of poetry that for its own inscrutable reasons looked at a sunset and saw "a patient etherized upon a table". I'm inexpressibly relieved to find someone I admire so much in the same proverbial boat as myself. For years I've tried to tried to grasp the appeal of poets such as T. S. Eliot or W. H. Auden without succeeding much at all. I think my problem is that I react to beauty almost entirely emotionally, without much careful ratiocination. It could be the Celtic strain in my blood manifesting in a wilder connection to natural beauty; something that to me is warmer and more human. A song rather than a thought? I don't exactly understand Yeats or Hopkins, but they produce an intense reaction for me that the coldly cerebral work of Eliot doesn't even begin to approach. I'm fairly certain this reveals an intellectual weakness in myself, and have to admit that I often wish I were less passionate and more rational. But for now I think I will continue to demonstrate such Irish tendencies as running barefoot in the wet grass and glorying in the beauty of God's Creation without being able to categorize or explain it. My mind may halt and retreat from The Wasteland; but my soul, soaked in heroic myth and the love of a native land, understands wherefore a terrible beauty is born.

Screams in the Night

2009-01-25T21:32:00.000-08:00

Over fifty years ago, Whittaker Chambers disclosed the terrifyingly real potentiality of a Communist takeover in the United States in his immortal testimony Witness. In this work Chambers described the feelings of one former Communist who defected because while living in Moscow "one night he heard screams." This statement has been on my mind a lot recently. My trip to Washington D.C. to mourn the Roe v. Wade decision in the March for Life was not uplifting, since no matter how many people march on the Courthouse every year, progress seems to be negligent if any. This past election, together with the looming menace of the Freedom of Choice Act is like a devilish mockery of any attempt to hinder or stop legalized abortion. Because while we struggle in vain with signs and bumper stickers, speeches and letters, and tirades on the blogosphere, who has not heard those screams? This time it isn't families torn apart by the KGB. It isn't the secretive terror of interrogations and midnight arrests, nameless graves and hopeless lives. It is the voice of the voiceless, crying out in endless agony. It is the silent condemnation of their tiny bodies lying in back alleys and dumpsters. The blood stained earth prosecutes our inaction. Thousands of times a day the inconvenient among us are torn to pieces lest their existence threaten society's comfort. Those screams are deafening me as I try to carry out my daily routine. Screams of children who are never permitted to beg for their lives, though God knows they would have if they only had the words. Human history is consistent in its ability to find new and appalling ways to mistreat anyone who is weaker or less competent to defend himself. But how can we rest easy in our beds knowing that the Satanic culmination of man's inhumanity to man is legal in a country which should be the world's last best hope? May God grant our prayers and unstop the ears of those who will not hear, and may America soon experience the true silence of a quiet conscience.

Coal Biting

2008-12-24T00:34:00.000-08:00

Apparently, when you spend copious amounts of time lingering by the fire, you are biting coal. So I guess I would say that has been my primary activity of late. I've also spent a lot of time reflecting on the Civil War. It's not an past time I'd recommend, since it has led in my case to headache upon headache, general confusion, and a loss for words. It is rare for me to struggle to form a definite opinion; however, this particular historical dilemma has me completely flummoxed. Here are a few of my unresolved problems: 1. Slavery. It seems to me that the typical Conservative response is that legislation on "domestic institutions" belongs to the State and not Federal legislature. But isn't that unacceptable? Maybe you could allow States to determine the punishment for trafficking in human beings; but surely it is morally defunct to leave the determination of absolute moral standards up to the whims of a legislative body. Moral apathy is not healthy. Nor is it healthy to let people assume that it is up to them to decide good and evil. 2. Secession. Lincoln says that he does not dispute "the right of revolution" but claims a long train of abuses is needed for a right of revolution to exist. Of course he would insist the South had nothing to complain of; it must have looked much more threatening from their point of view down there. This situation becomes unbearably confusing since of course you cannot get a consensus on who is getting oppressed and if they are being oppressed. Lincoln's two more interesting point was that the Union existed prior to the States and that a State has no right to withdraw without asking the permission of the Federal Government and the rest of the States. This does make sense when you consider that secession affects every State in the Union. Seen from the South's point of view, however, this excludes any possibility of escape...of course the North would never let them get away. There is also the inconvenient fact that the debt on the Louisiana Purchase was still being paid off. Quite a few of those Southern States were taking off to become their own country while allowing the Federal Government to continue paying for their land. This seems (to me at least) to be a case of inexcusable fiscal irresponsibility. 3. Geographical Faction. After assessing the situation through the Lincoln Douglas debates, all I could see was George Washington with his head buried in his hands. His farewell address was one long admonition against factions forming on a geographical basis, and then it went and happened anyway. I seem to remember Jefferson delivering a morose line about the "current generation" throwing away with careless ease all that their fathers fought and died to earn. And in the end, the feeling I most often carry away from studying the situation is intense frustration. They could have worked out their differences without the histrionics, hysteria, and ultimate bloodshed. After reading some of those ridiculous speeches (the Cornerstone Speech comes to mind) all I could say was "Oh, come ON!"

The Winter of Our Discontent

2008-12-10T10:22:00.000-08:00

I refrained at first from posting on the results of November's election from a desire to adopt quiet resignation in the face of what I felt to be rather bombastic elation and despair. Surely there have been greater catastrophes in the history of the world and this nation. But now I feel impelled to address the expectation of those others who seemed poised on November 4th for the explosion of an inevitable Glorious Summer. There could be entire essays and books on the relative merits of and problems with Obama's policies at home and abroad. His Progressivist and Socialistic leanings certainly bring me no joy. But the insurmountable problem has little if anything to do with an emasculate foreign policy or ineffective medical system. These and other issues do not just pale, they fade into meaninglessness in the face of his flagrant pro-abortion position. This country was founded upon a certain principle: that just rule was derived from the consent of the governed because all men were created equal. Considering that Obama is our first African American President, it would be logical for him to be a champion of the rights of disenfranchised citizens. Granted, the unborn child is not a citizen of the United States of America because he or she has not yet been born. But the Declaration of Independence does not say that all men are "born" equal. It says we are all "created" equal. If we discard this principle and decide that certain individuals among us are not equal because they are not as developed, intelligent, or capable as we are, we risk all the rights we ourselves hold dear. If we deny the humanity of the fetus because he is less intelligent, we forfeit our right to life to the first person we meet with a higher intellect. If we deny the humanity of the fetus because he is less developed, all children forfeit their right to life to the first adult they meet. Once one member of society's rights are thus threatened, the rights of all are threatened. This is why abortion, in vitro fertilization, and embryonic stem cell research are the paramount issues. If we as a nation can no longer rise up and declare that the Founding Fathers were right and the equality of man pertains to all men, that abortion is murder of the cruellest and most heinous nature, then we have ceased to exist as America. We have become the ghost of a beautiful idea. This applies to those who concede that abortion is morally wrong. Those who do not believe that embryos and fetuses are human are at least not betraying the founding principles of the country; they are merely deceiving themselves. But those who will both say abortion is murder and then vote for a man like Obama are hypocrites and traitors of the blackest kind. They committ treason against their country and act as accomplices in the passive submission the ultimate moral evil of our day. At least the citizens of Nazi Germany could protest that they didn't know; these villains have no such excuse. They were staring straight into the eyes of the Innocents as they voted. No promise of a bright new future for America is worth the cost of your soul. This phenomenon of nominally pro-life voters throwing morals and ideals to the winds in order to participate in a hopeful love fest with change knows no parallel in America's history. It was both an act of suicide aginst themselves and an act of treason against the hopes and expectations of the world. With Jefferson, "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."

Whodunnit?

2008-11-25T19:37:00.001-08:00

Watch carefully.

The Abyss of Madness: Acatalepsia as Horror in the Tales of H.P. Lovecraft

2008-11-24T18:16:00.000-08:00

In his essay Supernatural Horror in Literature, H. P. Lovecraft declared,“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” Not only does this thesis establish the basis for Lovecraft's literary approach, it also, in the end, sheds light on the manner in which he dealt with his own philosophical premise; belief in an absolute mechanistic materialism.

The themes and elements this essay is primarily concerned with occur most often in what has become known as Lovecraft's 'Cthulhu Mythos'. These are the interconnected stories concerned with Lovecraft's invented cosmology of bizarre, pre-human races, and a pantheon of supremely powerful, extra-dimensional beings such as Cthulhu, who slumber beneath us, waiting for the day they will be awakened to ravage the world. Lovecraft's tales tend to follow a simple framework; a level-headed, sceptical scholar comes across some strange bits of occult knowledge, usually related to the dreaded (fictional) tome Necronomicon, pries too deeply into realms man was never meant to see, and is promptly driven mad by the revelations it brings.

Or, perhaps, the lack of revelations. China Miéville, in his introduction to At the Mountains of Madness, points out that the key to Lovecraft's horror is not an intrusion into the status quo, as in most horror, but a realization of the true nature of the universe in relation to oneself. This is true, but it ought to be noted that the nature of the realization itself is one of acatalepsia, or unknowability; Lovecraft's universe is implacable, eldrich, and incomprehensible by the human brain. The protagonists are often unhinged as much by the idea of nature as insane, as by the malicious forms it takes on. More often than not, Lovecraft omits detailed descriptions of his creations because they cannot be described at all. In what is perhaps his most effective story, The Colour Out of Space, a family comes across a meteorite with properties unexplainable by modern chemistry, and which begins to infect their farm with a strange, dim luminescence of a colour “...almost impossible to describe; and it was only by analogy that they called it a colour at all.”

Another common method Lovecraft employs in displaying the truly foreign is in how he describes the architecture of his inhuman races. In coming upon the nightmare city of R'lyeh, in The Call of Cthulhu, the narrator recalls the dream of a friend: “He said that the geometry of the dream-place he saw was abnormal, non-Euclidean, and loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from our ours. Now an unlettered seaman felt the same thing whilst gazing at the terrible reality.” Attempting to explore the city, the characters become nauseous and disoriented, as, “twisted menace and suspense lurked leeringly in those crazily elusive angles of carven rock where a second glance shewed concavity after the first shewed convexity.” Even direction and parallelism are revoked. This is horror through incomensurability.

Beyond these and many other particulars, Lovecraft says it best when he expressed that, in properly weird tales,

“A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain—a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguards against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space.”[1]

Here one can see that Lovecraft considers the real essence of terror to be helplessness rather than the perception of peril. If one recognizes a threat from a certain quarter, one can prepare to meet it. Even if one is hopelessly outmatched, one can at least have the comfort of understanding the threat itself. In Lovecraft's world one cannot even do that. The terror originates from a contradiction of man's nature, the desire to know; man fears the unknown only because he fears it may be unknowable. The consequence of this is the crux of the matter; Lovecraft's horror revolves around the understanding that if the universe is not rational, then we cannot be sane. Indeed, The Call of Cthulhu opens:

“We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in their own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

It is only natural to speculate on why Lovecraft was driven to write along such lines. A lifelong atheist, he once wrote that, “[A]ll my tales are based in the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large...[O]ne must forget that such things as organic life, good and evil, love and hate...have any existence at all.”[2] One might add to this list, perhaps, truth and falsity. In such a way, Lovecraft portrays a brutal, unflinching, and honest representation of the necessary intellectual consequences of atheism. Rather than declaring our existence to be 'beautifully tragic', 'internally meaningful' or any of the other platitudes one at times hears, he states that given an untranscendent reality, we, as a race and as individuals, are truly pointless. Rather than the deterministic, mechanical laws of the universe preserving its knowability, a universe of such laws destroys the possibility of a rational human soul, and thus possibility of rational laws. To be intellectually honest (if such a thing exists) is therefore to rebel against our nature, and to surrender to the madness of an uncaring and irrational universe.

Through his weird tales, Lovecraft leads one to the conclusion that this view of reality is nothing other than a horror story, which, true or false, remains an ultimate revolt against what man perceives to be his nature and his sanity. That many atheists, including Lovecraft himself, continued to act out their own lives as if they were in fact meaningful, only demonstrates that they have taken the advice of Lovecraft's protagonist and fled from the deadly light, stopping their ears from the sound of Great Cthulhu slumbering under their feet. Perhaps they have realized that intellectual dishonesty is a small price to pay for sanity, however illusory.

I'll tell you a tale

2008-10-24T15:18:00.001-07:00

That week went by about as fast as any week I've ever experienced. So now I feel like discoursing on something I've had occasion to think about recently. Ever since I read The Story of the Irish Race I've felt very protective of the country whose heritage I claim. This sentiment causes extreme reactions to fake Irish accents, stereotypes, among other things. Drinking songs are one of those things about which I feel very strongly. One, once in while, I don't have a problem with. But when congregations of people who want to get together, be Catholic, and bellow out some tunes, lapse into one drinking song after another, something in me begins to smoulder. There are so many songs which are more truly Irish (all our wars are merry, and all our songs are SAD). Why would you wish to prolong the stereotype of the drunken, whiskey obsessed Irishman? Especially when it's stereotype propagated by the British to give Irish Catholics a bad name? I would instead suggest breaking out some more respectful and stirring music, a la "The Foggy Dew" or "Wearing of the Green". Just a thought.

Good Salad Day

2008-10-20T22:40:00.000-07:00

I knew things were going well when my salad included apples, chicken, and sunflower seeds. The Dominican Sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist gave a talk this evening. The sisters were so joyful and charged with positive energy, it was wonderful and inspiring. It struck me because I've talked to so many girls (recently and in the past) who want romance in their lives and someone with whom to share hopes and dreams. It can be frustrating for anyone to feel like they are the only one noticing other people; but I think it's particularly hard for girls when they don't get attention from guys. There's a sense of not being note worthy, and, above all, a desire to be the one pursued for a change. Which brought to mind these lines: "From those strong feet that followed, followed after...'Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee, Save Me, save only Me?'" We are all so desperate to be loved, wanted, needed, understood; and it's hard to for us to understand that there is a Terrible Lover pursuing each one of us drawing breath today. One who did the unthinkable to win us back, though it was our fault to begin with. You can find it in that small ache in the corner of your soul that's never really gone. An ache that sometimes expands to match your happiness because every joy you find is just another reminder of what we've all lost. Why else would the beauty of a sunset make us weep, if not for overwhelming homesickness? Augustine acknowledged this as our "restless" hearts. Hearts restless until they rest in what Yeats so appropriately named "The Threefold Terror of Love." It's something I know and try to recognize every day, but sometimes a talk from those who have found the truest romance helps a bit.

Valerie Plame - The Decemberists

2008-10-16T16:24:00.001-07:00

No video, but nevertheless, a new Decemberists single is always cause for celebration.

The Guggenheim Grotto

2008-10-15T13:18:00.001-07:00

Such a catchy song...I love these guys. Why are they so unknown?

men, marines, and maple syrup

2008-10-07T08:06:00.000-07:00

I find it frustrating that the more intellectual, supposedly highbrow, of the Catholic males here tend to fit into a neat stereotype. Which is that they tend (again, emphasis on "tend". sweeping generalizations are my strong suit.) to be disappointing. Rife with non specific inclinations to Latin, inability to distinguish Old Rite from New (if it's Tridentine, it's the "Latin Mass", as if you can't say Novus Ordo in Latin), and a most singular predisposition to tobacco, alcohol, and antisemitism. And on top of all this, of course the understated attitude that women should be covered and silent in church, and probably shouldn't vacate a building unless attired in a full skirt. That last one is more of a vibe I'm getting, although it was alluded to in a passing conversation. As was a subtle but definite slight of the USMC. At which point I say: OK. I understand you think it's cool to grow beards, smoke pipes, and bellow Irish drinking songs (a whole separate issue I might address later). But that doesn't make you manly. Put simply, it's emasculate to be that nonathletic, sallow skinned, and the longish hair isn't helping either. Perhaps dreams of becoming Celtic warriors are simmering somewhere in the subconcious, but let's be honest. You wouldn't last five minutes against the Marines you feel superior to, and I'm guessing some real Celtic beserkers would take you down in roughly the same timeslot. Before you demand unequivocal femininity from all women, take a look in the mirror and ask yourself if you actually approximate any reasonable definition of manhood. Because I would much rather take a guy who's more of a Marine mindset and less of an egghead. And finally, the maple syrup here does not tast like maple syrup. I'm hard pressed to tell you what it tastes like, but maple isn't really the first thing that comes to mind. I fear to know what they make in or out of.

Oh, Wes

2008-10-06T21:38:00.000-07:00

I always forget to mention how much I love Wes Welker. He came out of nowhere last season and became one of those staple players; not too flashy, but so dependable. All the buzz was about Randy Moss and Welker ran around in the background picking up key yardage and my vote for top ten Pats.