Music So here’s the thing, I am not a big fan of the new Mumford and Sons album Babel. I think that Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis of the Sound Opinions podcast nailed it in their review of the album. Also, here is a controversial article from Curator Magazine by Nathan Chang entitled …
I am much enjoying Dissolution, a splendid mystery novel by C.J. Sansom set during the time of the 16th century English Reformation. I am a little over halfway through and was delighted today to come across this particular passage. This is a conversation between the main character, Matthew Shardlake, and …
Zombies. These creatures constantly reappear in our culture. Why? Do they represent our deepest fears and failures? They’re dead, but they just don’t die! The subversive metaphor of the zombie can hide a truckload of meaning and cultural analysis. Why is the need to embody death as a zombie both cathartic and appealing? …
Jazz and quantum physics have a lot in common. Two weeks ago I stumbled across the John Coltrane album Live at the Village Vanguard and Brian Greene’s book “The Fabric of the Cosmos” at a library used book sale. That same week PBS was scheduled to play the Nova series devoted …
I get the feeling that a lot of us, privileged Americans, as we enter our early 30s, have to find a way to put away childish things and confront stuff about spirituality and value…It seems to me that the intellectualization and aestheticizing of principles and values in this country is one of the things that’s gutted our generation. All the things that my parents said to me, like “It’s really important not to lie.” OK, check, got it. I nod at that but I really don’t feel it. Until I get to be about 30 and I realize that if I lie to you, I also can’t trust you. I feel that I am in pain, I’m nervous, I’m lonely and I can’t figure out why. Then I realize, “Oh, perhaps the way to deal with this is really not to lie.” The idea that something so simple, and, really, so aesthetically uninteresting – which for me meant you pass over it for the interesting, complex stuff – can actually be nourishing in a way in a way that arch, meta, ironic, pomo stuff can’t, that seems to me to be important. That seems to me like something our generation needs to feel.
- David Foster Wallace (quote from a 1996 interview with Salon talking about the theme of American sadness found in his novel Infinite Jest)
Theology Moral Theologian Cathleen Kaveny (Notre Dame) had a facinating discussion with John Stewart on the “Daily Show” about the debate over Catholic institutions and contraception. Both parts of this interview are well worth your time. Martin Luther certainly had a way with words. Generate random insults from this great …
I had a chance to hear N.T Wright speak no more than 5 times last week: At the Fuller Seminary campus in Sacramento, the launch of the Newbigin House of Studies in San Francisco, and at a special dialogue he held with Scott Hahn and Michael Goheen, an addendum to …
July 2011 Edition Summer Distractions for Ordinary Time Books A Fresh Look at Flannery O’Connor. You may know her prose, but have you seen her cartoons? David Brooks talks about his new book, The Social Animal, at Google. The Harvard Classics: You can still buy an old set off of …
William Cowper was born in England on November 26, 1731. His father was a minister and his mother died when he was six years old. As a child, Cowper rarely lived at home except for a brief stint of nine months when he was eighteen. His early years were spent …
Spiritual depression has always been a part of the Christian experience. It seeks to overwhelm some more than others. I too, struggle with the dark cloud. Some call it depression, spiritual depression, or Acadia. Whatever you want to call it, it feels horrible. It’s like that feeling you get right …