December 2008
45 posts
vacation
Off to Colorado tomorrow to go skiing. This tumblr’s going on a little hiatus.
favorite books of 2008
My friend Mike got me into the habit a few years back of doing this year-end round-up thing with “favorite books read.” It’s a fun way to remember some of what I was thinking about during the year. (Another friend, Todd, got me started writing the month I finished reading books in the inside cover of them. A great habit. I recommend it.)
So, here’s this year’s list,...
Into the Wild
I just watched that movie again. I had forgotten how good it is. Well worth a viewing if you haven’t seen it.
“Our affinity for evolution must originate from the same internal chords of...”
– Stephen Jay Gould, in this beautiful book that I got as a Christmas gift.
I like this passage because I have wondered why I have always been so fascinated by evolution. My friend Chris once told me he thought it was probably tied in with my love of story and narrative. Maybe so. I like...
“Try to praise the mutilated world.”
– Adam Zagajewski
(Thanks, David)
“[The] theme of radical sacrifice adorns the liturgical calendar. Consider the...”
– Gary Anderson
Merry Christmas
… and thanks for reading. I’ll be away for a bit (leaving for this place in a few days) but will return. See you soon.
Sycamore Street Press has some great stationery →
“After all, what would be the value of the passion for knowledge if it resulted...”
– Michel Foucault
“I remember crying over you
And I don’t mean like a couple of tears
And...”
– The Avett Brothers (from “Tear Down the House”)
“Looking around at the world — the natural world as well as the human world — I...”
– Alan Jacobs
Billy Collins, "Introduction to Poetry"
I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do is tie the poem to a...
“Jesus fascinates and inspires in part because his words and story give...”
– Dale Allison, reflecting on Matthew’s Gospel
“… the [Christian] community lives in the exchange, not simply of charisms...”
– Rowan Williams
“Every moral problem of the slightest interest is a problem about who is to get...”
– Herbert McCabe
Charles Bukowski, "So You Want to be a Writer"
if it doesn’t come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don’t do it. unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don’t do it. if you have to sit for hours staring at your computer screen or hunched over your typewriter searching for words, don’t do it. if you’re doing it for money or fame, don’t do it. if you’re doing it because you want women in...
the market's bureaucracy
As I mentioned, I’m reading Rodney Clapp’s Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction right now. There’s an interesting section where Clapp describes the bureaucratization of our time:
Before the railroads, the flow of human life was integrally connected to nature — more specifically, to the rising and setting of the sun. Noon was that approximate point when,...
“We were frightened of being left alone for the rest of our lives. Only people of...”
– Rob in High Fidelity describing himself and his friend of the same age. So good.
“Martin Luther King Jr. had spoken in judgment of the liberal establishment in...”
– Charles Marsh
“I think evolution can - you’re getting me way out of my lane here....”
– George W. Bush (here)
I always enjoy Margie Haack's Christmas gift... →
“… country music culture, like almost any culture of some duration, is...”
– Rodney Clapp
Man in Black
I’ve been listening to a lot of Johnny Cash over the last few days, mainly because I’m working on a review of Rodney Clapp’s Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction for a Christian magazine. I’m sure I’ve listened to the song “Man in Black” before, but I’ve never really paid attention to the lyrics before now. They’re great! What a...
“We have shared out like thieves the amazing treasure of nights and days”
– Jorge Luis Borges
“… the global economy works on the assumption that local solidarities and...”
– Rowan Williams
“We human persons are always failing to be fully personal. As persons, we are...”
– William Placher, one of my favorite theologians, who died over the weekend. RIP. (via)
“To see the world as it should be seen, and so to see the true glory of God...”
– David Bentley Hart
“I can’t help but come to the conclusion that, for me at least, theology is...”
– at Sub Specie Aeterni (hat tip: Ben Myers)
