October 2004
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All Hallows’ Eve I’m writing this on All Hallows’—that is, All Saints’—Eve. Tomorrow begins the traditional Christian month of praying for the dead. I had an especially vivid and disturbing dream of death a few nights ago which has left the subject very much on my mind. I can’t describe the dream in detail, but…
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Unfair, Unbalanced, Unrepentant I did not intend to emphasize politics in this journal, and, more specifically, I did not intend to write about politics again this week. But I find myself unable to stop thinking about the current presidential campaign. What follows has been bothering me for months; maybe I’ll be able to leave it…
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The Litmus Test Test My old friend Daniel Nichols, with whom I worked on Caelum et Terra is one of those relatively rare people who is genuinely conservative on social issues but tends to lean left on other matters. Though he’s vehemently opposed to the Iraq war (not necessarily a leftward position, of course), he…
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In Gratitude to a Donor Back in the early ‘70s I worked in a couple of record stores and I heard a lot of music to the point of satiety and well beyond. Sometimes music that I liked mildly, such as the Eagles’ Desperado, was run into the ground, and music that I didn’t much…
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I am now in a position to answer for myself the question I posed last week: whether Blade Runner or 2001: A Space Odyssey is, from the Christian point of view, the better film. On Monday night I was in the library and a copy of Blade Runner on the shelf caught my eye, so…
Light On Dark Water 