August 2006
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Kate Bush: The Hounds of Love Some years ago (probably closer to twenty than fifteen) a co-worker lent me his copy of a Kate Bush best-of collection called The Whole Story. I liked most of it quite well and have had in mind ever since to hear more of her music, but it wasn’t a…
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Ok, my wife is two for two in picking movies just because they sound interesting that turn out to be very good. The one I mentioned a few days ago as being something about a dwarf living in a train station turned out to be a wonderful little movie called The Station Agent (link is…
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I figure most people who read this blog probably also read Open Book, but for those who don’t: Amy has a great post on these two saints today, including some typically rich words from the Pope.
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A Fit Instrument? Thus, in this age which boasts of its atomic power, it no longer makes sense to maintain that war is a fit instrument with which to repair the violation of justice. –John XXIII, Pacem in Terris (1963) At least as far back as Pacem in Terris, and as recently as certain remarks…
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Les Choristes in French (click to go to IMDB entry, but watch out for spoilers). Not being any sort of serious film buff, I don’t know whether this is the work of a famous director, or anything about its reputation. But it’s good. We recently joined NetFlix, mainly because I had decided the time has…
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Yes: The Yes Album Here’s the latest stop on my continuing tour of ‘70s progressive rock. As I’ve mentioned before, I treated this music with disdain when it was current: I thought of it as a place where grooves went to die, an often empty display of technical brilliance by people with much more talent…
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Pluto is officially not a planet. The neighborhood just won’t be the same. In related news, somebody at The Atlantic did recognize the headline potential in the matter (absence of which I was lamenting a week or so ago): their review of upcoming events in a recent issue noted Pluto Targeted for Elimination.
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Pluto was only declared a planet in 1930, apparently with some opposition. So what’s a conservative to do–deplore its expulsion as a needless upset of tradition, or applaud it as the restoration of a traditional order upset by reckless innovation? Deep matters…. (In case you’re wondering, I had notions, when I was about sixteen, of…
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What is the real threat from Iran? This column by Thomas Sowell, who is not an idiot, says it is grave: if Iran gets nuclear weapons it’s only a matter of time until it uses them against Israel and, via terrorist proxies, the U.S. Others write that off as hysteria, perhaps deliberately fostered by neocons…
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Provoking the Provocateurs “The artist is a provocateur.” Surely this all-too-common claim has done a great deal of harm to the arts. It appeared in our local paper a week or so ago in connection with the lionization of a flamboyant artist at the opening of an exhibit of his work here. Not everyone was…
Light On Dark Water 