April 2008
-
I have a slightly odd question which perhaps can be answered by some of you who either have a lot more theological knowledge than I do, or grew up Catholic and know bits of informal lore that I don't, or both: is it possible to pray to someone else's guardian angel? I'm thinking of the…
-
Men, Women, Sex, and Reality Sophia blushed and half smiled; but, forcing again her brow into a frown—“If I am to judge,” said she, “of the future by the past, my image will no more remain in your heart when I am out of your sight, than it will in this glass when I am…
-
El Perro del Mar (self-titled) Well, here’s a Swedish girl with a Spanish pseudonym (meaning “dog of the sea,” I’m told, or maybe just “sea dog”) singing in English in a distinctly American style. One track from this album, “God Knows,” was offered as a free track on eMusic, and on the strength of that,…
-
It’s clear that I need to find time very soon to sort my non-classical LPs so I can locate the Ultravox ones—these videos I’m finding on YouTube have me really wanting to get reacquainted with them. Here are a few more that anyone who liked “Vienna” may also enjoy. I wouldn’t rate Ultravox as great…
-
…Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts… So Jesus addressed his people on the subject of divorce. But reading some of our prominent critics of religion makes me think it’s their heads that are the problem; no matter how intelligent and reasonable they may be on some subjects, their minds seem to be impermeable…
-
Since a Beowulf discussion has sprung up on the immediately preceding thread, and since I just read it and have been meaning to post a note on it anyway, I’ll go ahead and do it now. I borrowed the Norton Critical Edition from my daughter, who had recently read it for a college course. It…
-
Apes With Violins I suppose the most famous mathematical equation in history is E=mc2, Einstein’s matter-energy equivalence which states that the quantity of energy, E, equivalent to a given mass, m, is the product of m and the square of c, the speed of light. Even if you use one of the larger units, miles…
-
I’ve known that this piece is considered one of the highlights of baroque religious music, but had not heard it until recently when my daughter told me she was going to be singing in a performance of it by her college chorus. I downloaded this version from eMusic so I could hear it a couple…
-
Following a link on Eve Tushnet’s blog to this Godspy article about The Weakerthans, a band of whom I know nothing, I find this striking paragraph from John Paul II’s Fides et Ratio: The truth comes initially to the human being as a question: Does life have a meaning? Where is it going? At first…
-
This song is from one of my very favorite pop music albums, Vienna by Ultravox (1980). In general I hate music videos, and rarely watch one all the way through; if I want to hear the music, I look at something else while the video plays. But I rather like this one. There are places…
Light On Dark Water 