August 2016
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When I sat down to watch Red Beard, I had no intention of writing about it since this will make the fourth film by Akira Kurosawa in this series.I changed my mind. It wasn't just because I enjoyed the movie; it was because it was so unlike the Kurosawa movies that I had already seen.…
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That is, about how I look at it at this point: it's as if everybody else decided to go see a movie and I stayed home. Y'all have fun. You can tell me about it when you get back.
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This may taste good to someone who has never eaten a biscuit. –Novelist Lee Smith's mother, on her first bagel From Lee Smith's memoir, Dimestore. Which I recommend. Bagels are fine. I've eaten a good many over the years. But they aren't as good as biscuits. And really I never quite got over the fact that…
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…forgives everything more readily than an attack on truth. She knows that if a man falls, but leaves the truth unimpaired, he will find his way back again. But if he attacks the vital principle, then the sacred order of life is demolished. –Romano Guardini, The Spirit of the Liturgy I came to this realization long…
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This is a long movie in which very little happens, which as a rule is precisely not my cup of tea. But it's really good–generally considered a classic, in fact, and consistently places very high in polls of critics and filmmakers. It's by the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, and was made in 1953. I'm always a…
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Several months ago I asked for recommendations for a Dante translation. Since then I've taken a look at Esolen, Musa, and James, and have settled on Esolen. I would have looked at Sayers, too, but it would have required inter-library loan, which I didn't want to bother with, since there seems to be general agreement that…
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Kwaidan is a 1964 Japanese anthology film by director Masaki Kobayashi, based on four Japanese folk tales as transcribed by late 19th century American writer Lafcadio Hearn. Hearn stayed in Japan after a visit there in 1890, taking a Japanese bride and assuming the name Koizumi Yakumo, the name by which he is still primarily…
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One personal silver lining in the dark cloud that is the Trump candidacy is that I no longer have to try to defend the Republicans, or at least those who don't really deserve it. I've been voting almost exclusively for Republicans for a long time despite never having had the slightest inclination to register myself…
Light On Dark Water 