October 2016
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Still reading The Seven Storey Mountain, and liking it a lot. This passage struck me. Merton is making a Holy Week retreat at Gethsemani, prior to entering the Trappist order. Observing the other guests, he notes these: …and there were three or four pious men who turned out to be friends and benefactors of the monastery–quiet,…
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“The [Vagina Monologues] represents a binary representation of gender, implying that in order to be a woman you must have a vagina, which is an antiquated way of viewing gender.”
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Most likely this is going to be the only film discussed in this series which was originally an ABC Movie of the Week, i.e. made specifically for network TV. It was broadcast in 1971, and whereas most similar works are immediately forgotten, this one has lived on. I actually saw it on its original broadcast—a…
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The soul of man, left to its own natural level, is a potentially lucid crystal left in darkness. It is perfect in its own nature, but it lacks something that it can only receive from outside and above itself. But when the light shines in it, it becomes in a manner transformed into light and…
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A few days ago, apropos of Dylan's receiving the Nobel, I asked my Facebook acquaintances to name a Dylan song that they considered neglected and/or underrated. Artur Sebastian Rosman (link is to his Patheos blog) nominated this song. I had only heard it a few times and not given it much attention, but I listened…
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I hadn't intended to watch any of the so-called "debates" between the two grotesques running for president. But my wife was curious, so we watched it until she said she couldn't stand anymore, which was about thirty minutes. If there is any justification for these weird performances, it's that the viewer may get some sense…
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Here is something I do not think we have had heretofore in this series, a current movie review. So here goes. Note: Deepwater Horizon was not filmed on the continent of Asia, and I did not have to read subtitles while watching. We were on our way to the Eastern Shore Center where I…
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A month or so ago, in this post, I said of the election campaign that I had begun to feel as if everyone else had gone to see a movie and I had decided to stay home. In the comments, Art Deco objected to the analogy, saying that unlike a movie the election will have…
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…this guy at the Weekly Standard discussing Dylan's Nobel just doesn't have much idea of what he's talking about. I feel a little embarrassed for him. On yet another hand, though, all is not darkness at The Weekly Standard: Andrew Ferguson has a sensible assessment, which happens to be pretty similar to my own. Some people over-rate Dylan…
Light On Dark Water 