July 2017
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I am beginning to accept the fact that there are simply too many books for me to read and too many recordings for me to hear in the amount of time I have left to live, even stretching my potential longevity as far as it can be stretched. I'm finding this surprisingly difficult. It was…
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I'm once again digging into my old music posts for this series. This one is from July of 2004, only seven months into the life of this site. Before deciding to post this, I listened to the album for the first time in quite a few years, and would not have been surprised to find…
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Some months ago The New Criterion offered a look back at Kenneth Clark's old BBC documentary Civilization. I had never seen it, though I vaguely remembered hearing of it. In 1969 when it first appeared I was in college and rarely caught so much as a glimpse of a television. And even if I'd had the…
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Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love: A Deeper Understanding (Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1150912) She’s a flower of the mountain. I see only see her face, framed by hair the color of chestnuts. Full red lips blossom into a smile, eyes full of stars. We do not touch, but warmth fills my heart to the point of tears…
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I suppose Fr. Antonio Spadaro, S.J. and his co-writer, Marcelo Figueroa, thought "ecumenism of hate" was a clever turn of phrase. They were wrong. It is unjust and seems to be malicious, though perhaps less malicious than ignorant. The article as a whole (I assume you've heard about it, it's in La Civilta Cattolica, considered to…
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(By Source, Fair use) A couple of weeks ago when I wrote about Disintegration I mentioned that it comes in second behind this album for the Saddest Pop Album Ever award. I had not heard it for maybe ten years when I wrote that, but now, having listened to it again in preparation for writing this,…
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Johnson said of Paradise Lost that "No one ever wished it longer." I can't give my opinion on that, since I've never read more than excerpts from it. But on the basis of those I suspect I'd agree. And by that standard I would have to rate J.R.R. Tolkien's Lay of Leithian at least as high as Paradise…
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Back in the early 80’s when I first started paying attention to the post-punk/new wave scene, mostly via college radio, The Comsat Angels were a frequently mentioned band among others like Joy Division, U2, and The Teardrop Explodes. Although I heard of them often back then I can’t say I ever heard much of their…
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My view of the current political-cultural situation in the U.S. is unquestionably somewhat dark. It always has been. I'm a pessimist by nature; I was born this way. But is it darker than it was ten years ago, as Quite Grumpy said last week? I'm not so sure that it is. But if it is, the…
Light On Dark Water 