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Eden Rock + Charles Causley They are waiting for me somewhere beyond Eden Rock: My father, twenty-five, in the same suit Of Genuine Irish Tweed, his terrier Jack Still two years old and trembling at his feet. My mother, twenty-three, in a sprigged dress Drawn at the waist, ribbon in her straw hat, Has spread the stiff white cloth over the grass. Her hair, the colour of wheat, takes on the light. She pours tea from a Thermos, the milk straight From an old H.P. sauce-bottle, a screw Of paper for a cork; slowly sets out The same three plates, the tin cups painted blue. The sky whitens as if lit by three suns. My mother shades her eyes and looks my way Over the drifted stream. My father spins A stone along the water. Leisurely, They beckon to me from the other bank. I hear them call, 'See where the stream-path is! Crossing is not as hard as you might think.' I had not thought that it would be like this.
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More Buechner I was going to say that my faith, like my doubt, mostly involves my mind and not my stomach. Basically that’s true. I can’t really imagine what it would be like to behold the Lord and not as a stranger. I’m not a saint, so I haven’t had that experience. And yet, even as a not-saint, I get glimpses. I think we all have, and may there be many more of them for all of us.
The Remarkable Ordinary (2017)
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What Hath Trump (But Not Exclusively Trump) Wrought? Jonah Goldberg:
The kinds of things one might say in private, to close friends, for shock value, as a joke, or out of a shared hateful anger at this group or that, are now welcome or at least tolerated in the public square.
This is but one of Trump’s (and Twitter’s and Reality TV’s, et al.) malignancies: it’s now OK to say nasty things out loud that once were hidden or, at least, circumscribed.
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With its lovely patience Fall is. It always comes round, with its lovely patience. If in the beginning it’s restless, at the end it’s resigned, complete in its waiting, complete in the utter correctness of what it has to tell us. Which is that we’re transitory.
Joy Wiilliams, via Austin Kleon
Mono no aware
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Ted Cruz, Civil Libertarian? OK. Good, Ted. Dallas Morning News: “Ted Cruz says FCC chair sounded like a mafia boss in threats against ABC over Jimmy Kimmel”.
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Something great (and awful) from Austin Kleon He quotes Wyndham Lewis, who said times like these, when “the world is too much with us," is like living in a moronic inferno. That’s a phrase to remember.
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Goes Both Ways Last week, I posted about the country’s need to recommit to the truth in the face of MAGA’s “reality TV” theory of governance. As Catoggio points out, the left is not so great at the truth, either.
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Not a New Idea, But … “Reality TV” doesn’t care about reality, but about presenting a version of life that the viewer can believe is true. Likewise, our Reality TV President cares little for truth, but only for what he can convince “viewers” to be true. And, as with Reality TV, the viewers go along, even if they know it’s not real, because Trump’s lies scratch an itch – for entertainment, catharsis, confirmation of biases, etc.
To get out of this mess, we must recommit to truth.
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If a business in a good neighborhood gets held up, everyone talks about it. But if a business in a bad neighborhood gets held up, it’s barely news. What can the locals realistically do except sigh and say, “Yeah, that happens now”?
The president is monetizing his office in broad daylight to the tune of billions per year? Yeah, that happens now.
No wonder, then, that Americans can’t get excited about Trump’s history with Epstein. If he were a person of good character committed to ethical government, it’d be earth-shaking to find him sending risqué letters to his child-molester pal. As it is, it’s like finding out that the leader of the local gang that runs the neighborhood is involved in a prostitution racket. You might not approve of it but you’re certainly not surprised.
That’s just how this neighborhood is nowadays.
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Fools and Crackpots I am continually awed (and frightened) by Hannah Arendt’s insights.
Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
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This headline makes my brain twitch Scientists just created spacetime crystals made of knotted light
Researchers have developed a blueprint for weaving hopfions—complex, knot-like light structures—into repeating spacetime crystals.
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Stephen Shore, Photographer The NYTimes has a superb article about Stephen Shore’s recent publication of phenomenal photographs he took as a teenager. I love this quote:
I wanted to make pictures that looked like seeing and not pictures that look like photographs.
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Lending Out Books by Hal Sirowitz You’re always giving, my therapist said.
You have to learn how to take. Whenever
you meet a woman, the first thing you do
is lend her your books. You think she’ll
have to see you again in order to return them.
But what happens is, she doesn’t have the time
to read them & she’s afraid if she sees you again
you’ll expect her to talk about them, & will
want to lend her even more. So she
cancels the date. You end up losing
a lot of books. You should borrow hers.
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A Discovery Last spring, I planted fennel plants, thinking they would produce bulbs. Not so. I’d planted “herb fennel," a related, but different, plant. It produces anise-flavored seeds, which I’m adding to sandwiches, salads, tostadas, and just chewing on. Utterly delightful. I can’t get enough.
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