God Bless Alejandro Escovedo

Velvet Guitar

St. Fiacre of the Oregano (and Parsley and Nasturtiums)

I’m sorry; what?

Easter in Brooklyn

St. John’s Park Slope: wonderful! Alleluia! The Lord is risen!

Beauty now begins the final movement

Malcolm Guite:

The Anointing at Bethany

Come close with Mary, Martha, Lazarus  
So close the candles flare with their soft breath  
And kindle heart and soul to flame within us  
Lit by these mysteries of life and death.  
For beauty now begins the final movement  
In quietness and intimate encounter  
The alabaster jar of precious ointment  
Is broken open for the world’s true lover,  

The whole room richly fills to feast the senses
With all the yearning such a fragrance brings, 
The heart is mourning but the spirit dances, 
Here at the very centre of all things, 
Here at the meeting place of love and loss 
We all foresee, and see beyond the cross.

Tariff Talk

To the extent they can reasonably figure it out*, I’d like to see sellers include a separate line item on invoices that shows the portion of the price attributable to tariffs. Knowledge is powerful.

*They can acknowledge it’s an estimate.

These Days, “Conservatives” Aren’t.
Jonah Goldberg:

The market system is man-made, just as gardens are. But it is not the product of any individual will. It is a crowdsourced network of institutions, constructed over generations of trial and error, learned best practices, and the accumulation of common law and legislation alike. …

It is only when someone tears down or batters these Chestertonian fences all around us that we discover those fences are there for a reason. … That’s where we are now. One man is singlehandedly taking a plow to the garden because he is confident that he knows better than, almost literally, everyone. And his defenders have few, if any, serious arguments in his defense beyond “trust him.”

Moonshot

Ya Think So, Dave?

RIP, the Great Clem Burke

He was the driving drummer who powered Blondie in the ’70s. Just appreciate his work here: