Writing

Slow Down, Young Writer

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Agent Steve Laube encourages writers to consider their words and slow down.

Recently I watched the blur of fingers across the laptop keys by the man next to me on the plane and wondered how he did it. Or the skittering twitch of that person typing with one hand on their phone, juggling a bag and a coffee mug in the other. In some ways writing has become a substitute for the spoken word and we are trying to “talk” as fast as we can to “get it done.”

And the loss is ours.

Single words or sentences can carry the weight of an entire article when carefully chosen.

Poetry

No, the national anthem is not about slavery

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The Star-Spangled Banner
The original Star-Spangled Banner, in the Smithsonian Institution

One would think that the availability of the internet would increase the general truthfulness of human discourse. When it’s so easy to check our facts, our facts ought to be more… factual.

The actual effect, as far as I can see, has been to simply facilitate the spread of misinformation. Which ought to prove the doctrine of Original Sin beyond all dispute, it seems to me.

The misinformation I have in mind today is the urban legend, popularized in the wake of the recent controversy over a football player (who shall remain nameless here, because he doesn’t need the publicity) who refused to stand for the national anthem. The urban legend says that all black people should refuse to stand for the song, because it was written by a slave owner for the purpose of glorifying slavery.

This is hogwash. Francis Scott Key was a slaveholder, and a supporter of slavery, in common with most of his family and neighbors. But the song has nothing to do with that.

The offending lines, which are quoted as proof that the Star-Spangled Banner is a celebration of the institution of slavery are these: Continue reading No, the national anthem is not about slavery →

Non-fiction

Wolfe Argues Against Evolutionary Speech

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“There is a cardinal distinction between man and animal, a sheerly dividing line as abrupt and immovable as a cliff: namely, speech.”

The great Tom Wolfe takes on language, Darwin, and Noam Chomsky in his new book, The Kingdom of Speech. He says all of the theories on how language began are terrible, exposing a major weakness in the bowels of evolution.

In his article yesterday, Hillel Italie notes:

Speech is the book’s primary subject, but status has been the running theme of Wolfe’s work from the astronauts in “The Right Stuff” to campus life in “I Am Charlotte Simmons,” and it’s a subplot for “Kingdom of Speech.” He doesn’t only take on Chomsky, but portrays Darwin as a competitive, would-be aristocrat striving for “honor as a Gentleman and a scholar.”

Naturally, I’m sympathetic to any argument against evolution, but this particular argument also draws me in and recalls what I read about language origin in a course on the history of English. All of them are grasping at straws.

Charles Mann goes into detail on what Wolfe explores and explains:

When Darwin finally took on language in “The Descent of Man” (1871), the coffee got pretty weak. By that point, the argument that language evolved from animal sounds had already been made by well-known figures like Wallace, August Schleicher (the best-respected linguist of the day) and Edward B. Tylor (one of cultural anthropology’s founders). Darwin mainly reiterated their reasoning, which amounted to: Bird song and dog barks are actually pretty expressive, so I bet they could have extended somehow into human language. The term for this kind of thing in academia is “hand-waving.”

Uncategorized

My friends call me “Professor”

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I have reached another level in my carefully plotted strategy for world domination. I have agreed to teach three class periods in the seminary this fall. One hour on how to write research papers, and two on the historical background of the Free Lutheran conception of the pastoral ministry.

In what is tediously known as the Real World, of course, it’s not that big a deal. I don’t have faculty status. But I’ve always had great respect for academics (or I did until the field in general got turned into an exercise in political flacking). That’s probably one of the reasons I always resisted graduate study – until it became a necessity – I felt unworthy. Though I’ll admit it was mostly a matter of laziness, and finding school both boring and annoying.

It wasn’t a surprise. We’d discussed the idea before, and I’d done some preliminary preparation. But today it was confirmed, and the writing class is on the calendar.

For me, it’s kind of a big deal. I don’t think I’m cut out to be a teacher, but I do love lecturing. Pay attention to me!

Authors

Who Was Bob Ross?

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NPR started asking around about the popular television painter Bob Ross, whose show has been streaming on Netflix for a couple months now. They found Annette Kowalski, who discovered him in a sense and helped produce his style of teaching into a hit show. She says Bob was a tough, but wonderful, man.

“Do you really think this company would be as successful as it is, if he didn’t insist that everything be done a certain way?”

She says she was attracted to his gentle, comforting style immediately when she saw him in person.

“I was so mesmerized by Bob,” Kowalski tells NPR. “Somehow, he lifted me up out of that depression. I just think that Bob knew how to woo people. I said, ‘Let’s put it in a bottle and sell it.’ “

Fiction, Reviews

‘Somewhither,’ by John C. Wright

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Somewhither

Now there are people who like it when bathing beauties kick the butts of beefy mobsters in TV shows and stuff, but that is just TV, and if you think that is real, you need to get out more, and get in more fights.

I read a lot of novels, as you’ve probably noticed. A few I don’t bother to finish. Some I like, but they leave no impression. Others I like a lot. A very few I admire exceedingly.

But it’s not often I find a book that’s just a whole lot of fun. John C. Wright’s Somewhither is just that. I’m not sure it’s a great work of art, but it could become a classic of the Wizard of Oz variety. Because the entertainment rewards are so great.

Here’s a book whose hero is a Neanderthal boy, in a bathrobe, with a samurai sword. The heroine is a mermaid named Penny Dreadful.

There’s a Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy vibe here, but underneath the many gags (sometimes too many, perhaps) there’s serious purpose and Christian edification. Continue reading ‘Somewhither,’ by John C. Wright →

Fiction

Thug Notes on Literature

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Is this how a new generation is learning about the classics and other literature? Actor Greg Edwards delivers lol synopsis and commentary on Shakespeare and many other great books as well as a few not so great ones.

smh I can’t even (language warning, even with sound censoring)

Publishing, Writing

Status report

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I owe you an update. You know I’m done with my graduate work. That’s kind of an annoyance, in a way, because I’d gotten used to using school as an all-purpose excuse. “Gee, I’d like to help you move on Saturday, but golly, I’ve just got so much homework to do!”

Hard on the heels of that consummation, I was asked to do another edit on the Viking book I translated. I did that, and then when I had sent it in I re-considered and asked to have it back for one more pass. Because I like to do these things right. I have an idea that this translation will be a large part of the footprint I leave behind in this life.

Yesterday they sent me a draft cover for the book (to be called Viking Legacy, by Torgrim Titlestad). I’d share it with you, but I don’t have permission to. And it’ll probably change anyway. But I felt a quiet swelling of pride in my chest when I saw it. It’ll be good. Watch for it. This fall. Sometime.

Looks like I’ll be having some more translation work to do in the future too. I’m going to have to work out how to balance that with my novel writing.

I have been working on the next novel too, though. The problem is that this one’s a toughy. Of all the books in the Erling series, this will be the hardest to plot. It involves the lowest point in Erling’s life, and by extension in Father Ailill’s. I’ve got to figure out how to keep this one from combining the optimistic sparkle of Dostoevsky with the cheery fun of Game of Thrones.

Last night one of the characters did something I didn’t see coming. I’m still working out (while time is paused in his world) how Ailill will react.

So I shall not want for work to do.

Authors, The Press

I Trust Tantaros, Carlson

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Our blog doesn’t have a narrow topic list. We do want you to find our posts interesting, but I think Lars and I usually allow our own interests to guide the subjects of our posts and only occasionally rule something out as off-topic. This post is probably in off-topic territory. It may even be gossip, but I hope you’ll find it worthwhile.

Several weeks ago, long-time Fox News host Gretchen Carlson filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against network chairman Roger Ailes, who has since resigned. She called him a serial harasser, claimed he said many outrageous things over the years, and hindered her career because she refused him.

Granted, I don’t know Carlson personally, but I have heard her many times on the radio, occasionally on TV, and have complete faith in her. She seems to be an intelligent person who does not toe a party line but perseveres in independent thinking. She never impressed me as someone trivial or petty. When I heard of her lawsuit, I believed it on its face, because she has credibility with me. Though I’ve seen some defense of Ailes and discrediting of Carlson by other Fox News hosts, several women have also told their stories to Carlson’s lawyer.

Now we learn Andrea Tantaros is also suing Fox News executives for condoning, if not contributing to, sexual harassment, and I believe her, not because of any suspicion I have of Ailes or the people she names, but because I trust her. She impresses me as a strong, intelligent, capable woman. In the suit, she describes  at least some of the process she walked through to get grievances like this addressed within the system. Her accusations were dismissed, so as not to rock the boat.  Continue reading I Trust Tantaros, Carlson →

Non-fiction

Optimistic Dignity

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In an earlier book, Who Really Cares, [Arthur C. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute] compiled an impressive array of data to show that contrary to the conventional wisdom conservatives tend to give more to charity than do those on the left. In his new book, The Conservative Heart: How to Build a Fairer, Happier, and More Prosperous America, he goes further, arguing that not only is the conservative heart a caring heart but that the conservative head has produced public policies that are truly compassionate because they are capable of generating jobs and opportunity that–in turning the economy around–would infuse the lives of substantial numbers of poor and struggling people with dignity by providing them the opportunity to earn success.