Stages in my decline

Those stitches in my head, installed last weekend in Story City, Iowa, came out today at my usual health provider. I wish it had been my splint coming off, but the splint is God’s way of saying, “Have I got your attention yet?” And of course the answer is no, so two more weeks with that.

My regular PA wasn’t available, so I saw another one, a very nice looking young woman. It was obvious she found me intensely attractive, but as is my wont I did not take advantage of her innocence.

I was down in Iowa for the weekend, not playing Viking but visiting family. They served steak for Sunday lunch, and my sister-in-law had to cut my meat up for me. Meanwhile, her daughter was cutting up her infant grandson’s food as well.

Thus life turns on its slow lazy susan, and what you gain on the swings you lose on the roundabouts.

On the way home I got a call from my realtor. He had been called by a lady in the gift shop at a rest stop in northern Iowa. Someone had found my wallet there (I still haven’t figured out how I dropped it), and she found his number on a card in it. He’d called the dean of the Bible school, who’d called my former boss, who gave him my cell phone number. It added better than an hour to my trip, but I got the wallet back, all money intact.

This is the upper midwest. The rules are different here.

An Unusual or Sophisticated Way of Looking at the World

Joseph Epstein reviews a writing book and spends most of his time describing the points raised in another book.

After thirty years of teaching a university course in something called advanced prose style, my accumulated wisdom on the subject, inspissated into a single thought, is that writing cannot be taught, though it can be learned—and that, friends, is the sound of one hand clapping. A. J. Liebling offers a complementary view, more concise and stripped of paradox, which runs: “The only way to write is well, and how you do it is your own damn business.”

In its subtlest sense style is a way of looking at the world, and an unusual or sophisticated way of doing so is not generally acquired early in life. This why good writers rarely arrive with the precocity of visual artists or musical composers or performers. Time is required to attain a point of view of sufficient depth to result in true style.

(via Books, Inq)

The Real Gospel Isn't Sexy

Here’s one of Jared Wilson’s posts from the Wayback Machine: The new legalism is dissatisfied with Jesus. “The Bible is concerned, however, with our finding joy and peace and satisfaction in Jesus Christ. The Gospel is about living being Christ and dying being gain. The new legalism says living is gain and Christ is for after death. The real Gospel just isn’t sexy.

Housekeeping: Any Sense of Order



I stopped reading Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping the other day, and I’m not sure I want to finish it. It’s character-driven, but with few characters, and very light on plot. I think I can handle that well enough. I’m beginning to doubt myself on that point.

I’m bringing it up here because I ran across this review of Housekeeping on Good Reads. It’s written by someone who claims to enjoy mostly plotless, character-driven literary novels. He writes:

When I say that I have limited access to these characters and this world, and that it ultimately felt untrue, here’s what I mean (this is Ruthie in the final pages of the book): I have never distinguished readily between thinking and dreaming. I know my life would be much different if I could ever say, This I have learned from my senses, while that I have merely imagined. Really? It’s character revelations and discoveries like this that pepper the book, and for each one that I could say ‘Yes, I get this, I’m with you,’ there were two or three like that quote above where I just couldn’t grasp the experience or couldn’t relate to the introspection.

I haven’t thought I couldn’t relate to the characters, but perhaps that’s the reason I don’t care about the story anymore. It may also be that the characters make me uncomfortable in a way that repels me. I don’t feel a challenge in the book or tension I wish to resolve. I just don’t like hanging around it, doing nothing.

Real-life Headlines

More from our humor desk--a collection of actual headlines which read like they came from The Onion, e.g. “Service Rat Licks Woman When It’s Time To Take Meds” and “The Caperon, For When You Need An Apron But Also Might Need A Cape.”

Of course, the second headline is crazy for multiple reasons.

Mad Libs Creator Has Bit the ____________ (n)

Mad Libs was my favorite thing to buy at my elementary school book fairs, if I had any money. I haven’t done much with them since. I remember introducing them to my children, and somehow they didn’t take to them well. Kids these days.

Mad Libs creator Leonard B. Stern, 88, has died. He has kicked the bucket, breathed his last, headed to the last round-up. Mr. Stern has resumed room temperature. He has cashed in his chips, dropped his oxygen habit, and is permanently out of print. I didn’t know until reading this article that Mr. Stern was one of the men behind Get Smart, Operation Petticoat, and The Honeymooners. In fact, it was while writing for The Honeymooners that he had the idea for Mad Libs.

The Wall Street Journal quotes Stern from 2003, saying, “If we knew the shows were going to become classics we would have written them better.”

Pressing Ourselves into a Cross-shaped Mold

Aaron Armstrong has a detailed review of a book I’m currently reading, Cruciform: Living the Cross-shaped Life by Jimmy Davis. I like the way Jimmy writes, and though his subject is essential Christianity, his approach is engaging. It’s a good book for study and would make a good study guide for anyone wanting to deepen his faith. Jimmy blogs here.

I Am So Cool. Don't you agree?

Researchers Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell tested thousands of college students with statements like “I insist upon getting the respect that is due me,” and “I think I am a special person” to discover a 30% rise in narcissism from 1982 to 2006.

By 2006, 51% of 18- to 25-year-olds reported that “becoming” famous was an important goal to them—nearly five times more than those who said “becoming more spiritual” was important to them.

Some of us are famous for very good reasons, of course. Take myself, for example.

Should Life Be Boring?

Joseph Epstein writes on boredom in Commentary: “Some people claim never to have been bored. They lie. … ‘I have discovered that all evil comes from this,’ wrote Pascal, ‘man’s being unable to sit still in a room.’” (via Books, Inq.)