Underground Jerusalem

File this under: Super Cool Old Stuff. Old streets, rooms in medieval buildings, and ancient Roman sewers are being opened under Jerusalem for tourist use adding a new sub-level of antiquity to an already ancient city.

South of the Old City, visitors to Jerusalem can enter a tunnel chipped from the bedrock by a Judean king 2,500 years ago and walk through knee-deep water under the Arab neighborhood of Silwan. Beginning this summer, a new passage will be open nearby: a sewer Jewish rebels are thought to have used to flee the Roman legions who destroyed the Jerusalem temple in 70 A.D.

"O beautiful for heroes prov'd"

O beautiful for heroes prov’d

In liberating strife,

Who more than self their country loved,

And mercy more than life.

America! America!

May God thy gold refine

Till all success be nobleness,

And ev’ry gain divine.

O beautiful for pilgrim feet

Whose stern impassion’d stress

A thoroughfare for freedom beat

Across the wilderness.

America! America!

God mend thine ev’ry flaw,

Confirm thy soul in self-control,

Thy liberty in law.

Parade Flags

I took this photo on Saturday during the 1809s Day parade through Ringgold, Georgia.

Not Death. No, Not That Yet

It was not death, for I stood up,

And all the dead lie down.

It was not night, for all the bells

Put out their tongues for noon.

It was not frost, for on my flesh

I felt siroccos crawl,

Nor fire, for just my marble feet

Could keep a chancel cool.

And yet it tasted like them all,

The figures I have seen

Set orderly for burial

Reminded me of mine,

As if my life were shaven

And fitted to a frame

And could not breathe without a key,

And ’twas like midnight, some,

When everything that ticked has stopped

And space stares all around,

Or grisly frosts, first autumn morns,

Repeal the beating ground;

But most like chaos, stopless, cool,

Without a chance, or spar,

Or even a report of land

To justify despair.

Emily Dickinson’s “It Was Not Death”, first published in 1891.

100K to Avoid College for Two Years

Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal, has launched a fellowship to award $100,000 to 24 people who will decide not to attend college for two years and spend that time developing business concepts. This, Roger Kimball writes, “is just the latest sign that the edifice of higher education is looking more and more like the House of Usher.”

Klavan Reviews Mamet's Secret Knowledge

Andrew Klavan reviews playwright David Mamet’s new book The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture.

In fact, “The Secret Knowledge,” written in Mr. Mamet’s tough and funny style, is entertainingly informative. But the book only really becomes indispensable when it is personal and specific to Mr. Mamet’s experience.

The Search and The Snare

Walker Percy: “The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life.”

John Flavel: “It may keep one more humble and watchful in prosperity, to consider that among Christians many have been much the worse for it.”

Click the links for more from each author.

Live Steel Combat: Tivoli Fest

As Lars said yesterday, he is raiding and pillaging Elk Horn, Iowa, for the rich spoils of the Tivoli Fest. Here’s a bit of what he may be doing this weekend.

This video is from last year’s Tivoli Fest.

Loose Baggy Monsters

BooksErin O’Connor writes about reading long novels, those works she says Henry James called “Loose Baggy Monsters.”

The psychology of feeling that one should, of giving it a go, of wanting it to work, of bogging down, of eventually admitting–if only to oneself–failure, and, finally, at a later date, when the frustration has faded, of doing it all again–that’s a psychology that is, I think, pretty specific to long works of fiction. They demand a lot of your time–and a lot of you. They will color your imagination and dominate your inner dream-scape while you are involved with them. Reading really long works of fiction is more than reading–it’s having a relationship. It’s not surprising that they evoke some commitment anxiety.