Today, dear readers, is International Talk Like A Pirate Day, which I’m sure you have been celebrating since midnight. Because ruthless pirates are truly misunderstood dreamers who have poorly chosen ways to work out their pain over dashed hopes, I post the following beautiful Norwegian song by a little known but incredibly gorgeous singer (do we know who this is?) as a way of soothing the savage pirate in us all.
All posts by Phil
Writing, Creating Through the Fear
“The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it,” writes Steven Pressfield. This is one of the thoughts noted in this list of five principles on fear in the creative process.
Guess These First Lines
Here’s a list of opening lines from various novels. The potential titles follow. There will be no prize, except the satisfaction of a job well done. I will suggest that I would score well on a quiz like this, but I’m not taking it, am I?
- “Who is John Galt?” The light was ebbing, and Eddie Willers could not distinguish the bum’s face.
- “I have been here before,” I said; I had been there before; first with Sebastian more than twenty years ago on a cloudless day in June, when the ditches were white with fool’s-parsley and meadowsweet and the air heavy with all the scents of summer; it was a day of peculiar splendor, such as our climate affords once or twice a year, when leaf and flower and bird and sun-lit stone and shadow seem all to proclaim the glory of God; and though I had been there so often, in so many moods, is was to that first visit that my heart returned on this, my latest.
- It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
- Hazel Motes sat at a forward angle on the green plush train seat, looking one minute at the window as if he might want to jump out of it, and the next down the aisle at the other end of the car. The train was racing through tree tops that fell away at intervals and showed the sun standing, very red, on the edge of the farthest woods.
- It was Wang Lung’s marriage day. At first, opening his eyes in the blackness of the curtains about his bed, he could not think why the dawn seemed different from any other. The house was still except for the faint, gasping cough of his old father, who room was opposite to his own across the middle room.
Choose from these titles:
- Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
- Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
- Absalom, Absalom, by William Faulkner
- 1984, by George Orwell
- The Good Earth, by Pearl Buck
- Wise Blood, by Flannery O’Connor
- Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
Teachout on Middle-Brow Culture
Here’s a short podcast with critic and playwright Terry Teachout talking about American mid-century middlebrow culture and his new play, Satchmo at the Waldorf, among other interesting things. (via Books, Inq.)
The Church of Christ: Weak, Helpless, Blood-Spattered
Russell Moore has hard words for many Americans who claim the name of Christ:
But Jesus didn’t die for a Christian Coalition; he died for a church. And the church, across the ages, isn’t significant because of her size or influence. She is weak, helpless, and spattered in blood. He is faithful to us anyway.
If our churches are to survive, we must repudiate this Canaanite mammonocracy that so often speaks for us. But, beyond that, we must train up a new generation to see the gospel embedded in fidelity, a fidelity that is cruciform.
…
Sadly, many of our neighbors assume that when they hear the parade of cartoon characters we allow to speak for us, that they are hearing the gospel. They assume that when they see the giggling evangelist on the television screen, that they see Jesus. They assume that when they see the stadium political rallies to “take back America for Christ,” that they see Jesus. But Jesus isn’t there.
Springsteen Releases Sci-Fi Concept Album of Martian Miners
“These are songs about growing up on a tough planet,” said Springsteen, telling reporters that when the idea of humans and aliens working side by side in an extraterrestrial labor colony first occurred to him, he immediately knew he “had to tell their story.” “The Martians aren’t trying to run away from their lives or make excuses. They’re proud of what they do and where they’re from, even if the high-impact ion-compression carbonate mining industry isn’t what it used to be,” the Onion New Network reports.
Hits you deep. Hmm.
The Essential Nature of Prayer
Tim Challies reviews what looks to be a stirring e-book on the life of Leonard Ravenhill: In Light of Eternity
“He especially deplored the weakness of the praying of most local churches. He felt the strongest meeting of the church should be the church prayer meeting, but said that it was generally the weakest, if it even existed at all.” In his lifetime Ravenhill saw the daily or weekly prayer meeting disappearing from most local churches. This grieved him because he “directly connected the effectiveness of true ministry with the prayer life of the church.”
How Can You Be So Sure?
Prof. Brendan Riley (you know, the guy teaching the zombies in popular culture course) reviews Dr. Robert A. Burton’s book, On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not
The Right Editor Helps
Editor Nick Harrison has a post on how a writer should attempt to find the right editor or agent for his material, not just the first available. One editor may reject a manuscript or cover letter on a technicality; another may give it a chance.
The first commenter on this post, Tim Riter, offers this illustration from his experience. “For two of my books, I sent in a proposal to an editor, who promptly rejected it with the nicest form rejection letter. Within a year, at writers conferences I met another editor from each of those houses with whom she, I, and the book clicked, and the houses bought it.”
Funny Fake Literary Twitter Accounts
Here’s a list of nine Twitter accounts which harken directly to famous literary figures, such as Charles Dickens, James Boswell, and Alexander Pope.