The Literary Saloon points to an article asking for the point of literary readings. “Reading is decidedly anti-social behavior. The freedom to read whatever we want to read is a shining legacy of our democracy, but one’s response to a book need not be democratic. One’s response is a totalitarian regime within each individual reader, morphing over time, and fighting for dominion of the imagination,” Mik Awake writes.
All posts by Phil
But the God I Know
Rusty Kelley is blogging on Jesus, “dear tiny infant baby Jesus, with golden fleece diapers…” No, he’s not being sacreligious. He concludes, “I must admit that I so easily fall into the trap of wanting a God that I can mold and shape according to my desires, and to the desires of those around me, yet when I step back and meditate on the God that I know, I praise Him for being much more than I could ever imagine or desire Him to be.”
Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007
Sometimes when you hear someone has boarded his flight to the great beyond, you are surprised it hasn’t happened already. Famous authors get that wrap often, as I understand, often accused of death or something like it before settling into their terminal bed. Kurt Vonnegut, author of Slaughterhouse-Five and many other books, had the honor of being just such a famous author. I’m sure many high school and college students thought he had been dead for a while now, along George Orwell (1903-1950), William Golding (1911-1993), Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), and J.D. Salinger (1919-?? He’s not dead yet??)
Now the students’ mistake has been corrected. Vonnegut died of brain injuries last night in New York. I need to read some of his work. He wasn’t all bad, so I hear.
The Best Music at a Busy Time
So, there was this violinist, a violin player, in the metro lobby this morning. He was good. Played classical stuff. I didn’t have anything on me, so I didn’t chip in. I was in a hurry too.
Read what happens when a great violinist, Joshua Bell, starts playing for the crowds in Washington D.C. The music director of the National Symphony Orchestra thought a crowd would form to listen, “75 to 100 . . . if he’s really good.” (via World)
Weather and art
Guess what we’re supposed to get tonight in Minnesota? It’s white and it’s cold, and it rhymes with that word Don Imus is in trouble for saying.
As my late father used to say, “Why in blazes would anybody live in this country?”
In order to balance my negative review of Bernard Cornwell’s Enemy of God yesterday, I’d like to share a passage from the next book, Excalibur, which pleased me.
Guinevere is talking to a bard (poet) who disparages the old-fashioned style of loud, bellicose songs. He says the younger bards are concentrating more on style and harmony nowadays.
‘Any man can make a noise, Lady,’ Pyrlig defended his craft….
‘And soon the only people who can understand the intricacies of the harmony,’ Guinevere argued, ‘are other skilled craftsmen, and so you become ever more clever in an effort to impress your fellow poets, but you forget that no one outside the craft has the first notion of what you’re doing. Bard chants to bard while the rest of us wonder what all the noise is about. Your task, Pyrlig, is to keep the people’s stories alive, and to do that you cannot be rarefied.’
‘You would not have us be vulgar, Lady!’ Pyrlig said and, in his protest, struck the horsehair strings of his harp.
‘I would have you be vulgar with the vulgar, and clever with the clever,’ Guinevere said, ‘and both, mark you, at the same time, but if you can only be clever then you deny the people their stories, and if you can only be vulgar then no lord or lady will toss you gold.’
Does the Poe Figure Come with a Knife?
Stefanie of So Many Books has photos of her latest purchases, including a Jane Austen action figure. This is crazy. Action figures? I wonder how many there are or if an author can commission his own figure. I can think of possibilities:
- Hawthorne would come dressed in black with a scarlet “A.”
- Meville would have a spyglass and seaman attire.
- Samuel Johnson would come with Boswell.
- G.K. Chesterton would be heavier, though not larger, than any other figure and never remain where you leave him overnight.
- Lewis might come with a wardrobe.
- Tolkien would have an ornamental waistcoat, a pipe, and short sword.
- Walt Whitman would be the most interactive of the figures with his growing hair.
No one would buy them, of course.
They Called Him Rabbi
Nextbook.org is hosting a festival of ideas on the greatest man in world history, Jesus Christ. “What’s He Doing Here? Jesus in Jewish Culture” is the theme for this New York festival of writers, critics, and scholars to be held at the end of April at The Center for Jewish History.
Some of the lectures and discussions are described as “Was [Marc] Chagall a Jew for Jesus? Yes and no” and “Why have the Jews never accepted a messiah? Why is the history of messianism in Judaism a history of false messianism? Some unorthodox views of the Jewish idea of redemption.”
Karen Kingsbury’s Stories Sell
Karen Kingsbury tops the list of the twenty bestselling novels in the most recent figures from The Association of Christian Retail. Her book, Forever, also tops the list of 50 bestsellers of all books sold in the Christian stores. Lori Wick manages to squeeze between Kingsbury’s books for second place on the fiction list with White Chocolate Moments.
No, I don’t think these books having vikings in them, but feel free to find out for yourself.
Karen Kingsbury's Stories Sell
Karen Kingsbury tops the list of the twenty bestselling novels in the most recent figures from The Association of Christian Retail. Her book, Forever, also tops the list of 50 bestsellers of all books sold in the Christian stores. Lori Wick manages to squeeze between Kingsbury’s books for second place on the fiction list with White Chocolate Moments.
No, I don’t think these books having vikings in them, but feel free to find out for yourself.
Can’t Support It
It’s probably in bad taste to criticize these things, but I’ll venture forward nonetheless. I learned today the Christian ghetto has what I assume to be a “safe” source for online video, GodTube. If you can’t get enough of alternatives to popular ideas or songs, look no further than this little site. (via World) *Those Mac vs. PC parodies depress me.*
The Bible on DVD–don’t want to read to your family yourself? Have this DVD read the Bible to the whole family with just a bit of ambient nature sounds and some dialog voices. Take a look at the demonstration stream. It’s so . . . multimedia. Whatever happened to reading aloud for yourself?