In over 50 tweets, Doom shares his story of clearing out a man’s house and finding his life in photos. If you get to a tweet that reads, “I closed the last album and sat for a long time on the closet floor, resting my head back against the wall,” that’s not the end of the thread. Select the link to view more replies to see the rest of it.
My girls would love to watch endless varieties of good holiday rom-coms, but multiple factors work against them. We don’t have a TV service to feed us the Hallmark Channel or network broadcasting (also the reason we don’t catch the full Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade). We don’t have Netflix anymore. And, fundamentally, “good holiday rom-coms” are as common as good, ugly Christmas sweaters. They call them “ugly” for legit reasons, so to find good ones you have to take up a particular mindset.
Remaking Notre Dame Cathedral: “Newly released plans for reconstruction of the Notre Dame Cathedral will incorporate what some describe as a ‘politically correct Disneyland,’ reports the Telegraph. Christophe Rousselot, the director-general of the Notre Dame Foundation, says the intent is to make the cathedral and Christianity accessible for those not raised in a Christian society.”
Willa Cather wrote, âI think even stupid people like to puzzle over a book. A slight element of mystery is a great asset.â
Adam B. Coleman asks, “To the people who would insinuate that I am being used by white conservatives or that I express ârightâ leaning viewpoints for white acceptance, I have a question: Would you say this to a black liberal?”
Movies in China: âOne of the last vestiges of free speech in Hong Kong is now gone. The result is self-censorship by filmmakers who now have to question what might run afoul of the new rules and increased scrutiny by financiers and distributors who now must consider that very same question.â
From “Snow Day” by Billy Collins In a while, I will put on some boots and step out like someone walking in water, and the dog will porpoise through the drifts, and I will shake a laden branch sending a cold shower down on us both.
Photo: Southampton Theater, Montauk Highway, Southhampton, New York. 1989. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
“An Early Spring,” by the American primitive artist Grandma Moses (1860-1961). We had curtains printed with this pattern in our house when I was growing up.
It isnât often I actually have a busy day. But this was one, at least by my sedentary standards.
However, it was a good day. Iâm still slightly elevated in the wake of Atlantic Crossing winning the Emmy award. You can expect me to mention it, ever so casually, for the next few years. Or at least until the next Emmy win. Shoot, I could conceivably be marginally associated with an Oscar someday.
The first big job today, after my obligatory run to the gym, was baking pumpkin pie. Last year, for reasons too obvious to mention, my family did not gather for Thanksgiving. And so I made no pies, because itâ silly to bake two pies for my sole use. But this year â it was just decided â some of us are getting together. So I made my pies. The best pumpkin pie in the world, I say with all due modesty.
I baked them, and I shamelessly sampled one. Maybe itâs because I havenât had any for two years, but it seemed to me especially good. So the first job was a success.
The second job was paying my bills, which is usually a Thursday job, according to my personal liturgical calendar. But garbage men must adjust on Thanksgiving, and so must I. Thanks be to God, my social security deposit had cleared yesterday. So I was in good shape for writing the checks. (Not sure when Iâll get paid for my new clientâs job.)
Then I had to do some minimal housecleaning. Not because the place is mostly immaculate and just needs a touch-up (ha ha). Rather, because someone was coming by on business, and my home was such a magpieâs nest that a few things had to be moved around so thereâd be one flat place where documents could be laid down.
The aforementioned business was refinancing my mortgage. Itâs a good time to do it, and I found out I could save about a C-note a month without extending my payment schedule much. In times like these, it seemed prudent.
So the notary showed up at last, and he shepherded me through about 67 signatures. Some of them required dates, and the dates have to be entered in a particular format. Nevertheless I made it through, and now the deal is done and I have that accomplishment to savor. Almost as if Iâd been productive. A penny saved is a penny earned, as Franklin said (or is rumored to have said). So thatâs as if I earned $1200 next year.
If you discount inflation.
I still have some preparation to do for Thanksgiving, but Iâm feeling good about the day. And in that spirit, I shall enhance your life. I shall enhance it by sharing my motherâs pumpkin pie recipe, which ought to make your own life at least $1200 better:
MY MOTHERâS PUMPKIN PIE RECIPE
1. Look at the recipe on the can of pumpkin pie filling (I found Festal this year! Thatâs the brand we had when I was a kid! Havenât seen it for years).
2. Follow that recipe precisely, with only two changes:
3. First change: Use 7 eggs instead of 3.
4. Second change: Pour it into two deep dish pie tins instead of one.
5. Youâll end up with two mild, custardy pumpkin pies that even people who donât like pumpkin pie will like.
6. Thatâs it. Remember to be thankful for Lars Walker’s generosity. Checks and bank transfers will not be refused.
Years ago, Marvin Olasky wrote of his thankfulness for God’s work in his Austin, Texas church and World magazine. He included this anecdote from the Puritans.
The Puritans liked to tell dramatic shipwreck stories concerning thanksgiving in all circumstances. One vivid tale described John Avery and Thomas Thacher clinging to a rock when their boat was shipwrecked. It appeared that the next wave would sweep them away, and Avery, according to Thacher, said, “We know not what the pleasure of God is; I fear we have been too unmindful of former deliverances.”
Neglecting to acknowledge God’s kind provision, attributing it to circumstance or hard work, is common to most of us. Let’s be mindful of Him bought us and saved us for Himself. May He “keep us in his grace, and guide us when perplexed, and free us from all ills of this world in the next.”
Big news for discriminating fans of historical drama â Atlantic Crossing, the Norwegian miniseries that ran on PBS Masterpiece last spring, and which (I think Iâve mentioned) I worked extensively on as a script translator, won the International Emmy Award for the best TV film or miniseries. The ceremony was last night. I am moderately elevated about this. My boss, Linda May Kallestein, who was a co-writer as well as translator, sent me a photo of herself holding the coveted statuette.
I wasnât aware of it, but you can order it on DVD now â and itâs not prohibitively expensive.
The fourth novel in Jack Lynchâs Pete Bragg series, about a private detective in San Francisco in the 1980s, is Wake Up and Die. It started a little slow, I thought, but finished strong.
Pete gets a client referral to a prosperous local bookie. The man has received some photographs of his daughter. Sheâs naked with a man in the pictures, and they look like stills from some kind of professional film. When Pete suggests the man just ask his daughter about them, he refuses. He doesnât even want Pete to talk to her himself. Instead he needs to nose around among her circle of acquaintances and find out whatâs gone wrong. Pete thinks thatâs insane, but families are what they are and the client knows best.
He learns, to his surprise, that the daughter is actually doing pretty well. Sheâs engaged to the heir of a wealthy property developer. But as Pete noses around that familyâs business, he learns that theyâre involved in a major oceanside development project. And that project has attracted some pretty shady partners, who are making unexpected and puzzling changes in the plans. People Pete very much wants to talk to all seem to have gone on vacations, or are just strangely unreachable.
Soon there will be murder, and arson, and major battery against someone Pete cares about. And now that heâs mad, the gloves will come off.
I thought Wake Up and Die meandered somewhat in the first half, but once things started happening, it grabbed me but good. The language isnât bad (the rules were a little different as recently as this), and though the sexual bits were such as I canât approve of, theyâre almost quaint (like ’80s San Francisco itself ) by 21st Century standards. I liked Wake Up and Die, and continue to enjoy the series.
“We Gather Together,” 1625, author unknown, translated from Dutch “Wilt heden nu treden” by Theodore Baker.
We gather together to ask the Lordâs blessing; He chastens and hastens his will to make known; The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing. Sing praises to his name; he forgets not his own.
Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining, Ordaining, maintaining his kingdom divine; So from the beginning the fight we were winning; Thou, Lord, wast at our side; all glory be thine!
We all do extol thee, thou leader triumphant, And pray that thou still our defender wilt be. Let thy congregation escape tribulation; Thy name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!
Micah Mattix is back with the new Prufrock newsletter. Subscribe and read higher. Today’s email links to an essay about trauma being a product of our modern age. From that essay, “Furthermore, I will argue that trauma is so widespread precisely because of the ubiquity of traumatogenic technologies in our societies: those of specularity and acceleration, which render us simultaneously unreflective and frenetic. On this analysis, the symptoms deemed evidence of PTSD are in fact only an extreme version of a distinctively modern consciousness.”
Hierarchies in Space: Alexander Hellene writes about boring, fantasy bureaucracies in science fiction. “Captain Kirk is the ultimate pulp hero, a man of action and passion who takes his duty to his crew so seriously he is consistently willing to die for them. Does this sound like a guy who could function on the society of the future dreamed up by Gene Rodenberry, et al.? No wonder Kirk wants to be in space all the time.”
Snapping is crazy fast, researchers at Georgia Tech have concluded, and that means Thanos could never have done that snappy thing he did. Fact-checkers for the win!
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great French poem “The Song of Roland” on BBC4’s In Our Time.
Photo: Modern Diner on Dexter Avenue, Pawtucket, Rhode Island. 1978. Â John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
The new movie adaption of Dune has been available for a month, and many people have observed, as if factual, that only the strong fans have read more than the first novel. The publisher claims millions of original series books have sold. The current bestselling paperback list from the Washington Post has Dune leading both fiction and mass market categories, Dune Messiah being second for mass market.
It’s a good story, more sedate than the first one since Paul Atreides is a galactic emperor defending himself against usurpers rather than being a usurper himself. It’s twelve years after the close of Dune. Paul’s beloved wife, Chani, has not been able to bear a child, and his political wife, Irulan, has increased pressure to have the opportunity to bear a child herself. Despite hating the idea, Chani begins to think having any heir is better than none.
But Paul has seen many futures and many shadows he may not be able to avoid. Which path of pain and death will support the most life?
Paul and his teenaged sister, Alia, have prescient abilities, because of the complex eugenic program that preceded their birth and their consumption of melange, the valuable spice of that planet. Their powers of foresight are unmatched by anyone else with prescient talent. The spice awakens all who get enough of it in the right context. But the future is not strictly prophetic nor does their vision catch everything that could be seen, so in some way they see paths and consequences and choose between likely risks and rewards.
That’s the rationale Paul offers for allowing interstellar jihad in his name and his deification by the Freman, even though he distains religion. He knows he is not a god and doesn’t seem tempted to become one. He thinks about the coming jihad in the first book and rants about its work privately in the second book, but the bottom line seems to be a better life for everyone if he accepts their worship and doesn’t shut down their holy war. Countless lives wasted, he says. The blood of millions shed in his name, he says, but what else could he do? This cynical view of religion dilutes all holy things to cultural tradition and zeal to simple-mindedness. I would think a gifted leader could redirection such zeal, but no, war was unavoidable.
Am I right to read this secular outlook as hopeless? Is that the reason I doubt I’ll read the third book?
Today, of course, I worked at translation. Made good progress, too, and Iâll put some more time in tonight. Iâve got personal business to handle as well, but everythingâs in hand.
Started reading a book by an unfamiliar author the other day. A bargain book for Kindle. According to the description itâs a Christian book, and it has a lot of good reviews.
Alas, so often the descriptor âChristianâ indicates poor craftsmanship. So it was here.
I wonât tell you the authorâs name or the bookâs title. They might be favorites of yours. Many people better than me in almost every respect enjoy â or even write â books that donât please me. Itâs not for me to look down my nose at them. I know Iâm turning into a literary snob in my dotage.
The author just hadnât mastered the craft. The story may have been good â I tried to hang with it, to see if the plot grabbed me when the prose didnât â but in the end I couldnât hack it. I was opening it out of duty rather than anticipation.
So much in writing depends (as in jazz) on the notes you donât play. There are lots of things you donât need to tell the reader, if you can suggest them â through word choice, rhythm, juxtaposition. When the reader expects you to say something and you donât, that makes him guess at your reasons. Such things make the reading experience a collaborative one, a kind of dance. It draws the reader in.
This author knew nothing of these things. He may learn the craft in time. Youâve got to start somewhere. I wish him well.
Above, a video of The Dragon Harald Fairhair, the largest Viking ship replica ever built. She was constructed in Haugesund, Norway, and I hoped to see her back in 2016, when she was supposed to come to Duluth. But that was prevented by maritime regulations. Sheâs been sitting in Mystic Harbor, CT for a couple years now, and I wonder what her future will be.
Anyway, this is a cool video, mixing comments by crew members with epic sailing footage. I believe I haven’t seen it before, which means somebody probably sent me the link once, and I was too busy to look at it.
