Paul Tripp has written a good book on marriage, which we pointed out a while back. Desiring God has a live discussion right here, right now.
All posts by philwade
"When everyone's a writer, no one is"
Garrison Keillor writes about the days when being a tortured literary soul, wrestling for your livelihood with the printed word over a typewriter, was worth something. Money, to be specific.
Twain on Twain After a Long Silence
Mark Twain’s autobiography, which he forbid to be published for 100 years after his death, will be released in three books UC-Berkley. The first will come in November.
Daggers on the Table
“The shortlist for the International Dagger award of the Crime Writers’ Association was announced at Crime Fest.” (via Books, Inq.)
DeLillo in The Secret History of Science Fiction
Ed Parks writes about a sci-fi anthology with a short story by Don DeLillo in it. Parks states, “Despite the advanced state of my DeLillo worship, I haven’t pursued his short fiction. There isn’t much of it, it’s uncollected, and despite DeLillo’s capacity for inhuman linguistic precision, his most indelible works are generally the ones that sprawl.”
He was ecstatic to find a short story he’d never read by this favorite author and manages to talk about the anthology a little too. (via Conv. Reading)
Books, The End of the Making of
Mark Bertrand has an essay on the printed word.
When Ken Myers interviewed me for Mars Hill Audio Volume 90, for example, he kept asking about the decline of literacy, only to have me scoff at the pessimism. Little did I know that the flipside of Volume 90 would feature an extended chat with Dana Gioia about the NEA’s depressing literacy study. Fortunately that part of my interview was excised from the final version, sparing me the indignity of appearing unsuitably optimistic and glib. Ever since, I’ve kept what little optimism I possess to myself.
(via S.D. Smith)
John Cleese Goes on Tour to Pay for Divorce
John Cleese is touring England soon to pay off his third wife–or something like that.
John Cleese is to embark on his first-ever UK tour next year at the age of 71. The comedian, who recently agreed a divorce settlement believed to be in the region of £12m, has dubbed it the “Alimony Tour”.
Cleese, who rose to fame with Monty Python, promised the show would be “an evening of well-honed anecdotes, psychoanalytical titbits, details of recent surgical procedures, and unprovoked attacks on former colleagues, especially Michael Palin”.
Creativity Is of the Mind
The Gospel Is Words
S.D. Smith asks whether the gospel can be given all the well without words, as the saying goes. “But the Gospel is words. It is news, Good News. It is not anything, it is something. It is particular information. . . . The victory is sealed. The Victor is enthroned.“
Jobs: No Porn Apps for Apple Products
I’ve often said (to myself in imaginary conversations with people who care what I think of public issues) that pornography isn’t everywhere online, but sometimes it feels as if it is. That’s why the best web filter is your own mind, which doesn’t help our kids who don’t have minds yet.
Steve Jobs shocked some Net-citizens by saying Apple’s iPad and iPhone won’t have porn apps. He said in an email, “Yep, freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom. The times they are a changin’, and some traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away.”
As Eric Felton points out, Jobs may be promising more than he can deliver. “As long as one of the Apple Apps is an Internet browser, the bawdy side of web will still be accessible on iPhones and iPads. Still, just because Mr. Jobs won’t be able to purge his devices of blue content, that doesn’t mean he’s obliged to distribute it himself.”
A Gawker.com reporter accused Jobs of imposing his morality on us, to which Mr. Felton writes: “What a peculiar—and peculiarly modern—controversy. Is it really such an affront to the rights of those who would buy and sell pornography that someone might want the right to choose not to?”
In slightly related news, a jobs bill from the Democrats in Washington, intended “to increase investments in science, research and training programs,” was scuttled after Republicans amended it to hold back on some of the funding and to deny any funding “to salaries to those officially disciplined for violations regarding the viewing, downloading, or exchanging of pornography, including child pornography, on a federal computer or while performing official government duties.”