Blogs, Socials

It happened on my watch

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Another milestone tonight. Not a personal one, but a cultural one, though I know I’m way behind the curve. Which is equally newsworthy with my decision not to wear spandex.

I’d been hearing for some time that the wristwatch is dead. Everybody carries a cell phone now, and all the cell phones have built in time readouts, so who needs to take the trouble of strapping a watch on?

These are the things that make us sigh (usually silently) as we age. No great principle hangs on it. No commandment of God is violated when we cast the wristwatch onto the ash heap of history. Probably no one alive today remembers when the wristwatch superseded the pocket watch. It started during World War I (or so I’m given to understand; I wasn’t there), when soldiers in the trenches discovered it was convenient to strap their pocket watches onto their wrists. Up till then wristwatches were considered effeminate, items of jewelry suitable for ladies. But those soldiers marching home with wristwatches changed that. No doubt the older men sighed silently, like me, as they saw the fashion change. Now the pocket watch is back, in the form of the cell phone. I hope watch chains come back, too. That would be a measure of consolation.

Anyway, this all came home to me tonight because I destroyed my old wristwatch, trying to reconcile the calendar function. You know how a calendar watch thinks every month has 31 days, and you have to jump the date at the end of September, April, June, and November, but not the day of the week? I was sure I’d figured out how to do it easily the last time I did the job, but I couldn’t make it work this time, and in my wrath I pulled the whole stem out. My great power overcame my great responsibility. Continue reading It happened on my watch →

Religion

One last "Elmer" post

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Sorry I didn’t post anything for Thanksgiving (or Lewis’s birthday, come to think of it; but I did post Lewis quotes on Facebook all day). Wanted to get the two book reviews up, and… well, I’ve been melancholy.

It has to do with the death of my friend “Elmer,” I guess, about which I wrote below. Intimations of mortality. Who’s that bell tolling for again? I’ve never had an actual friend die before. I’ve had lots of classmates die (I have an idea, though I’ve never done the math, that my high school class has had an unusually high death rate, statistically). But nobody I would include in the small group of “friends” has ever died before. This is yet another validation of my lifelong policy of keeping my circle of friends small, so that funeral attendance will be infrequent and Christmas card lists short.

They held a funeral for Elmer down in Kenyon, on Saturday (correction: Friday). I was concerned that, since Jewish law requires quick burial, and Elmer was part of a Messianic synagogue, somebody had disregarded his own wishes,and completely cut out the congregation to which he belonged. But there were many members of the synagogue there, and his rabbi spoke at length.

And it was fascinating. Elmer’s nephew told a number of stories about him, and we all laughed without embarrassment. Because Elmer was never offended, at least by jokes about himself. He had once brought a vegetarian dish to a family meal, and his nephew said it looked like “pig scours” (that’s a term farmers know, but probably unfamiliar to you. I think you’re happier not knowing, especially if you just ate). Elmer thought that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Continue reading One last "Elmer" post →

Fiction, Reviews

Agnes Mallory, by Andrew Klavan

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‘Look,’ she said wearily from the stairs. I was leaning against the stove, studying her stupid sneakers. My arms crossed, my soul leaden with sorrow. ‘I just don’t want to approach you too fast. I know you don’t like journalists. I saw you on TV: slamming the door? That’s why I was watching…’

‘Oh, admit it: you were being mysterious and romantic.’
‘Jesus!’ One of her little sneaks gave a little stomp. ‘You sound just like my father.’
Fortunately, this arrow went directly through my heart and came out the other side, so there was no need to have it surgically removed, which can be expensive….
Back in 1985, the young author author Andrew Klavan had a novel published in England which didn’t find a home in the U.S. This novel is Agnes Mallory, which is now, thankfully, available in a Kindle edition from Mysterious Press.
The narrator of the story is Harry Bernard. Harry lives in a secluded cabin, outside the New York suburb of Westchester. He is a recluse, a broken man, a disbarred lawyer who has left his family behind.
He wants nothing to do with the young woman who follows him home one evening, in the rain. Klavan introduces her in such a way that the reader isn’t sure at first whether she’s real or a ghost. And that’s appropriate, since this is a kind of a ghost story—but the ghosts are the memories we carry with us and the dreams we’ve buried in the cellar. Continue reading Agnes Mallory, by Andrew Klavan →

Authors

C.S. Lewis Day

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On this day in 1898, Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland, making our favorite Oxford don more Irish than English (wait, is Tolkien our favorite or Lewis?). Despite being productive mostly with my cough, I put several C.S. Lewis facts on our BwB Twitter feed in honor of the day.

  1. On this day in 1898, C.S. Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland. What follows today will be #CSLewis facts.
  2. A good starting point for Lewis’ birthday is following @CSLewisDaily 414,861 followers can’t be wrong. (n.s.)
  3. My #CSLewis facts today come from Colin Duriez’ biographical book ow.ly/7IDKt
  4. Lewis met Owen Barfield, one of his best friends, first in 1919 at university. Learn more about Barfield ow.ly/7IDue #CSLewis
  5. G. MacDonald’s “Phantastes” is a very influential book in Lewis’ life. He first found it on March 4 at a train station. #CSLewis facts
  6. One of #CSLewis poems hangs on a wall on Addison’s Walk, Oxford. ow.ly/7IKkU
  7. When his father learned #CSLewis had been elected Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, he cried for joy.
  8. Oxford, Magdalen College, The Kilns, and The Eagle and Child #CSLewis facts ow.ly/7IJGi
  9. #CSLewis first met JRR Tolkien during his first year at Magdalen, 1926. They become life-long friends.
  10. Tolkien described the Inklings as “undertermined, unelected circle of friends who gathered around #CSLewis”
  11. #CSLewis Tutor Kirkpatrick said of 17yo Jack, “He has read more classics than any boy I ever had or indeed…I ever heard of.”
  12. #CSLewis was an great literary critic. He wrote essays on Bunyan, Austen, Shelley and topics such as myth, story, lingustics, and metaphor.
  13. You’ve heard of The Eagle and Child, but #CSLewis “local” pub, that closest to his home, The Kilns, is The Six Bells ow.ly/7IWYE
  14. #CSLewis fully believed “Jesus Christ was the Son of God” on Sept 28, 1931, a few months after his brother Warren did the same.
  15. On receiving #CSLewis letter of praise, Charles Williams replies, “My admiration for the staff work of the Omnipotence rises every day.”
  16. #CSLewis adopted mom, Mrs. Morris, argued furiously with him over his Christian faith.
  17. What books most shaped #CSLewis vocational attitude? Charles Williams’ “Descent into Hell” Chesterton’s “The Everlasting Man”
Fiction, Reviews

When the Devil Whistles, by Rick Acker

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I’ve been pleased, especially since I got my Kindle, to discover some writers who are lifting the Christian fiction genre to a higher level. When the Devil Whistles qualifies for that kind of praise.

Rick Acker’s novel centers on a young woman, Allie Whitman, who leads a sort of secret life, taking temporary jobs at corporations that do business with the government, nosing out fraud, and then filing lawsuits against them through a company of her own called Devil to Pay. She works closely with her lawyer, Connor Norman, who does the litigation while she stays anonymous. Each of them is attracted to the other, but any romance would spoil their profitable business.

Then Allie is caught out by an employer, a deep-sea salvage company. Instead of just firing her, they blackmail her into investigating another company, a business rival. Continue reading When the Devil Whistles, by Rick Acker →

Uncategorized

Zombies and the Abortion Taboo

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Kate Arthur describes a fascinating kerfuffle over a personhood issue touched on in an episode on AMC’s The Walking Dead. A character decides to abort her weeks old baby, but can’t go through with it.

“What’s also troubling,” Arthur writes, “is that this discussion coincided with a storyline in which Lori’s hosts—at an idyllic farm seemingly untouched by the zombie apocalypse—are discovered to be keeping a group of “walkers” alive in a nearby barn. When asked why, one of the characters responded, “They’re people.” The show’s heroes, however, accused of “murdering” such people, had a much more limited definition of what life is.”

Authors, Fiction, Publishing

Under the pseudonym of Keith Peterson

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Phil has already mentioned this in prospect, but Andrew Klavan’s early novels, written under the name Keith Peterson, are now in print again from Mysterious Press.
I especially recommend the John Wells novels, the first of which is The Trapdoor.
I do not recommend The Animal Hour.

Authors, Religion

J. R. R. Tolkien, human rights activist

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Our friend Dale Nelson sends the link to this piece from the Tolkien and Fantasy website:

This letter isn’t referenced in any of the usual sources, so it makes for a minor discovery. The letter is signed by Tolkien and nine others, comprising the Honorary President of the Newman Association and nine Honorary Vice Presidents, the latter including Tolkien. The letter registers protest at the arrest of the Cardinal Primate of Hungary by the Hungarian government.

Sometimes even Brandywine Books throws a bone to the Catholics.

Have a happy Thanksgiving!