Non-fiction, Religion, Reviews

All Things Considered, by G. K. Chesterton

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If you like reading blogs, you’ll probably like reading G. K. Chesterton. Chesterton did the thing bloggers do long before blogging existed, and he did it better than the best of us. If he were alive today his blog would be the most popular one in the world. It would drive liberals crazy much of the time, but conservatives would take offense now and then too, and both sides would likely post indignant comments to tell him how STOOPID he was.

All Things Considered is a collection of columns Chesterton wrote for the London Daily News during the years up to World War I. They’re not his absolute best work. He admits in the preface that many of them were written under tight deadlines, when “there was no time for epigrams.” And what he wrote frequently got snipped down, pretty arbitrarily, by editors.

But even under adverse conditions, Chesterton offers a wealth of opportunities to the happy highlighter. Instead of reviewing All Things Considered (an act of hubris), I’ll just list some snippets to give you a taste.

First of all I want to mention that this book includes what may, very probably, be the first use of the word “groovy” in the English language. Seriously. Chesterton doesn’t use it as the hippies did, and I’m pretty sure they weren’t quoting him when they re-coined the adjective, but it’s right here, in a column called “Humanitarianism and Strength”:

Have you ever noticed that strange line of Tennyson, in which he confesses, half consciously, how very conventional progress is?—

“Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.”

Even in praising change, he takes for a simile the most unchanging thing. He calls our modern change a groove. And it is a groove; perhaps there was never anything so groovy.

*

The real objection to modernism is simply that it is a form of snobbishness. It is an attempt to crush a rational opponent not by reason, but by some mystery of superiority, by hinting that one is specially up to date or particularly “in the know.”

I believe firmly in the value of all vulgar notions, especially of vulgar jokes. When once you have got hold of a vulgar joke, you may be certain that you have got hold of a subtle and spiritual idea. Continue reading All Things Considered, by G. K. Chesterton →

Goofing

Meme: Troll Quote

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I learned a meme today from Prof. Brendan Riley called troll quotes. He explains it requires “1. a well-known quote with 2. a false attribution from an equally well known person and 3. the wrong picture.” Here’s his favorite example, which I love too, but I had to contribute to the lore myself.

Niagra Falls Quote.

A great line from the movie Network.

Uncategorized

My kind of town

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Somebody on Facebook shared this YouTube video, which just pleases me no end.

It’s a digital reconstruction of the city of Bergen, Norway around the year 1350 AD. No doubt it means more to me than to you, because I’ve been to Bergen several times, and recognize the general outlines. (It’s Sissel’s home town, though I’ve never had time to properly stalk her.) Some of the stone buildings are still standing, and the row of buildings along the wharf still exists in principle, though the structures have burned down and been replaced several times in the interval. It’s called Bryggen, “the wharf.” Used to be Tyskebryggen, “the German wharf,” until the late unpleasantness of the 1940s. Shortly after the time of this video, the German Hanseatic league took over Bergen’s trade and established its Norwegian headquarters on that location.

I love this stuff. One of my Facebook friends noted that there are no people, but then he remembered that it was about this time the Black Death came to Norway. So everybody was probably either dying or in hiding.

Uncategorized

Flowering Oregano

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Bee on Oregano Maybe the fact I grew up with backyard gardens compels me to plant vegetables of my own, but I’m not very good at it. I haven’t studied techniques or seeds much, and when we have an abundance of zucchini or tomatoes, I don’t necessarily know what to do with them. I’m trying to save my tomatoes from the birds lately, and my dwarf okra seems to be going well so far—no okra crop yet. In the last three years, I’ve planted herbs in what used to be a wildflower garden. The rosemary was a great first choice, being a hearty grower. I finally got basil to grow this year. Apparently, I don’t have the knowledge or knack for growing food from seed, so my previous attempts at growing basil never “took root”—snort! I crack me up.

We have thyme, sage, mint (a vicious weed), and oregano now. I thought the oregano would die at the end of the year, Continue reading Flowering Oregano →

Authors, Reviews

Fair, partly cloudy

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The Minnesota State Fair. Artist’s Conception.

It occurs to me that I should have taken pictures at the State Fair on Saturday, like Lileks does. But then I realize, it was hard enough dragging myself around the fairgrounds, let alone taking a camera. I know people have tiny little cameras in their cell phones nowadays, but I’m a straggler on the dragging edge of technology. I only get things after they’re passé (except for my Kindle, which was a gift from… well, I won’t embarrass him again).
It was possibly the most perfect day for the fair I’ve ever seen, from the perspective of weather. Nice temperature, and it started sunny and then clouded over without actually raining more than the occasional tiny spit. This was great for the concessionaires, not so great for Avoidants and Introverts. You know that place in the gospels where Jesus is pushing through a crowd, and stops and says, “Who touched Me?” because (He says) “I felt power go out of Me”? I didn’t heal anybody (may have injured some) but when we pushed through a crowd of teenagers who suddenly appeared around us, screaming for some pop singers (or something) at a radio station booth, I felt the power go out of me, all right. I was a shell of a man by the time I got free of that.
The conclusion was obvious. I need to lose even more weight, and get some exercise. Which I’m trying to do.
Or else give up the fair.
I need to retract an endorsement.
Hunter Baker (funny, I was just thinking about him) commented on my review of Lee Child’s Killing Floor, writing the words I always dread:

I have read a lot of Lee Child books, but had to stop a couple of years back. He revealed himself in a couple of books to be pretty seriously anti-Christian. And made the Reacher character share those views. That did it for me…
I was a major fan of his. It began small with Reacher refusing to fly Alaska Airlines because they put a small Bible verse on each tray. In a subsequent book, there is an extremely bizarre Christian character who is some kind of caricature of American evangelicals. Once I read that one, I just decided Lee Child didn’t need any more of my money.

Sad, but not really a surprise. No more of my hard-earned will flow to Lee Child either.

Blogs, Socials

Weekend condition

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Loren Eaton, at I Saw Lightning Fall, recommends an article by Danny Bowes on the Noir roots of Cyberpunk:

In the end, what noir and cyberpunk share is a simultaneous, paradoxical status as distinctly past-tense forms that nonetheless keep popping up everywhere in subsequent art. … Fittingly, as each was widely criticized — and exalted — as valuing style over substance, the lasting impact of noir and cyberpunk (connecting the two as one entity, since there is no cyberpunk without noir) is greatest in the visual arts and cinema. For in the shadows lies danger and mystery. Sex and power. The simultaneous thrill and fear of confronting death. Noir, and all its descendants, including cyberpunk, is the shadow.

Our friend Ori Pomerantz directed me to this video of “The Vikings” by Depeche Mode.

Mostly historically accurate, but the music is oddly inconsistent with the themes, it seems to me. Maybe that’s because I’m old.

In any case, I think the contrast clearly shows the superiority of my book trailer, which I link here simply for purposes of instruction:

This weekend–the state fair, with a friend. Sadly, he’s a guy.

Hope your weekend is good. Especially if you live on the southeast coast.

Bookselling, Publishing

NJ School Takes Book Off Reading List; Outcry Ensues

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Here’s the news straight from the publisher:

On August 24, 2011, a New Jersey school district announced that it was removing from it’s summer reading list the novel Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami, published by Vintage Books in 2000. Citing objections from parents about inappropriate language and graphic sex, the school board withdrew its original approval of the novel, which had been placed on the list by its own committee of area teachers, librarians, and school administrators.

In response to this action, Knopf has issued the following statement: Continue reading NJ School Takes Book Off Reading List; Outcry Ensues →