It’s May, friends. The vikings are in season.
Tweeting
I’ve begun to microblog and tweet here. I’m already cranky.
The rusty month of May
That’s what it’s been so far. Rain, rain, and rain, with a creamy drizzle filling. But the sun has finally come out, the temperature has risen, and it looks like I’ll have no excuse this weekend not to put on all those yard chores I’ve been putting off. Starting with mowing the lawn, which is about knee high and going to seed.
I’ve decided not to go see the new Robin Hood movie in a theater. Michael Medved hated it, and nobody else seems to like it much. Plodding, dull and grim are about the most positive comments I see. But I might have gone to see it, just for the swords, if I hadn’t found out it’s two hours and twenty minutes long.
For St. George’s sake, Hollywood–there’s no excuse for a movie to last two hours, twenty minutes! Length does not substance make. All it means is that you haven’t got the self-control to use the DELETE button on your editing machine.
A couple links. This one from Touchstone’s Mere Comments blog may interest Phil–in Scotland, a Roman Catholic historian has joined with a former newspaper editor to protest the “scandalous” lack of attention to the 450th anniversary of the Scottish Reformation.
In an interview with ENInews, Devine, a professor at Edinburgh University, said, “Two of the greatest legislative events in Scottish history are the Reformation of 1560 and the Act of Union [when the Scottish and English parliaments merged to form the Parliament of Great Britain] in 1707.
“The [300th anniversary of the] latter was almost ignored in Scotland. Now, there appears to be reluctance on the part of both the Scottish government and the Church of Scotland to mark the 450th anniversary of the Reformation, which was an event which changed the face of this country and paved the way for a Scottish enlightenment and a new relationship with England. I think this is scandalous.”
And continuing with the theme of European declension, here’s a piece by the great Mark Steyn for Maclean’s, about the increasing loss of liberty in Great Britain.
You can always rely on me to keep things bright and cheerful.
Secular Praise in 'End of Secularism' Interview
Hunter Baker gives the full details behind his interview with Harvard Political Review. “Somewhat to my chagrin,” he says, “it is primarily about how great secularism is with a couple of statements by me and Herb London, president of the Hudson Institute, suggesting the self-congratulation is not warranted.”
Who Do You Follow on Twitter, If Anyone?
Rachel Deahl of PW writes about who is influential on Twitter. She notes, “One firm fact of the publishing Twittersphere is that it’s a meritocracy. CEOs and editorial assistants—if they’re skilled (and frequent) tweeters—can draw equal crowds.”
Rados, who was named repeatedly as someone who ‘gets’ Twitter, said she believes the social networking site can sell books. ‘An author can tweet about their life, their process, start a conversation about their characters, and those readers who feel a connection will most likely buy a book. I know I do,’ she said. Rados then elaborated with an example, pointing to Jen Lancaster, author of My Fair Lazy, who she follows. The day Lancaster’s new book came out, Rados said she bought it, in hardback.
I’d think blogs can do that too, but one does have to be where the people are. I’ve thought about tweeting a bit, microblogging as it were. I’m not sure it’s for me though. I don’t even have a smart phone or a personal laptop, so why should I try to get involved in the Twitterverse?
Net Radio Interivew with Larry Crab
On Monday, May 17th (at 9:30pm EST), T. M. Moore and Jimmy Davis will interview Dr. Larry Crabb live on the Worldview Network internet radio program.
Always Say Goodbye, and Bright Futures, by Stuart M. Kaminsky
In March of 2009, mystery author Stuart M. Kaminsky moved with his wife from his Sarasota home to St. Louis, Missouri, in order to wait for a liver transplant (he’d contracted hepatitis during service as a military medic in France in the late 1950s). Two days later he suffered a stroke, making him ineligible for the surgery, and he passed away the following October.
The online accounts of his death I’ve read give no hint how (or whether) Kaminsky’s health affected his writing plans. But these last two novels in his Lew Fonesca series (my favorite of his four detective series) possess an elegiac quality, as if the author was tying up loose ends.
I’ve told you about Lew Fonesca before. He’s a bald, skinny process server in Sarasota, Florida. During most of the series, he lives in the back room of his tiny office, next to a Dairy Queen. He gets around chiefly by bicycle. He doesn’t want to own anything, and he doesn’t want people in his life. He’s chronically depressed, overcome by the death of his wife, in a hit-and-run accident in Chicago a few years back. He drove south until his car broke down in Sarasota, and settled where he stopped.
And yet he doesn’t stay alone. Over the course of the books he acquires a staunch friend in the old cowboy Ames McKinney, who backs him up in tight spots. An old woman he once helped took in an unwed mother he rescued, and now he’s sort of an unofficial godfather to the baby. He has a girlfriend. There’s a “little brother” (who likes going around with him because shots tend to get fired). A therapist. And (in the final book) a Chinese man who sleeps on his floor, for reasons you’ll have to read the novels to learn.
You might think these books would be depressing. They’re not. In fact—it occurred to me while reading Bright Futures—they’re actually rather funny. Lew Fonesca, like some farcical Job, is the butt of a cosmic joke. The God in whom he claims not to believe (he’s a lapsed Episcopalian) seems to be playing games with him. Continue reading Always Say Goodbye, and Bright Futures, by Stuart M. Kaminsky
What the Source?
Ask not what you believe to be, but only what if. Tim Challies has a humorous list of quotes, asking us to decide whether they came from fortune cookies or Joel Osteen, the beloved author of Your Best Life Now and It’s Your Time For example, where does this statement come from: “Do all you can to make your dreams come true”?
Five Responses to Fairy Tales
Travis Prinzi writes about Tolkien making the reader his fairy tale in The Hobbit. “At this point,” Prinzi says, “about 2/3 of the way into the book, Tolkien makes a very deliberate story transition: ‘…we are now drawing near the end of the eastward journey and coming to the last and greatest adventure, so we must hurry on’ (end of chapter 9, ‘Barrels out of Bond’).” What happens next is curious.
Idolators
“Don’t trust or admire a man who’s passionate in his convictions about culture but passive in his convictions about Scripture.” – A Jared Wilson Tweet (via SD Smith)