Reading, Reviews

Dull, Uninteresting, Disappointing, But I Won't Say It's Boring

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The editor, writer, and I’m sure very delightful Jennifer Schuessler writes how book reviewers don’t label books boring very often.

Boring people can, paradoxically, prove interesting. As they prattle on, you step back mentally and start to catalog the irritating timbre of the offending voice, the reliance on cliché, the almost comic repetitiousness — in short, you begin constructing a story. But a boring book, especially a boring novel, is just boring. A library is an enormous repository of information, entertainment, the best that has been thought and said. It is also probably the densest concentration of potential boredom on earth.

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Is the President Standing Behind the Podium?

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Or is the real president positioned next to the speakers on either side of the podium? Just asking. So, have you heard about this photo of Mr. Obama in a school classroom using teleprompters?

President Obama visits elementary school in Virgina

Big Journalism has the story on what’s going on here. In short, he isn’t talking to the kids; he’s talking to the press corps, who are off-camera on the floor, wrapped their snuggies, sketching pictures of the commander in chief with crayons they took from the students.

Goofing

Olright!

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Running late tonight. Things to do, and I’m way behind. I did my snow blowing thing when I got home. We didn’t get a lot of snow, but enough so I felt guilty leaving it where it lay. And no, I wasn’t just anxious to use my new toy. I was actually pretty tired, and I’d (uncharacteristically) stopped at Perkins for dinner. I had a craving for a square meal, and was pretty sure nobody’d cook me one at my place.

I saw the clip below over at Mitch Berg’s Shot in the Dark blog today. He actually channeled it from another local blog, but let’s not make this too complicated. The idea is that this is how English sounds to foreigners. Some Italian entertainer put this routine together using pure American-sounding gibberish. What amuses me is that I like it. It’s got a good beat; you can dance to it, and it’s no more incomprehensible to me than the average pop number.

(By the way, in spite of its Italian origin, this performance is suitable for work. Assuming your boss considers comic videos an appropriate use of company time.)

Blogs, Socials, Reviews

The Culture Alliance

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The Culture Alliance can be found here.

The Culture Alliance is based on the awareness that social reform and cultural renewal cannot be achieved through politics alone. Politics rules, but culture shapes politics. People’s basic assumptions come from cultural institutions—the education system, entertainment outlets, the art world, and media—currently dominated by those on the ideological Left. People who embrace classical liberal ideas have largely abdicated these institutions, thus those ideas cannot penetrate the public’s basic assumptions.

TCA has been founded to address this crucial need. Certainly, there are numerous fine organizations attempting to influence culture, but they are a separate and dispersed lot. Our objective is bring people who understand and appreciate the nation’s founding values into the cultural influence professions and create a grand narrative of cultural renewal, to make a case for the development of a Culture of Liberty in the United States today. The Culture Alliance is designed to build synergy and connection among groups and individuals, resulting in an impact, through cooperation and outreach, which is greater than the sum of its parts.

You can sign up for their Weekly Update, which includes what they call Fiction Friday. Rumor has it that a certain good-looking author of Viking fantasies will be featured this week.

Goofing

ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON

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St George (dc303)

DIRECTED BY JAMES CAMERON

The scene is a desolate, rock-strewn mountainside. In the foreground stands a tall, thin, finger-like rock. Chained to this rock is the PRINCESS. She is dressed in a torn white gown, and sobbing softly. Behind her, in the face of the mountain, we see the mouth of a cave. A red glow is visible in the cave’s darkness, as if a fire is burning there.

The camera pulls back to a wider view. Along a narrow road, a horseman, all in white armor, can be seen approaching. This is ST. GEORGE.

CLOSEUP of ST. GEORGE. His expression reveals that he has seen the princess, and a look of noble determination comes over his face. [Note to casting: Try to find an actor who isn’t using Botox yet. There must be somebody.]

ST. GEORGE rides up to the rock where the PRINCESS is bound. He dismounts and approaches her.

ST. GEORGE: Don’t be afraid, Princess. I am St. George, and I’ve come to set you free. I’ll cut these chains with my sword, and we’ll be away in a moment.

PRINCESS: I fear that can’t be done, good sir. These chains are dragon-tempered steel. No sword can cut them. Nothing can free me but the key the dragon keeps in a casket in his cave.

ST. GEORGE: Then I shall kill the dragon. For I am pure of heart, and I bear a magic shield, forged by elves, proof against all fire.

He sets out toward the cave mouth.

PRINCESS: God bless you, good saint!

As ST. GEORGE nears the entrance, the CGI DRAGON (Voice of Morgan Freeman) appears before him. The DRAGON is huge, and strangely beautiful, with a long, graceful neck and soulful brown eyes.

DRAGON: Halt! Who dares invade the dragon’s domain?

ST. GEORGE: It is I, St. George, here to slay you and free yonder innocent princess!

DRAGON: Innocent! Innocent, you say? Do you not realize how her civilization has destroyed the natural environment, cutting down forests, draining marshes, hunting animal species to oblivion? Have you not seen how the smoke of their fires fouls the atmosphere, warming the earth and causing the polar bears to drown? As a representative of a threatened species, I claim the right to reparations, in the form of a virgin or two now and then. Don’t you agree? Or are you some kind of speciesist?

ST. GEORGE: You have convinced me, good dragon. I shall leave you in peace to live out your personal lifestyle in harmony with the natural order. I only ask one thing of you.

DRAGON: And what is that?

ST. GEORGE: Devour her off camera, please. We don’t want to spoil the inspiring closing shot.



THE END

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Olsen letter #4b

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Here is the second part of the letter written by my great-great-grandfather to my great grandfather, whose beginning I posted on Tuesday. The previous letters are posted here, here, here, here, and here.

I also want to tell you that I have been fishing this winter too with our seine; ja, thanks be to the Lord who gave to us out of His blessing this year also. We got ourselves a nice little share, but we haven’t gotten it settled yet, for the berth-holders have postponed it until the first of April. We had our berth on an island called Hovring—that is right across from Kopervik, and we were there a month. There hasn’t been such a great herring catch in 35 years as this year, for imagine, the herring have been all around Karmøy this year. There was no renting of berths here this year. There was plenty of herring, but no seines at home then. There has also been good codfishing here for those who have been at it, but I for my part have not taken part in it, so that there is no fish to be found in my house now, and I haven’t gotten a herring home this year either, but that will have to be as it may be. We were so far away that we couldn’t bring herring home, and when I got home Mother was so unwell that I couldn’t go away codfishing.
But the worst of all for me was that she could not talk with me. You can believe that we had much to talk of together, but it was impossible for me to understand her, other than yes and no. I went home every single Sunday to her, if I was away. The last evening I was home with her, she could not talk any more, but she got up to prepare something for me to take with me. The next Friday I came home, and then I ran home from the valley, because I heard there that she was now worse than before. Continue reading Olsen letter #4b →

Writing

The Call of Christian Writing

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Richard Doster writes:

. . . Augustine argued that Christians not only had a right to employ “the art of rhetoric,” but also the obligation. Though sometimes skeptical of literature, he recognized that Christians, should they abandon the field, left it open to “those who expounded falsehood.”

. . . just as we need composers to create hymns, the church needs writers—novelists and theologians alike—to build up the body, to enhance our worship, to delight us with stories that exemplify the truths of the Christian faith. Still—it may be time to confess that we’ve left literature in the hands of those who have no hope to offer.