About 1,000 words today. Odd that I got up earlier than yesterday, and managed to get less accomplished.
No great fireworks, but a workmanlike job, which is the whole point.
John Quade dies
You may not have known his name, but you certainly remember his face. Red-haired, fat, aggressively ugly, John Quade generally played villains during his Hollywood career. Remember the leader of the Comancheros in “The Outlaw Josey Wales?” Remember the motorcycle gang leader in “Any Which Way But Loose?” Remember Sheriff Biggs in “Roots?” That was John Quade. He has died, I’ve just learned.
He was also a Christian convert who involved himself in somewhat radical antigovernment movements, according to his Wikipedia article.
Master on Master: Andrew Klavan writes of Wordsorth
Andrew Klavan, at City Journal, presents an essay on William Wordsworth as a precursor to the present-day neocon movement. It’s gooooooooood.
Around the same time, the poet married Mary Hutchinson, a woman of such quiet serenity that a friend once joked that she never said anything but “God bless you!” The needs of their rapidly growing family necessarily turned his thoughts to more practical, and therefore more conservative, concerns. The financial help and patronage of Lord Lonsdale gave him new sympathy for the aristocracy. And the more he mulled the philosophical consequences of the French disaster, the more he came to respect the institutions and traditions that had guided Britain’s more stately procession toward greater freedom.
I might have made made more of a point of the connection of Wordsworth’s final philosophy to the doctrine of the Incarnation, but then I couldn’t have written the essay in the first place.
Coffee & Heresy
Loren Easton told me about this comment thread on a post criticizing The All-American Coffee Drinker, and kudos to you, Loren, for roasting your own beans. I don’t do it, probably won’t do it, but I appreciate it nonetheless.
In Time For Banned Books Week
Let’s have another cup of coffee, and let’s have another piece of Pietism
Another good day writing, thank you for asking. It was more “one step at a time” composition, finding myself often in the situation where I had no idea what the characters would be doing next. So I asked myself, “Well, what’s the emotional reaction? How does the other person respond? Do they stand up or sit down, or just scratch themselves?” And one thing led to another, and I ended up putting down 1,500 words, and ended with a line that (it seemed to me) not only capped the last scene perfectly, but opened up possibilities for later plot points.
Ori asked about my statements on Pietism and legalism on Monday. I’ve actually written about this before, but I’m pretty sure it was back on the old blog site, so I’ll try to re-cap the thing again here.
One element of social change that strongly affected the tumultuous 18th and 19th Centuries was the rise of Pietism. It’s difficult for us, with the preconceptions we’ve absorbed all our lives, to understand what profound changes Pietism wrought. Continue reading Let’s have another cup of coffee, and let’s have another piece of Pietism
Notes from a writer’s journal
Yesterday was my first day of a week of stay-cation, devoted to getting more sleep, and doing more writing, than customary for me.
The sleep hasn’t been bad, but I’m pleased to say that the writing’s already been beyond my expectations.
Here’s the situation.
I’ve been worrying a particular story concept for quite a few years now. I had a basic idea—transfer the traditional hard-boiled detective story from a modern city (such as New York) to the Viking Age and an early medieval town (specifically, old York in England, which was a Viking town for some time). The mystery would have fantasy elements, because that’s the sort of thing I write.
But whatever I did with it, I couldn’t seem to make it come alive. I don’t know how many starts I’ve made on the thing, but they all lost momentum and rolled to a slow stop. Continue reading Notes from a writer’s journal
Ben Hur Live
The photo is from the live performances of Ben Hur, in stadiums, with chariot races.
Deceased: Ben Stein’s NY Times Column
Ben Stein used to write for the NY Times. He does not now, because according to his editors, he had the appearance of a conflict of interest in his writing and commercial endorsements. It’s very much like the clear conflict Rush Limbaugh had with Pizza Hut several years ago. I mean, he probably ate a Pizza Hut pizza before and even after his commercial deal with them. Ridiculous. Stein, pictured right on April 4, 2001, wrote about finances in his column and endorsed a company which offers credit checking services. Both things are related to money; he probably even carried money on his person–clearly a conflict of interest.
In related news, the Times tossed out a column in which Stein criticized the president’s power grabs. They did that just before they let him go. Bad timing, no doubt. Lots of people complained about Stein’s columns over the years. Only now do they get through to the editors. Stein states:
The whole subject reminds me of a conversation Bob Dylan had long ago with a reporter who asked him what he thought about how much criticism he was getting for going from acoustic to electric guitar. “There are a lot of people who have knives and forks,” he said, “and they have nothing on their plates, so they have to cut something.”
There’s a quote to put on tap.
Pseudo Histories and Truth
From the Times Literary Supplement: “Ronald Fritze, a historian and dean at Athens State University in Alabama, is concerned about, and clearly fascinated by, the pseudo-histories and pseudo-sciences . . .” The article goes on to describe his work, and the writer of the article appears to have trouble with discernible truth and passionate lies.
“But, how do we reckon with the fact that pseudo-historians also insist on their stories’ truth? Through evidence and “objective” empirical methods, Fritze tells us, again without raising any questions of method and evidence. While objective historians look at all the facts, guarding themselves against presuppositions, pseudo-historians choose only those that support their case.”
Because insisting on the truth of something does not make it true. Imagine that.