Today’s my day for First Things links. This piece by Joe Carter, on the awfulness of James Joyce’s Ulysses, is just too good not to share.
Praise from (Sid) Caesar
Anthony Sacramone, late of Strange Herring, alerts me (in a comment on my dyspeptic post below about his hiatus) to his review, just posted, of my The Year of the Warrior, over at First Things blog.
If he knew how deeply I appreciate such fulsomosity, especially in view of the source, it would inflate his already prodigious ego to a level almost unimaginable to our pure-minded readership.
So I won’t say anything about it.
Columbus Book Examiner
Kevin Holtsberry has taken up the role of book examiner for Columbus, Ohio. Bravo, sir.
Read to weigh and consider
Do students read Francis Bacon anymore? Here’s a short essay that contains popular quotations from Bacon’s “Essays, Civil and Moral,” posted here for readers of the future.
Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment, and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best, from those that are learned.
To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning [i.e. pruning], by study; and studies themselves, do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Continue reading Read to weigh and consider
Old Funen Village
Dead as a herring
Anthony Sacramone’s Strange Herring blog is done.
The web just became a less fun place.
But I warned you it would happen (look for my blurb over on the left-hand side).
Audiobook Sale
ChristianAudio.com is having a big sale through July 3. Most digital downloads are $7.49. I’m having trouble getting around the site right now. Maybe they are having high traffic with the first day of the sale.
Weakened report
A beautiful weekend, climatologically speaking. I did some stuff that a man’s gotta do in the yard, and a little housecleaning. And went to see “Star Trek,” at last. Not bad. The big thing is that it gave me the same kind of pleasure the old original series used to. Although a serious fan in my youth, my fervor abated with the years. I’m not the kind of obsessive whose whole experience is spoiled because somebody calculated the star date wrong, through failing to factor in Daylight Savings Time. All I ask is some cool visuals, a plausible (my standards are pretty low) story, some attractive women (bring back Jolene Blalock!), and good fights. And they had a sword! A sword on Star Trek! It doesn’t get much better than that, as far as I’m concerned.
Oh well, it could be better, of course. If this movie ever materializes, for instance, and if it’s worthy of its source, it’ll be worth any number of dilithium crystals. Continue reading Weakened report
An American Chocolate Maker
Obit Magazine has a short article on Milton S. Hershey and the new museum in his honor. It isn’t discussed here, but I think a good book or movie could be made of the rivalry between Hershey and Franklin Mars. Of course, it would have to involve aliens at some point, but you know, that’s expected.
Lawhead’s Return to Robin Hood
Patrol has a review of Stephen Lawhead’s trilogy on Robin Hood.