The folks at Faith by Hearing suggest we seize our commutes with loads of MP3s.
“Indiana Jones and the Dodgy Antiques Dealer”
Crystal skulls on display in various museums have been ruled fake, not the Aztec artworks they were declared to be.
Dean Koontz’ full range
Tonight, another episode in my ongoing engagement with the works of Dean Koontz. Not a review, exactly, but an appreciation and evaluation.
I’m going through Koontz alphabetically, picking up his books left to right across the bookstore shelf. This results in some odd juxtapositions, such as when I read Night Chills (published 1976) immediately followed by One Door Away From Heaven (published 2001). Having made it more than half way through the corpus, I think I can say that those two books represent something like the full range of Koontz’ work—from the creppiest early stuff to the most sublime of the recent.
Night Chills is barely recognizable as a Koontz book, in the sense I’ve come to know them. It’s a pretty standard thriller with a cutting-edge (for the time) scientific premise. But the way Koontz handles the material seems to reveal an immature artist, unsure of himself and trying to emulate established writers.
Which is probably why there’s so much sex in the book, and why it’s so (relatively) explicit, and… frankly, creepy. Continue reading Dean Koontz’ full range
Tolkien Postcard Found While Razing Tolkien Home
The team taking apart one of Tolkien’s homes found a postcard in the fireplace. Reporter Mike Collett-White writes:
The postcard was addressed to Tolkien at the Miramar Hotel in Bournemouth, where he and his wife Edith often stayed. [It is dated 1968.]
It is from “Lin,” which Malton [the demolition man] believed could be fellow fantasy author Lin Carter who wrote Tolkien: A Look Behind ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ published in 1969.
Depicting a scene from Ireland, it reads: “I have been thinking of you a lot and hope everything has gone as well as could be expected in the most difficult circumstances.”
The circumstances in question are not described in this report.
Jumping Off the Shelf
Here’s a provocative series title, “A Book You’ll Actually Read.” It’s a series of short theology books by Mark Driscoll, trying to make tough issues easier to understand.
Teacher Blogs
Let slip the hot dogs (and buns) of war
I hope your Independence Day holiday was a good one. Mine was about what you’d expect. My contribution to the general festivities was to put my flag out each day of the long weekend, and to eat hot dogs. I bought the good kind (the old fashioned, skin-on ones), and buns from my grocer’s bakery (far superior to the national brands). These provided me five meals over the course of the weekend, the only variety (variety’s overrated, after all) being my having to wrap the last two in bread slices, since the buns had run out.
Let us meditate for a moment on that strange artifact of American life, the unwritten law that hot dogs must come in packages of ten, while hot dog buns come in packages of eight. All our lives we’ve endured this.
When will the madness end? Continue reading Let slip the hot dogs (and buns) of war
Sad note
Autbor Thomas M. Disch has died by his own hand at age 68, according to Joseph Bottum at First Things.
Endlessly talented, Tom was always a difficult character, with strange edges and an awkward, unbalanced and finally unbearably sad life.
Update: For some reason, the link at First Things has disappeared, along with several of the most recent posts. Perhaps it’ll be back later. The report from Locus is here.
Happy Independence Day
Here’s a picture of three members of the Declaration Committee, working hard on incorporating the 600th revision requested by the Continental Congress, in wool suits and without benefit of a word processor. You can tell by the look on Jefferson’s face that he’s about ready to knock those bifocals off Franklin’s puss and tell him, “If you know a better way to put it than ‘Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes…’ then why don’t you just do the next draft yourself, you old gout-sack?”
But they soldiered on, and did one another no recorded violence. Such were the sacrifices that bought us our liberty.
Some pertinent quotations from each of the three:
“Let me add that only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” (Benjamin Franklin, 1789.)
“(R)eligion and virtue are the only foundations, not only of republicanism and of all free government, but of social felicity under all governments and in all combinations of human society.” (John Adams in a letter to Benjamin Rush, Aug. 28, 1811.)
“God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed their only sure basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that those liberties are the gift of God?” (Thomas Jefferson. One of the quotations inscribed in the Jefferson Memorial, Washington D.C.)
(The quotations above are all found in Christianity and the Constitution, by John Eidsmoe.)
Reading for the Fourth
Interesting how the Fourth of July comes around the same time every year.
Veteran newspaper man Frank Wilson talks about saving, if possible, newspapers. He says if newspapers are meant to keep We, the People, informed, then it isn’t terrible for that service to move to another medium.