A review that proves everyone is not an expert on spiritual or metaphysical matters. In fact, some of us don’t even ask the right questions. “Hitchens has solved, he thinks, some of the deepest problems in metaphysics and the philosophy of religion—or, at least, he would say he had if he realized that there were deep problems at stake here,” writes Robert Miller in First Things.
Praise for The Children of Hurin
Frank Wilson links to Ed Pettit’s review of Tolkien’s new book, and Ed clarifies in the comments that he loved the book. He blogs at The Bibliothecary.
Slapped Around by the Big Ears
Talking about Pirates of the Caribbean: “It’s been a great experience,” Johnny Depp said to a Japanese audience. “Trying to discover who Captain Jack was, getting slapped around by the Disney people — it was all fun.”
Man, those Disney people can be like jackbooted thugs.
Christianity Today Book Awards
Christianity Today magazine has listed their book awards last year’s titles. The books have a similar feel to me, as if they were on the shelves of a discriminating bookstores.
Viking blood
Gave blood after work tonight. The venue was the VFW post in Golden Valley, where they’re broadminded enough to accept slightly-less-red blood from non-veterans like me. They also serve sloppy joes (although the sandwiches are smaller now than they used to be. On the other hand, they’re free).
They were busy tonight, so it took longer than I’m used to. Also my draining was delayed when a lady got poked wrong, and they had to summon all hands to apply pressure, cauterize, mop up blood spill, lie to the press, etc.
On the other hand, I got the cute young female tech. I gave her a piece of advice, as an old veteran blood donor—“Bear down with that Betadine swab. When you use pressure, it doesn’t tickle.”
She did not thank me. On the other hand, she didn’t allow me to bleed to death, so it all works out.
Something has been changed every time I give blood. This time they gave us brightly colored plastic balls to roll in our hands to promote blood flow, instead of the pieces of plastic tubing they used to use. I’m not sure if that’s an improvement or not. I’ll have to ponder the positives and negatives before I come to a final conclusion. By which time they’ll have switched to Beanie Babies or something.
No post from me tomorrow, I’m afraid. I’m driving down to Elk Horn, Iowa, again, for the Tivoli Festival. The Danes of Elk Horn have invested in building a genuine Viking house next to their landmark windmill, and I’ve been granted the privilege of sleeping in it.
Also I’ll get to bash and be bashed, which is usually good for my mental health.
If you’ve been reading my posts for a while, you’ve probably guessed I could use some bashing.
I’ll give a full report when I get back. Assuming I do. Maybe pictures too.
Prayer Needed
Fact-checking Before Publishing?
Someone concerned about the CBS company reputation says former president Jimmy Carter’s last book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, is so full of errors it makes the company look bad. She suggests a fact-checking system to screen books before publishing. Putting aside CBS’ reputation, what do you think about this system? How responsible should publishers be for the research of their authors?
It’s not raining wisdom
We’ve been having a dry spell, but that broke today, in the sense that Scotch Highland bulls break china in shops and politicians break promises not to raise taxes.
It had been cloudy for a couple days, but showers had been spotty. So today didn’t look like much of a change. As the day wore on, though, the sky darkened and lowered (that’s not “lowered” as in “got lower,” but “lowered” as in Longfellow’s “…when night is beginning to lower.” It rhymes with “flower”). The darker it got, the more you expected it to be raining when you checked out the window, and the more you were surprised that it wasn’t yet. Obviously a lot of potential energy was building up. You began to expect a plague of frogs or something.
Then the rain came all at once, gusting in on a billow of wind. It rained hard, and then it hailed for a while. The hail stopped but the rain went on.
My African library assistant seemed frightened by the whole thing. I’d had the idea that they get pretty severe weather back where he comes from, but it all seemed new to him.
Which doesn’t have anything at all to do with my subject for today’s post.
I was thinking about being young, and trying to be wise (I know I’m far removed from being young, but I can remember that far back. Also I’m remarkably immature. And I didn’t say “being wise.” I said “trying to be wise”).
I often wonder about the value of sharing wisdom with young people. We all try to do it. It seems a waste to go through all the hard learning experiences we’ve had, if we can’t pass that experience on to the young.
The problem, it seems to me, is that wisdom is a thing you can’t really share.
You heard your elders give you the same advice you want to pass on now, didn’t you, once long ago? Did it help?
Of course not. Because the maxims and bromides and proverbs and aphorisms never mean anything until you’ve bumped up against life and gotten some bruises. Touched a few hot stoves and gotten burned.
It’s only then—only after a few bruises and burns have been collected, that the sayings of your elders suddenly start to make sense.
When I was a kid I made a conscious effort to follow the advice I heard from old people. I did this because I was more cowardly than most people my age, and I wanted any excuse I could wangle to avoid taking risks.
And it didn’t work. I had the words right, but the music was wrong. Wisdom only operates, it seems, in those who are inclined to act foolishly in the first place. For the cautious and prudent, like me, the rules turn out to be kind of counterproductive.
The moral? Go ahead. Tell the kids not to play in the street.
But be prepared to see them get hit by cars anyway.
The consolation is that the survivors will probably listen.
The Mabinogion: New Translation
“Celtic mythology, Arthurian romance, and an intriguing interpretation of British history” is what’s in store within the new translation of an old Welsh book from the Middle Ages, The Mabinogion. No, I haven’t heard of it either, but it’s bound to have some great material even if it’s a bit hard to read.
Irony defined
I can’t find a reference in The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Vol. III right now, but in a couple of the letters Lewis expresses his deep dislike for the “modern” fashion of printing book titles sideways on book spines, so that you have to tilt your head to read them on the shelves.
He likes his titles printed so they’ll read horizontally, straight across.
The current volume of this series features a spine over 2 ½ inches wide. If they’d called the book The Collected and Edited Letters of the Immortal Clive Staples Lewis, Copiously Annotated and Furnished With Supplements Containing Previously Unknown Letters As Well As the Entire Body of the “Great War” Correspondence With His Friend Owen Barfield, they still could have almost fit that title in one line across such a massive spine.
But they print the title sideways, so you have to tilt your head to read it on the shelf.
“There’s glory for you,” as Humpty Dumpty would say. Even if you’re C. S. Lewis, world renowned and up on a pedestal only a little below St. Paul’s level in the eyes of many Christians, you still can’t get a publisher to print your covers the way you want them to.