Dear Ms. Robinson,
I have been a fan of your work since my then friend, now fiancé, read your essays aloud to me. You lay claim to a deep knowledge of the English language in your opening paragraphs, but then go on to use it. Not flaunt it. “All this is [...]
Archive for the ‘Literary’ Category
On Home. Marilynne Robinson’s, that is.
Posted in Literary, Personal on 26 October 2009 | Leave a Comment »
It’s All Relative
Posted in Literary, Philosophy and Theology on 7 October 2009 | 1 Comment »
G.K. Chesterton on his pre-conversion experience with Christianity: (please excuse the ellipses — Gilbert was a loquacious fellow)
“As I read and re-read all the non-Christian or anti-Christian accounts of the faith, from Huxley to Bradluagh, a slow and awful impression grew gradually but graphically upon my mind — the impression that Christianity must be [...]
Dee-fen-uh-STREY-shuhn
Posted in Literary on 12 September 2009 | Leave a Comment »
defenestration : the act of throwing a thing or esp. a person out of a window.
“Apollo, the god of light, of reason, of proportion, harmony, number – Apollo blinds those who press too close in worship. Don’t look straight at the sun. Go into a dark bar for a bit and have a beer with Dionysios, every now and then.”
Posted in Literary, Philosophy and Theology, Poetry, tagged left hand of darkness, literary criticism, science fiction, ursula k. le guin on 20 August 2009 | 1 Comment »
So, I don’t normally like introductions, but this one is fantastic enough to read even if you don’t read the book.
Introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness (1976)
Ursula K. Le Guin
Science fiction is often described, and even defined, as extrapolative. The science fiction writer is supposed to take a trend or phenomenon of the [...]
Dune: A Bashful Book [Review]
Posted in Literary, tagged David Lynch, Dune, fantasy, Frank Herbert, science fiction on 20 August 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Although I moved past the negative social implications of reading scads of books long ago (I think about the time that I spent Valentines’ Day reading Thackery’s Vanity Fair), occasionally, my human need to retain some level of coolness rebels. Reading Herbert’s Dune was one of these times. There was something about this [...]
A Philosophy of Theater
Posted in Aesthetics, Literary, Movies Music Media, Teaching, tagged classical education, theater on 29 July 2009 | Leave a Comment »
This is a first draft of a philosophy of theater, written in preparation for the launching of a theater club at my school (SACA).
Ms. Card
Introduction
Theater is a sort of many-headed beast, the Greeks’ hydra perhaps. It consists of diverse pieces that come together to create a unified whole. Construction, painting, music, words, voice, [...]
an excerpt from Equivocation
Posted in Literary, Movies Music Media, Philosophy and Theology, Politics on 13 June 2009 | Leave a Comment »
SHAG (Shakespeare): I won’t write your lies.
CECIL: By the time you’re done, they won’t be lies. Here are the specifications of the dirt. The water. The wood. Anything else you need will be provided. There will have been a plot when you have written the history of it [...]
A Treatise of Equivocation
Posted in Literary, Movies Music Media, Philosophy and Theology, Politics on 13 June 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Bill Cain’s Equivocation (2009), which I saw in Ashland last week, is set amidst the events following the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. It takes the reality that the details of the plot are still highly debated/politically-charged and the fact that Shakespeare and his Players were writing and performing at the same time as these events [...]
Ashland, OR
Posted in Literary, Personal, Travel on 11 June 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Yesterday I returned from a week or so in Ashland, a small town in southern Oregon. I had the opportunity to go with a Biola summer class to the Ashland Shakespeare Festival, seeing half the plays and spending the rest of the time with the two K—— children while their mom and dad were with [...]
Summer = More Books
Posted in Literary, Personal on 27 May 2009 | 4 Comments »
Science Fiction (a genre with which I’ve had little to no exposure previous to now; D.C. and I are hosting a reading group surrounding this list)
The War of the Worlds (H.G. Wells)
Farenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)
I, Robot or Foundation Trilogy (Isaac Asimov)
A Canticle for Leibowitz (Walter M. Miller)
Puppet Masters or Stranger in a Strange Land (Robert [...]
