Category: C.S. Lewis
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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love America
Film buffs will know I pulled my title from Dr. Strangelove or “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” The film is a comedy of errors in which the entire world is summed up in a cowboy who literally cackles and cheers as he rides a nuclear explosive from the heavens down…
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Good Criticism is Hard
Recently, I had a conversation with my friend and brother Doug Welch about good criticism. Since the conversation, I’ve been meditating on everything that makes good criticism and deep reflection difficult. Doug always pushes me to think harder, broader, deeper, further — if I’ve ever added anything helpful to the critical and reflective world, the seeds of those contributions were…
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Baltimore Buildings
…are a weird weave. Windows, for instance, Speak of the seasons of certain men In America and their Maids — of the Michigan sticky And Virginia giant juniper leaves And the Boston bricks baking and the drenched Patoka tempest that tidally rises The rivers nine. Read of the south’s And the northern nuance’s names and acts…
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Foundation Asimov Book Club Discussion
Foundation Asimov We’re going to talk about Isaac Asimov’s Foundation for today’s Book Club discussion. (The last two discussions were about The Cuckoo’s Calling and The Man in the High Castle, so feel free to go back to those posts and comment). Up next for book club discussions: Silence by Shusaku Endo — March 21st, 2017 Fletch by Gregory…
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Monomyth Definition: A Defense of The Hero’s Journey
Let me again pick up a standard that has fallen on our literary battlefield: the standard that marks the entrance of The Defender of The Common. It would seem a silly thing to need to defend common things, but in truth we have grown quite accustomed to tearing down good things simply because great things exist.…
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absolutely convinced atheist
“An absolutely convinced atheist, it often seems to me, is simply someone who has failed to notice something very obvious—or, rather, failed to notice a great many very obvious things.” ― David Bentley Hart, The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss
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Mr. Two Face Dark Knight : Meeting Jongluers and Troubadours in my Dark Knight Rewatch
I could be called Mr. Two Face Dark Knight when it comes to analysis and thinking — reflectively — on the films and books I read. I don’t know about you, but I find myself wrong more often than I’m right. Likely that’s because everything we don’t know is infinite. Everything we do know is finite. And…
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Cuckoo’s Calling Discussion for BOOK CLUB!
It’s time to talk through The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith! I’ll start off the discussion with this question: The theme of fame and misfortune takes the center stage in the Cuckoo’s Calling. Knowing that Robert Galbraith is J.K. Rowling’s pseudonym, how do you think she is processing through fame in anonymity? Certainly book one of…
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Gloria in Profundis by G.K. Chesterton
In keeping with our annual tradition — Christmas readings of the best Christmas stories — here’s a poem by G.K. Chesterton entitled Gloria in Profundis. It’s a poem about how the fall of God is greater than the fall of man: If you’d like to hear more of the best Christmas stories, click here. cover…
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Our Tools Shape Us
“We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.” —Father John Culkin According to McLuhan Galaxy: [This quote] is often mistakenly attributed to Marshall McLuhan. It does NOT appear in “Understanding Media”, as Wilson Miner confidently asserts in the presentation below, indeed it does not appear in any published…
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Myth Stories Map: Queens Museum Exhibit on American Folklore
As a student of American myths, American folklore, American tall tales and American legends, I loved this myth stories map from the Queens Museum: There’s a great piece over at Slate on the map. They say: This map, by social realist artist William Gropper, was created to showcase the diversity of national myths and folk stories…
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give each other visions
“We are all patriots and rebels, at war with one another and ourselves. And we give each other visions.” — Gary Wills