Play That Funky Classical Music White Boy
Raiding the vast (and out of copyright) canon of classical music has been a recurrent theme in popular music, from Frank Sinatra to The Farm to Eric Carmen (though Carmen’s…
Category: false dichotomies
Is the elderly scientist correct? Roy Sorenson on Arthur C Clarke
Following on from yesterday’s post, here is the answer from Roy Sorenson’s Cabinet of Philosophical Curiosities: “The elderly scientist is certainly correct. The reason is that any assertion of an…
“A leader for whom silence was a virtue” Sudhir Hazareesingh on Charles De Gaulle
It seems a bit of a truism to describe Charles de Gaulle as an extraordinary figure, but truisms are no less true for being true. It is hard to know…
A resting blessing from the Carmina Gadelica
From Alexander Carmichael’s collection of the Scottish oral tradition Carmina Gadelica , a resting blessing AN ainm an Tighearn Iosa, Agus Spiorad ìocshlain aigh, An ainm Athar Israil, Sinim sios…
“Cocks exist for the hen, but hens exist for the cock” – is there such thing as self – parody? with Bernard Richards, Max Beerbohm, Algernon Swinburne, Henry Reed – and Tennyson, Eliot and Kipling
This letter from Bernard Richards in the 29th June TLS caught my eye: Sir, – Francis Hope spoke in his reprinted review of Nabokov’s Ada (From the Archives, June 22) of authors writing…
“But to simply withdraw does not provide the way forward, for we then take our hurt or tired self with us”
From ” “Dare to Journey–with Henri Nouwen (Designed for Influence)” by Charles Ringma” We need to resist making unhelpful distinctions where we play off one thing against another. Prayer, for…
”the most sane fringe phenomena.”
The current New Yorker features a piece by Brooke Jarvis on the maybe-extinct, maybe-not Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine. About fifteen years ago I had a cryptozoological phase, with occasional relapses.…
The wisdom of silence
Adam de Ville has a particularly good post on Eastern Christian Books on Terry Eagleton’s book on sacrifice. This is an especially rich post covering a range of topics… but…
Séamus Sweeney 