Month: June 2020
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Media of the moment
An ongoing series on books, movies, and music I’ve encountered recently. Songs for Singin’ by the Okee Dokee Brothers. My eager anticipation was rewarded with this double-album’s worth of characteristically clever, catchy, and joyful tunes. I may have teared up during “Jubilation”. The Last Temptation of Christ. Sure, there are few regrettably ’80s moments and…
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Statues and ‘Star Wars’
In an email thread about the controversies surrounding the removal of statues, I suggested we relocate all statues to museums and use the space for parks and Little Free Libraries. But that’s destroying history! First Amendment! Statues aren’t history, as this Twitter thread by Elle Maruska articulates well: Statues are mythology. Statues are hagiography. If…
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When the past isn’t past
Alan Jacobs: If you step back from the endless flow of social media and the internet more generally, and sit down with a book from the past that appears to have absolutely nothing to do with the affairs of the moment, something curious and rather wonderful can happen. Unexpectedly and randomly — stochastically — you…
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Feet stuck in the muck and eyes trained to the sky
I’d never heard of the poet Timothy Murphy until reading about him in the Prufrock newsletter that mentioned him after his passing. He specialized in poetry about hunting, something I’ve accumulated an amateur’s worth of experience in over the years. Intrigued, I checked out his book of poetry Hunter’s Log: Field Notes, 1988-2011 from the…