Killer Radio
"See the girl with the diamond ring? She knows how to shake that
thing."
-- Jerry Lee "Killer" Lewis on KHYI 95.3 FM, Plano, Texas, at about
5:12 PM EDT 7/31/03, introduced by DJ Allen Peck Sr.
"…
Twanged!
The Father of Rock and Roll,music legend Sam Phillips,died in a Memphis
hospitalWednesday night.
See also my entry Wednesday morningon rock and roll, country music,the
Stones, and The Last Picture Show…
Toronto Day
Today is said to be the day Toronto was founded, and is the day, they
say, of what will be the largest concert in the history of Canada....
The Rolling Stones atDownsview Park, Toronto. Comparisons to W…
Into the Day
"...no-one sang the night into the day"
-- Carly Simon, "Embrace Me, You Child," quoted in yesterday's entry
Trick of the Light.
I have no song to bring night into day; the best I can do for this
morning,…
Transcendental Meditation
This week's New Yorker:Transcendental ManNew books onRalph Waldo
Emersonfor his bicentennial.by John Updike This week's Time cover:
The bicentennial of Ralph Waldo Emerson was on…
The Big Time
"The place outside the cosmos where I and my pals do our nursing job I
simply call the Place. A lot of my nursing consists of amusing and
humanizing Soldiers fresh back from raids into time. In…
Trick of the Light
For Carly Simon
"... on the dance floor she seemed to be the only one completely alive.
It was a trick of the light that followed one person around. Joe had
seen the quality before; it was rare, bu…
11:11
At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, 1918,
the Great War ended. See
Plato, Pegasus, and the Evening Star.
Concluding Unscientific Postscript:
Maggio
For Maggio.
See als…
With a Smile
Heaven, Hell, and Hollywood:
On parent knees, a naked new-born child, Weeping thou sat'st while all
around thee smiled: So live, that sinking to thy life's last sleep,
Calm thou may'st smile…
City of God
Today's site music is
Nous Voici Dans La Ville. The central aim of Western religion -- "Each
of us has something to offer the Creator...
the bridging of masculine and feminine, …
The TranscendentSignified, Part II -
A sequel to my recent entriesThe Transcendent Signified andCatholic
Tastes
From a July 28 New York Times story on a controversy over the Latin
Mass:
"Granted, most of the people do…
Midnight Cowboy
A Last Hurrah for Harold C. Schonberg, New York Times music critic (not
to be confused with Arnold Schoenberg, composer):
"His criticism of music he disliked could be harsh, and in a
valedictory essay…
Catholic Tastes
In memory of New York Times music critic Harold C. Schonberg, who died
Saturday, July 26, 2003:
Nous Voici Dans La Ville - A Christmas song from 15th century France
(midi by John Philip Dimick).
In mem…
The TranscendentSignified
"God is both the transcendent signifierand transcendent signified."
— Caryn Broitman,Deconstruction and the Bible
"Central to deconstructive theory is the notion that there is no
'transcenden…
Funeral March
John Schlesinger dead at 77;'Midnight Cowboy' director Anthony
BreznicanAssociated PressJul. 26, 2003 12:00 AM
LOS ANGELES - Oscar-winning director John Schlesinger, who daringly
brought gay char…
Realism in Literature:Under the Volcano
Mexican Volcano BlastScares Residents
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:13 p.m. EDT Friday, July 25, 2003
PUEBLA, Mexico (AP) -- Mexico's Popocatepetl volcano shot …
For Jung's 7/26 Birthday:A Logocentric
Meditation
Leftist academics are trying to pull a fast one again. An essay in the
most prominent American mathematical publication tries to disguise a
leftist attack on Christian …
Democracy in America
Jay Leno's man-in-the-street "Duh" interviews are no longer funny. See
America's Ignorant Voters and
Voting Machine Fraud Likely.
Intelligence Test
On July 17, my entry "British Intelligence" linked to a Guardian story
about a bumbling amateur spy organization set up by the Bush
administration. The headline of that entry, together with Tony Blair…
Being Pascal Sauvage
Pascal
"Voilà ce que je sais par une longue expérience de toutes
sortes de
livres et de personnes. Et sur cela je fais le même jugement de
ceux
qui disent que les géomètres ne leur donnent rien de …
Xmas in July
John Doehis mark:
Today is the feast ofSt. Mary Magdalene andthe birthday of Willem
Dafoe.
Journalism 101:
Meet D. B. Norton
In this touching sequel to the 1941 Frank Capra classic "Meet John
Doe," the late, great Edward Arnold is replaced by media magnate Rupert
Murdoch, publisher of Sun News.
…
For Hemingway's Birthday:The Hong
KongCandidate "Blair, on his first
trip to China in five years, expressed his belief that the strengthened
relationship between Britain and China would, beyond any doubt,
continue t…
Janet Reno's Birthday:
It's Not Just the Republicans
Waco, April 19, 1993
Miami, April 22, 2000
Years before the above actions,Janet Reno's legal style was already
formed.
See Janet Reno's Child Abuse.
None of the …
Weapons of Mass Distraction
"Ironically, the Bush strategy seems to mimic the most recent James
Bond flick...."
-- The Straits Times, Singapore, July 19
Whereas the Blair strategy...
Hideous Strength
On a Report from London:
Assuming rather prematurely that the body found in Oxfordshire today is
that of David Kelly, Ministry of Defence germ-warfare expert and
alleged leaker of information to the pr…
British Intelligence:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html
"The British intelligence that we had, we believe is genuine. We stand
by that intelligence."-- Tony Blair
-- Reuters, July 17, 2003, 6:…
A Constant Idea: 759
From Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 1919:
NUMBER:
759
AUTHOR:
William Shakespeare(1564–1616)
QUOTATION:
I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me
sad.
…
A Constant Idea
"From this I reach what I might call a philosophy; at any rate it is a
constant idea of mine; that behind the cotton wool [of daily life] is
hidden a pattern; that we — I mean all human beings — are conn…
Rocket Billie
"Don't threaten me with love, baby. Let's just go walking in the rain."
-- Billie Holiday, who died at 3:20 AM on July 17, 1959.
For more on death, summer, and Lady Day, see the film Rocket Gibraltar.
For Rubén Blades on his birthday:
The Tailor of Washington
From a review of The Tailor of Panama:
"Pendel believes in the imaginary world he has created and pretty soon,
it becomes a reality to him."
Bu…
Bishop and Saint
Today is the birthday of Clement Clarke Moore, author of "A Visit from
St. Nicholas," also known as "The Night Before Christmas."
Here is a biography of Moore:
Clement C. Moore
Here is a related biog…
Funeral or Wedding?
From the New York Times of Bastille Day, 2003:
Isabelle d'Orléans et Bragance, 93, Dies;Was the Countess of
Paris
By WOLFGANG SAXON
Isabelle d'Orléans et Bragance, Countess of Paris, who…
ART WARS, 5:09
The Word in the Desert
For Harrison Ford in the desert.(See previous entry.) Words
strain,Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,Under the tension,
slip, slide, perish,Will not stay still.…
Ground Zero
Today's birthday: Harrison Ford is 61. From The Gag
Seven - Eleven Dice Throw a seven or eleven every time. Set consists of
a pair of regular dice and another set that can'…
Before and After
From Understanding the (Net) Wake:
24
A.
"Its importance in establishing the identities in the writer
complexus....will be best appreciated by never forgetting that both
before and afte…
Wake
From my entry of Epiphany 2003,
Dead Poet in the City of Angels:
Certain themes recur in these entries. To describe such recurrent
themes, in art and in life, those enamoured of metaphors from physics
ma…
Father, Son,and Holy Coast
Here are some religious meditations for the holy day 7-11:
As the website Hollywood Jesus perceptively points out, defending the
story theory of truth, "Images that carry universal truths m…
Las Manos de Gershwin
Today is the feast day of St. George Gershwin.
The hands ofGeorge Gershwin,by Al Hirschfeld For related material, see
Saint Nicholas vs. Mount Doom and
Leadbelly Under the Volcano.…
Links for St. Benedict
Today is the feast of St. Benedict. Here is a link from the left:
The Trial of Depleted Uranium,by Saint Philip Berrigan
Here is a link from the right:
On a Preview of "The Passion,"a film by…
Cut to Condon
From today's New York Times:
California PostponesExit Exam
By GREG WINTER
aced with failure rates that could bar tens of thousands of students
from graduating, the California State Board of Education …
T is for Texas
"Gimme a T for Texas"-- Jimmie Rodgers
"T is for Texas" -- Anne Bustard,University of Texas at Austin
"From 1928 to 1933he was chairman of theMount RushmoreNational Memorial
Committee."-- Handbook of …
A Face in the Crowd
Six Dead in Mississippi Shooting "I’m gonna buy myself a shotgun, one
with a long shiny barrel" -- Jimmie Rodgers, "Father of Country Music,"
"T for Texas" lyrics
Related material:
Jimmie R…
"Peace is Hell"
— Cover headline, TIME magazine,issue dated July 14 (Bastille Day),
2003.
Yeah, and ________ (fill in the blank)is the Father of Lies.
Burying Andrew Heiskell
Matthew Book 8:21 And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord,
suffer me first to go and bury my father.22 But Jesus said unto him,
Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.
Andrew Heisk…
Happy Trails
Today is the birthday of Texans Nanci Griffith and George W. Bush. It
is also the feast day of Saint Roy Rogers and the alleged saint Thomas
More.
Seeking spiritual guidance from the life of Paulist "jazz…
Elementary,My Dear Gropius
"What is space, how can it be understood and given a form?" -- Walter
Gropius
Stoicheia: "Stoicheia," Elements, is the title ofEuclid's treatise on
geometry. Stoichei…
He Walks With Me
"Bonus question of the night (what Chris Culter would call the 'Person
of the Day' award): Can anyone tell me, without looking it up (don't
cheat, seriously, I want to know), what the word 'peripatetic'…
Elements
In memory of Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus and head of the
Harvard Graduate School of Design. Gropius died on this date in 1969.
He said that
"The objective of all creative effort in the visual arts…
Self-Evident
Today many Americans celebrate a declaration of certain "self-evident"
truths. Others feel that these alleged "truths" are misleading. Seeking
a worthy opponent for the authors of the Declaration on this …
Yesterday
On July 2, in various years, authors
Ernest Hemingway, Mario Puzo, and Vladimir Nabokov
died. They may serve as a sort of Trinity for those who admire
excellence in style, character, and art.
Quotati…
Three Days Lateand a Dollar Short
THE BOOK AGAINST GOD By James Wood.257 pp. New York:Farrar, Straus
& Giroux. $24. This is a book that attempts to recreate the myth of
Saint Peter.
See the New York Times…
Jew's on First
This entry is dedicated to those worshippers of Allah who have at one
time or another cried"Itbah al-Yahud!" ... Kill the Jew!(See June 29
entries).
Dead at 78
Comedian Buddy Hackett died on T…