A detail from Bartholomeus Breenbergh’s The Preaching of Saint John the Baptist (1634)
And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then?
He answereth and saith [...]
Archive for January, 2009
Banner art
Posted in Arts and Aesthetics on January 29, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Updike on Death
Posted in Arts and Aesthetics, Literature on January 29, 2009 | 2 Comments »
The following poem, a remarkably jaunty and sardonic performance and presumably written in the weeks before John Updike’s death, will be included in the posthumous collection Endpoint. Thanks to Reuters for making it available.
Requiem
by John Updike
It came to me the other day:
Were I to die, no one would say,
‘Oh, what a shame! So young, so full
Of promise [...]
Updike as a Personal Writer
Posted in Arts and Aesthetics, Literature, tagged David Foster Wallace, John Updike on January 27, 2009 | 1 Comment »
In his 24 novels and nearly 200 short stories, John Updike, who died earlier today, created countless characters of all stripes and shapes ranging from a randy Toyota salesman to an African dictator to a coven of modern witches to a domestic terrorist. Yet there was one particular character-type who shows up recurringly in Updike’s [...]
John Updike, RIP
Posted in Arts and Aesthetics on January 27, 2009 | 3 Comments »
John Updike, one of the last century’s greatest writers, died earlier today. I’ll have more to say about him shortly in a more formal obituary, but for now I’ll record simply my sense of the largeness of his achievement, something I tried to grapple with in an earlier post:
Signing up
Posted in Foreign affairs, History, U.S. Politics, tagged British army, conscription, recruiting, Roman army on January 25, 2009 | 3 Comments »
With global economic growth having come to a shuddering halt, credit markets on life support, currencies faltering, and unemployment rates forging upwards, the United States Army is finally enjoying some relief. Overworked and stressed out, its recruiters have started to meet their annual goals with appreciably less effort, as unemployed young men, defeated by the [...]
Forbes Makes a List
Posted in Media on January 25, 2009 | 5 Comments »
Liberalism, out of fashion in the United States since the victory of Richard Nixon in 1968, is suddenly in vogue again. To keep up with the times, Forbes magazine has compiled a list of the “The 25 Most Influential Liberals in the U.S. Media”. It’s a very curious document, revealing more about the editors of Forbes [...]
Chomsky and the Juicebox Mafia
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Dana Goldstein, Ezra Klein, Gaza, Juicebox Mafia, Matthew Yglesias, Noam Chomsky, Spencer Ackerman on January 22, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Much internet attention has been given to the “Juicebox Mafia”, a group of very young, Jewish, liberal bloggers who have been sharply critical of Israel, especially in the wake of the recent Gaza incursion. The terms Juicebox Mafia was coined and popularized by ideological opponents of the group (Noah Pollack in Commentary, Marty Peretz in [...]
The President from Hyde Park
Posted in U.S. Politics on January 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Dan Clowes’ The Death Ray, set in Hyde Park.
Thanks to my friends Tim and Barb, I’ve spent a little bit of time in Hyde Park, the South Side Chicago neighbourhood whose most famous resident will be inaugurated as President of the United States today. Over the last year, I’ve been struck by how much a [...]
Obama on Martin Luther King
Posted in History on January 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Today is Martin Luther King day in the United States. Obama has a big speech coming up tomorrow. So it might be appropriate to remember a great speech Obama delivered almost exactly a year ago in honour of Dr. King. Thanks to Mark Kleiman who had the wherewithal to post the text of the speech on his blog. [...]
In the bleak midwinter
Posted in History, tagged Black Peter, Christmas, Holda, Krampus, Perchta, Saint Nicholas, Teutonic Myths on January 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.
– Christina Rossetti, 1872
The Christmas season is over, and with it my temporary but rich television diet of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus is Coming to [...]
