Conventional media and the net are all atwitter the last few days at this App for the iPhone. Continue reading “Much ado about nihil”
Category: Culture
Memo to myself
You didn’t figure it out for 48 years
and then it took a few more years to figure out
that figuring it out wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
So have patience, old man
with all the young whippersnappers of the world.
Either they aren’t idiots
or you were an idiot, too.
The Summons of the Star
Father Jonathan Tobias at the Second Terrace blog appears to appreciate Auden’s For the Time Being, too. Here, he quotes and comments on passages that I savored, but that I don’t think I passed along or commented on earlier this Nativity season: Continue reading “The Summons of the Star”
Simeon
From W. H. Auden’s For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio, musings of the Righteous Simeon, who held the Christ child at the temple and then prayed the Nunc Dimitis: “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word; for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a light to enlighten the gentiles, and the glory of Thy people, Israel. Continue reading “Simeon”
Inflict Thy promises …
From W. H. Auden’s For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio, excerpts from further into the poem than prior days’ excerpts:
The Star and the Wise Men
From W. H. Auden’s For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio, excerpts from a section on The Nativity Star and the Three Wise Men: Continue reading “The Star and the Wise Men”
Annunciation
From W. H. Auden’s For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio, excerpts from a section on the Annunciation. This is not a hack writing sentimental doggerel; the poetry deeply probes this foundational mystery of the Faith, and the indispensable role a young Jewish maiden, with terror and rejoicing, played in our redemption.
We who must die demand a miracle …
We who must die demand a miracle.
How could the Eternal do a temporal act,
The Infinite become a finite fact?
Nothing can save us that is possible.
We who must die demand a miracle.
W.H. Auden, For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio.
Separated at Birth?
Is it just me, or does über-creepy Julian Assange of Wikileaks look a heckuva lot like John Hurt playing creepy Caligula in the BBC/PBS series I, Claudius? Judge for yourself: Continue reading “Separated at Birth?”
Legislation by Litigation
If coverage of the California Proposition 8 litigation hasn’t left you a little crazed, you’re either (a) a space alien or (b) not paying attention. Or maybe (c) the “bloodless lobotomy” of law school truly has left me unlike other humans (i.e., I’m the space alien). Continue reading “Legislation by Litigation”
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 