Brain-blizzards: walking the path of William Styron’s DARKNESS VISIBLE

I am SO grateful to Frankie who suggested I read William Styron‘s piercing and affecting ‘memoir of madness’, Darkness Visible. It was back in July that I ordered it, but only this last Saturday when I read it. It is brief – only 80 pages or so – but gripping. I read it one sitting. It felt like a compulsion – but I know that I will return to it, with greater patience and scrutiny. It was only published in 1990, but is now a classic of its kind. Deservedly.

Friday Fun 27: The delights of political Amphibology

Well, the US presidential election is in its final month at last. Will any of us sleep safely in our beds again?

History has been full of people who have hedged their bets and emulated the venerable Vicar of Bray. And in smaller ways, politicians are doing it all the time. Saying things that don’t actually say too many things in case they be accused of actually saying things they don’t want to be heard actually to be saying.

The Lie Factory and the destructive power of political ‘narrative’

The presenting issue behind the article was the hysteria whipped up against Obama’s healthcare proposals in the US – something which those of us with ‘socialised’, crypto-communist medicine in the UK find hard to understand. I do realise that many on the US right are no fools, that the British NHS is far from perfect,  and that there may well be many good grounds for the position(s) they took. But that’s not my point here. My main concern is how politics (left and right) throughout the West now (has to) operates. This was the object of Jill Lepore’s New Yorker investigation a couple of weeks ago, The Lie Factory.

The subversive messages of a dollar bill

I’d been vaguely aware of these from a while back, but had never looked carefully at them. It wasn’t until they were used as running gags in last week’s New Yorker money edition that I sat up and noticed. Dan Tague has created a series of prints in 2008 of dollar bills folded in such a way as to reveal all kinds of subversions of American capitalism and western materialism. There is something rather delicious about making a dollar spell out ‘American Idol’ or an American revolution battle cry, or the best advice of the contemporary conspiracy theorist.

Ingenious

Friday Fun 26: US Election Season cartoons

The last New Yorker of September was the annual cartoon edition – with some genuine chuckle-worthy moments.

Many of them pick up on the rigours and absurdities of US politics, what with the Presidential debates and elections next month, n’ all.

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 49 (October 2012)

Sacred Treasure

• A heart-rending 16thC letter of grief from a pregnant widow to her now buried husband.
• Very interesting interview in Third Way with Tanni Grey-Thompson (Britain’s greatest paralympian)
• Covenant Seminar in St Louis have put some great free courses online in their Worldwide Classroom
  

Struggling to find a New (Sexual) Identity

I read Jenell Williams Paris’ remarkable book, The End of Sexual Identity (published by IVP US), over the summer, and have been cogitating on it ever since. It is a brave book, not least because it wouldn’t surprise me if it invites potshots (and worse) from all sides. It doesn’t take a degree in political science to gather that the cultural climate in the west has shifted significantly in recent years.

Friday Fun 25: Urban Guerrillas Alive & Kicking on the London Underground

Thanks to my indefatigable colleague, Charmaine, who noticed this on The Poke, this week’s Friday Fun is brought to you courtesy of the London Underground. I suspect all Londoners have a love/hate relationship with the Underground e.g. I LOVE the Jubilee line and the DLR, but I HATE the Northern and Circle lines (that sort of thing). But the truth is that we would be sunk without it. It’s great that we can joke about it, though. So this webpage is collecting various attempts to lighten the mood. I just hope I get to see someone in real life soon.

The Humanising Power and Infectious Exuberance of Music

I would imagine that writing a novel that conveys the power of music is as difficult as writing a song about the spectacular beauty of an African sunrise, or painting the throbbing anguish of raw grief. But when one medium succeeds in conveying the reality of another, unexpectedly different experience, one’s admiration for (not to mention understanding of) both is profoundly deepened. So here are a few books which have helped me to marvel afresh at the wonderful, humanising effect of music. They underline the truth that music is one of the greatest gifts of common grace.

In their different ways, they resonate with that wonderful moment in Shawshank Redemption when the prison is stopped in its tracks by the ineffable beauty of Mozart played over the tannoy, not least because of Red’s (Morgan Freeman’s character) delightful description of it.

Bach, Bono and Rookmaaker – Eros and Agape in perfect harmony?

It is not uncommon for Bono deliberately to blur distinctions in his lyrics and, especially, in his performances. A classic example comes in the song, Mysterious Ways – it sounds like a song about a girl. Mainly because it is a song about a girl. However, as I’ve explained elsewhere, there are clear theological allusions to God (not least because of its derivation from William Cowper’s great hymn).

Friday Fun 24: More perils of modern relationships

Reliable as ever, The New Yorker Cartoon production line has produced a few corkers recently.

Couldn’t resist these. Especially the killer paisley. I’m now on high alert for this hitherto unforeseen strain.

Houellebecq’s ATOMISED: a crude & brutal exposure of the ‘suicide of Europe’

I hated this book. I can’t even remember who suggested  it or exactly why (it must have been something to do with the work I’m doing on our culture of suspicion and alienation) – but that’s probably just as well! Michel Houellebecq’s ATOMISED came out in France in 1999, and then in English translation in 2000: and caused uproar, scorn and derision, as well as some literary plaudits and admirers.

The Loser Letters: impish wit and a satirical dissection of atheism

Mary Eberstadt has a wonderful turn of phrase and an impish wit, which are used to devastating effect in her 2010 book The Loser Letters. She boldly takes on the mantle of C S Lewis’ Screwtape, but instead of infiltrating the murky world of Wormwood’s diabolical apprenticeship, she joins the New Atheists in their quest to crush theism. So she writes 10 open letters, in the persona of A.F.Christian (i.e. ‘a former Christian’), to some of the leading lights of the movement like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. With great relish she writes to advise ‘The Brights’ (atheists) on how better to defeat ‘The Dulls’ (Christians), and above all to undermine belief in ‘The Loser’ (God). At times, the result is laugh-out-loud funny.

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 48 (September 2012)

Sacred Treasure

• Bart Ehrman is a  widely respected atheist NT scholar – this is an important site that engages with many of his controversial (though not particularly original) assertions
• The complexities of translation: you never realised John 3:16 could be so complicated – a great little video from Wycliffe
• Phillip “Red Tory” Blond has a very interesting piece on Western Political Bankruptcy and what ‘is coming sooner than you think.’

Et in arcadia essemus: a visit to Wilton

With both children away on camp, Rachel & I ventured out on rather a road trip from Wiltshire along the South Downs and up. Marvellous.

At the start of the week, we had a chance to visit the original Arcadia of Sir Philip Sidney’s imagination (see right for poet pic) – Wilton House near Salisbury, home of the Earls of Pembroke.

Friday Fun 23: Hobbes knows the answer to the Meaning of Life

It speaks for itself…

The Apples’ Adventure: Another Stop-motion Triumph

This post is not motivated simply by beaming paternal pride – I also got to have a cameo role in Joshua’s latest triumph… albeit as banana. And I got to be musical director. I have to say that I doubt my acting career will ever get much better than this. (And don’t forget, I ‘starred’ in an oscar-winning movie).

The view from Olympian gods

What an extraordinary night. I’ve never been to an athletics event before in my life (not since defying the odds and coming second in the U13 100m at my prep school – nb there were only 3 other runners and only about 4 others in the qualifying age group in the whole school). But this was one not to miss – a night at the Olympics. Our seats were very high up ‘in the gods’ – but what a perspective, what a joy, what a privilege to witness.

Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

A Renaissance Paradise: The costs and glories of a Wiltshire Arcadia

I have a mild obsession with human attempts to create heaven on earth. Of course, their idealism is infectious: who doesn’t want heaven on earth? But such visions always come with a cost – in whatever society, in whatever generation. But if modernist visions of utopia have been about projecting the dream of the future through rejection of the past, others have been more concerned with recreating the long-gone, supposedly golden past. The English Arcadian vision is one such: it gripped several generations before the English Civil War and is the subject of Adam Nicolson’s fascinating book Arcadia: The Dream of Perfection in Renaissance England.

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 47 (August 2012)

Sacred Treasure

• Nick Spencer writes the new Cambridge Paper on The Bible and Politics
• Catherine Weston has an interesting blog here reflecting on her experiences working across cultures.
• Threads is a pretty cool initiative by some media folk at EA – definitely worth following