From today's reading ( Read more... )

Nothing to see here, folks.
Unless you happen to know anything about Samuel Putnam - not the Cervantes translator who was Hilary's father, but the former minister (Victorian era, but I don't even know what country) who developed a theory of unbelief. Charles Taylor's Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity cites a reference to James ( Read more... )

I just read over my upcoming article on George MacDonald; it comes across as straight theology, although that's quite far from my intention. Humph.

In the meantime, GMD on my fair city (in a letter to his wife, 2 July, 1855):
...But the Canongate and the Cowgate! oh such houses! oh filth! and misery! and smells! and winding common stairs! and ( Read more... )

1. A search for 'english/literature' in the Chronical of Higher Ed's job database now turns up a (design) position at a Florida Steak House ( Read more... )

I bought jerusalem artichokes at this morning's market. I've never actually eaten them before, and have no clue how they should be prepared: any tips? (Or as my friend said about this morning's market: this is why people are omnivores. There was, admittedly, a pretty wide variety of root vegetables, but oy. I'm running out of Things to Do with ( Read more... )

from The Drowned Book, Sean O'Brien (Picador, 2007)

Sung Dynasty

My lover tells me that when autumn comes
He will fashion me a boat of cherry blossoms;
There's no way I'm getting in that.

Why the LadyShe represents the rose and universal hope ( Read more... )

Just saw I'm Not There, which was, it turns out, co-produced by my next-door neighbour (and something of a friend, but not close) during college. Yep, I feel like a big ol' failure.

In other news, but equally uninteresting, I've figured out why I am one of the few people out there who doesn't believe the New Pornographers have had a down-turn: ( Read more... )

Dear people ( Read more... )

Less than thirteen hours into the new year, and I've already completed three new job applications (bringing the current application total to 69 - my naive belief that my efforts will be rewarded at the point of one hundred applications may have no relation to past evidence, but it's awfully persistent). Amusingly, I found a position today for ( Read more... )

As I think I mentioned here when Bergman died, my primal experience with cinema came courtesy of WGBH, when they screened The Seventh Seal and Metropolitan on my birthday one year in my early teens. (Whether these were on separate nights in the same year or both on my birthday, but in adjacent years, I'm not entirely sure.) Perhaps fortuitously, ( Read more... )