There are two models of rapture — one super-worldly, one this-worldly, one in which we are abducted, from here to eternity, and one in which we are inducted, to infinity and beyond. The first model is depressing if it’s the only opportunity we have to experience eternity. Even the . . . . Continue Reading »
Jackson died this day, one hundred and forty-six years ago. He was thirty-nine years old, a kid for crying out loud, and to have accomplished all that he did! We can only wonder at what he would have done at Gettysburg. Surely he would have insisted that Stuart stay close to the army, that . . . . Continue Reading »
I’m not a musician in any real sense of the word, only an enthusiast. In good choirs I’ve sung in, my contributions have been limited to reasonably non-incompetent alto-line filler, for pieces like Mendelssohn’s Richte mich Gott. That’s one kind of good choir: the choir which . . . . Continue Reading »
Roger Scruton’s written a book on beauty, in case you hadn’t heard. Here’s a nice little review, which frames the beauty question evocatively enough in terms of beauty’s relation, or antagonism, to kitsch. And so I ask: if beauty is the promise of happiness, is the problem . . . . Continue Reading »
In the Emmy-winning 1997 version of Rebecca , there’s a scene in which the new, young Mrs. de Winter is harassed by one of the film’s less savory characters for claiming to enjoy being alone at the vast Manderlay estate while her husband is away on business. From our present-day . . . . Continue Reading »
A While We’re At It in this month’s edition of The Public Square, the popular column at the end of First Things:Intelligent and entertaining are two adjectives that go together far too rarely, but they belong in company when speaking of our contributing writer Alan Jacobs. He has in this . . . . Continue Reading »
The way you hold your head, cursin’ God with every move Ooh, I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it What are you tryin’ to prove Bob Dylan, Dead Man, Dead Man , 1981. Over at Front Porch Republic , Augustinian scholar James Matthew Wilson provides an important exegesis on . . . . Continue Reading »
Over at No Left Turns, our own Peter Lawler briefly discusses R. L. Bruckberger’s Images of America , which was originally published (the English edition) in 1958 and has been re-released with a wonderful introduction by Dan Mahoney. It was something of a sensation when it first hit the . . . . Continue Reading »
Coincidentally, our launch date here was the 150th anniversary of Tocqueville’s death. He passed on April 16, 1859, in Cannes. 150 years and 3 days later, J.G. Ballard, author of creepazoid milennial dystopia Super-Cannes (2000) , died. The first line from Super-Cannes reads as follows: The . . . . Continue Reading »
Here is an excerpt from an article on Chantal Delsol I have forthcoming in Perspectives on Political Science : In the place of true judgment or prudence, the defenders of international justice satisfy their hunger for rational certitude and analytical specificity with mere . . . . Continue Reading »