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American Rapture

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 »

Miscellaneous Stuff

  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 »

To the Summit

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 »

Glory vs. the Garden Gnome

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 »

Solophobia

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 »

Specialty Bibles

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 »

From Cannes to Super-Cannes

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 »

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