Excerpt

"Flannery O’Connor is the only great Christian writer this nation has produced.  That is an astonishing fact. Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, Emily Dickinson, Frost, Stevens: not one of them Christian, at least not orthodoxly Christian. She is a Southerner and a Catholic, she’s not at the center of American culture, and yet she is our only great Christian writer."

Professor Ralph Wood, Baylor University, Interview.

A Good Man Is Hard To Find

If you love Flannery O'Connor's short stories, as I do, you are in for a treat. Click here and then click on the hyperlink "Reading at Vanderbilt, 1959" to listen to a rare audio of Ms. O'Connor reading her most famous story, "A Good Man Is Hard To Find," at Vanderbilt University in 1959. "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" is an astonishingly story always but never more so than while hearing it read by the author herself - the humor, the absurdity, and the terror are fully apparent, and it is deeply moving. I'm not sure how long this recording has been floating around the web but no matter, it is a tremendous addition to American letters.  Hat tip to Terry Teachout, who heard about it from Maud Newton. Go listen.

Interlude - Jerry Lieber, RIP

I just found out that Jerry Lieber died earlier this week. Rock and roll would have been much different without him and his partner, Mike Stoller. They wrote so many great songs. They brought joy to millions, not least myself. You can read more about Lieber here, here, and here. Or listen below. RIP

[youtube]MbcY0qtJ1iY[/youtube]

 

Excerpt

"Of course, the key factor here is that nobody, including the Libyans, knows what’s going to happen there. There are multiple factors: regional (eastern versus western Libya); ethnic (Berbers and Arabs); ideological; factional; personal; and recent defectors from Gaddafi’s regime versus rebels. The stakes in loot and oil money are high.

There has been no change in Libya’s social make-up. The rebels have looted, burned, and killed civilians, with a special animus toward black Africans, a group identified with Gaddafi’s regime by the rebels.

Thus, the prospects for violence and internal disorder are tremendous."

Barry Rubin, from his Rubin Reports column this morning.

Interlude

If you live in the Washington D.C. area, this is your song of the day:

[audio:IFeelTheEarthMove.mp3]

No Apology Necessary

I just finished watching Bret Baier's Special Report program on Fox, which I do nightly. I watch little else on Fox but I rarely miss Special Report. I was worried when Brit Hume left as anchor a few years back, assuming the show would go downhill without him. Instead, I believe Bret Baier has made the show better. A genuinely nice guy, his calm, confident demeanor is perfect for a news anchor, and the show's supporting reporters are excellent from top to bottom. It is a terrific news program, very informative, and I particularly like to hear what the panel at the end show has to say about the day's events. I've been reading Charles Krauthammer since he first started publishing his column in the Washington Post back in the 1980's, and I believe he can now be considered, due to his presence each night on Special Report, the most influential of all the conservative columnists (a position George Will was in for years.) Steve Hayes, who I once saw while walking downtown and stopped to introduce myself, is as interesting a commentator as Krauthammer. Juan Williams sat in the panel's middle chair tonight, the liberal chair.

Tonight's panel discussion focused on the events in Libya. With Qaddafi about to fall, there is some finger-pointing going on at those of us who thought the Libyan action was a mistake. This is an attitude I just don't understand. Juan Williams observed that Michelle Bachmann has yet to apologize for her position against U.S. involvement in Libya. Ms. Bachmann's position, as I understand it, was that we should withhold action because Libya under Qaddafi posed no threat to the national security interests of the United States. Now that it appears Qaddafi is about to fall, Williams and others on the left (and some on the right) think that this somehow proves us wrong. How so? As I said, Libya under Qaddafi posed no threat. That was never the reason for the "kinetic-military action," as the administration so cynically put it. The stated reason for the war was to stop Qaddafi from killing his own people. That Qaddafi is now gone, or nearly gone, does not change the fact that he was not a threat, nor does it make our involvement in Libya more justified. Of course we could take Qaddafi out, if we really wanted to. Did anyone ever doubt it? The question is, is it now our policy to take out the leadership of every country which is brutal towards its own people? We are going to busy indeed. If anything, Libya is now more of a threat to U.S. interests than if we had left things alone, simply because we have no idea as to the nature of those who will end up in power. Being such a tribal nation, at this point we don't even know who will end up in power, or how long if ever it will take for some stability to come to the region. I fear the brutality the Libyan people are about to face will make Qaddafi's seem mild and it is very possible we could end up seeing a regime dominated by Islamists with sympathies towards Al Qaeda or Iran. Who would need to apologize then?

While Williams was pointing his finger tonight I could not help think of this quote by Edmund Burke in Reflections on the Revolution in France, one all conservatives may want to pause and reflect on:

When I see the spirit of liberty in action, I see a strong principle at work; and this, for a while, is all I can possibly know of it. The wild gas, the fixed air, is plainly broke loose: but we ought to suspend our judgment until the first effervescence is a little subsided, till the liquor is cleared, and until we see something deeper than the agitation of a troubled and frothy surface. I must be tolerably sure, before I venture publicly to congratulate men upon a blessing, that they have really received one. Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings. I should therefore suspend my congratulations on the new liberty of France, until I was informed how it had been combined with government, with public force, with the discipline and obedience of armies, with the collection of an effective and well-distributed revenue, with morality and religion, with solidity and property, with peace and order, with civil and social manners. All these (in their way) are good things, too; and without them, liberty is not a benefit whilst it lasts, and is not likely to continue long. The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations, which may be soon turned into complaints.

Eventually we will know how things turn out in Libya. But, whether good or bad, the principle that many of us stood on six months ago - that the United States military should only be used when our national security is threatened - will stand either way. Those of us who were against the Libyan adventure have nothing to apologize for.

Excerpt

"The American people are excruciatingly well educated about the relevant fact: the checks hitting their bank accounts, monthly or fortnightly. They will not be educated out of them. A generation ago, they might have been shamed out of it, but shame is now impotent. They will not willingly give up those checks, and there will always be a Barack Obama out there to profit by pretending that pillaging half of the country to bribe the other is a kind of moral crusade, rather than a lightly disguised form of armed robbery."

Kevin Williamson, from his column at National Review Online, The Burden

Good Rockin' Tonight

This mix of mine got a good reception over on 8tracks this weekend. Take a listen:

Excerpt

"But he has four children, ages 8 to 17, he will not abandon for presidential politics. When he visited a workaholic aide during her difficult labor before her daughter was born, he said, 'Put away your BlackBerry, you are in the middle of a miracle.' As subtle as a linebacker, as direct as an uppercut, Christie, explaining why he will not run, demonstrates why many wish he would. When supporters argue, 'You can’t say you’re not ready — look at Obama,' he replies: 'Yeah, look at him.'"

- George Will from his column this morning, Chris Christie, America's Ceasar

Brush Up My Shakespeare

Productive morning. I created a couple of new tumblr.com blogs though neither is quite ready for public viewing. One will be my own personal tumblr area and the other will be a self-contained blog about our trip to France in early July. It occurs to me that tumblr is a good place to chronicle a trip via a smart phone, allowing you to upload pictures and observations as you go. The France blog will use the same theme as Martin Scorsese's tumblr blog, which can be found here. As you can see you can make the blog mostly pictures with observations in between. I'll be working on this blog so we can have a permanent place to remember our visit - which was wonderful, by the way. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed myself so much. For nine days, I was walking on air.

This afternoon I'm going to read Marjorie Garber's essay on Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" in preparation for seeing the play this coming Friday night at the Shakespeare Theatre's free-for-all. Normally they do one of the comedies during the summer free-for-all but this year they decided on a history, which is fine. We saw this production a few years back when the Shakespeare Theater performed it during the season (we are season ticket holders) and both my wife and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

I always like to brush up my Shakespeare before going to see one of the plays. My two main sources are Mark Van Doren's Shakespeare and Ms. Garber's Shakespeare After All. Van Doren famously taught Shakespeare for years at Columbia and his book is taken from  the lectures he gave in class. With a deeply insightful chapter on each of the plays, it is deservedly revered as a guide to Shakespeare. As good as the book is, and it is very good, I prefer Ms. Garber's, who teaches Shakespeare at Harvard and is considered one of the most respected Shakespeare scholars in the country. Her book also contains a chapter for each of the plays - on average about 30 pages per - where she takes the reader through the origins and sources of the play, its changing meaning throughout history, its place in the culture, its famous productions and perfomances. She has an uncanny ability to get to the bottom of what makes Shakespeare work for each generation and why each remains important and interesting for audiences and readers. If you plan on seeing one of Shakespeare's play, reading Ms. Garber's essay is the perfect preparation. And this week I've discovered and added bonus: her lecture series on Shakespeare's later plays is available to view for free at Harvard's Extension School site.  "Caesar" is not among those she discusses in the series but I will keep the site bookmarked for future shows.

Almost time for lunch, the Sunday crossword, and a relaxing afternoon with a book and some music. For you own enjoyment, you can brush up your own Shakespeare by watching the video below. We saw this production of "Kiss Me Kate" twice back in 2001 and I still consider it the best Broadway show I've ever seen. Enjoy.

[youtube]aSmZfnax1yw[/youtube]

Excerpt

"Now the drummers did not rush out to grab Chaney or shoot him but instead scattered like poultry while Chaney took my father's purse from his warm body and ripped open the trouser band and took the gold pieces too. I cannot say how he knew about them. When he finished his thieving he raced to the end of the street and struck the night watchman at the stock barn a fierce blow to the mouth with his rifle stock, knocking him silly. He put a bridle on Papa's horse Judy and rode out bareback. Darkness swallowed him up. He might have taken the time to saddle the horse or hitched up three spans of mules to a Concord stagecoach and smoked a pipe as it seems no one in that city was after him. He had mistaken the drummers for men. 'The wicked flee when none pursueth.'"

Charles Portis, from True Grit

New Sidebars, and True Grit

You will also notice a few new sidebars on the right-hand panel: my Netflix DVDs at home, the next five DVDs in my queue, the next ten movies in my Netflix Instant Queue, and the last twenty songs I've listened to via last.fm. I don't know that any of this is of interest to anyone, even myself, but I added the plugins anyhow. One of these days I'll also update my 2011 books page too. For some reason I'm having trouble linking from that page to the best book I've read all year, True Grit, by Charles Portis. It is, no exaggeration, an American classic, and I recommend it to all. I've seen and enjoyed both versions of the movie but neither comes close to the book. Read the first two sentences and you are hooked. If you've seen the movie you see how the sentences set up the entire story:

People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father's blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.

That, my friends, is masterful writing. In two sentences Portis establishes character, place, time, and situation. And it keeps getting better. Every page contains laughs, deep insights and marvelous writing and storytelling. True Grit is true Americana, and it doesn't get much better. I love, love, love it.

And In The Morning...

...I'll be here.

I've been a long time gone. No sure why except to say the muse left me. Has she returned? Not sure. Sometimes you just have to start typing and see if she lands on your shoulder.

Where to start? Well, below will see a post with a music mix I made at 8tracks.com, a site I just learned about last week. Check it out as it seems like a place for great fun and some great music. You can find all my mixes here. Go listen and hit the 'like' button. You'll also notice a link back to this blog, to my twitter feed, and to my last.fm account.  I haven't tweeted much though I am on twitter every day following the conservative political commentators I enjoy the most. The last.fm account is brand new as of last night. This site keeps track of any music you listen to on your laptop (and I expect from your smart phone, though I haven't checked that out yet.) I'm not the average 8Tracks user, a 53 year old man who loves jazz, classical, the great american songbook, etc. Most of the users are kids and the music they listen to is, in my book, music for kids. That's a nicer way of saying I think most of it is unlistenable. But with many hundreds of thousands of users and mixes, I'm sure to run across some good music, hopefully some good music made recently. Someone must be making some good music these days, right?

Also, what about spotify.com?  This is a terrific site for music lovers. It's big in Europe and just had its U.S. rollout last month. It's a place where you can find, for free, virtually any music you want. I've been using spotify for about a month and have discovered and rediscovered a lot of terrific music. In fact, I just tweeted one of my play lists, called "Radio Days," of great old 1970's Top 40 hits. You need to download the Spotify player to listen.  The free version of Spotify forces you to listen to adds every 6 or 7 songs but they are short and not too much of a pain. If you pay ten bucks a month you can get the full version, which gives you the music without adds and, more importantly, the smart phone app. I haven't pulled the trigger on the full version yet but it's pretty much inevitable at this point. I've got many thousands of songs on my iPod and on the Amazon cloud (so I can listen to my own music through my phone) but often I can't find anything I really want to listen to.

I've also created an account at tumblr.com, though I haven't explored the possibilities of that site yet. It appears to be a blog where you can easily load pictures, videos, text, etc. If that is all it is than I probably won't use it much but perhaps I'll link to my own blog through it. We'll see.

At any rate, I'm all set up to continue my blog. All I need now is someone to read it. I've been gone so long I don't even get spam comments anymore.

This post's title means nothing. Just an excuse to play this terrific Tom Waits tune:

[audio:I'llBeGone.mp3]

8Tracks

Okay, I'm going to dip my toe back in the water. Have you heard of 8Tracks.com? It's a site that allows you to create and share your own music mixes. Further, it allows you to embed the mix in your blog. Here is one I put up the other day as a tribute to the great Harold Arlen. More to come....