Into The Weeds (and The Woods) [Radio Readings]

My new, weekly radio program, Fights in Good Faith, premiers today. You’ll be able to stream it live here on Real Life Radio at 5pm Eastern, and you can catch it again on Sunday at 1pm. After it airs, the audio will be available on my show’s page. And, in the meantime, here’s the 30 second promo for the show:

Every Saturday, before the show airs, I’ll be posting on the blogs to share links to all the major books, songs, concepts that I mention on the show. So, while you’re listening, if you want the exact text of something I’m quoting or to track down a reference, you’ll be able to use my “Radio Readings” posts to do so. And, if you run across the post before the show, you’ll have a slightly mystifying preview of what I’ll be talking about.

The show is an hour long, and I tape it in four 12-minute segments, so I’ve divided the references up accordingly (and given each segment its own kicky title).

Fighting Will Save the World

From Dame Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia:

In the West conversation is regarded as a means either of passing the time agreeably or exchanging useful information; among Slavs it is thought to be disgraceful, when a number of people are together, that they should not pool their experience and thus travel further toward the redemption of the world. In the West conduct follows an approved pattern which is departed from by people of weak or headstrong will; but among Slavs a man will try out all kinds of conduct simply to see whether they are of the darkness or of the light. The Slavs, in fact, are given to debate and experiment which to the West seem unnecessary and therefore, since they must involve much that is painful, morbid.
More reading on Aumann’s Agreement Theorem: the wikipedia page, Tyrrell McAllister’s write-up of the proof.
From Augustine’s On Christian Teaching:

Love itself, which binds men together in the bond of unity, would have no means of pouring soul into soul, and, as it were, mingling them one with another, if men never learnt anything from their fellow-men.
Link to the On Christian Teaching bookclub (only three grafs/day, you can still catch up!)

Lies and Pocket Universes

Apocatastasis – Orthodox understanding of the final reconciliation of all of creation to God
The reference to Puddleglum and Jadis is from C.S. Lewis’s The Silver Chair
The Supernatural episode referenced is “The French Mistake” and here’s its promo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWuEhINs5Yk
Quotation from Neil Gaiman’s poem “Instructions”

There is a worm at the heart of the tower; that is why it will not stand.
And, I looked it up, the reference is to this story about Merlin and the dragons
Quote attributed to Michelangelo:

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
Poem I may be misremembering and couldn’t track down (~~let’s see if any of you can beat my mother to finding me the source~~ — Mom wins! It’s by Joe De Leon and is from Salting the Ocean, an anthology of poems by children):

Ode to Michelangelo’s Bones

Many years ago

Michelangelo

Released men

From rocks

Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Solipsists

“No One is Alone”
“Children Will Listen”

Editing Into the Woods

“Last Midnight” (revival version)
“No More”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhhvkCyj1_E
Quotation from The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

“Of all the sissy ways to run away and of all the sissy places to run away to…” Jamie mumbled.
He didn’t mumble quite softly enough. Claudia turned on him, “Run away to? How can you run away and to? What kind of language is that?”