Not everything is a social construct. Some things are made out of wood.–apparently Nicola Karras, on Twitter? Read more

“NOBODY’S PERFECT”: I realize none of you care, but I have spent the past five days watching every Christopher Bowman-related link on YouTube, so I have got to talk to someone about him. Internet to the rescue! Skip this post if you don’t care about skating. What I find most striking is the fact that while he definitely earned his “Bowman the Showman” nickname, and would often interrupt more introspective programs to play to the judges or the audience, he’s... Read more

BELATED VALENTINE’S DAY LINK #1: Name a giant hissing cockroach after your Valentine! I seriously would flip for this–while urban apartment living has made me loathe your common or garden cockroach, the huge Madagascar hissing variety might be my favorite insect. I got to hold one as a child, at the old Natural History Museum Insect Zoo. The hissing is like their equivalent of purring! Read more

[Abba Nilus] also said, “Whatever you have endured out of love of wisdom will bear fruit for you at the time of prayer.”—Sayings of the Desert Fathers Read more

“SCIENTISTS DISCOVER HOW TO MAKE SQUIDS GO COMPLETELY BERSERK.” A single protein found on the surface of squid egg capsules will instantly transform a placid cephalopod into a eight-armed undersea terror, scientists discover. more To be fair, I was never that placid. Link via JWB. Read more

A soldier asked Abba Mius if God accepted repentance. After the old man had taught him many things he said, “Tell me, my dear, if your cloak is torn, do you throw it away?” He replied, “No, I mend it and use it again.” The old man said to him, “If you are so careful about your cloak, will not God be equally careful about his creature?”—The Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Well I definitely hope so. Read more

GOD LOOKS OUT FOR FOOLS, CHILDREN, AND DRUNKS. EXCEPT WHEN HE DOESN’T. Speaking of Frozen, I’ve been fascinated by the reviews I’ve read online. I mean, it is not a great movie–it is not the Hamlet of being stuck on a ski lift. But in a way that makes it a perfect Rorschach test. Virtually all of the negative reviews I’ve seen point out how stupid these people are, how unnecessary their torment really was. And… for me, that was... Read more

THE IMAGINATION OF MAN’S HEART IS EVIL FROM HIS YOUTH. A few more thoughts on Black Swan and its reviews. First, here’s Kindertrauma, with prose as OTT as the movie itself! Much love, but as with the movie, you have to be in the right frame of mind to appreciate the review. I wonder if our mutual appreciation for this flick and Frozen (otherwise vastly different horror-shows) is because we were willing to watch two desperately flawed movies for what... Read more

AND THE MIDDLE AGES REALLY WEREN’T THAT BAD, WEREN’T THAT BAD! That Cato Unbound symposium on tradition(alism) has finished! You can read the whole thing from the top here. A lot of people really seemed to like this exchange, and it’s definitely not the usual Cato fare (which I generally like!), so you might check it out. Read more

OH, ROMANCE IS NOT A CHILDREN’S GAME: A review of Black Swan, finally. [lightly edited bc I initially posted an unedited version–fixed some typos and rhetorical fumbles, but substantively this is the original post–sorry! A bit more on this movie later tonight.] I saw this movie I think more than a month ago, but had a hard time figuring out how to talk about it. So this is my flailing attempt to describe why it completely worked for me despite... Read more