We label the feelings of our childhood with the names we learn as adults and brightly, confidently, refer to that old “anguish” or “despair” or “elation.” The confidence of liars. For those words meant nothing to us then; what we lacked as children was precisely the power to designate and dismiss, and when we describe the emotions of one age with the language of another, we are merely applying stickers to locked trunks, calling “fragile” or “perishable” contents that, even... Read more

I come home in the morning light,My blogwatch says, “When you gonna live your life right?” Jane Galt: “The disappearance of monkey bars, on the other hand, is a clear national tragedy. Ours were helpfully made out of steel and soared over our parents heads, so that when you fell onto the concrete below you knew you’d really climbed something. The current models in that playground are less than two feet off the ground, made of plastic, and look like... Read more

YOU’VE PROBABLY SEEN THIS Washington Post article (actually a book excerpt) on “selective reduction”–aborting one or more fetuses in a multiple pregnancy–but just in case, here it is. I’m not sure what to quote. There’s this Greenbaum, who is Jewish, takes seriously her religion’s admonition not to take a life. What sustains her, she said, is the knowledge that the reductions she has been involved with were done for sound medical reasons. She would never, she said, work at an... Read more

TWO LINKS: Fascinating story of a reporter who had a magnet embedded in her finger, so she could feel magnetic fields: “I miss my magnet, but I knew it wasn’t well understood when I started. I’m glad I know what a spinning drive and a ringing telephone wire feel like. I’m sad I can’t feel them anymore.” Via Hit & Run. And a review of Carla Speed McNeil’s romance-of-books comic, Finder: Talisman: “Every serious reader knows what it means to... Read more

FILES SHOW POSTWAR WOES OF NAZI VICTIMS. Via The Rat. Read more

“YOU ARE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF THEM ALL.” If anyone ever says that to you in an opera, run. I saw Leos Janacek’s Jenufa last night at the Kennedy Center, with Patricia Racette as the title character. It was breathtaking. I’m deeply opera-illiterate (I’m not sure I can tell good singing from bad singing, let alone good singing from great singing), but I found it incredibly moving. And I do think I can tell great acting: Racette’s face and body... Read more

THE SIRENS WOKE ME UP AGAIN: Via Decanonon, which looks like a lot of fun (and not just b/c she said such kind things about me!), I see that the Weakerthans are playing in New York on June 22!!!!!!! (She says the 23rd, but the concert website says the 22nd.) I am there. Not “I will be there”–this does not convey an adequate amount of certainty. I am there. If the Messiah tarries, I am there. (If the Messiah doesn’t,... Read more

QUEENS AND CREATURES: Movie reviews. In chronological order. Operation Petticoat: Aww, this thing convinced me that my guy is actually Tony Curtis rather than Cary Grant. They’re both fun, but Curtis is just… he lights up the screen every moment he’s there. Whereas Grant is kind of Cary-Granting at you a lot, which is lovely, but not as arresting as Curtis. Having now torched all my credibility, I’ll say that I liked this a lot. Both the sexism and the... Read more

THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE: Someone better than I could write something really poignant connecting the death of Jerry Falwell and the decline of Tammy Faye Bakker. All I know about either of them, I learned from J.D.s (thanks, Canada!)… and then from the Gospels. Darkness must go down the river of night’s dreaming;Flow morphia slow, let the sun and light come streamingInto my life… Read more

If you wanna feel blogwatch for yourself,Then go ahead; I’m not gonna stop you. Claw of the Conciliator: A haiku in which the trees are more active than the dead. Daniel Mitsui: As Chesterton said, white is a color. Also, awesomesauce. Blogroll Mitsui now, while there’s still time! Jane Galt: I’m hinkity about linking to this, because it’s her response to someone who decided to take her dog’s death as an excuse to berate her. But I think she says... Read more