ROCK’N’ROLL CONSERVATISM MAILBAG: Rob Dakin: I would define myself as an unattached believer in the truth of the gospel message, with strong Gnostic tendencies. I think that the material world is a fallen one, possibly “created” by some kind of demiurge, rather than the Ultimate One; that Jesus had little, if any regard, for things material; and that He came to show men how to overcome that death which is attachment to matter. That said, here I go, parachuting directly... Read more

FEMINIST BOOKS MAILBAG: Here’s my post, “Ten-Cent Tour of Women’s Studies.” John W. Brewer: What, you never read Mary Daly? She was by far the most flamboyant/ridiculous/self-parodic feminist Deep Thinker I read when I was in high school. (I see also no Simone de Beauvoir, but she may have been so hopelessly pre-Second-Wave as to be irrelevant by the time you were reading this stuff.) I’ve never tried de Beauvoir, but as for Daly–if you ever figure out what the... Read more

MAILBAG: Rock; Hitch + Vatican; Miguel Estrada; “High Noon”; religion in New York; mysticism and Christianity; working mothers; and Scalia. Soon I will post separate mailbags on feminist books and rock’n’roll conservatism. As always, I am in plain text (though I don’t think I have any replies in this one) and my readers are in bold. Rock: An anonymous reader writes: [T]he blues is not about despair. It’s about melancholy and resignation. The latter is the opposite of despair, in... Read more

TO QUOTE SAM THE EAGLE, “It is at times like this that I am proud to be an American.” Via the Rat. Read more

“I shall keep you, Bortai. I shall keep you unresponding to my passion. Your hatred will kindle into love.” “Before that day dawns, Mongol, the vultures will feast on your heart!” –John Wayne (as Genghis Khan) and Susan Hayward, “The Conqueror” Read more

POETRY WEDNESDAY: Four different translations of the same poem, by Hwang Chin-i. Here. The first three are more freestyle, the last one more literal. Read more

THE HEART OF ROCK’N’ROLL IS STILL BEATIN’: So a reader sent me this essay: “Body and soul: The musical miseducation of the youth,” by Martha Bayles. It’s a critique of Allan Bloom’s takedown of rock music (click here and here for previous, much longer Eve rants on this topic); Bayles chastises Bloom, but also sympathizes with him, and agrees with substantial portions of his criticism. I found the essay to be a mixed bag. Bayles makes lots of excellent points,... Read more

PROGRESS, RETURN, OR RENEWAL?: More on rock’n’roll conservatism. Leo Strauss has a famous essay, “Progress or Return?”, contrasting the metaphor of progress (which tends to imply historical determinism, disdain for the past, and denial of an inherent and ineradicable corruption in human nature) and the metaphor of return. He was playing on the Jewish understanding of return, teshuvah, which has connotations of repentance. A return to the source. But in contemporary political discourse, “return” has been downgraded to nostalgia. Conservatism,... Read more

WHAT I LEARNED LAST NIGHT: Last night I saw “Privates on Parade” at the Studio Theater. It’s a musical about SADUSEA (Song And Dance Unit, South East Asia), a British military-entertainment unit that tromps and/or flounces through Malaysia leaving a trail of heartache, smuggled weaponry, and women’s underthings. Here is what I learned from this play–the good stuff first: 1) Floyd King is still fantastic. He’s like a force of nature. 2) The other actors were uniformly (ha ha) very... Read more

“Abjure this woman and her idolatries. Tear down the obscene abomination she has erected!” –An elder to Yul Brynner, “Solomon and Sheba” Read more