This seems really important. You’ll be shocked to know that I’ve been thinking about food a lot these last few days. For one thing, I’ve been invited to a cookie exchange that I can’t possibly go to because oh my word, I DON’T NEED COOKIES, but I can’t bring myself to say a definitive no and get off the group thread because people keep getting on explaining what kind of cookies they’re going to make, in compelling detail, and I... Read more
Merry Christmas, obviously. Our gift to you is a long and thorough podcasting attack on everything that everybody holds dear, especially in the Christmas season. We talk about the funeral of HW Bush, how putting up decorations before Christmas is wrong, how Silent Night is kind of annoying, how evangelicals were wrong about the Messiah in the 80s and are still wrong about almost everything, and how Jesus wasn’t born in a stable. We put the holly in jolly. Don’t... Read more
This is a beautiful and tragic piece that made the rounds a week or two ago. It, better than anything I’ve read yet, articulates the anguished cry of the world’s gasping and dying expectations. This is the malady of the west—that along the way the pursuit of happiness was subverted, somehow, to be all about experiencing actual happiness, as the advertisers foretell, and it’s lying cousin, Nostalgia. The two replace the rich breadth of human experience, expectation, and knowledge in... Read more
Ah well, child, if you stay up till midnight and then see me bashing around trying to make the chocolate coins come out even, that’s on you. Another St. Nicholas day in the books. Staying up late like that is going to kill me. This article supports this truth. I should only be “working” three days a week. I’ve read it twice and I’m confused. What exactly counts as “work?” I’ve always wanted to know but am not clever enough... Read more
Is it only Wednesday? But fear not. Twitter was kind to me during the night and so I have quite a lot important news to consider this morning. To begin with there’s the righteously furious outrage over a Harvard professor suggesting that, if you have to eat French fries, it would be better for you to only eat six in one serving. This thoughtful advice provoked a lot of brilliant tweets. The best are always the simplest: I Don’t Need... Read more
This is an excellent article—short and to the point—and an interesting contrast to this one, which is really the embodiment, I think, of modern-think. The two together rather perfectly express the deep cultural cataclysm of this moment. The first is David French talking about what kind of masculinity we should honor, Trump’s or HW Bush’s. The second is a man insisting that Tumblr banning all pornographic content further marginalizes already marginal communities. It ends with this line, “That change means... Read more
Good Morning, as it were. Apparently Binghamton is one of the cloudiest cities in the US, which is abundantly clear this morning. We’ve done up a shortish podcast about Advent, what preaching should be about, and Matt turning into a two kingdoms person. It’s a lot of what you could want for Monday. If I could buy you a coffee I would, but I can’t so you’ll have to make do with a podcast. Here’s the HuffPo piece. And here... Read more
Stumbled on this depressing piece somewhere or other on twitter. It begins this way, If you are the sort of person who needs the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to inform you that Americans are miserable, it’s now official. According to the nation’s top public health agency, the rate at which we are killing ourselves is higher than it has been in half a century. Fifty years of relentless technological advances, social liberalization, optimization, and GDP growth, five decades... Read more
Kelly has a great post up today. I commend it to you, along with this opinion piece from the NYT about how the economy is shifting under our feet, and how we think about work as a way to even feel human. It sent me spinning into another one of those, ‘why do I blog every day or write anything at all’ weeks, where I thought about it a lot and didn’t come to any real conclusion. To amuse myself,... Read more
I had the idiotic idea this week that if I kept the house picked up and cleaned a little bit every day, I wouldn’t have to clean it this weekend when it really matters. I had this flash of insight on Monday and so spent the whole day doing laundry, putting every single thing away where it goes, and cleaning the kitchen over and over. I collapsed into the bed that night irritated with everyone. On Tuesday I did all... Read more
Preventing Grace
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