“The commonplace axiom that the ‘devil is in the details’ is generally wrong. The more often correct axiom holds that the ‘terror is in the trends’.”
Colin S. Gray Canadians in a Dangerous World
“The simple truth would still cause a considerable sensation. It is the one shock for which the world is still waiting.”
G.K. Chesterton in New Witness January 6, 1923, quoted in “Chesterton for Today” in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #3 (Jan.-Feb. 2022)
“With his absolute faith in his own baseball eye, and his coaches’ ability to polish skills, [Earl] Weaver manages as though victory were an inevitability.”
Thomas Boswell How Life Imitates The World Series
Dolly “Parton writes songs, which is one artistic expression of storytelling — poetry adorned by the mathematics of music.... Preachers tell stories, too; stories about truths that change history. We preach the Word, and ‘in the beginning the Word and the Word was God.’ God is the first storyteller, and the angels the first song-tellers. A story endures to the extent that it conveys an enduring truth. That’s why so many songs are about love — desired, despairing, requited, unrequited, honoured, betrayed. Love is what most endures. The Jews taught the world about stories that make present now what God wrote in history, which is why their greatest collection of stories opens with ‘In the beginning.’ ‘Once upon a time’ is the usual way to do it, but doesn’t fit when time has not yet been created.”
Fr. Raymond J. de Souza in National Post December 24, 2022
“Count me out. I’d rather die. Why, those vampires would suck me dry. They’d scrape the tan right off my face.”
Pheidippides resisting his father Strepsiades’ advice to study at Sokrates’ Thinkery so he can learn to cheat Strepsiades’ creditors, in Aristophanes The Clouds (translation by William Arrowsmith)
In my latest Loonie Politics column I ask for discretion and charity while insisting that the character of those who would rule over us is a matter of key public importance.
“The Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival is a secondary school competition... More than 120,000 students have taken part in the event since it was established 30 years ago. For the past decade it has been awarded about NZ$30,000 annually from Creative New Zealand. But this year, the organization has withdrawn its contribution. A board member from the country’s arts body said: ‘I question whether a singular focus on an Elizabethan playwright is most relevant for a decolonizing Aotearoa (the Maori name for New Zealand) in the 2020s and beyond.’ Another member said the funding was withdrawn because the festival represented a ‘canon of imperialism.’... Nicola Hyland, a senior lecturer in theatre at Wellington’s Victoria University, said... ‘It would be a massive, awesome act of decolonization if we discovered our own stories first and discovered Shakespeare afterwards,’... But the head of Shakespeare Globe Centre New Zealand... Dawn Sanders... said: ‘Just like the MeToo movement, Measure for Measure explored misogyny, Taming of the Shrew explores the way women are controlled and Othello looked at cheating and manipulation.’ The festival allowed students to interpret the plays in many ways, she added, with pupils free to introduce elements from their own cultures, from Maori and Pacific Islander to Asian. ‘Not many scenes are done in doublet and hose anymore,’ she said.”
Daily Telegraph story in National Post October 15, 2022 [think they’ll do one about the “Musket Wars” and the Moriori genocide?]
“I never had the same determination about baseball, and maybe that was my undoing. No matter how badly I wanted to get a base hit, I knew the other guy was trying to stop me. And I might be overmatched. In front of an audience, no one can stop me but myself.”
Bob Uecker and Mickey Herskowitz Catcher in the Wry