Third Friday Links

Michael West offers some thoughts on Literary Desire and the Limits of Critique over at First Things. Has critical culture made us too suspicious of the textual arts? "Studying why and how we love what we love might tell us something worthwhile about our world, ourselves, and the objects of our desire."

The Restaurant of Order Mistakes hires waiters with dementia in order to keep the restaurant-going experience fresh and exciting. An eatery for the age of the God of Surprises?

Jean Seah writes about a Qing Emperor's Catholic Poetry. Emperor Kangxi was friendly to the Jesuits and even gave them a house in the Forbidden City. "When the work on the Cross was accomplished, blood formed a creek / Grace from the west flowed a thousand yards deep. / He stepped onto the midnight road, to subject Himself to four trials. / Before the rooster crowed twice, betrayed thrice was He."

Paying homage to Renaissance painters, photographer Freddy Fabris's Recreations with Auto Mechanics is truly something to behold. "Still Life with French Fries," anyone?