Friday Links
February 24, 2023
T. S. Eliot reading, “Ash-Wednesday” & Three Mo’ Tenors perform “Where You There?”
There’s nothing like Eliot reading his own work. “Ash-Wednesday,” his first major poem after his conversion to Christianity, maps the poet’s religious journey as he ceases to strive for the things of this world and turns toward God. It’s a good poem to meditate on for the first week of Lent.
Take a listen to this gorgeous version of the African American spiritual, “Where You There?” from Three Mo’ Tenors.
“The Feast Isn’t Over” by Patrick Nathan
In his Substack newsletter, Entertainment, Weakly, Patrick Nathan laments the “gentrification” (performing life rather than living it) of so much in modern American culture. He begins by discussing two films—The Menu & Pig—and how, despite their differences, “these films skewer the contemporary notion that food is for Instagram or TikTok rather than for eating, a notion that wouldn’t be possible without the gentrification of pretty much every aspect of culture.” When he was younger, he subsisted on sugary sweets, McNuggets, Famous Dave’s, the not-so-guilty pleasures of the adolescent palate. He doesn’t eat that way anymore, but he finds that “food is one of the few things remaining that offers endless, inexhaustible, and meditative pleasure—a pleasure worth gratitude.” A lot comes with getting older, better eating habits, grief, “a part of which is remembering, reminiscing,” and grace, the “clarifying” kind of grace that helps us to age gracefully. Nathan appreciates, and is looking, for what’s real, for “work that prays.”
“Education as Pilgrimage,” Alex Sosler in Front Porch Republic
In his book, Learning to Love, Alex Sosler applies the “paradigm of pilgrimage” to the college experience, “to re-image what education is—from a dry, stuffy, and dull task to a joyful, life-giving, wonderful journey.” Sosler writes that when he was “growing up, imagination seemed like a silly thing…Stories and narratives were for kids.” He’s since discovered “that stories are not escapes from otherwise “real” life; rather, stories direct our life like a compass.” They guide us on this pilgrimage. If our stories are wrong, then, of course, we become lost. A truly Christ-centered education can help us to formulate stories that guide us to our proper end, “to find a pilgrimage worth taking toward an end worth reaching.”
“The Double Slavery of the Internet…and Liberation”, David Deavel in The Imaginative Conservative
Most of us spend too much time online. As David Deavel writes: “Almost every part of our social and business life these days requires the internet.” You can try to avoid the “external shackles” of the internet, but good luck with that. These shackles, as Deavel notes, “we will always have with us.” It’s the internal ones that we really need to worry about—the hours spent scrambling around virtual rabbit holes. The answer, he suggests, “is prayer, fasting, and the hard work of making sure that the online world is only a tool...” It’s Lent, of course, a good time for prayer and fasting, for the hard work of freedom from the slavery of sin. Once you’re done reading these links, then you can log off.
Alfred Nicol: The William Corbett Poetry Series
Alfred Nicol will be reading from his translation of Julien Vocance’s One Hundred Visions of War on Tuesday, February 28 at 7pm at MIT. So if you are in the Boston area, you should go! Here’s a Write Now interview with Gayle Honey and Alfred about his translation. If you haven’t read One Hundred Visions of War, it is truly extraordinary.
From the archives: A Fire in the Hills by Sally Thomas, winner, 2020 J.F. Powers Prize for Short Fiction
Just a reminder that the Dappled Things’ archives are filled with great works of art, not a gentrified piece to be found. Please take a look at Sally Thomas’ award winning short story, “A Fire in the Hills.”
