Friday Links
September 22, 2023
Martyrdom of St Maurice and the Theban Legion by Jacopo Pontormo
Marly Youmans: “The Third, The Youngest Son in Fairy Tales”
Tom Hodgkinson asks: “Whatever Happened to Elevenses?”
“Of Monsters and Men”: Richard M Reinsch II in Law and Liberty
Lesley Clinton on “Seeking the Open Place with St. Augustine”
Resolute Skin-Shedder: Jaya Savige reviews David Mason’s Pacific Light
Katy Carl at The Merton Center, Columbia University, NYC
Marly Youmans: “The Third, The Youngest Son in Fairy Tales"
Here’s a new poem from Marly Youmans in the North American Anglican. Please take a look at the whole journal. It’s always good!
Tom Hodgkinson asks: “Whatever Happened to Elevenses?”
An excellent question answered with some delightful advice!
“Eleven o’clock feels like a very natural time for a rest. When I lived in the countryside and wrote books full-time, I made sure that on the dot of eleven I got up from my desk, walked into the kitchen and made myself a little “smackerel” of something, to use Winnie the Pooh’s expression.”
“Of Monsters and Men”: Richard M Reinsch II in Law and Liberty
We’re including this link because I love the spy genre and this new series, A Spy Among Friends, based on Ben MacIntyre’s fantastic 2019 book, A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal, looks great. Guy Pearce plays Philby and Damian Lewis plays his good friend Nicholas Elliott.
“. . . the series takes certain liberties with facts, even creating a fictional character, Lily Thomas (Anna Maxwell Martin), who grills Elliott on behalf of MI5 (British domestic security) about the lapses in judgment that permitted Philby to lurk within MI6 for decades without detection. Having read MacIntyre’s book, I found the prerogatives with certain events taken by the series poignant illustrations of the costs and casualties inflicted by Philby’s deception on Elliott, his friends, and the nation of Britain.”
Lesley Clinton on “Seeking the Open Place with St. Augustine”
Here’s Lesley Clinton with a close look at Books 10-11 of Augustin’s The Confessions:
“Saints aren't satisfied with merely sensing the divine. They yearn for ecstatic joy in union with the Beloved. They seek not just thin places but the open place. In Confessions, St. Augustine of Hippo expresses his desire to touch God ‘at the point where that contact is possible and to cleave to [God] at the point where it is possible to cleave.’ Confessions details Augustine’s pilgrimage toward this point of contact, the place where eternity enfolds the earthbound traveler. Friends of God burn to know and embrace God—and we are all called to sainthood.”
Resolute Skin-Shedder: Jaya Savige reviews David Mason’s Pacific Light
“The resolute tone of the skin-shedder – at once valedictory and inaugural – runs through the volume, dramatizing the poet’s renewal. Retirement from teaching means freedom to attend ‘the work all other work was a way of putting off’ (‘The Work’). Elsewhere the self-dramatization grows sentimental, as when the speaker’s replenished ‘soul’ becomes ‘ready to unfold’ again.”
Katy Carl at The Merton Center, Columbia University, NYC
If you are in or near NYC tonight, please come to hear Katy Carl read from her new collection of short stories, Fragile Objects, at Columbia University’s Merton Center at 7pm. We’d love to see you! (Please note the QR code to register.)
