Deep Down Things
Nicodemus, Doug Weaver
Pentecost 2012 issue.
Friday Links, October 1, 2021
+ “Return to Beauty” Chicago in-person conference with Sorab Ahmari, Liz Lev, and Cameron O’Hearn.
+ Trevor Merrill reviews Portrait of a Mirror: A Novel.
+ Not too late to eavesdrop on a conversation that Mike Aquilina and Fr. Colum Power had last summer about fallen Catholic writers, Jack Kerouac and James Joyce.
Singing Ave Maria for an Audience of One
They are tired of hearing it. I am tired of hearing it. So, I shut up. And I decide to truly listen, with my God-given ears—as much instruments of music as my mouth and throat. I close my eyes and listen, not just to Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” but to Liszt and Tchaikovsky, Bach and Brahms, Sibelius and Williams. The holy and the profane. Piano concertos, cello, violin, flute. My heart soars, and I thank God I’m witness to such breath and beauty, even if I can’t replicate it.
Seeking (Fictional) Converts at the End of the World
Spark, Waugh, and Greene all limped their way to Catholicism as the visible world failed them in ways relational, intellectual, and spiritual. Although I see enough glimpses of myself in them and in their characters to want to keep reading, I have wandered along on my own long enough to begin to have more questions.
Friday Links, September 24, 2021
+ Catholic Literary Arts Fall Series of workshops and lectures.
+ Katy Carl’s new novel, reviews, comments, & first day sales.
+ Duncan Stroik interviewed about positive trends in sacred architecture.
Europe in These Times: Mundiata, Munich, Me
Saint Mundiata’s full skeleton reclines on its side, skull propped up on a pillow-stand, kneecaps drawn toward the rib cage, jewel-eyes staring, jewel-studded arm bones leading down to the hands that grip, respectively, a chalice and a quill, bejeweled dressing gown hanging loosely over the clavicles down to the ankles. The display’s decadence evidences the devotion that must have led to its creation, just as its unflinching exposure of elemental human structure evidences an unwillingness to turn away from suffering and death, a testament to the commonalities—the high and the low, the elaborately-decorated and the stripped-of-all-flesh—that connect the faithful across centuries.
Let Us Be Lost Always
“Sometimes the desire to be lost again,” Mary Oliver writes, “comes over me like a vapor. With growth into adulthood, responsibilities claimed me, so many heavy coats. I didn’t choose them, I don’t fault them, but it took time to reject them.”
Friday Links, September 17, 2021
+ Now visible: a Cupid formerly overpainted on a well-known Vermeer.
+ Online seminar on Sigrid Undset’s Vows, with Katy Carl, starts Oct. 4.
+ Three ways Dante’s 700th death anniversary was observed this week.
+ Recent publications by Dappled Things editors and a contributor.
+ A retreat for artists and art lovers, with Dana Gioia and Kevin Turley, Sept 29.
Kanye Is Still Fresh
My son told me, “You will like it. It is for his mom, Donda. Listen to the first track.” My initial thought was, “Kanye had a mother?”
Your Uniqueness Is a Light Shining Brightly
The story of Beatrix Potter and Charlie McIntosh reveals how unique personalities who see the world in very different ways can open up a whole universe of beauty.
Friday Links, September 10, 2021
This is America
Michael Horan’s long poem, America, America reflects deeply on the events of 9/11 and its aftermath. Over the next few days, Dappled Things will have the privilege of bringing the poem to you in all three parts.
Writing My Own Magnificat
I said out loud to the ceiling, to the sky, to the heavens, “They wrote it down! THEY WROTE IT DOWN!!!” My faith in God may have been weak, nearly dead, but I still recognized the faith at the heart of all good writing, real writing.
Friday Links, September 3, 2021
+ Interview with and a review by Joshua Hren.
+ Congratulations to Katy Carl on her about to be published debut novel.
+ Invitation to a Dappled Things/Collegium Institute collaborative online seminar on a new Sigrid Undset translation.
+ Some helpful pre-reading for the seminar.
The playfulness of creativity
Friday Links, August 27, 2021
+ Tree of Life—Living vine crucifix
+ “Christian Humanism in Modern Literature” podcast by Lee Oser
+ A Christmas ghost story contest
+The Vocation of cinema and the nature of cinephilia by Thomas Mirus
Europe In These Times - Churches of Nuremberg
All dark stone and stunning high vaults, the church is defined by a narrow-seeming nave, its columns adorned with statuettes.
Kingfisher - A Description of the Creative Process
Friday Links, August 20, 2021
+ A podcast discussing Hopkins’ poem, “God’s Grandeur.”
+ Fatima Shaik, only the third African American and the first Black woman to win the 2021 Louisiana Writer’s Award.
+ What would public literary criticism and scholarship mean?
Nanci Griffith Was the Soundtrack of My Childhood
Hers was a prolific career, but despite that, Nanci Griffith was hardly a household name
Reverence Opens the Door to Beauty
Reverence gives Being the opportunity to unfold itself, to, as it were, speak to us; to fecundate our minds. Therefore reverence is indispensable to any adequate knowledge of being.