Alison Wilder It may surprise some Catholics to learn just how literally the modern Church interprets Satan and his army of demons. While many people today understand the devil as a metaphor for sin, temptation, and unresolvable evil in the world, the pope consistently repudiates such allegorical readings. In sermons, interviews, and occasionally in tweets, Pope Francis … Read more
I spent the day yesterday driving through the early snow to Northfield, Vermont to get a deal on superior socks. Jessamyn from Metafilter told me that the Cabot factory sale is where all of Vermont gets its socks. She doesn’t seem like the type to be fucking with me, so I’ve a trip to the … Read more
Ezra forced himself to go to the temple, but he could not go through with the ritual. Despairing, he rent his garments and his coat, threw himself onto the ground, and cried out in agony. Finally, he uttered a prayer that was also an accusation against the people of the land, as he had come … Read more
We have been misled by the people of the time themselves who, in looking back across the gulf of the War, see that earlier half of their lives misted over by a lovely sunset haze of peace and security. It did not seem so golden when they were in the midst of it. Their memories … Read more
The ankle wallet answered a need. It spoke directly to a personal concern. It made me feel there were people out there in the world of product development and merchandising and gift cataloguing who understood the nature of my little nagging needs. Don Delillo
In the absence of a general mythology, each of us has his private, unrecognized, rudimentary, yet secretly potent pantheon of dream. Joseph Campbell, p. 4 The sorry plight of the wife of the lover whose sentiments instead of maturing remain locked in the romance of the nursery may be judged from the apparent nonsense of … Read more
The extraordinary thing was the way in which everyone took it for granted that this oozing, bulging wealth of the English upper and upper-middle classes would last for ever, and was part of the order of things. After 1918 it was never quite the same again. Snobbishness and expensive habits came back, certainly, but they … Read more
Music and literature, the two temporal arts, contrive their pattern of sounds in time; or, in other words, of sounds and pauses. Communication may be made in broken words, the business of life be carried on with substantives alone; but that is not what we call literature; and the true business of the literary artist … Read more
Just reporting a beautiful sunset at Casa de Wilder this evening. I love it when the leaves fall off. (I also love it when the leaves fall on.) When I took this, I was just coming home from running some errands. I noticed the beautiful sunset on the way home and decided to drive up … Read more