Van Dyke understood the desert. He took the time to really see it. Most of what he experienced is gone now. There are precious few dry places you can Van Dyke understood the desert. He took the time to really see it. Most of what he experienced is gone now. There are precious few dry places you can visit now only on horseback where your reach is limited by the water you can carry. John C. Van Dyke can still take you there....more
Justin Brierly, host of Premier Christian Radio's "Unbelievable?" in the UK, has just written a book titled "Unbelievable?: Why after ten years of talJustin Brierly, host of Premier Christian Radio's "Unbelievable?" in the UK, has just written a book titled "Unbelievable?: Why after ten years of talking with atheists, I'm still a Christian." It's quite good, though it contains little we haven't heard on the radio program (or the podcast). So of course me and some of the other non-believers who hang out at the "Unbelievable?" forum are having a crack at a "Justin Response Book" in a manner inverse to the Christian response to Bart Ehrmann's "How Jesus Became God: Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher From Galilee." First, I had to read the book. Now comes the writing......more
I feel their pain but I cannot commit to joining them where they are. This very special and challenging book was a gift from my dear friend David, whoI feel their pain but I cannot commit to joining them where they are. This very special and challenging book was a gift from my dear friend David, whose life much more closely adheres to the philosophy championed in this earnest volume. "Days of War, Nights of Love: Crimethink For Beginners" by CrimethInc is like reading about a different species; an uncannily familiar species we might admire despite its awkward alien-ness. Its angry anarchic, rejectionist, contrarian prose exhorts us to an garbage-grubbing interstitial life at the margins subsisting on the leftovers and leavings of modern, capitalist, industrial society. Were we all able to return to the egalitarian, communitarian, small group societies the authors aspire to we would find ourselves in a hunter-gatherer "economy" with no technology more sophisticated than "stone tools and bear skins." Call me bourgeois, but I kinda like the internet, iron, penicillin, and beverages extracted from coffee beans grown on other continents. Still, we should endeavor to understand and learn from the authors' pain, ennui, and weirdly compelling aspirations. They're not wrong exactly, they're just 10,000 years too late to put up or shut up. Damn you, agriculture, Bronze Age, and civilization!...more
When's the last time you were actually scared by a ghost story?
If you're ready to risk that dread enjoyment again it is my privilege to encourage you When's the last time you were actually scared by a ghost story?
If you're ready to risk that dread enjoyment again it is my privilege to encourage you to sample the work of Soren Narnia.
I first encountered The Complete Knifepoint Horror when I entered a Goodreads Giveaway drawing for a copy. The cover art alone is the stuff of nightmares. I didn't win, but every time I saw the image on the cover - something horrible recoiling from something even more horrible* - I was drawn back to it. I did a little digging and learned that it's available in all the usual places in all the formats one expects these days. If you visit his website the author will even give you a copy, just so there is no rational reason not to come to where he is.
Still, the best - or worst - way to encounter Soren Narnia's stories is to have them read to you https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/k... Me, I listen to Knifepoint Horror at night, in the dark, with my bedsheets pulled up to my chin, just the way I enjoyed such stories as a child. My fitful sleep, and my night terrors, have not been the same since.
Soren Narnia has written many other stories, but first I must survive my exposure to this anthology.
There is no turning back. These stories will leave little indelible burn marks on your soul like the afterimage that floats on your retina after you look at the sun a little too long. Your decision.
*I think the cover art is a detail cropped from a Hieronymus Bosch painting, but I don't the have stomach to find out for sure http://www.hieronymus-bosch.org/...more
Success at all costs is nothing around which to organize a life. When first I read Welch's autobiography I found very little about him admirable (whilSuccess at all costs is nothing around which to organize a life. When first I read Welch's autobiography I found very little about him admirable (while acknowledging his contribution to GE's stock price). Everything I've learned about him and his personal failings since have only reinforced my preliminary impression....more
We had the pleasure to meet Kao Kalia Yang at the 2010 Building Bridges Conference at Gustavus Adolphus College while our daughter was an undergrad thWe had the pleasure to meet Kao Kalia Yang at the 2010 Building Bridges Conference at Gustavus Adolphus College while our daughter was an undergrad there. As we listened to her read from her memoir The Latehomecomer I knew I would enjoy it. Her story is at once foreign and familiar; who among us spent their childhood in a refugee camp, who has not loved their grandmother? With a gentle, insistent voice that is as much poetry as prose she tells a story similar to those I've heard from my Hmong friends and colleagues. If you'd like to become better acquainted with our Hmong neighbors here in the Upper Midwest, or want to see the New American experience through the eyes of a six year old, or simply wish to read an elegantly written, heartfelt memoir, The Latehomecomer is for you. ...more
A quick and thoughtful read, this is a great little book on writing. One of three texts for "The Process of Writing the Position Paper" Based on a perA quick and thoughtful read, this is a great little book on writing. One of three texts for "The Process of Writing the Position Paper" Based on a peruse of the others this one is the most fun of the three....more