Thomas J. Balcerski, on the lasting, and almost universally scorned, friendship of Franklin Pierce and Nathaniel Hawthorne:
Theirs is an example of how the tumultuous politics of the 1850s and 1860s transformed the meaning of a friendship from the purely personal to the highly political.… The terrible events of the Civil War had permanently divided long-time friends and literary associates and, in turn, had changed how each [person] understood friendship itself.… Their friendship suggests how political actors in this period, especially, came to define themselves in opposition to those who stood against them…
He had a camera-shy friend with him 5 seconds ago
Kay Ryan:
Current mood — and inability to understand how the world works — has Michael Budde ringing in my ears. I’m surrounded by housing markets that I do not understand or control; city and state planning projects that I do not understand or control; job markets that I do not understand or control; health care systems that I do not understand or control; performance evaluations that I do not understand or control; compliance items and training modules that I do not understand or control — all of which presuppose the inability to do anything about any of it.
Is cog-in-machine syndrome a diagnosable condition? 😵💫
Simon notes the enormous popularity of Faustian fables in the nineteenth century, characterized by something new: “the possibility of people being victorious against the cloven-hoofed one, of being more talented in the skills of wit and duplicity.” …
Today… We’re all Faustians now. These days, Simon argues, in an excoriating, eloquent final chapter, we write our contracts not in blood but in silicon—both figuratively, insofar as we sign away our identities and privacies for all the short-term benefits of material ease, and literally, whenever we scroll rapidly through one of those unreadable online contracts, eager only to assent. Somewhere out there in the ether, the ghost in the machine hears our weak little mouse clicks and pricks up his horns.
Currently Reading: Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching by Ursula K. Le Guin 📚; and also: Walter Brueggemann’s Prophetic Imagination by Conrad L. Kanagy 📚
They’ve been standing next to each other on the queue shelf for months, and I’m curious what they’ve been talking about 🤓
The sacrificial Joker
Image from Steve Robinson
Also this:
This hand learned to print, color inside the lines, bathe a dead man, draw outside the lines, build houses, churches, high-rise offices and coffins, write cursive, wipe a tear, change the diapers of a child and a parent, pour a beer (both into a glass and down the drain), dig a grave, knead a loaf of bread dough, type a Master’s thesis, a blog post and a book manuscript, put a Band-aid on a boo-boo, cook for dozens and for one, turn a page, pull a trigger, bait a hook, clean a toilet, pet a mean dog, sew a button, point in the wrong direction, flip off an idiot, shake hands, beat an adversary, dress a bishop, caress a beloved, anoint the dead, wave goodbye, build a bobber motorcycle and twist its throttle, make a bar-chord and play the blues, torque a bolt, snap a picture, cleanse a chalice, handle a snake, slap my forehead, hang on too long and let go too soon….
“Whatsoever thine hand shall find to do, do with all thy might…” Ecclesiastes 9:10, and I have done so.
And there’s much more from Robinson’s “Free Pithless Thought.” That was a lovely gift in the inbox this morning. I’m going to feel like a glutton reading anything else today.
