Links while on vacation

August 01, 2022

Off in some part of the world that is not home, I post these links just to give proof of life.

 

Good interview with Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, a young philosopher whose work is interesting on several different fronts.

 

This is nice: last of the four part series about American literature, these books cover the postwar writers. I suspect that Miciks, the author, is writing about figures who are important to him; for we are no longer in the postwar era. But this is still good.

 

This is a relatively detailed analysis of how we might learn more about what the justice department is doing in relation to its investigation of January 6 and everything related to it.

 

Prophetic prestidigitations of the writer J.G. Ballard: very interesting.

 

Good introductory recommendation of Ralph Vaughan Williams, England’s most popular twentieth-century composer, and a composer of genius.

“Dig deep enough, as Vaughan Williams did, and you find the roots of music entangled, shared even with other cultures, on a bedrock of pentatonics, ancient modes, hymns, chorales and folk dance. Perhaps for that reason Vaughan Williams had so much respect for Sibelius, the great Finnish composer to whom he dedicated that marvellous fifth symphony “without permission”. Their music sounds and feels totally different but they were both mining the same deep cultural seam.” 

 

Finally, this is a good piece by Jane Coaston. She’s right: our world is filled with apocalyptic predictions of doom. And these are anchored more in bad religion than in either good religion or anything else.

 

 

That's all for today people--be well!