Always somewhat funny (and humbling) to run across a literary passage that smacks you across the face with how obviously it is that it is the inspiration for another work you read years before. Just had this experience with Purgatorio Canto 28 vis-à-vis CSL's Space Trilogy.

"Pope is studying German" is the new "pizza joints near the Pentagon are busy".

Join millions who have switched to Grok.

Just in case anyone already wants to place a bet on the next pope, we've got a cardinal named "Francis Leo".

I read A Canticle for Leibowitz and Lord of the World within the past year, and it's interesting that both of them present euthanasia as a distinctive feature of the dystopian future.

Looking into my crystal ball, I saw that in the future, people will have not only AI girlfriends and boyfriends, but AI children for which they will demand treatment equal to that of real children.

RT @pissmarck: just a little on the nose there.

RT @up_kinch: My latest story is out from behind the paywall.

This is probably only because I read each author for the first time in quick succession, but Ivan Bunin's "The Scent of Apples"/"Antonovka Apples" really reminded me of Wendell Berry.

The Garden of Gethsemane. Pic from last December.

I attended the Boomer Use of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite this weekend, and learned of "Sing of the Lord's Goodness," a hymn that was obviously modeled on Dave Brubeck's "Take Five".

I heard that Andrew Wyeth had a near-death experience and saw Albrecht Dürer coming to bring him into the afterlife like Dante's Virgil.

Heroes of the Fourth Turning was really impressive.

RT @foliosociety: 🎂 COMPETITION 🎂 To celebrate our 75th anniversary, we’re launching the most exciting competition in Folio’s history. O….

I suspect that biblical scholars get away with textual criticism and speculation that normal historians and scholars wouldn't dare to engage in. Their claim to be able to discern "authentic sayings," their confident reconstructions of what non-extant sources must have said, etc.

Happy weekend. See you by the pool.

I'm a bit more than halfway through los detectives salvajes and settling into my opinion that it is a mediocre novel. A little hard to see it turning around now.

RT @up_kinch: My ghost story is up at The Lamp.

Class of 2013 represent.

Did George W. Bush paint this?.

🎶Gather us in, the Slav and the Tatar.Gather us in, the serf and the lord.Give us a heart so fierce and heroic.Give us the courage to enter the horde🎶.