Platypus of Truth

Well, we've been back from a wedding in Penn. long enough for the jet lag to start wearing off at least. We were out there for a wedding where I was the best man. The service was held in a beautiful little church that dates all the way back to the Revolution. The graveyard was well worth the trip as well, and it was nice to get a chance to indulge in two of my less-frequent hobbies: church-seeing and graveyard-seeing. The reception following the wedding was held in a manor house. All in all, it was quite a classy affair. Did I mention they used the marriage rite from the 17th century Irish Book of Common Prayer?

Thus did Bera, Priest of the City, and Birsha, Priest of the Forest, and Bela, Priest of the Plain, all fail to move Utnapishtim from his place at the crossroads, but each led away a part of the people with them until only a few remained to hear the words of Utnapishtim. Then word came to Og, King of Bashan, that Utnapishtim had come down and taken his stand at the crossroads. So he gathered to himself a new army, horsemen, and footmen, and chariots, and took the road that led from the sea. So Og, King of Bashan, and his army, his horsemen, and his footmen, and his chariots, went up to Utnapishtim. Thirty-nine days they traveled, and on the fortieth they came to the crossroads. Now Utnapishtim saw the clouds of dust, and perceived that Og was coming up from the sea. Then the people that remained to hear the words of Utnapishtim were filled with great dread, and they all fled so that Utnapishtim was left alone. So Og, King of Bashan, came to Utnapishtim. And Og boasted before U...

News of how Utnapishtim had received Bera, Priest of the City, and Birsha, Priest of the Forest, spread far and wide and came to the ears of Bela, Priest of the Plains, as he was directing the mowers, and builders, and all the people of the Plain. When Bela heard how Utnapishtim had rejected Bera and Birsha, his wrath was beyond measure, for he said in his heart "will not the fool challenge me too, and take away all that I have worked for, and all that my fathers' fathers have worked for?" So too he girded up his loins and went up to the crossroads. Thirty-nine days he traveled, and on the fortieth he came to Utnapishtim. When Bela came to the crossroads he heard Utnapishtim addressing the people thus: "What shall I say to you, oh men of reed houses?" And the people responded to Utnapishtim: "We do not live in houses of reed but in houses of stone! They are strong and tall, as our forefathers built them!" But Utnapishtim replied: "Would th...

It's funny, but it's true; during the school year I have to shut half my brain off so that I can teach. Bare me out on this one. You can't walk into a room full of eighth graders and say: "Modern America can only be understood in terms of Nietzsche's understanding of the creative man, or "over-man," as the maker of values via his will-to-power perversely democratized so that all of us can become value-generators." Well, you can, but they'll just look at you funny and roll their eyes. That's not to say that teaching teenagers doesn't require any real mental effort, quite the opposite, but that it uses certain mental faculties to the limit while demanding that others be temporarily suspended. You have to figure out how to communicate complex information in a way that they can grasp and run with. When you're mentally sparing with them, you still have to keep one hand behind your back. The goal is to help them develop their abilitie...

Following from what I have stated in the last post about my read of "Dune," I want to address what I think is a sub-theme that flows out of it. Since the focal character of the drama is the planet Arrakis, the humans in the book are there as fauna and loci of planetary change. Thus one of the primary lenses through which Herbert views them is in how they adapt to life on Arrakis. In light of this, it is no surprise that the entire first book of the novel "Dune" deals with the attempts of the Atreides family to adapt to life on Arrakis. Because of the predators on Arrakis, the Harkonnens (indeed, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is fond of referring to himself as a predator), most of them are wiped out. This is to be expected when a new species is introduced to an area; it will either flourish and displace indigenous life forms (ie. the rabbit or the cat when introduced to Australia), or rapidly decline unless some sort of adaptation occurs (ie. colonial European...

This post comes at the urging of a friend and a stroke of inspiration prompted by a web comic last weekend. I wanted to write a series of meditations on Frank Herbert's "Dune" earlier this year, but was prevented by illness from following through. As a further bit of background, my wife and I were reading the book together out-loud at the time. It was my third time through the novel and her first. Since its appearance, "Dune" has been the poster-book for proponents of transhumanism ; the belief that science should be employed to help humanity "transcend" unwanted features of current human existence such as sickness and death. In the sixties, this interpretation was linked with the drug culture so that "Dune" became "all about the spice." The drug angle seems to be losing steam the further we get from the sixties, however, and the new take on the book is heavily influenced by environmentalism, cloning and genetics, the oil ...

This one came highly recommended from a friend. "The High House" follows in the footsteps of George MacDonald's "Phantasties" and "Lilith," and that is the best place to start with this quirky, imaginative, highly literate, work. (Speaking of starts, this also seems to be Stoddard's authorial debut.) Stoddard is absolutely steeped, and I mean STEEPED , in the works of the Inklings (Tolkien, Lewis, and Williams in particular), their influences (Norse Mythology, Chesterton, MacDonald), and their contemporaries (Burroughs, Dunsany, Lovecraft, Eddison). If you aren't borrowing a copy, be prepared to annotate! However, "The High House" does not come off as simply imitative or a pastiche (though as a new author, their are moments when his allusions are too heavy or descend to the level of strait borrowing). At its best, it stands as a genuine, new contribution to the field; both interpreting the works that influenced it and yet prod...

May our little loves grow bigger under the sovereignty of the Love that moves the sun and other stars. No king but King Jesus!

Nothing makes for a morning of enjoyment like finding out that an elderly historian is liquidating part of his library and that you get first pick. The only thing that could make it better is if he wasn't an Americanist... Oh well. I still got to bring home some treasures including: "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," "The Closing of the American Mind," and Winston Churchill's "A History of the English Speaking Peoples." All for free, of course. And just in time too; my summer reading is going faster than I planned.