Platypus of Truth

There's a marvelous place in North Houston, the Lanier Theological Library .  In the old days, we would have called it a "folly;" a rich man's capricious little building project.  This particular "folly" takes the form of a Oxford style library complete with paneled walls painted ceilings with a replica of a byzantine church a short walk away.  I should also mention the recreated Cotswold village and the peacocks.  Again, all this in the middle of nowhere North Houston.  Weird, I know.  In the true old tradition of nobelesse oblige, the library and church are open to the public.  Beyond that, Mr. Lanier has taken it upon himself to bring world class lecturers (Alistair McGrath, John Michael Talbot, Simon Conway-Morris, Edward Fudge, etc.) in to speak at the library and opening the lectures to the public free of charge.  There's also a free desert buffet in the library following each lecture.  It's an odd thing, and it draws an odd crowd....

This post will focus on Fritz Leiber's "Swords and Deviltry".  If you wish to remain spoiler free, don't read on. Kill all the women so the real story can start. I like buddy stories.  There's a special place in my heart for "A Separate Peace" even though the whole pacifist thing is heavy-handed and unnecessary.  I had great friends growing up, I had great friends in college, and I had great friends in grad school.  One of the finest things in life, to me, is sitting around with the guys and cackling inanely over some good joke.  Strong, masculine friendship is seriously under-rated in today's culture; mostly because everyone worries about being called "gay."  Now, that said.  I don't enjoy male companionship to the exclusion or denigration of women.  If you asked me who my best friend was I would tell you its my wife, and that brings me to the meat of the matter (ok, not quite, but almost). I've been wanting to read Fr...

More art inspired by Charles Williams' Talliesin Through Logres mixes with a lecture on Dark Age Europe. All images compyright James R. Harrington 2011

I'm in the middle of prepping a talk on the "Iliad" for a colloquy in November.  This means that I've gone back to my roots as a student of Ancient History.  While I've done some heavier reading on early Greece in the form of Robin Lane Fox's "Traveling Heroes in the Epic Age of Homer" and Oswyn Murray's "Early Greece," there's also been an opportunity to try more popular works like Caroline Alexander's "The War That Killed Achilles."  Though Alexander's book is not "The Best of the Achaeans" or "Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Death of Hector," it's still been an enjoyable and thought provoking read.  Alexander's great virtue is that she doesn't treat the "Iliad" as a mere mine of data for other interests but rather seeks to engage the text on its own terms in an effort to gain real wisdom. This approach reminds me quite a bit of J.R.R. Tolkien's treatment of ...

Think with me for a moment... Last weekend I was privileged to watch MirrorMask , Niel Gaiman's first foray into the film industry.  While the story has elements that seem to presage later films like Coroline , Dave McKean's odd visual style give it a unique feel.  It's that unique feel, a sort of post-modern-industrial-goth-chic, that has stayed with me a week after viewing the film.  As a work done in collaboration with Jim Henson Studios, that's not surprising.  Other Henson productions such as The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth strike me as notable more for their production value than for their story lines.  Don't get me wrong.  They're not bad stories, just traditional and unremarkable.  They just get the job done so that the visuals are freed up to run away with the show. All this makes me wonder how important story is to film.  Take Terrence Malik, for instance.  There isn't a lot of plot to The New World , but the visuals are so i...