Abraham Lincoln, attr.

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And Did Dostoevsky Say ‘Beauty Will Save’

Short answer: he did not. Neither did Prince Myshkin, that we know of. Likely both believed it. Beauty — in the person of Christ — will do so. And clearly D wrote of M in The Idiot to explore art and beauty and ugliness and salvation. But did he say it, and did he believe that

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What I Recalled Watching Netflix

[Television is educational.]   One Saying the same stuff over and over looks like you have different things to say. Two If you’re ever in a below-average film or streaming series, and you beat the tar out of a guy, in a house, and you gaze down in both some shock as also a certain

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Seeking the King

A line everywhere misattributed to Chesterton reads thus: The young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God. This line is not from the great [several senses of the word] man who recently celebrated his 150th birthday, but the mid-century most unmodern novelist Bruce Marshall. The words — which do

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He’s the Guy

Those social media posts of ‘this moment in this famous film was totally unscripted!!!’ as if that by itself makes it better miss the point. Moat unscripted material, like most ideas, inventions, ideas, notions, &c … fails — such is the nature of creativity: the best stuff, it is devoutly to be wished, sticks around;

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Random

Pumpkin Eater

Alex Rodriguez cheated. Took the easy way. Lied. And if he really does have faith, as he said after the Red Sox game Sunday, he knows he’s right out of Pinocchio. His lawyer, however, appears to have no idea what a gigantic donkey he himself is. To recap — Ryan Dempster missed Rodriguez with his

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Everyone’s From Somewhere

On this the last day of August, is my only post for August. It’s been busy. I don’t much like that word — busy, not August — but it’s good shorthand, and right about nowshorthand is most welcome. In August we got new flooring in the kitchen and bathroom had the entire interior of the

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Not For Teacher

There’s an unfortunate instructor-y thing where the guy on stage [I’ve found it’s usually a male doing this] asks a question he already knows the answer to, one of the people in the audience … err, classroom … is the target, the answer given is wrong, and the stagehand just goes and gives the answer

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Sign Posts

The physician must be able to tell the antecedents, know the present, and foretell the future — must mediate these things, and have two special objects in view with regard to disease, namely, to do good or to do no harm. The art consists in three things — the disease, the patient, and the physician. The physician

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