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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
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
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
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;
Random
Tolkien’s Errantry
‘Errantry’ JRR Tolkien Commercially found in Adventures of Tom Bombadil Image: detail, Pauline Baynes’ illustration, for above [Where did JKR hear the buzz of Dumbledore … ]
Battalions Book
This is the second book in the duology, with IRS Agents and Crack Whores. Where the first goes after the Church for its sins, this one asks those outside of faith into the discussion.
Metered Sins
Poetry’s a sneaky bastard. All the time sidling up to one on false pretenses — ‘It’s just the one’ … ‘We won’t intrude’ — and they’re all lies damn one’s eyes! Lies-damned-lies and no need for statistics and the pile of warm laundry does not diminish and soon loses its warmth and begins to glower
Columbo: Why We Watch
This is part one of a two-part post on why, some 45 years later, we still watch Columbo. Part two is here. This essay is excerpted from The Columbo Case Files: Season One, found here. Thank you. * For my wedding, I asked for and received the Columbo DVD collection. Complete to that point, it ended