This is the first in what will be a series of posts regarding my recent experience acting as Don John (the Bastard) in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. I am by no means a professional actor, and all comments about the nature of acting are here qualified as theoretical, and subject to correction by those [...]
Archive for April, 2004
April 26, 2004
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The Gates of Eden (by Bod Dylan)
By Don in Reviews (Music)I was listening to this song today on my new Bob Dylan album. Take a moment with the lyrics. I think they’re fascinating. Of war and peace the truth just twists Its curfew gull just glides Upon four-legged forest clouds The cowboy angel rides With his candle lit into the sun Though its glow is [...]
April 25, 2004
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Quentin Tarantino
By Don in Reviews (Films)I just went on a Quentin Tarantino kick, catching up on his most recent films: Jackie Brown (1997), Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003), and Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004). Before I saw these three films I was convinced that I hated QT. His overstylized strut, and clever, snappy dialog always seemed so vapid and meaningless. [...]
April 24, 2004
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Subordinate Complexity
By Keith E. Buhler in PhilosophyEveryone creates. So everyone must (or should) care how to create well. From writing, to making images by photography or painting or drawing, to speaking, to planning one’s day, we are all MAKING. How do we create well? It seems that complexity is less beautiful than simplicity. Messiness is ugly, orderliness is beautiful, and unstructured [...]
April 23, 2004
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Man on Fire
By Don in Outside Articles of InterestI was listening to the radio as I drove up to work yesterday when I heard a brilliant radio advertisement for Denzel Washington’s new movie, Man On Fire. It was your typical over-enthusiastic over-statement of an ad, complete with over-excited critic reviews and drum-laden explosive music. Critics in the ad hailed the movie saying “This [...]
April 22, 2004
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Jim Caviezel up for MTV award.
By Don in NewsJim Caviezel is up for an MTV movie award for “Best Male Performance” for his role as Jesus in The Passion. Take a moment and appreciate how incredibly rare that is–a hyper-violent movie about a suffering savior makes over $350 million in the box office and is embraced (at least in part) by the heartbeat [...]
April 22, 2004
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Re: 4:20
By Don in AmericaKeith, are you equating the use of hallucinatory drugs with the mystical experience that occurs with hard meditation? I’ve never experienced either high, so I don’t know what to say. When I was doing my research on Rock n’ Roll and the occult I came across a book by Alduous Huxley called The Doors of [...]
April 22, 2004
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Philosophical Writing as an Artform
By Anodos in Epistemology, PhilosophyI recommend Ralph McInerny’s very short Rhyme and Reason: St. Thomas and Modes of Discourse. It’s the Marquette University Aquinas Lecture for 1981. I’m thinking about it today in relation to literary criticism (a field in which I am less than a novice). But a sub-point of McInerny’s, and one that I’d like to raise [...]
April 22, 2004
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Response to Selby
By Anodos in EducationA few thoughts: Remember that a large percent of college students are at public institutions. (Does anyone know whether a majority are?) Although these schoos still have tuition, costs are highly subsidized by the government. Furthermore, for many students, college is an arena of more sophisticated partying and pranking than high school. Since public secondary [...]
April 22, 2004
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RE: 4:20
By Keith E. Buhler in AmericaFirst off, Don, commendations on a brilliantly timed post. Second off, it seems to me pot is so popular and so well-sung because of the joyous rapture experienced by its puffers. Now, regardless of the medical dangers of pot and the societal drain of its loyal users, there is one argument against it (and against [...]
April 20, 2004
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4:20
By Don in AmericaIn honor (or recognition) of April 20th as the day our continent has set aside to protest national marijuana laws I did a little research on the medical and social consequences of puffing the magic dragon. I’ve never smoked pot and I’ve only known a few who have, but it doesn’t seem like the herb [...]
April 20, 2004
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Required Education: It Lasts Too Long
By Andrew Selby in Educationn 1575 Michel de Montaigne said, “The boy we would breed has a great deal less time to spare; he owes but the first fifteen or sixteen years of his life to education; the remainder is due to action”. We ought to return to this thought and apply it to our current public education system. [...]
April 20, 2004
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Tom’s Post:
By Matthew Lee Anderson in PoliticsThe analogy seems right. However, the attempt to produce evidence that the Bush administration or intelligence in general had sufficient information to prevent the attacks has clearly fallen short. Hence Bush’s multiple refusals to apologize for the incident in his press conference. The liberal media’s (and I think there is a liberal media agenda) attempt [...]