Admitted fantasy is precisely the kind of literature which never deceives at all. Children are not deceived by fairy-tales; they are often and gravely deceived by school-stories. Adults are not deceived by science-fiction; they can be deceived by the stories in the women’s magazines. None of us are deceived by the Odyssey, the Kalevala, Beowulf, or Malory. The real danger lurks in sober-faced novels where all appears to be very probable but all is in fact contrived to put across some social or ethical or religious or anti-religious ‘comment on life.
C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism
Author Archives: cleithart
I am alive and have two legs. This state of affairs will hopefully continue for quite some time.
Spotifired
I should have seen this coming. The most inconvenient thing about the Spotify app (the inability to play albums or playlists straight through without paying for Premium) has now becomes the most inconvenient thing about the desktop version. It’s not a design flaw, of course. It’s just one of the sticks they use to prod you into forking over your money.
As someone who likes to listen to albums all the way through, I find this extremely frustrating. It’s not that it’s unfair—what’s unfair is how much music I have gotten to listen to over the years without paying for it. Still, I imagine that, from now on, I’ll simply listen to albums on Youtube, where more and more artists are putting their music.
Ah, Holy Jesus
In his talk at Psalm Tap last week, Aaron Tripp walked us through Robert Bridges’s translation of “Haerzliebster Jesu, was hast du verbrochen,” better known as “Ah, Holy Jesus, How Hast Thou Offended?” Watch his talk here.
Of course, excited as I was, I couldn’t stop myself from pointing out that the last line of each stanza, set side by side, form a summary of the Gospel.
Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended,
that we to judge thee have in hate pretended?
By foes derided, by thine own rejected,
O most afflicted!Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee!
‘Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee;
I crucified thee.Lo, the Good Shepherd for the sheep is offered;
the slave hath sinned, and the Son hath suffered.
For our atonement, while we nothing heeded,
God interceded.For me, kind Jesus, was thy incarnation,
thy mortal sorrow, and thy life’s oblation;
thy death of anguish and thy bitter passion,
for my salvation.Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay thee,
Lyrics from here
I do adore thee, and will ever pray thee,
think on thy pity and thy love unswerving,
not my deserving.
O, most afflicted! I crucified thee. God interceded for my salvation — not my deserving.
Book Recommendations for a Friend
Peet
Bill Peet was a children’s author and illustrator who was also heavily involved in Disney’s early animated features. I found a copy of his autobiography at a library book sale yesterday and heartily commend it to you. His life story isn’t all that interesting, but I loved his anecdotes (some unpleasant) about working at Disney in its infancy. And the illustrations are delightful.
We Are What We Eat
I’m happier with this than I am with anything I’ve written in a while.
An Everlasting Meal
If cheese is milk’s leap toward immortality, aioli is garlic and egg’s collective shot at the firmament.
Tamar Adler
Artvee
On Ritual
The idea of an elaborate ritual is an oxymoron because a ritual is by definition a simplified encapsulation of a larger full experience of life.
Jim Jordan
What To Memorize
There is nothing that it is better to commit to memory than those kinds of words and phrases whose meaning we do not know, so that where we happen to meet either with a more learned man of whom we can inquire, or with a passage that shows, either by the preceding or succeeding context, or by both, the force and significance of the phrase we are ignorant of, we can easily by the help of our memory turn our attention to the matter and learn all about it.
St. Augustine, On Christian Teaching
Christian Leithart 