I ended up at a catholic church the other day. I'd had previous experience there, and the senior priest in those days was a no-nonsense sort, but the priest there on this occasion... well, before I show you the relevant readings, the priest opened up telling us that today was about rejection. The church also had succumbed to the terror - requiring masks - and if it hadn't been involving supporting someone through the loss of a family member, that alone would have made me back out. The relevant…
I've been sitting on this one for a while. There's a post at the excellent IM1776 on the continuity of culture [https://im1776.com/2021/06/29/shanzhai-conservatism/]. > The first major Western poet to obsess over Eastern poetry, Pound is a meet introduction to the East. In Japan, there is a contemporary Shinto correlative of the “Ship of Theseus”: The Ise Shrine. Unlike so many empty cathedrals in the West, millions of pilgrims make the journey to worship each year. The Ise temple is 1,300 yea…
Over at arkhaven, it was mentioned how, badly Disney messed up [https://arkhavencomics.com/2021/12/27/after-christmas-disney-fails/] by not promoting Encanto The good: I think it actually is a better film than Frozen - and I mean that no matter how high or low a bar you think that is. It’s certainly more coherent, as there are no scenes with the inherent disconnect of “Let it Go”. It focuses on the importance of family. It pays a lot of attention and respect to cultural motifs, architecture, fl…
Over at IM-1776, there's a post on stepping back from more immediate media [https://im1776.com/2022/01/07/return-to-the-text/] such as video, sound, and even photos, to provide some distance, to make it more difficult to be swayed by false rhetoric and propaganda. > Not only has digital technology accelerated the dissemination of news events, it has allowed higher fidelity in their transmission, achieving a realism that was lacking in the twentieth century. For these reasons, modern news cover…
I know I'm not the first in these circles to bring up this new song, but since I mentioned it in my last post on so-called Christmas music [https://thelastredoubt.com/christmas-music/], here is the latest from Sabaton's upcoming album. Yes, they are doing another album fully dedicated to the Great War / World War One to follow up "Great War.". If this song is any indication, it's going to knock my socks off. While I really liked the last album, and Bismark, and loved the show they put on pre-…