News from the Front Porch Republic
Greetings from the Porch,
We escaped being washed away in the floods last week in New York City and made it out to the Met Cloisters. They are a remarkable place where architecture, gardens, and art testify to lives lived coram deo.
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In this week's Water Dipper, I recommend essays about food economies, college football, and deceit.
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David Larson commends the benefits of cohousing as a way of "living with family and friends in a neighborhood designed to encourage the building of social capital, relying on them in real and tangible ways (rather than just manufacturing reasons to occasionally interact with them), and overcoming the isolating dynamics of modern life."
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Christian McNamara proposes that our ability to read fiction deeply is eroded by the ever-present possibility of work: "It is not solely (or perhaps even primarily) about there being more hours of work and therefore less time for reading. It is about the possibility of work hovering over every moment of supposed leisure. For me, that is the fundamental distraction, not TikTok. So yes, smartphones are the problem."
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James Clark reviews Steven E. Knepper's new book on the aesthetics of William Desmond: "A good number of Christian scholars draw first and foremost on Thomas Aquinas for their accounts of beauty. Desmond, though he’s aware of and engages with the Thomistic tradition, has spent much of his career interacting with the thought of Hegel."
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Elizabeth Stice praises a TV show that highlights local Texan places: "Daytripper reminds people that you don’t have to go far to see something new. Even small towns have a special local food or watering hole. Every place has history. And it’s fun to swim in a new lake. It’s good to kayak a new river or hike a new hill. Wherever you are, your own state has plenty to see."
I'm re-reading Paul Kingsnorth's novel Alexandria as I prepare for our FPR conference later this month. It's a haunting and wise story, and if you haven't yet read the Buckmaster Trilogy, I'd highly recommend it. Here's a taste from a conversation between two members of the remnant community holding out against the AI that has taken over human civilization:
we have heard from no others for more than one year. we do not know if there are others now in our Order. on this Erth, we do not know who remains. we will never know this. our work is not to know this, it is only to guard flame.
what flame, mother? i say. are we flame, we few here?
oh yes, said mother, as if speakin of any small thing. yes, child, we are flame, small flame, guttrin in draught between worlds. small flames may start great fires.
Thanks for spending some time with us on the Porch,
Jeff Bilbro