Archive

This week, an incomplete but heartfelt list of newsletters that I enjoy. Not the subscription-based journalistic Substack ones, but the quirky and disheveled members of the . In addition to that just-linked reflection by Robin Sloan — whose own newsletter is — you might want to take a look at . The two Robins of the Republic.

I’m going to do something a little different: I’m going to quote something that I wrote on :

Eric Ravilious,

Friends, please pardon me for sending you an additional email only 24 hours after my previous one, but I couldn’t wait a week to announce this.

200 metal and ceramic artifacts from the Middle Ages in the village of Poniaty Wielkie, east-central Poland. Some of them show faces. One artifact that seems to have been a belt buckle, or clasp of some kind, is being called the “Home Alone face,” for obvious reasons:

Naomi Alderman at the names as ! — alongside, as her fiction choice, Susanna Clarke’s wondrous .

This is the 100th edition of Snakes & Ladders! Thanks so much to everyone who has come along for the ride, whether starting recently or from the beginning. I look forward to many more years of providing for you my brand of edification and entertainment. 😉

, the fabulous journal of technology and society of which I am a Contributing Editor, has a newly and beautifully redesigned website. Please do take a look around. Note that this is not merely a cosmetic but also a structural redesign. I would especially call your attention to a meant to renew our society’s engagement with, and use of, science and technology. And above all, I would encourage you to .

This Friday afternoon I’ll be talking with my friend Yuval Levin of AEI about my new book. You can check out the livestream here.

This Friday, October 2, . If you’re interested in watching the conversation you may register .

Over the past couple of weeks my wife Teri and I watched — the 1979 miniseries, not the 2011 movie — and its 1982 sequel, . Both are available on YouTube and, as far as I can tell, not streamed elsewhere, though depending on what region you’re in you might be able to buy DVDs.

Many thanks to the hundreds of you who asked for a copy of my forthcoming book — I wish we could have given one to each of you. In the end ten, rather than five, were sent out, and a peek at my first chapter sent to the rest. I am moved that so many of you have an interest in this strange little book that’s about to make its way in a stranger bigger world.

Soon, soon you will be able to acquire the new book of mine that I call your attention to at the bottom of this newsletter. Here’s a commendation from the :

I’m very pleased to announce that I’m about to start work on a critical edition of Auden’s book . (About my immediately forthcoming book, see the image at the bottom of this post.)

Behold, a king will reign in righteousness,
and princes will rule in justice.

Last week I found myself … well, obsessed might be slightly too strong a word — but let’s say by of English gardening celebrity Monty Don and his dogs walking out in the morning to feed the chickens. Monty’s gentle voice-over just adds to the Zen of the thing. I’ve watched it about ten times. A small glimpse into what certainly looks life a well-ordered life, and one ready to stand up to the complications of our times.

As promised, Snakes and Ladders is now sponsored by , and I’m really happy about that. If you’d like to know what is all about, you might want to read , written last fall, by our editor Anne Snyder.

For some time now, I have been proud to be a Contributing Editor at Comment, a fine journal edited by Anne Snyder and published by Cardus, an independent Canadian think tank that “emerged from a desire to translate the richness of the Christian faith tradition into the public square for the common good.” It’s a wonderful organization, and is a wonderful journal.

I wrote last time about the cool things that angels do in Arcabas’s paintings, but here’s another: .

Today I am remembering Jean-Marie Pirot (1926-2018), universally known as Arcabas.

My favorite song by War is “Slippin’ into Darkness” (1971), and one of the things I like best about it is the spare horn chart. Spare but oh so funky. As the song moves along you hear a little more from the horns, and they repeat this little ascending four-note riff that always gets stuck in my head. Maybe it got stuck in Bob Marley’s head, too, because it’s the same four notes that he uses to sing which came out two years later. And at the very end of “Slippin’ into Darkness” the horns play what would become the “stand up for your rights” part of the song. That’s a straight lift.

Charles Mahoney, “The Garden” (1950); see this lovely essay by Jenny Uglow about paintings of gardens; it’s based on .

Let’s start our week off right, and by right, I mean by listening to four transcendent musicians playing with virtuosity and utter joy:

There should be a video embedded right about this, but if not, click here for the joy.

Here’s a video explaining the making of the Library of Nonhuman Books. And you may purchase some of those nonhuman books . As for me, I think I’ll save these for the day when I run out of human books.

Damien Davis, , CNC routed birch, plexiglass and stainless steel hardware, 30 x 30 inches

(2020), by Kees Moerbeek

Here’s a fascinating interview with the guitarist Robert Fripp that, among other things, explains Fripp’s curious approach to guitar tuning. As many of my readers will know, standard tuning for a guitar is, from lowest to highest, EADGBE (or, as some of us like to call it, “EminAdd4 tuning.”) Fripp’s goes CGDAEG, which to anyone used to playing in the standard tuning — or for that matter any of the popular variations on it, like Drop-D (favored by Jimmy Page, among others) and DADGAD — is utterly senseless. But the senselessness, Fripp says, is not a bug but rather the chief feature of the his little invention:

“When I was a kid, I made all these vows: When I’m a grown-up, I’m not going to learn to drive, which I haven’t done. I also vowed I wouldn’t have a mortgage, which I have done. I also vowed I wouldn’t have double glazing, which I have done … so I’ve basically compromised my childhood ideals on many, many levels. But I’m still making pictures and writing stories, so.” — Stanley Donwood