Snakes & Ladders

Archive

Harmonies and Dissonances

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church60 Updating the furnishings of a 1960s church


#151
January 31, 2022
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Sir Shi and the Wanderer

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peacocks A peacock mosaic at the recently excavated Church of the Holy Apostles in southern Hatay province, Turkey.


#150
January 24, 2022
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More Fakes, Plus Hittites

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rilling Claudia Rilling


#149
January 17, 2022
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Easy Edges and Harder Ones

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church


#148
January 10, 2022
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The Wordsmith on the Throne

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Gatsby

Brazilian cover designs, from the invaluable Steven Heller.

#147
January 3, 2022
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These Hallalujous Courts

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Merry Christmas to all!

FC

#146
December 25, 2021
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From the Horse Library to the Centipawn

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adventGDR

An East German Advent Calendar from 1980

#145
December 20, 2021
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Fake! (also, Advent!)

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Surely you all have enough of me, but … micro.blog, where I keep my digital scrapbook – photos and quotes and links, rather than full blog posts – has introduced a new feature that allows you to get a weekly digest of posts. You may subscribe to it here.


#144
December 13, 2021
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Adventing

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We have entered Advent -- that first and most curious season of the Christian church’s year, which simultaneously awaits Christ’s Second Coming and looks back at centuries of patient or impatient waiting for the Incarnation. Essential reading: Auden’s long poem For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio, a poem written in time of global war, which begins with an Advent section, including this meditation:

If, on account of the political situation,
There are quite a number of homes without roofs, and men
Lying about in the countryside neither drunk nor asleep,
If all sailings have been cancelled till further notice,
If it’s unwise now to say much in letters, and if,
Under the subnormal temperatures prevailing,
The two sexes are at present the weak and the strong,
That is not at all unusual for this time of year.
If that were all we should know how to manage. Flood, fire,
The desiccation of grasslands, restraint of princes,
Piracy on the high seas, physical pain and fiscal grief,
These after all are our familiar tribulations,
And we have been through them all before, many, many times.
As events which belong to the natural world where
The occupation of space is the real and final fact
And time turns round itself in an obedient circle,
They occur again and again but only to pass
Again and again into their formal opposites,
From sword to ploughshare, coffin to cradle, war to work,
So that, taking the bad with the good, the pattern composed
By the ten thousand odd things that can possibly happen
Is permanent in a general average way.

But then, something New comes into the world.

#143
December 6, 2021
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Texas, London, Wisconsin

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laity

Recently, I was able to spend a few days at my great place of refuge, and also the co-sponsor of this newsletter, Laity Lodge. What a blessing. A few more photos are here.


#142
November 29, 2021
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The Library

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library

World’s most beautiful libraries

#141
November 22, 2021
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Prophets and Churches and a Table of Welcome

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ruins

“When London is in Ruins”: Gustave Doré’s The New Zealander

#140
November 15, 2021
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Julian Laughs Heartily

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Nautilus

“Nautilus,” by Louise V. Durham

#139
November 8, 2021
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Imagery and Contemplation

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monument

That’s a time-lapse photo of a highway (I believe U.S. Route 163 in Utah) leading to Monument Valley – with the center of the galaxy in the background. One of many astonishing astronomical photographs by Michael Abramy – but if that particular one doesn’t blow your mind I don’t know what will.

#138
November 1, 2021
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Ambiguities

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Holzer Jenny Holzer

Thomas Mann, Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man:

#137
October 25, 2021
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Buster, Josephine, and Autumn

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nutkin

Autumn is just beginning to hint at us here in central Texas, but whenever it comes I find myself thinking about this passage from C. S. Lewis’s Surprised by Joy in which he describes how in childhood he received certain “glimpses” of something beyond his experience, and yet connected somehow to his experience:

#136
October 18, 2021
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Returning in Something Almost Like Glory

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ww

If you have read The Wind in the Willows -- and let me pause here to say that if you have not read the Wind in the Willows then what are you doing with your life? Stop reading this silly newsletter, call in sick to work, and start reading that wondrous book right now.

#135
October 11, 2021
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Books and Chairs and Years Gone By

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#135
September 6, 2021
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Talk to the Hand

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ackroyd

#134
August 30, 2021
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The Axe, the Wood, the House

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, by

#133
August 23, 2021
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Done List

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The at the Art Institute of Chicago

#132
August 16, 2021
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Architectural Thoughts

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#131
August 9, 2021
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It’s Good to Be Back

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Welcome, friends, to the triumphant return of Snakes & Ladders! I trust that once more you’ll hear from me weekly, now that I’ve had a bit of a break. Two quick introductory thoughts:

#130
August 2, 2021
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July Check-In

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Hello friends, and welcome to July’s Snakes & Ladders check-in! There will probably be another of these in August before resumption of regular service in September. Onward:

#129
July 1, 2021
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Hiatus Hiatus

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#128
May 31, 2021
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A Memory and a Miscellany

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As I come to the end of a truly … academic year, I realize that I am a very tired man. So I’m going to put this newsletter on hiatus for May. I expect to be back and better than ever in June.

#127
April 26, 2021
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A Possibly Incoherent Edition

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I got my second vaccination shot the other day, for which I am immensely grateful – but have I been hammered by my body’s reaction to it. I wanted to add more to this issue than I have here, but I think I had best send this off as is and go back to bed.

#126
April 19, 2021
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A Fitness Trainer and an Improbable Goat

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#125
April 12, 2021
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A Stone Rolled from the Mind

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#124
April 5, 2021
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Grief and Repair

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#123
March 29, 2021
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Qui, Quo, Qua

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#122
March 22, 2021
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Country Walks, Home Again

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Thanks to so many of you for your kind words in response to my last newsletter, about my dog Malcolm. With a couple of exceptions, I’ve not been able to reply individually, but I read them all and I especially enjoyed the photos of your dogs!

#121
March 15, 2021
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Dogs

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Today I just want to talk about dogs.

#120
March 8, 2021
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Cavaliere Wild Scull and Other Adventurers

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Romare Bearden, , 1977, collage of various papers with foil, paint, and graphite on fiberboard. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, .

#119
March 1, 2021
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Pruning, Arranging, and How My Ash Looks

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As many of you know, things have been tough here in Texas for the past week. At our house, we were without electricity (which in our case meant without heat also) for two days, days we spent huddled around our fireplace, in a room we tried to seal off from the rest of the quite literally freezing house, trying to use our dwindling stack of firewood as frugally as was compatible with not, you know, . Now we have electricity and heat and, after a second wave of problems, even fresh water – though we’re rationing that.

#118
February 22, 2021
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Murmurations, Months, Masters

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#117
February 8, 2021
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In Which Kafka and Wombats Make An Appearance

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#116
February 1, 2021
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A Newsletter of Newsletters

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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.

#115
January 25, 2021
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The Year of Hypomone

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

#114
January 18, 2021
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Snow, Cycling, Scale, and ... MENDACITY

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#113
January 11, 2021
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The Three Salernitan Doctors

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Eric Ravilious,

#112
January 4, 2021
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The Worlds Ae Reconciled

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#111
December 28, 2020
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A Rather British Edition

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#110
December 21, 2020
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Messages (Some in Bottles)

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#109
December 14, 2020
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A Magic Number

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#108
December 7, 2020
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Advent and Other Thoughts

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#107
November 30, 2020
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Gospel of the Trees

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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.

#106
November 24, 2020
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Pasts and Futures

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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:

#105
November 23, 2020
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Nautical Mysteries and Divine Insanity

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

#104
November 16, 2020
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Sound and Vision

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#103
November 9, 2020
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