Teach me to care and not to care.
My favorite single line of dialogue from any motion picture, a line I repeat often to myself as a sort of consolation, comes from Tom Alfredson’s 2011 film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and it is, “The fanatic is always concealing a secret doubt.”
While the line is original, I was reading the proverbs of William Hazlitt this morning (who is English, like John le Carré) and I came across, “Violent antipathies are always suspicious, and betray a secret affinity.”
Phoenix (2014) is about marriage, plain and simple.
This week’s episode of Proverbial is concerned with a saying of Thomas Aquinas: “I fear the man of one book.”
Offensive things are said about modern reading strategies. Enjoy.
If a man would be content with the things he has, he must not be content with things.
Seven years later, I am still sore about Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death.
Memory eternal.
Over the last several weeks, I have seen several thoughtful conservative writers quote with approval the saying, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
As noble and generous as it sounds, I simply don’t believe any reasonable man would make a widow of his wife and orphans of his children just so Kevin Smith could make Clerks.
“Parent: After talking it over, my wife and I have decided that Oliver would be happier going to a different school next year.
Gibbs: What’s your point?”
My latest for CiRCE deals with teenage happiness, real and imagined.
The latest episode of Proverbial is available today and concerns the great difference between friends and family, even though modernity has largely conflated the two.
“A brother offended is not easily won,” but let’s face it, a brother who is offended by a little honest critique is not really worth winning.
My friend Andrew introduced this song to me in a collaborative playlist the trio put together for New Year’s Eve. I have listened to it many times since then. As someone who has written a good deal on the subject of nostalgia over the last five years, I must say I am astonished at how well Mulatu Astatke (who I had not previously heard of) captures the nostalgic mood.
When it first came on, I thought it was a Leyland James Kirby track. The fact that it’s not makes me more impressed with both Kirby and Astatke.
There are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity.