Richard Beck writes about his experience with Bram Stokers’ novel Dracula.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a very Christian novel. I would even say that Dracula is one of the greatest Christian novels of all time. Christianity suffuses the book. Faith is the air the novel breaths. Fans of the novel, of course, are aware of this, but the pious devoutness of the story caught me by surprise.
As a plain text nerd, I’ve got to admit I really want to try out Journelly. It’s been a couple of years since I messed with org mode, but this looks like something very different.
Finished reading: How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill 📚
But in the age of John Scotus Eriugena, Christian churchmen did not burn books. Only barbarians did that.
I felt really gross setting up a Ticketmaster account just now. Where’s Ed Ved when you need him?
Culture: An Owner’s Manual has an edition focused on the significance of Rocky IV as a cultural artifact.
But unlike most bad films made in 1985, Rocky IV remains fascinating nearly forty years later. It has great value to us in 2024 as a relic — an artwork that embodies the unique stylistic choices of a particular point in time. Rocky IV is a time-traveling passport to 1985: the Manichaean Reaganite politics, the sassy robot maid, the soundtrack of power ballads and cold digital synths, the artless action-film editing and over-use of freeze-frame fade-outs, the casual lack of verisimilitude in using Wyoming as a stand-in for the Russian countryside.
My wife was arguing tonight that much of indie music in the 90s still sounds fresh and timeless today. I can see that in some ways, but overall I think the 90s was the last decade to have a real distinctiveness to its culture. You couldn’t make Empire Records or Belly’s “Feed The Tree” today. They just wouldn’t feel right in the current context.
Tim Challies writes about All Creatures Great and Small, which he dubs “the most pleasant show on television.”
So much of today’s entertainment is violent or edgy, provocative or profane. So much of it is a thinly-veiled veneer for identity politics as if that message is so important that no other quality really matters. It’s unpleasant—and if it’s unpleasant in the middle of the day it somehow seems even more so at the end of a day.
I’ve long been a little allergic to brandishing symbols of my Christian faith. When I was a youth, I had a beloved cross that I used to wear around my neck. The chain for it was broken whilst I took a thrashing at the hands of a playground bully in the sixth grade. For many years afterward, I refrained from adorning myself with anything that reflected my beliefs.
One of the reasons I chose Qobuz as my streaming music service was the ability to download tracks in a DRM-free format. About a year and a half into my subscription, I finally purchased my first album. Frankie Rose – Seventeen Seconds. Burned a CD and it sounds fantastic.
Finished reading Shōgun, Part Two by James Clavell 📚a while ago but I still think about it on the regs.
In June, I hope to see long-time indie pop favorites Tennis on their farewell tour. The husband and wife duo of Patrick Riley and Alaina Moore are calling it quits after an impressive run.
The pair made this statement regarding the end of their time as Tennis:
It became clear that we had said everything we wanted to say and achieved everything we wanted to achieve with our band … We are ready to pursue other creative projects and to make space in our lives for new things.
It sounds like a standard, almost corporate-like goodbye message. When they were promoting their just-released 7th album Face Down In The Garden, though, they were a bit more candid about the challenges they had faced.