They have remained hidden for more than five centuries, but tiny figures of naked men wearing feathered head-dresses could be the first Western depiction of Native Americans, the Vatican claims. (via Vatican uncovers ‘first Western painting of Native Americans’ - Telegraph)
Why Soccer Players Are Smarter than You
Soccer players are significantly smarter than, well, pretty much everyone, according to a new study in PLoS ONE..
David Platt: Follow Me
Follow Me is the follow-up to Radical and where Radical tells Christians what to avoid, Follow Me tells them what to embrace, and that is the person of Jesus. This is what makes Christianity unique and, as Platt goes to lengths to point out, not just another religion. “When Jesus came on the scene in human history and began calling followers to himself, he did not say, ‘Follow certain rules. Observe specific regulations. Perform ritual duties. Pursue a particular path.’ Instead, he said ‘Follow me.’”
My review of David Platt’s latest book, Follow Me: A Call to Die. A Call to Live, for Lifter Magazine.
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The love of knowledge is a kind of madness.
CS Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet, page 55.
How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon
Eleven tips to help runners work toward this goal.
“The cold winds are rising. Summer is at an end, and a winter is coming such as this world has never seen.”
Winter is coming. The Stark words has never sounded so grim or ominous to Jon as they did now.
-George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
This photo was taken outside my house this morning, May 1, 2013
In the early 1950s, Muriel Spark revived Mary Shelley’s reputation.
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(Reblogged from invisibleforeigner)
Every reviewer will tackle the challenges of writing about books in the Internet era in his or her own way, but at the very least anyone hoping to be heard above the digital din needs to approach each review not as an exercise in personal taste – I liked/didn’t like this book, and here’s why – but as a mini-essay using the book under review as the focal point of a larger, more interesting story. In a great many cases, this will mean reviewers having the sense to shut up when they have an opinion about a book but have nothing to add to the conversation beyond whether they liked or didn’t like it. This might be called The Thumper Rule of Literary Criticism: “If you can’t say something interesting – Shh! Say nothing!”
… However critics rise to the challenge of the information overload facing readers today, rise we must, because as much information there is on sites like Amazon and GoodReads and the rest, there is too often precious little real intelligence. This is the paradox of the information age: the proliferation of data points makes smart criticism more relevant, not less. We are all swimming in information, not just about books but about sports teams and political parties and cooking tips, and what we need are smart, thoughtful commentators to sift through all that data and make it mean something.
The Millions : Say Goodbye to the Play-by-Play Book Review (via invisibleforeigner)
This is exactly what I try to do with my reviews. Whether or not I succeed is another story entirely.
Erik SATIE: Gnossienne No. 3 (by cubusdk)
I’m really enjoying Satie’s Gnossiennes and having a hard time understanding why I hadn’t heard of them before.
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It’s the tree of knowledge that Eve and Adam eat from. And I think what this story is about: that the flawedness comes intrinsically and essentially from self-consciousness. To be fallen is to be self-conscious, which is to say, to be fully human.
Timothy B. Shutt, Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans: the foundations of Western civilization, Lecture 2.
