A man so in love with the world
Maurice Sendak died on 8 May 2012. Thanks to Arni at I Think I Believe for bringing this to my attention “To those who consider themselves on the safe side of belief, [Simone Weil] teaches the uncomfortable truth that the unbelief of many atheists is closer to a true love of God and a true [...]
Cities! Auroras! Lightning! One good use for the ISS
Michael König, Time Lapse Views of Earth from ISS, 2011. The music leaves a little to be desired, perhaps, but this is one wonderful video. Full-screen and hi-def it Here’s a little break from the regularly scheduled program, via the Bad Astronomer. As a big fan of robotic exploration of the solar system and space [...]
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Art Sunday: NGC 474 and the coming galactic set-to
NGC 474. Credit: P.-A. Duc (CEA, CFHT), Atlas 3D Collaboration. Image source: Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD). All the individual points of light are stars within our own Milky Way galaxy and are in the extreme foreground. The two galaxies are 10,000 times further away than the stars. There are some other galaxies in [...]
Job redux: Loss and the glory of the world meet in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life
Sean Penn as Jack in Terrence Malick‘s The Tree of Life. Penn works his world-weary visage to great effect in the film Don’t worry, there are no spoilers here. In fact, I’m having a hard time even imagining a spoiler for this film. I could tell you the whole thing and it wouldn’t change its [...]
Big Head Todd and the mass extinction problem
Todd Park Mohr of Big Head Todd and the Monsters recording at Ardent Studios in Memphis. I missed BHTM back in the 1990′s when they had their major-scale success; I blame graduate school for this. But a good friend introduced them to me several years ago and to this day I am grateful to him [...]
Art Sunday: Pia Stern’s wonderful way out
Pia Stern, Rondo for Galileo. Oil on canvas, 2004-05. Used with permission of the artist I’ve been thinking a lot lately and it has kind of worn me out. I tend to live in my head. There may be some good things about this, I don’t know. But it can be a real weakness, and [...]
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So this guy eats some plums
The guy who ate the plums: William Carlos Williams‘s 1921 passport photo. Image source: Wikimedia Commons Look here to read William Carlos Williams’s poem This is Just to Say. Williams, the selfsame fellow who brought us the white chickens beside the red wheelbarrow, glazed with rainwater, published this piece in 1934. What is it about? [...]
