Eleven on solitude
Marc Chagall, Elijah Touched by an Angel, from the Bible suite, 1958. Image source: The Jewish Museum, New York Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, ‘So may the gods do to me, and more [...]
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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 [...]
Jerry Coyne falls into the gap
Eugene Berman, The Good Samaritan (1930). The Samaritan, a clear out-group representative from the perspective of Jesus’ audience, was plenty good. What Jesus didn’t know is that it was “evolution and secular reasoning,” and not God, that made him good. Turns out that’s what made Jesus good too. Image source: Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum [...]
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 [...]
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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On sex and negative theology
Daniel Bonnell, Adam and Eve, 2011. Black crayon on grocery bag paper. See more of Bonnell’s works here. Used with permission of the artist Back in my physics grad school days I hung out with a lot of people who were students at the University’s divinity school. And several times, just for grins, I would [...]
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? [...]
