I recently saw the new commercial for Google Pixel 8 which highlights the device’s AI-enhanced “best-take” application feature. You can watch it here […] My first response was to laugh, modestly but not quite quietly. There is an Office episode (season 2, episode 21) in which Michael Scott does the same thing with photoshop. The result (which is the featured image above) is less than impressive.
Read moreSlowly, slowly unto Christmas
p/c: kieran white
A personal history.
Movement 1.
I did not grow-up with Advent as a season of waiting. Like many people in contemporary society I grew up with a strange season that came to span all the days from Thanksgiving to the Day-after-Christmas as a kind of elongated Holiday season… “elongated” is maybe too generous… “distended to the point of rupture” is probably a better description. Sometimes it started as early as the Day-after-Halloween.
Why read 'Dracula' by Bram Stoker
Dracula is not merely a vampire tale; it is the vampire tale. The ‘vampire’ as a cultural icon find its genesis in Stoker’s novel. Indeed almost the entire horror genre (whether film or books) can be traced to Stoker’s Dracula and Shelley’s Frankenstein. Though neither Stoker nor Shelley were Christians, their works are crucially important for our study: they tell us what modernity is; they tell us about ourselves. What does this mean?
Read moreOn page 40 of 'Infinite Jest' by David Foster Wallace
On p.40 of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, Mario keeps his older brother from sleep attempting to circle the conversation towards his real goal: the question of “do you believe in God?”
Hal complains, “You ask me this once a week.”
Read moreWhy celebrate Alhallowtide? And what is it, exactly?
p/c : Nicola Fioravanti
There is a series of days which exists in the Church’s calendar which has all but disappeared from the Christian calendars of contemporary American Christianity save for one lingering event: trick-or-treating on Halloween.
Read moreReading Charles Taylor while watching Harry Potter
During our time we watched through some of the Harry Potter films, and my wife got to see, for the first time, one of the most evil villains in film and literature: Dolores Umbridge.
Read moreSome Notes on Joppa
p/c: Faruk Kaymak
In preparation for a trip to Israel I’ve been reading about Joppa (modern day Jaffa). Here are some choice morsels from my notes (which are, as usual, indebted to James B. Jordan the apostolic fathers of the early church):
Read moreA Jane Austen novel ...yunno, like Judgement Day
p/c Elaine Howlin via upsplash
When it comes to awkward moments, tense moments, moments of severe relational tension, Jane Austen rules with all the mastery of a high-born chatelaine. Though I’ve written about the awkward in other places before, this weekend’s readings for my literature class (from Pride and Prejudice) demand some further consideration.
Read moreSing the Psalter
This past week we had a network-wide clergy retreat for Diocesan clergy and aspirants (people in the discernment process towards ordination). The guest teacher was my good friend Fr. Ben Jefferies. He taught on the importance of the inner life, using the rule of St. Romuald as the syllabus and the Psalter as the application. I want briefly only to reflect on one point of his instruction, namely the dictum of Romuald that “in the Psalter there is one way only…”
Read moreAn empty clergyman
Mr. Collins is the name of the pompous clergyman in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. He is a sanctimonious fool. Everything he does is equal measures hilarity and painfulness. And I commend a careful study of him to all clergymen everywhere. Be sober-minded, brothers, lest you fall into the emptiness of the form of life Mr. Collins lives.
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