- Almanac: Cesare Pavese on loneliness
“Give company to a lonely man and he will talk more than anyone.” Cesare Pavese, This Business of Living Continue reading Almanac: Cesare Pavese on loneliness at About Last Night....Read moreThe Guardian, born on the day Napoleon died, was established to shape opinion more than to-make moneyBees and Bluebells: Celebrating World Bee Day By Encouraging Pollinators in My Garden
Aorld Bee Day provided the chance to think about what plants to add to my garden to encorage bees to visit.
A Musical About COVID, Titled ‘Breathe’
“Before we get to the logistics of writing, staging and filming a musical” — one with five songwriting teams, four directors plus a supervisor, a passel of actors, and creators Jodi Picoult and Timothy Allen McDonald — “in the midst of a pandemic, let’s address the elephant in the Zoom: Why would anyone want to watch a 90-minute theatrical production about COVID-19 — especially one with scenes named after symptoms many of us have experienced firsthand? (They are: Fever, Aches, Swelling & Irritation, Fatigue and Shortness of Breath.)” – The New York Times
Want Certainty? (It Might Not Be Good For You)
Philosophers have long warned that this desire for certainty can lead us astray. To think and learn about the world, we must be willing to be uncertain: to accept that we don’t yet know everything. – American Scholar
Andrew Lloyd Webber Restores/Updates London’s Oldest Theatre, Built in 1663
In 2000, Lloyd Webber purchased the building, which he calls “objectively marvellous.” For the past two years, with Stephen Thurley’s help, he has been restoring it to its Georgian grandeur, a sixty-million-pound undertaking. There’d been some wear and tear since 1812. “The architecture had been greatly compromised,” Lloyd Webber said. – The New Yorker
Bison could be the ‘natural firefighters’ we need to tackle wildfires EuroNews
‘Talkative’ dinosaur species found in Mexico DW
Roads and highways disrupt bee pollinationPopular Science
Scientists Just Discovered a Hidden Pattern in Soil’s Carbon Emissions ScienceAlert
French vineyards devastated by changing climate reportedly expect to lose up to 50% of their crops this year Business Insider
Wall Street Journal op-ed: My Mom’s Christian Lesson: ‘Offer It Up', by Mike Kerrigan (Hunton Andrews Kurth, Charlotte, NC):
Throughout my adolescence, my Irish Catholic mother said three important words to me more times than I can count. I don’t mean “I love you,” although she did frequently tell me that, even when I wasn’t very lovable. It was three different words: “Offer it up.” ...
Donna Kerrigan was inviting her eldest son to participate in redemptive suffering, uniting life’s daily setbacks to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross to serve his purposes in the world. Hers was a practical mysticism designed to ensure nary a drop of suffering—never in short supply in our broken world—go to waste.
… Learning by Heart by Dan Hitchens | Articles | First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A poem can console even when it has nothing consoling to say—much as a person can, simply by being there. A few years ago, a Cambridge University research project surveyed hundreds of poetry-lovers on the effects of memorization. The researchers discovered that people who had learned a poem by heart frequently referred to it as though it were alive. One interviewee told the researchers: “A poem is like a person—if I met you next week I wouldn’t expect you to be the same.” Another said the poems he knew had become “like personal friends deeply rooted in my head.”
When I saw my friend Harold Boatrite lying in his coffin I recited to him — yes, that’s how it felt — Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “Felix Randal.” The lines “This seeing the sick endears them to us, us too it endears. / My tongue had taught thee comfort, touch had quenched thy tears, / Thy tears that touched my heart …” seemed somehow appropriate.