Don’t get me wrong, Fantasia’s a great cartoon for what it is. But the “Rite of Spring” section is marred, in one way I knew about already, but also in another way that I didn’t know about until just now. The way I knew about is the music: Stravinsky objected — and quite rightly — to the performance, which isn’t quite right — but especially to the changes they made to the music: cuts, rearrangement of material, and so on. But that’s the price you pay for mass media entertainment, and the big bucks, I guess. The other marring is …
Tag: religion
With Gods Like These…
I got the oddest comment on the last post I made. The content was unrelated to my post, but instructed readers to Google a few keywords leading straight to the comment-poster’s own blog, which was about… Er, well, I’ll let the email I just sent him speak for itself. Dear Mr. Hagedorn, Just curious what the connection is, in your head, between my review of a few recent movies — none of them theological in nature at all — and your inane theory that the real sin that got Adam and Eve kicked out of Eden was… (drum roll)… anal …
Something to Munch On
I have an insane day ahead of me: last minute desperate students will be seeking advising throughout my afternoon break, since tomorrow’s the deadline for second applications for their Grad Presentation Proposal; I will be lucky if I fit lunch in fitting lunch in no matter what, but it will be a trial; midterm exam in my Public Speaking class tonight, in a room I’ll bet will not be properly heated for the event (because normally there’s no class there, and it’s in an older building) And I’m going to the office a half hour early, because… yep, someone “needs …
Immortality?
The Maverick Philosopher discusses the fact that Christopher Hitchens, who is not doing so well, also has not recanted his atheism. Valicella writes: The contemplation of death must be horrifying for those who pin all on the frail reed of the ego. The dimming of the light, the loss of control, the feeling of helplessly and hopelessly slipping away into an abyss of nonbeing. And all of this without the trust of the child who ceases his struggling to be borne by Another. “Unless you become as little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” But this of course …
Woo! Woo! I am the Woo-rus!
The one thing that will always, always make someone less intimidating is when you realize they’ve been seduced by woo. I don’t mean, like, “The Woo of Lost” as a recent essay by Adam Roberts is titled. I mean full-on Deepak Chopra, Derrick Jensen, Shakti Gawain, Shambhala publications woo. The obvious stuff, when you realize someone is woo-sceptible. (Disclosure: I do, myself, own a couple of Shambhala books: both are related to Buddhism, one of them a present from a friend in high school — which is in some box in Canada, I think — and the other primarily about Buddhism …