Noteworthy reads from the last week:
“Siberia’s Surprisingly Australian Past,” Helen Andrews
“The Siberians’ reluctance to discuss the matter might indicate not anxiety but a healthy state of having moved on. They had not reckoned with their past in a way that turned up under my questioning, but that hardly proves no reckoning has taken place.”
“Today, the sardine is undergoing its own conversion of expendable foods into those given pride of plate. For years, sardines have battled a reputation as relegated only to those who couldn’t afford better—a perception not helped by their ubiquitous presence as a canned good outside of Portugal. Over the last few years, however, sardines have developed something of a food-world following.”
“Nazi Propaganda: Out of the Cage,” Francine Prose
“Nearly everyone who speaks in the film agrees that context is all-important; that the films need to be exhibited as examples of vile propaganda, that the lies they promulgate need to be exposed, and that an audience should be told about the damage that these works helped to inflict.”
“This is real. A Scrum Master in ninja socks has come into your office and said, ‘We’ve got to budget for apps.’ Should it all go pear-shaped, his career will be just fine.”
“The Empty Bath,” Colin Burrow
“In ‘On Translating Homer’ Matthew Arnold described Homer as ‘eminently noble’, ‘eminently rapid’ and ‘eminently plain and direct’ in style and ideas. Homer ‘has, besides, the pure lines of an Ionian horizon, the liquid clearness of an Ionian sky’. These assertions are often quoted. I find that strange because they seem plain crazy to me.”
Hedgehogs abroad:
“No Benedict Without Benedictines,” Jeff Guhin
“Much conservative discussion of the Benedict Option forgets that the ultimate goal for MacIntyre is a community rooted in tradition driven by practices. That’s only possible with a lot of communal interactions and common living.”
“The Enlightenment Index,” Brad Pasanek and Chad Wellmon
“Although much has been written on the subject, ‘print culture’ remains a puzzling hybrid term, difficult to analyze into its cultural and technological components. For both Kant and Reid, print posed a first threat to the process of enlightenment.”