Daily Office:
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Matins
¶ A warning, from Andrew Bacevich, about the danger to the Republic of a volunteer army fighting a long, indefinite war. (Washington Post; via The Morning News)
¶ Reading Prof Bacevich’s admonition ought to put you into a state of keen appreciation for Robert Dreyfuss’s appraisal of the looming showdown between the commander in Afghanistan and the Commander in Chief. When you get to the end, though, try not to stare at the last paragraph as long as we did. (Mother Jones)
Lauds
¶ Wesley Morris wishes that Hollywood stars would at least make movies as exciting as their Broadway appearances. (Boston Globe; via Arts Journal )
Mr Morris overlooks one detail: stage acting is about a million times more exciting (challenging, terrifying, exhilarating) than performing in front of camera and crew. Not to mention that applause!
Prime
¶ Mrs Cringely stands on line for a new iPhone (then wishes that she hadn’t), prompting some intriguing cerebration in her husband.
Tierce
¶ The most exciting thing about being alive today is watching the development of a cohesive new theory of intelligence, covering everything from the nature of memory to the fundamentals of ethics. We don’t know where to begin talking about it; we didn’t even know that it was happening until we picked up Kathryn Schulz’s Being Wrong and Paul Bloom’s How Pleasure Works — we’re in the middle of Being Wrong and suffering Most-Important-Book-Ever seizures — but Jonah Lehrer’s patient critique of the IQ test’s shortfall seems a very good place to begin. (The Frontal Cortex)
Sext
¶ A mash note from Ellen Moody to Joan Rivers is not something we were expecting to see, ever. Which just makes it all the more impressive. (Ellen And Jim Have A Blog, Too)
Nones
¶ We hadn’t realized how much we missed the Cold War!
Vespers
¶ Tim Parks tackles the bugaboo of America’s literary provinciality: we don’t read enough in translation, goes the complaint. Fine and good, but, having read his way through Best European Fiction 2010, edited by Aleksandar Hemon (no less), Mr Parks (unsurprisingly) comes to a surprising conclusion.
Compline
¶ Who knew? New Yorkers live longer. Not by much, but measurably. Why? Harvard’s Edward Glaeser looks into the numbers and finds — murk. One thing’s for sure: Gotham is much, much safer for young people. (NYT)
Have a Look
¶ At Good, the most interesting (and certainly one of the most beautiful) graphic renderings of a piece of music that we’ve ever seen. Stephen Malinowski’s rendering of Debussy’s “Clair de lune” makes it possible for people who don’t read music to reap the surprising rewards of “following the score.”
¶ In case you think that BP’s no-problemo initial response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster was at all uncharacteristic of corporation behavior, consider the telegram that White Star Lines sent to England’s General Post Office (for which it contracted Transatlantic mail service) on a long-ago April 15th. (Letters of Note)