[W]hen George Plimpton [acting on behalf of the NEA] paid Aram Saroyan $1,500 for a poem consisting of a single misspelled word “lighght,” an Iowa congressional aide dared to ask the dilettantish Plimpton what the poem meant. “You are from the Midwest. You are culturally deprived, so you would not understand it anyway,” replied the [...]
The last half of the Chesterbelloc isn’t nearly as quotable as the first half, but if I had to pick the book with most quotables, it’d be The Path to Rome.
“[I]f there is difficulty it is in the whole launching of a thing, in the first ten pages of a book, or the first half-hour [...]
My time away from a computer continues. Only two quick BYCUs today:
1. Drive Beer. Only 2.5% alcohol.
MADD to endorse?
2.
You put the 20-ounce cup under the tap but instead of pulling a lever, you press a digital key pad. ”Pfffffht,” goes the machine, jetting beer into the cup and topping it with a quarter-inch of [...]
Geilor von Kaysersberg, writing in the early sixteenth century, divided bookish folly into seven types:
1. The fool who collects books for the sake of glory.
2. The fool who wants to grow wise by the consumption of too many books.
3. The fool who collects books without truly reading them.
4. The fool who loves sumptuously-illuminated books.
5. [...]
Hilaire Belloc, commenting on the 21st-century euthanasia debate:
It is worth noting, by the way, that the most sentimental people, who are loudest against the right to wage a just war, to execute a criminal, are just the people who are most likely to be in favour of ‘putting incurables out of their pain,’ which the [...]
He says radical things in an appealing way. Most intriguing. I suspect he’s the best shot we’ve had in 75 years to get a new philosophy into federal government.
I was sufficiently ebullient to consume half a bottle of brandy after dinner. On the way back from dropping off the babysitter I drove our car into the side of a telephone pole. My wife was already safe at home. I didn’t care. I was happy.
“I prefer death in Christ Jesus to power over the farthest limits of the earth. He who died in place of us is the one object of my quest. He who rose for our sakes is my one desire.”
Hard-core videos now cater to almost every conceivable predilection–and to some that are hard to imagine. There are gay videos and straight videos, bondage videos and spanking videos, tickling videos, interracial videos, and videos like Count Footula, for people whose fetish is feet. There are ’she-male’ videos featuring transsexuals and [...]
"The Daily Eudemon is the sort of thing that Chesterton or Mencken would be doing, if they were alive today. It's what, in saner times, was called journalism. In the writing and in the reading, it's exactly the sort of leisure we should want at the basis of culture."Mike Aquilina, Author of The Fathers of the Church and TV Talk Show Host.
"Literate Catholicism-urbane, witty, engaged-is alive and well! If you can read, you should be reading The Daily Eudemon!"David Scott, author of A Revolution of Love: The Meaning of Mother Teresa
"If you like your blogs pithy, nimble, pointed, high-spirited, and waggish, then bookmmark Eric Scheske's The Daily Eudemon. Ooops! You want prolixity, density, meandering, dull, and sober? Then run (do not walk!) to the blogs of the major news outlets. They have just what you want. Honestly they do." John Peterson, Editor, G.K. Chesterton: Collected Works, Volumes 12 and 13.
"Eric Scheske's web site is full of information and insight. Always worth a read."James V. Schall, Author of Another Sort of Learning.
"Eric Scheske has one of the few indispensable sites in an overcrowded blogosphere." Thomas E. Woods, Jr., Ph.D., New York Times Bestselling Author and Author of How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization.
