As the gentle reader has surely noted, in my sketches of the last few weeks I sought to uncover some unacknowledged – I could even say hushed up – producers of dopamine and all the other happy hormones in the brain of modern man.
Presidents’ Day weekend includes Joe Biden. So Happy Joe Biden Day! And weekend. Do the most American thing you can: Go shopping. Increase the GDP. Or the GNP. Or the CPI. It’s fun!
Bossi begins his memoirs with a depressing visit back to Cassano Magnago: the highway cuts right through what had been parkland, cement houses have sprouted up like tumors, and everywhere is the sound of traffic, the smell of asphalt.
On FB I am forever seeing disputes breaking out over various theological points, disputes between Catholics and Protestants of course, but also between Tridentine and Vatican II Catholics and between various schools of Protestant thought (Lutheran, Calvinist, Pre-millennialist).
“This is all very well, if you are inclined to saints and mystics, but I thought we are trying to answer the simple question: Are movies art?
The evident pleasure taken by a habitual liar in the climactic moment of prevarication can be likened to that of a rogue builder – in London he would be Irish, although Albanians, I gather, are edging out the Irish nowadays – at the final hammer stroke when he hangs your bathroom cabinet upside down.
The Jazz Singer (1927) is said to have brought down the curtain on silent movies. Sound shorts were made before The Jazz Singer, but few theaters were set up for them, and it was Al Jolson’s hit feature that first pushed exhibitors hard to install sound.
Dr. Johnson once told Boswell that he often attended simple prayer services because he did not want people to think he only went to church to be entertained by the sermons. Those were the days!
