Some thoughts about my reaction to One Day, not the book itself. There is a part of me—let’s call it “red hot and righteous” after a book title that has never left my mind after seeing it in a used bookstore; let’s shorten that to RHAR and pronounce it rahhrrrr!—that demands that I “do something” in response. Let’s be fair to RHAR: that part of me has done some good work.
Finished reading One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. Thanks to @jaheppler for reminding me of it. As I read it, the phrase kept rolling through my mind, “the empire must die.” Selfishly, for my family’s sake, I hope its death is not sudden and violent. Maybe there was a time when the empire wasn’t thoroughly corrupt; I wouldn’t know. It’s lies all the way down at this point though. I don’t know what would come next, or whether it would be better. For the sake of a better world, however, the empire must die.
Omar El Akkad, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This:
The idea that walking away is childish and unproductive is predicated on the inability to imagine anything but a walking away from, never a walking away toward—never that there might exist another destination. The walking away is not nihilism, it’s not cynicism, it’s not doing nothing— it’s a form of engagement more honest, more soul-affirming, than anything the system was ever prepared to offer.
Thinking about Bibles in the Holiness churches of my childhood this morning. Thompson Chain Reference was standard issue. Everyone who wanted to study the Bible had one of these. (Needless to say, Holiness churches were KJV-only.) The conceit of the Thompson–and what made it appealing to Holiness folks–was that it was not a study Bible full of “man’s opinions”; it was a study Bible that directed you back to the text itself.
I mentioned last month going to an old time music jam where Steve and Nancy Dickey were present. I went again tonight and recorded him playing. He’s about to turn 82.
I was never good at being young but I’m going to be great at being old.
It’s strange how a competent biography that attempts to explain someone’s motivations and context can make them more sympathetic. Because, y’all, if Ann Lee was operating today, not one of us would think she’s worth listening to. Not that anyone is holding her up as a model, but you know what I mean
In 1773, Ann Lee and other Shakers were arrested for causing a disturbance during a service at Christ Church in Manchester. Afterwards she was questioned by ministers. Richard Francis, Ann the Word: Once when recounting the tale of this religious interrogation, Ann said she spoke for four hours and the ministers - the ‘greatest in those parts’ (suddenly we hear the illiterate daughter of a blacksmith talking) - ‘said that I spoke in seventy two different tongues, and that I spoke them more perfect than any in their knowledge were able to do.
You could read today’s Cory Doctorow column or you could watch this Nathan MacIntosh bit. 😉
Another good thing today: it’s Wendell Berry’s 92nd birthday. Happy birthday, uncle Wendell!
