Gareth Jones
1,406 words
In any age, people with the capacity to truly think for themselves are rare. Rarer still are those courageous enough to defy the established order and express heretical views. Most people are too unwilling to part with the security that conformity affords. The heretic values truth and justice above all else, even his own life.
1,583 words
A Vice article published on Tuesday has reignited the debate over whether racism (or “pathological bias,” to use the clinical term proposed by psychiatrists) should be considered a mental illness and included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In turn, I would like to raise the question of whether pathological xenophilia should be considered a mental illness. (more…)
2,148 words
The shooting of Ahmaud Arbery on February 23, 2020, made national headlines after a video of the incident surfaced last week. Arbery, a 25-year-old black man, was “jogging” near Brunswick, Georgia, when he was confronted by two white men, Gregory McMichael and his son, Travis McMichael, who were arrested on May 7. The incident has, unsurprisingly, received extensive coverage, (more…)
1,108 words
Arne Nordheim was the most celebrated Norwegian composer of the 20th century. He is known for both his avant-garde electronic works and his large-scale orchestral works and music dramas. Nordheim’s Draumkvedet (“The Dream Ballad”), a music drama based on the medieval Norse poem of the same name, fuses his modernist idiom with folk influences to great effect. (more…)
2,836 words
Krzysztof Penderecki, who died on March 29, 2020, was one of the most prolific and creative composers of the past century. His works include four operas, eight symphonies plus other orchestral works, about a dozen concertos, vocal and choral works, and chamber and solo instrumental works. (more…)
Wilhelm von Kaulbach, The Fifth Adventure, 1848
1,529 words
A manuscript containing Hitler’s ideas for an opera entitled Wieland der Schmied, inspired by Wagner’s draft for a libretto of the same name, was recently put on display for the first time at the Museum Niederösterreich. The museum is currently running an exhibit on Hitler’s early life featuring artifacts collected by August Kubizek between 1907 and 1920. (more…)
2,309 words
Richard Weaver
The Ethics of Rhetoric
Muriwai Books, 2017 (1953).
The great task that lies ahead of us is to persuade our people of the rightness of our ideas. It behooves us, then, to study the art of rhetoric, or persuasion. Richard Weaver’s The Ethics of Rhetoric is a rigorous and intelligent introduction to this vanishing art. (more…)
1,204 words
Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite swept the Oscars ceremony this year, winning the awards for Best Picture (the first foreign-language film to earn the award), Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film. It has been hailed as the best film of 2019 and currently enjoys a 99% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Like the similarly over-hyped Knives Out, Parasite is a technically competent but underwhelming film whose vapid social commentary has secured its popularity with liberal critics. (more…)
2,115 words
Library of Congress Reading Room
Earlier this month, the Architectural Record obtained a draft copy of an executive order that, if implemented, would have a significant impact on federal architecture. Titled “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again,” the order states that “the classical architectural style shall be the preferred and default style” (more…)
1,045 words
Knives Out, Rian Johnson’s much-hyped addition to the mystery genre, is a forgettable, self-indulgent film whose flashes of competence are incapable of redeeming its trite plot, pathetically unfunny script, and aggressive commitment to political correctness.
The film has all the trappings of a classic murder mystery in the style of Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers. A wealthy patriarch, Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer, in remarkably good form at 90) is found dead in his mansion after celebrating his 85th birthday (more…)
N. C. Wyeth
2,062 words
Newell Convers Wyeth, or N. C. Wyeth, was one of America’s greatest artists and illustrators. Over the course of his lifetime, he created over 3,000 paintings and illustrated over 100 books, including several Scribner Classics. His son, Andrew Wyeth, and grandson, Jamie Wyeth, also became prominent artists.
Wyeth was born in 1882 and grew up on a farm in Needham, Massachusetts. His childhood was an active one, and he often went hunting and fishing with his brothers. (more…)
1,009 words
Set on the battlefields of northern France during the First World War, Sam Mendes’ 1917 follows two lance corporals racing against the clock to deliver a message to a certain colonel ordering him to call off an attack that would result in British defeat. Like Peter Jackson’s 2018 documentary They Shall Not Grow Old, which features colorized footage of the war and audio interviews of former soldiers, it seeks to capture the human side of the war and the everyday realities of a soldier’s life. (more…)