Recently Max Brooks, author of The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, published a novelization of the game Minecraft.
While I haven’t read the novel, I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like if great American author Cormac McCarthy, author of No Country for Old Men, were to narrate the world of Minecraft.
Say no more. We’ve just found an early draft of his novelization:
If I only had a nickel for every time I’ve seen a paper or a speech that opened up with “Webster’s Dictionary defines…”
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A thoughtful middle ground
Back in the days when I was a post-doctoral fellow with the Lilly Fellow in Humanities and the Arts, I had a Valparaiso University office next to a young architectural historian named Louis Nelson. (Actually, we were also next-door neighbors on Valparaiso’s “famous” McIntire Court). Nelson left Valpo after a year in the program and headed off to Charlottesville to become a faculty member in the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia. Today he is a Professor of Architectural History and the Associate Dean of the school. Nice work.
Over at the website of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, Nelson argues that Confederate monuments should stay and be contextualized. Here is a taste of his interview with the website:
The national debate surrounding confederate monuments is often presented in very narrow terms – as a battle between those who want them to stay and those who…
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Part III—Jesus was just another dirty Refugee
In the third act of Flannery O’Connor’s short story, having stood on the assumption that none of the world’s miseries are her responsibility, Mrs. McIntyre justifies her own lack of care for those in her care, rejecting the call of the Gospel. Expecting her employees to be grateful to work for her, she hypocritically fails to embrace gratefulness. Like someone who only reads half of the creation account, she wants to be a master without being a caretaker. The world revolves around her.
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Forsythia
I walked my dog about the day
After a mild snow melting
The pavement soaked by
The gushing of swollen
Grasses saturated and dark
Littered with chunks of snow.
The air was fresh and crisp
My flannel sleeves rolled up
And beside the damp Bradford pears
Broke the yellow forsythia blooming
the first of bushes of the spring
In these rusty Virginia hills.
