Islamic Calvinism. Religion in Kayseri plays a central part in people’s lives. The city has a traditional reputation; the only place to get a drink is at the international hotel. But where in the past in Turkey business was dominated by the country’s secular elite, which firmly kept religion out of the boardroom, in Kayseri… Read More→
Was it a sign? Harmonic convergence? Coincidence? Providence? While dressing for church yesterday, I was listening to the local Hillsdale radio station which has a segment of religious broadcasting before devoting several hours to big band hits. Why station managers deem Frank Sinatra and 1940s music as appropriate formats for the Lord’s Day is as… Read More→
As part of my preparation to submit a proposal for a religious biography of H. L. Mencken, I ran across a back issue of Menckeniana which had Jonathan Yardley‘s talk at the 2010 Mencken Day. The book critic for the Washington Post, here is how Yardley described his first encounter with Mencken: I was absolutely… Read More→
Fresh from the afterglow of a recent post on sex, I’ll take another stab with a remark about gay marriage. Noah Millman observes in passing an exchange between David Frum and Andrew Sullivan which went like this: the question – as Andrew Sullivan posed it repeatedly to David Frum over the years, Frum being well-aware… Read More→
A meeting of a Presbyterian conclave (actually a standing committee of the OPC General Assembly) back the capital of American Presbyterianism (actually a suburb) has afforded (all about) me the opportunity to catch up on the media. The flights from Detroit to Philadelphia were either too expensive or too long so I decided to drive.… Read More→
The start of the semester brought a tsunami of lectures by visiting faculty and other activities, aside from the full-time teaching load, that made watching any movie or television production impossible this week. But while reading a review of Richard Burton’s diaries in The New Republic, I had an idea for a screenplay that could… Read More→
Yes, I hear the Ravens are going to the Super Bowl (do I need to use a trademark with that?) but they played on the first day of the week, the Lord’s Day even, not one of the days that conclude our weeks. On Thursday came news that the actor who played Prop Joe in… Read More→
The missus and I continue to persevere with the series but after last night’s two episodes (we are now late in Season Three) any comparison between Breaking Bad and The Wire is baffling. After what happens to Hank, for instance, in the parking lot with the slasher hit-men, do you think the writers would be… Read More→
The next installment of the Up Series is showing in the theaters (but I can’t find any place in the old Northwest Territory that is screening it). Here is how Randall Stephens describes the documentary: . . . it’s time for another installment of the perennial favorite UP Series, which has followed the lives of… Read More→
Gallipoli
Mel Gibson enthralled female movie-viewing audiences with his big blues and his down under twang when he starred in Gallipoli (1981), a film about a pivotal battle during the Great War (we didn’t count them then). Little did I know when I first saw the movie where in the world Gallipoli was – it’s in… Read More→