First Word

What does a fifteenth century German Diet have to do with American “no taxation without representation”? Quite a lot, actually. (more…)

Everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it.
– Mark Twain

Actually, Mark Twain was wrong. Witch doctors, shamans, and mystery priests have always done something about the weather. Of course, so have pious Christians on their knees in prayer. But now, for the first time in history, Al Gore is part of a movement that wants to do something about the weather by international politicking. This movie is his story. (more…)

Anyone else ever won this devastatingly? (more…)

Though done in 1936, almost a decade after talkies had come into their own, this is essentially done as a silent, thus falsifying my claim (more…)

In the east-end district of Berlin called Treptow, the Soviet masters constructed a park to their own glory: the Sowjetisches (more…)

Simcha Jacobovici researched and narrates this documentary for the History Channel.

The thesis is that the Hebrew Exodus from Egypt indeed (more…)

Speaking of Dresden… today is the 62nd year anniversary of its destruction by the Allies.

When I studied at the Goethe Institute in Lüneburg (more…)

The setting is a dark but beautiful village in the Tirolian Alps, full of sad people. They are both drawn (more…)

Review of Robin Bruce Barnes, Prophecy and Gnosis: Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988). BT 819.5 .B35 1988

Under the rubric of apocalypticism, this book weaves together a story about views of time and history, eschatology, astrology, magic and secret societies in Lutheran Germany in the century following the Reformation.

Prof. Barnes (of Davidson College) defines apocalypticism as a view of the future combining prophecy and (more…)

When I arrived in Dresden, I had a sense of urgency, both due to a mental tic by which I was under the impression that Tristan and Isolde was to be performed that very night (whereas it proved to be the next night, so I really had plenty of time, but didn’t know it), and due to the usual WC need: all of which caused me to think I lost my parking ticket, and on top of that it was snowing, and there were no typical tourist signs pointing things out, so I went jigging around in the snow, fretting about the parking ticket, freezing, and not knowing north from left. (more…)

Like a few recent commentators, I too believe that there is a good deal more to history than what the court historians report. Like the poor, conspirators will always be with us. Augustine reminds us that history is to understood as a battle between two cities. One uses the power of the Word and Spirit to advance its kingdom, the other is apt to cheat, steal, rape, kill and blunder. But the City of Man’s main method of warfare is not force, but dissimulation and secrecy. Christendom seems to have forgotten that our enemy is the deceiver of the nations. (more…)

I knew beforehand that my proposals for what our nation should do in regard to its waging an unjust war against (more…)

The story takes place in the transition from silent movies to talkies. The prima donna has made her mark only because (more…)

In the comments section to a previous post, somebody asked if (more…)

This Saturday (Feb 10) the Met broadcast will be (more…)

In the later twelfth century, Leipzig (more…)

Another Preston Sturges rollicking surprise-twist comedy.

What would you do if you won the big prize and got the check, but it was (more…)

Today’s NY Met matinee broadcast of La Bohème had mixed (more…)