Here are Four Great Things from the week of 08/09/2024.

Art Everyday—Van Gogh

In this post from Art Everyday, we get to see a series of sunflower paintings from Vincent Van Gogh. The impressionists are not my favorite, but there is still something so captivating about his work, especially all the sunflowers. Letters written to his brother, Theo, tell his life story and inner workings—I think this greatly adds depth to his work.

“You know that Jeannin has the peony, Quost has the hollyhock, but the Sunflower is mine, in a way." —Van Gogh in a letter to Theo in 1889

John Steinbeck's Library

Steinbeck is undoubtedly one of my favorite American authors. His characters are not always believable, and I'm grateful for it. The most wicked fictional character I have come across is found in his novel East of Eden.

Here, Carter Davis Johnson at Dwelling lays out 10 of Steinbeck's favorites. He prefaces it with conversation about taste.

"Though tastes differ in various respects (not to speak of preferences or occasions), they make a claim about what we perceive and those who we perceive alongside. To speak of taste is to say something about the world, a statement that others are invited to contend with or adopt."



King's English: The Making of a Writer

I like this one so much! I'll qualify it to say that I have never read a Stephen King novel. I don't think I can. I know am not his reader because his sort of taste will literally keep me awake at night and not produce any sort of beautiful thoughts for me.

However, the man is a legend for a reason. He's a brilliant writer. I have read On Writing, his non-fiction memoir of how to write well. Not only is his life story incredibly indicative of his style and material, but the counsel he gives is genuine and simple.

In this article, we learn of how audiobooks started with him—he paid his kids to read and record cassette tapes for him. His son reflects from the year he turned 10: “One day, in 1987,” he said, “he presented me with a handheld cassette recorder, a block of blank tapes, and a hardcover copy of Watchers, by Dean Koontz, offering nine dollars per finished sixty-minute tape of narration.”

NY Cartoons

Cartoonist Jason Chatfield sought to find "his people" by hiding his business cards all around NYC with an invitation for people to email him directly. I think this sort of endeavor would work better in NYC than anywhere else in the world as there is a genuine love and distaste of the culture from the locals.

At any rate, he boosted his subscriber reach and ran into many interesting correspondences along the way.

What I'm working on:

I'm sketching out an article about translating. John Donne paralleled it to death and eternity, so I am pulling at that thread to see what could be. 

Quotable:

"O Lord, refresh our sensibilities. Give us this day our daily taste. Take away our fear of fat. Set us free once more in our own land, where we shall serve Thee—"

—Robert Farrar Capon The Supper of the Lamb

Worth the Memory

Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem for boys called "If"—it's a call for their maturity and manhood. I recently discovered "An 'If' for Girls" by JP McEvoy from 1924. It's now our first memorization piece when school resumes.

‘If you can hear the whispering about you,
And never yield to deal in whispers, too;
If you can bravely smile when loved ones doubt you,
And never doubt, in turn, what loved ones do;
If you can keep a sweet and gentle spirit
In spite of fame or fortune, rank or place,
And though you win your goal or only near it,
Can win with poise and lose with equal grace;

If you can meet with Unbelief, believing,
And hallow in your heart a simple Creed,
If you can meet Deception, undeceiving,
And learn to look to God for all you need;
If you can be what girls should be to mothers:
Chums in joy and comrades in distress,
And be unto others as you’d have the others
Be unto you – No more, and yet no less;

If you can keep within your heart the power
To say that firm, unconquerable “No”;
If you can brave a present shadowed hour,
Rather than yield to build a future woe;
If you can love, yet not let loving master,
But keep yourself within your own self’s clasp,
And not let dreaming lead you to disaster,
Nor pity’s fascination loose your grasp;

If you can lock your heart on confidences,
Nor ever needlessly in turn confide;
If you can put behind you all pretenses
Of mock humility or foolish pride:
If you can keep the simple, homely virtue
Of walking right with God – then have no fear
That anything in all the world can hurt you-
And – which is more – you’ll be a Woman, dear.’

What are your great things from the week?