Personal

  • Lydia invented the character and song, "Booty Dickinson"
  • Closed on the house!

My Thoughts

  • Strong opinions loosely held: "strong" means be decisive, "loosely" means be humble and not trapped by ideology.
  • Barn owl is the creepy owl
  • What does it mean that the dominant American pop culture genre has shifted from western to superhero?

Writing, Links, Podcasts

Notes

  • Angelina Stanford
    • Charlotte Mason said don't put educational devices like worksheets between students and books.
    • The teacher is not the arbiter of all knowledge and shouldn't make all the connections for the child.
    • The teacher should lead the child to the stream and let them drink, not pour water into their mouth through a funnel.
    • But: some things you must teach, like phonics. Reading aloud is "putting yourself between the child and a book".
    • An expert teacher is a living book. They should incite curiousity and lead them to make connections. The teacher can also learn with this method.
    • Don't teach mastery of a book, expecting the student to give you back information verbatim. Model the big ideas.
    • Remove obstacles between child and book: cultural assumptions, ignorance of form, etc.
  • Wes Callihan
    • Starting with Homer, every epic has a bee simile.
    • Read aloud. Move your lips as you read. Until the Middle Ages, no one read silently.
    • Men are made in the image of God. Even unregenerate men have some truth, beauty, and goodness. Lies work when mixed with truth. "Plundering the Egyptians" is separating the truth from the lies.
    • It's not ad hominem to distrust an argument made by a moral argument.
    • Reading fiction is emotional boot camp.
    • Qualities a teacher should have
      1. Love - for knowledge, subject, students
      2. Growth - read books, exchange ideas
      3. Curiousity - engine driving growth
      4. Diversity of interests - intellectual, physical, skilled
      5. Direction - short- and long-term goals
      6. Humility - allows learning more, debt to tradition
      7. Perspective - God is ultimate goal, telos
      8. Praying
  • Bishop Robert Barron
    • Theme of scripture is orthodoxy: right worship
    • Sin is bad praise - Cain, priests of Baal
    • When you are liberated from worshipping pleasures, you can really enjoy them. - Chesterton
  • Doug Wilson
    • Trumpkin knew the difference between giving advice and taking orders. He also vowed to leave if ogres were invited to join the army.
    • Feudal lords protected vassals in exchange for loyalty.
    • King George didn't protect colonies from abuses of Parliament. He broke covenant and the colonies were legally justified in declaring independence.
  • Martin Cothran
    • Hardest part of writing a story: setting. The best writing is regional, authors who know a place and the plants and animals of that place.
    • A good writer know the most exciting place is "here".
    • The Western is America's great myth, to us what Homer was to the Greeks and Virgil was to the Romans.
  • Scholé Sisters
    • Clement of Alexandria said philosophy was to the Greeks what the Law was to the Jews. All wisdom leads to God and we need not fear it.
    • Amusement and entertainment is a refreshment. A good transition from work to scholé.
  • Kelly Cumbee
    • Reads of the Divine Comedy:
      1. Listen while reading along to 3 cantos at a time of Clive James's translation
      2. Read 1 canto at a time of Sayers's translation: intro note, end notes, canto
      3. Anthony Esolen's translation
      4. Longfellow's translation
  • During the Napoleonic Era, you could buy your rank in the British army, but not the navy.
  • We know nothing about the architect of the Chartres cathedral.
  • "A man of letters" = read the great books
  • "Lit" = letter (Latin)
  • "Gram" = letter (Greek)

Quotes

  • "The detective story differs from every other story in this: that the reader is only happy if he feels a fool." -- G. K. Chesterton, "The Ideal Detective Story"

Words

  • Anthology: garland or bouquet (anthos = flower, logos = gather), collection of flowers of literature (beautiful passages)
  • Chancellor: director of chancery. Originally Roman emperor's chief scribe or secretary, gained judicial power, became a bishop's chief judge, became a high officer of a European state, "keeper of the great seal of the kingdom".
  • Chancery: English highest court next to Parliament, jurisdiction mostly equity; US court of equity
  • Goosecap: silly person
  • Scholé: leisurely, creative work, not done for profit
  • Sebaceous: pertaining to fat
  • Vizard: visor