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Dec 18, 2024: Wishing all my friends a very sophistpop Christmas!
Jun 21, 2024: "Good Luck, Babe!" I’ll be shocked if a more perfect pop song than Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” is released this year… maybe this …
May 10, 2024:
More on "The Devil—A Life"
PVC: “What did the devil give you?” NC: “[…]I think the devil gave me a kind of disguise. It was just a way of, I think, …
May 8, 2024: Caught off guard by the passing of Steve Albini. The sounds he captured on record had a monumental impact on my musical formation in the early …
May 6, 2024: 🎲 6 countries. 12 Armies. Surrounded by larger forces on all sides. But I’m feeling pretty good about my chances. #RISK!
May 6, 2024: A crooked saint with a crooked halo.
May 5, 2024: Happy Cinqo de Mayo! Viva Mexico!
May 4, 2024: Some Saturday photos 📷
May 2, 2024: It’s cherry blossom season in St Andrews.
May 1, 2024:
On the Swiftiverse and the Limits of Popular Music as Franchise
This is a great piece by Sinéad O’Sullivan at The New Yorker. O’Sullivan gives name to the phenomenon that has, for me, begun to remove …
Apr 30, 2024:
Team Sleep - Ever (Foreign Flag)
This song is still, nearly 20 years on, one hell of a vibe and Chino Moreno is a hell of a singer.
Apr 29, 2024: So, All Born Screaming is fantastic. Front to back, my favorite thing Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent) has ever done. Echoes of Nine Inch Nail, Talking …
Apr 27, 2024: Watched First Reformed with Anna. Her first viewing, my second. Such a powerful film. Having just watched Diary of a Country Priest the night before …
Apr 25, 2024: 🎵Listening to different versions of “Wayfaring Stranger” while I cook dinner. I think this one by Rhiannon Giddens is probably my …
Apr 25, 2024: Well, this could be a bit of a time suck… 😬
Apr 24, 2024: I was first introduced to John O’Donohue years ago by my friend David, via this amazing interview by Krista Tippett for On Being. I finally picked up …
Apr 23, 2024: Had the opportunity to visit the exhibition of Nick Cave’s The Devil — A Life at the Xavier Hufkens Gallery (St-Georges) in Brussels just over a week …
Apr 23, 2024: Location check in 🗺 — The Roundel
Jan 8, 2024: Eco again (File under “Things that fuel this researcher’s neuroses”): “An idea contained almost by mistake on a page of an otherwise useless (and …
Jan 8, 2024: Umberto Eco on asking librarians for aid as you research your thesis: ”You must overcome any shyness and have a conversation with the librarian, …
Nov 23, 2023: “Amalia, I find that my religiousness is a slowly emergent state, one that is entirely drawn to the Anglican church of my childhood, and that …
Nov 4, 2023: Freshly roasted pumpkin seeds are one of the best things fall has to offer. 🍽
Sep 25, 2023: Finished reading: Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin 📚 “But is not Christ a general direction? asked the elder. What other kind of direction do you seek? And …
Sep 12, 2023: “Unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers of their own which mere modernity cannot kill.” - Jonathan Harker’s Journal, …
Sep 6, 2023: Things I learned the hard way: The #2 attachment on my beard trimmer is significantly shorter than the #2 attachment on a Barber’s clippers.
Sep 1, 2023: 🎵 Any release day that includes new music from Slowdive is red letter. everything is alive is gorgeous.
Aug 29, 2023: A fun and nostalgic read from W. David Marx on They Might Be Giants, early-90’s music fandom and the delightful nerdyness of the early days of the …
Aug 24, 2023: Tim Adams on Tom Waits upcoming remastered mid-80’s Trilogy: ‘Waits, he recalls, would never be specific about what he wanted; it would be “play like …
Aug 24, 2023: Alan Jacobs: “It is not true that silence is violence. The mandate to comment, to take a stand, to lend your voice — that is a violence against art. …
Aug 22, 2023: Currently reading: A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible by Robert M. Grant, David Tracy 📚 “Jesus is not a theologian but the despair of …
Aug 22, 2023: Wyatt Mason/Tom Waits (2017)“We also touched upon Leonard Cohen, who once said, ‘If I knew where the good songs came from I’d go there …
Aug 17, 2023: Richard Brody on the vocational awakening found in a children’s book: ”I learned, through Anatole’s cheese reviews, that, by expressing one’s …
Aug 17, 2023: Olivia Reingold on the surprising power of the cold contact: “These days, everyone says networking is the route to success. But I’ve always been a …
Aug 16, 2023: Periodic Re-Read: The marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake 📚
May 26, 2023: 🎵 If you are a pop music fan who might describe their relationship to the most important songs in their life as “spiritual”, I have a …
May 15, 2023: Arthur C. Brooks in The Atlantic: “A good deal of social and political activism is zero-sum, and admits only two possible outcomes: winning or …
Apr 1, 2023: I would wear the hell out of this boygenius t-shirt.
Mar 24, 2023: 🎵Now Listening — Memento Mori by Depeche Mode on Apple Music This is, without doubt, the most exciting music they’ve released since Ultra. Excellent …
Mar 22, 2023: Just your semi-periodic reminder that this oft-slept-upon gem is one of the best records of the 90’s… and of U2’s career.
Mar 18, 2023: The heavens meet the earth at East Sands.
Mar 17, 2023: This is actually great advice for anyone doing creative/generative work who struggles with perfection paralysis, courtesy of the never boring Willem …
Mar 14, 2023: There is very little that is more satisfying than watching your child prepare for something that causes them significant fear, face into it with …
Mar 14, 2023: Location check in 🗺 — Home for Work ⚒️
Feb 28, 2023: I got a little bit behind on this, but am all caught up and back in the saddle now. Have a listen to my song a day for 2023 playlist.
Feb 22, 2023: Freddie deBoer: I have a niche, a narrow one but big enough for me - a leftist who maintains a commitment to civil liberties and procedural fairness, …
Feb 22, 2023: W. David Marx on what comes next: In order to figure out what happens after the social media era, we need to break out from the binary of (1) the …
Feb 4, 2023: Saturday morning feel. 🎵Now Listening: R.E.M - Sweetness Follows
Jan 25, 2023: Happy Burns Night, friends!
Jan 20, 2023: To Apprehend the Incomprehensible 📚 Robert MacFarlane: “Above all, geology makes explicit challenges to our understanding of time. It giddies the sense of here-and-now. The …
Jan 20, 2023: 📚
Jan 20, 2023: Finished reading: Lifting the Veil by Malcolm Guite 📚 A delightful little book from an even more delightful poet/priest, Guite’s brief reading of …
Jan 18, 2023: 🎵 Yesssssssssssssssss! And playing in Glasgow Sept. 23rd. Who’s going with me!?!?!
Jan 17, 2023: Sunset over St Leonard’s Parish Church, 17/1/23
Jan 13, 2023: The Enduring Legacy of David Bowie I hate that Bowie has been gone for 7 years, but I love being reminded of this incredible weekend in 1997 when I became a Bowie fan. I wrote this when …
Jan 11, 2023: Just watched Aftersun. I am undone.
Jan 6, 2023: Inspired by Jason Dettbarn(@endonend) I’ve decided to add one song a day to this playlist for the next year. On occasion, I’ll write about the song I …
Jan 5, 2023: I love Greg Dulli’s voice, The Afghan Whigs are super under-appreciated and this unexpected cover song brings me a great deal of delight.
Jan 1, 2023: Wrapping up our annual holiday viewing tonight.
Dec 31, 2022: 👋Hi y’all! I’m Ben. I’m a PhD student in art and theology, writing about Nick Cave and the power of pop music as a mode of “doing theology”. I’m …
Dec 29, 2022: 16 Years She is more beautiful to me—in every way—today than she was on our wedding day, which, as you can see, is really saying something…
Dec 25, 2022: 🎵Now listening: Christmas - Low on Music.
Dec 25, 2022: 🎵Now Listening: A Charlie Brown Christmas (2022 Mix) - Vince Guaraldi Trio on Music.
Dec 25, 2022: 🎵For your Christmas & New Year listening pleasure! Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas b/w The New Year by achers
Dec 25, 2022: With my favourites for Christmas…
Dec 25, 2022: Happiest of Christmas wishes to all!
Dec 13, 2022: Angelo Badalamenti has died His creative collaboration with David Lynch rendered some of the most truly sublime marriages of music and image in the …
Dec 8, 2022: On The Success of Art Again, Sally Rooney: This, to me, is the beauty—we might even say the magic—of the novel as a literary tradition: its ability to involve us …
Dec 8, 2022: On the Blessed Inevitability of "Misreading" Reader, attend to Sally Rooney: Each reader, of course, encounters their own Ulysses: the one they create for themselves in the act of reading. Every …
Nov 29, 2022: This photo of Nick Cave awkwardly hugging Warren Ellis while holding a copy of Christian Wiman’s My Bright Abyss is so many of my favorite things in …
Nov 25, 2022: Dusk keeps coming earlier in St. Andrews. 26 days to the winter solstice.
Nov 24, 2022: It’s just not really Thanksgiving without homemade garmonbozia.
Nov 17, 2022: Currently reading: How To Think by Alan Jacobs 📚 Deeply insightful, & a pleasure to read. @ayjay, your choice of illustrative quotes from More and …
Nov 17, 2022: I realize that I am pretty predictable, but… I am absolutely loving this listening experience.
Nov 16, 2022: Not always serious, though. Sometimes friendly. Photo credit: Felipe Krause Dornelles
Nov 14, 2022: Serious. Photo credit: Felipe Krause Dornelles
Nov 14, 2022: E&J in B&W, West Sands, St Andrews, Scotland
Nov 11, 2022: This view never really gets old.
Nov 7, 2022: A Writer’s Confession: Robert Burton “And for those other faults of barbarism, Doric dialect, extemporanean style, tautologies, apish imitation, a rhapsody of rags gathered together from …
Nov 7, 2022: 🍰 Caramel Apple Upside-Down Cake, courtesy of Anna Rebecca. Exquisite.
Nov 7, 2022: Mimi Parker Thank you for the music, Mimi Parker.
Nov 7, 2022: “Nothing we do is better than the work of handmind. When mind uses itself without the hands it runs the circle and may go too fast; even speech using …
Nov 6, 2022: I love being part of a family of readers and writers. Anna is reading to us tonight from her latest story, “The Eclipse”.
Oct 18, 2022: Ìsland
Oct 14, 2022: Release Day Quick Takes: The 1975 - Being Funny in a Foreign Language 🎵Now Listening: Being Funny in a Foreign Language First Impression: The 1975 ditch their maximalist tendencies and makes their first album that feels …
Sep 30, 2022: I am increasingly convinced that 7 or 8 tracks is the sweet spot for album length. What are your favourite albums with no more than 8 tracks? 🎵Now …
Sep 22, 2022: So much goodness in this book. #faithhopeandcarnage
Sep 22, 2022: “Life is too damn short, in my opinion, not to be awed.” — Nick Cave
Sep 20, 2022: I can’t lie to you guys. I’m a little bit excited about this one… I mean, scholarly objectivity remains fully intact. But, still… 🤩🔥🤩🔥🤩
Sep 19, 2022: Both at Westminster and at St. George’s in Windsor, the Piper’s Lament was a beautiful and meaningful moment.
Sep 19, 2022: Deeply moved by all the funeral proceedings for E II R today. Grateful to be here in the UK to witness this.
Sep 9, 2022: 🎵Now Listening: doves - the last broadcast
Sep 9, 2022: 🎵Now Listening: Doves - The Last Broadcast i0.wp.com
Sep 4, 2022: The small is the revelation of the great, and this present time is the maturing of eternity. — Karl Rahner
Aug 29, 2022: A beautiful reading of a beautifully Eucharistic poem from the incomparable Emily Dickinson.
Aug 29, 2022: 📷 My traveling companions for the day.
Aug 26, 2022: Edinburgh bound. Crossing the Firth.
Aug 24, 2022: 🎵Listening Now: sunn O))) - Metta, Benevolence BBC6 Live: On the Invitation of Mary Anne Hobbs
Aug 24, 2022: 🎵Listening Now: L’apparition/We Are Not Alone We are not alone… (good news for life…)
Aug 23, 2022: Currently reading: The Insurmountable Darkness of Love by Douglas E. Christie 📚
Aug 21, 2022: Always love an Edinburgh day, especially one spent in the company of Ford Sachsenmaier, and with an opportunity to see Joel Pierson and his incredible …
Aug 21, 2022: “In appearance he must have been like a thin brown leaf dancing eternally before the wind; but in truth it was he that was the wind.” 💬 G.K. …
Aug 20, 2022: 📷 🎵 It’s not Glasgow, but this view along the Lade Braes alway brings to mind this perfect song: A Walk Across the Rooftops by The Blue Nile.
Aug 19, 2022: 📷 Detail on the facade Holy Trinity Church, St Andrews: Christ as the pelican feeding her young with her own blood, sustaining them when they cannot …
Aug 19, 2022: 🎵Listening Now: Just Mustard - Heart Under
Aug 18, 2022: 📷 The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (Window or Wall Sign), 1967, Bruce Nauman Taken 2019 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Aug 17, 2022: The Gospel - 1, Iconoclasts - 0 😎
Aug 17, 2022: 📷 Jude’s first day of P7, Greyfriars Primary School
Aug 17, 2022: 📷 Anna Walks Jude to School, Langlands Rd
Aug 17, 2022: 📷 Anna walks Jude to School, Dempster Terrace
Aug 17, 2022: 📷 Anna walking Jude to his first ever day of public school at Greyfriars Primary School. He will do amazing, but his parents are having first day of …
Aug 16, 2022: 📷 Skies Above Lammas, St. Andrews 2022
Aug 16, 2022: This story is amazing. Medical costs in the U.S. are obscene and this is the kind of philanthropic action needed to clear the decks. Nonetheless, this …
Aug 16, 2022: Buechner ‘In his last memoir, in 1999, Mr. Buechner recalled his mother, his brother and his childhood friend, the poet James Merrill, all of whom had died. A …
Aug 15, 2022: Magritte - The Art of Conversation
Aug 15, 2022: Now Listening: Low - Things We Lost in the Fire 🎵
Aug 15, 2022: Currently reading: The Need and the Blessing of Prayer by Karl Rahner SJ 📚
Aug 15, 2022: This absolutely beautiful pressing of one of my favorite records of all time arrived on Saturday. Been waiting a long time for a copy on vinyl and I …