Over at my Ape Man blog, I have discussed New Urbanism on occasion (largely because I read Architecture + Morality and I sometimes desire to contribute to the discussion). I am generally sympathetic to the aesthetics of New Urbanism, but I doubt current American values will ever enable it to work.
I am not happy Click Here to continue reading.

This week’s poem of the week is Animal Satisfaction. Andrew latter revised it and called Animal Sensation. Comparing the two is educational.

Stairway to Heaven is the most popular rock song ever written. Like most things that are wildly popular, it is a little over rated. But if you believe that good poetry has a religious function it is worth paying attention to. For it is an expression of the religious sensibilities of most of the boomer generation. It is the Catechism of America’s secular religion.

You can read the lyrics here or you can listen to it below.

Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem “Tommy” is this week’s poem of the week. It is more of a rant then a poem. But it is what came to mind this week.

Actually, lately, it hasn’t been so much a lack of wanting to write as a lack of wanting to write about sewing. This surprised me, though it should not have. I always have mulitiple projects started, because after a time I get sick of working on one, and work on something else instead. Why would Click Here to continue reading.

This week’s poem of the week is Ash Wednesday by T.S Eliot. It was his first poem after his conversion to Anglicanism.

The great split in America between the Congregationalists and the Unitarians has had a profound and far reaching effects on our culture. It has affected our politics. It laid the seeds for the 60’s and gave us higher education as we know it today. And as this essay points out, it has also affected our architecture.

This is part of the sound track to this movie.

H/T The Belmont Club and Vanderleun

We were all sitting around discussing books the other day. One book that received a fair amount of discussion was the “The Runner” by Cynthia Voigt. Some individual who can never get his nouns straight said that book started off with a quote from a poem called “A Shropshire Lad” by A. E. Housman.

That is not accurate. “A Shropshire Lad” is the name of a collection of poems. The name of the actual poem that leads off and ends the book is To an Athlete Dying Young. That poem can be found in “A Shropshire Lad”. So can other poems that make an appearance in “The Runner”.

Anyway, in honor of our discussions the other day, we have made “To an Athlete Dying Young” poem of the week.