Of all the Micah Tillmans in the world — and there are at least three — … I am this one.
Posted in Literature on Aug 7th, 2010
As someone who studies philosophy, plans on becoming an author when he grows up, and is married to a future librarian, I find myself concerned with books. However, as someone who majored in computer science, who blogs, who uses Google Books and Amazon’s “Look/Search Inside” features, and who is married to a web consultant genius [...]
[ Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 ] The Wife and I have been watching Battlestar Galactica, in which there are certain robots who are quasi-organic and look/talk/think/emote like humans. One of the central plot tensions in the story, therefore, is whether these robots are persons or not. [...]
Posted in Culture, Ethics (Philosophy), Religion, TV on Mar 29th, 2010
The Wife is showing me a new Syfy series called Caprica (my apologies for the promo picture on the front page). It’s a prequel to Battlestar Galactica, and is co-executive-produced by Jane Espenson of BSG and Buffy fame. It’s been really good, so far as I have seen. One of the most interesting points is [...]
Posted in Culture, Literature, Philosophy on Mar 22nd, 2010
While The Wife and I were traveling to and from Massachusetts, we listened to Don’t Know Much About Mythology, by Kenneth Davis. It is informative and entertaining. However, it deserves a couple of critical responses. ____ First, in it, Davis seems to assume/assert the following story about human history. Once upon a time, humans didn’t [...]
Posted in Arts and Entertainment, Culture on Mar 8th, 2010
The Wife, and the Sister-in-Law, and I went to see the Marinsky Opera’s version of Prokofiev’s operatic adaptation of Tolstoy’s War and Peace yesterday at the government-run Kennedy Center yesterday. It was very good. The staging was marvelous, the music was wonderful (I like Prokofiev, evidently), and it was cool to hear so much Russian [...]
Posted in Music on Feb 28th, 2010
On Communion Sundays we at our church seem to frequently sing “Put Peace Into Each Other’s Hands.” The melody/arrangement is gorgeous, but the lyrics are hysterical. For instance, in the third verse, everyone sings dramatically: Look people warmly in the eye Really? “Look people warmly in the eye?” Okay . . . . ____ But [...]
You may know that I periodically get on Drudge’s case for the fact that the adverts on his site often don’t display correctly (which leads me to wonder why companies pay him to advertise on his site). Today, I found the following juxtaposition of headlines ironic: The links are to the following stories: Alabama shooting [...]
Posted in Literature, Philosophy on Dec 14th, 2009
I was talking to one of my students today, and the topic of existential crises (i.e., the experience of meaninglessness, [see Ecclesiastes 1, for example, or any play by Samuel Beckett, or Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl]) came up. I thought my student was having one, you see. And I proceeded to explain [...]
Posted in Culture, Literature on Dec 9th, 2009
Dr. Currid is now transitioning from the Historical Books to the Poetical Books. He began with an attempt to define poetry. Which gives me an excuse to discuss my own theory of poetry. Definition: A linguistic piece is poetic when its words are connected in ways other than those needed to convey information. Corollary 1: [...]
Posted in Culture, Ethics (Philosophy), TV on Nov 25th, 2009
So, I had to take the car in to get one of her rims replaced. (Her name is Kimono, and yes, she’s a she.) The dealer’s waiting room had Dr. Phil on. Dr. Phil was doing a show called “Inside Infidelity.” ____ While Dr. Phil is, from what I’ve seen, on a level of discourse [...]
