Not sure yet what I think about it, or whether it has any narrative or theological significance, but in the second episode of season two of Severance, a character refers to the severed operation as “circumcising your brain.”
Not sure yet what I think about it, or whether it has any narrative or theological significance, but in the second episode of season two of Severance, a character refers to the severed operation as “circumcising your brain.”
This morning in CT I have a review of Wesley Hill’s new book on the resurrection. It’s delightful!
Last year I wrote pretty much all I have to say about The Phantom Menace, or so I thought. Tonight it occurred to me, as my son showed it to his younger sister for the first time, that there was a larger narrative purpose for the Padmé/Sabé decoy ruse—which, within the film, makes no sense and has no payoff whatsoever. I’m surprised I’ve never seen it before, though I’m sure others have.
The rationale is this: to plant the seed now, in the first film of the trilogy, that even the wisest and most experienced of the Jedi could be fooled by a simple swap, one person posing as another. In other words, the Jedi are so decadent and blinkered that they are fooled by a queen slipping out and playacting as a servant in her entourage, and the servant standing in for the queen. If the eyes of the Jedi can be blinded so easily, all the more so in the case of a Sith lord donning the robes of an esteemed senator and infiltrating the heart of the Republic.
It’s worth adding, too, that this narrative decision by Lucas adds more fodder to the Darth Jar Jar theory. The Jedi can’t see the queen in the servant or the Sith in the senator; nor can they see the Sith apprentice in the bumbling Gungan fool in front of them.
Bill Simmons wrote up an intro to his annual Trade Value list and published the whole thing on The Ringer, just like the good old days. Used to be my favorite column of his each year, especially when Duncan was in the top five for a full decade. Feeling wistful for Page 2 and Grantland…
This morning I’m in Front Porch Republic with a fun piece called “How to Raise Readers, in Thirty-Five Steps.”
Dan Snyder, man. What else is there to say?
Lichtenberg, 1783
Eve Tushnet writes on “Pulp Pleasure and Political Propaganda."
The numbers of the stat geeks are ambiguous wrt excitement and entertainment. In basketball it leads to endless clanks from three; in football it leads to going for it on fourth almost all the time.
Ted Chiang’a short story “Hell is the Absence of God” is more than a gloss on, or retelling of, the Book of Job. It’s a narrative enactment of the old question addressed to aspiring Reformed pastors: “Would you be damned for the glory of God?”
I just discovered that my text messages auto-correct “August” to “Augustine,” which must mean my phone has learned that I talk about the saint more than I do the month.