Eric Scheske

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Culture

Friday

BYCU If you haven't spent a lot of time with Zmirak's Bad Catholic series, you're missing out. The material is flat-out brilliant. Content, prose, humor: it's all there. I expect to draw a lot of BYCU material from Zmirak, including this nugget:

Everyday Drinking

I haven't devoted nearly enough attention to drinking literature, but from the books I've read, Kingly Amis' collection of essays, Everyday Drinking, is some of the best. Sure, he's a limey, but I think the English have a special knack for creating drinking

It’s Time We Recognize Noise as the Eighth Capital Sin

I’m thinking the list of seven capital sins — Pride, Envy, Avarice, Anger, Sloth, Gluttony, Lust — ought to be expanded to eight. This may be audacious of me, and I’m not sure what type of campaign I’d need in order to obtain official recognition for an eighth sin,

Monday

Ranking the Cities We took a day trip to Chicago on Saturday. We went to the Shedd Aquarium, ate at Uno's (over-rated), walked/shopped the Miracle Mile, then decided the heat was too much and drove home early, pulling into our driveway before 8:00 p.m. On

Thursday

Letters to Children Living in the Present I The nineteenth-century Scottish fantasy writer, George MacDonald, lived in intense poverty. He wrote fairy tales in order to eke out a living for his family. Yet he had a peaceful mind. Said C.S. Lewis about him: “His peace of mind came

Monday

On Sleep I ran across one of the most interesting and helpful articles of the year this weekend: "Cuckoo: Our body clocks have social jet lag. And it's making most of us a little crazy [http://nymag.com/arts/books/reviews/till-roenneberg-internal-time-2012-5/]." It's one

Saturday

Best Vocalist While drinking and enjoying some old tunes late yesterday afternoon, I pondered this question: Who's the greatest pop/rock male vocalist of the 20th century? Jim Reeves? Marty Robbins? Johnny Mathis? Sam Cooke? Roy Orbison? I'm talking about pure singing talent, not most popular,

Wednesday

The Beat Enigma When he saw a statue of the Virgin Mary turn its head in his hometown church's basement in the early 1950s, Jack Kerouac said it dawned on him that the word "Beat" is a religious word with a relation to the beatific vision.

Monday

What is Manliness? Lew Rockwell frequently links to "The Art of Manliness." It's a decent site, but I think it's more like Gentleman's Quarterly than a man's site. When I think of men, I basically have two stereotypes: John Wayne

Friday

Gilbert I ran Brews You Can Use on Black Wednesday, so today is a normal post . . . almost. I'm also away from my computer, so I've had to pre-program a few posts. Today, I merely want to mention that the new issue of Gilbert Magazine [http://www.