Friday, April 20, 2007

Way off topic

I know this doesn't have anything to do with Classic Catholicism (unless you think of the Beatles as Catholic artists!), but how long did it take the Beatles to record the vocals for the song "Eleanor Rigby?" Curtesy AIM Radio.

Encylopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy

Oswald Sobrino reports on the new Encylopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy which will be out on July 15. I contributed articles on Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes and Henri de Lubac.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Man for All Seasons at Notre Dame

A nice event coming up at Notre Dame is the production by the Orestes Brownson Council of "A Man for All Seasons" in the Lab Theater at Washington Hall from Thursday, April 26th through Sunday April 29th. I believe the performances on Thu.-Sat. will be at 8:00 and Sun. is at 2:30. My son is playing Cromwell, the villain.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

A friend was mentioning the other day how much he liked the visuals in the Harry Potter movies. He then bemoaned the fact that Hollywood doesn't put such technology at the service of quality movies about the historic lives of the saints or the dramatization of novels like Kristin Lavtansdatter. Which made me think, I wonder if any of my older kids of ever read any of Undset's books? They are certainly among the best 20th century Catholic novels (up there with LoTR in my book).
[spoiler alert]
I appreciate the woman's perspective, for one. For instance, the realism of Kristin's discovery of her condition in the beer house, how her reaction to the smell tipped her off.
My only "problem" with KL is that Erland gets a pass on his infidelity when he goes up to Lapland because "men will be men." I'm not sure if that is Undset's own indulgence or if she is simply conveying the culture presumptions prevalent at the time--which, in fact, may be one of the reasons why Kristen and Erland got into the trouble in the first place. I'd have to read them again. It has been many years.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Is Notre Dame Still Catholic?

Remember when that was the Big Question in the 1980s? Did you know that the Facebook group “Students For Keeping the Masculine Pronoun When Referring To God” has 314 members—at Notre Dame!?

Monday, April 16, 2007

My son on the problem of Harry Potter

My son sent me this (thoroughly tongue-in-cheek) notice:

NOTRE DAME--New research shows that excessive reading of the popular Harry Potter series may lead to violence of an unexpected kind. A study conducted by a high-level psychologist at Notre Dame showed that people tended to use the books as weapons in disputes about their contents. Here is a transcript of one such dispute: A: A certain character is evil. B: No; he's good. A: Actually, he's evil. B: Good. A: Evil. B: [hits A. with Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince]