Episteme

Ending something hot and steamy is never quite as easy as slamming the door in the face of an ugly stalker. But what if the former becomes the latter?

For a case in point, go to Graham Greene's 1951 classic, The end of the Affair. You'll understand why Julianne Moore and Ralph Fiennes were psyched to play this lurid drama on the big screen, and you might even identify with parts of it if you have ever been through a terrible breakup.

Maurice Bendrix is obsessed with Sara Miles, who is the wife of Henry Miles, a civil servant. Maurice and Sarah have a history together - they enjoyed a long affair, including having sex in the married couple's house when Henry was there and actually walked right by the door. So they got pretty obvious at times and of course the loser husband ended up finding out.

Continue reading "The End of the Affair" »

Posted by Kim at 09:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just read this very exciting, very cheesy novel by Alice Hoffman, called Second Nature. The only problem is it's about a man who was raised by wolves, which I doubt could ever happen. Going back to the issue of fact versus fiction, don't you kind of like fiction that might be real, even if you know it's not? Isn't that kind of the point, so that the voluntary suspension of disbelief isn't quite so difficult?

Well, my best answer is that if there is sex, murder, and a psychiatric hospital involved, you make the effort to suspend whatever it is until you're done with the book. Hoffman is a good enough writer to make you think, who knows, maybe a man could be raised by wolves. Maybe if he was young enough when he fell from a plane in northern Michigan and was the only survivor, he could nurse from a female wolf with other pups and basically learn wolf language. Maybe he could learn to run really, really fast and kill things with a sharpened stone to make up for his lack of fangs. Maybe they would accept him even though he looked different, because his nature was able to change, in the sense that all his former human knowledge got suppressed and he gave himself over to this other set of knowledge, like how to track and kill.

Continue reading "What qualifies as cheese, and is there anything wrong with that?" »

Posted by Kim at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't really have any elaborate theories on God. I can't really debate with someone whether God exists or not because I go back and forth on that question all the time. (Yes when I am scared, desperate, nervous or mad. No when I am everything else.) I think my lack of elaborate theories or talking points on the subject stems from the fact I don't have a really well developed philosophy around that and I haven't read a lot on that whole are of does-God-exist-and-what-does-it-mean-for-me-kind of thing, so there. If he does, then why do so many horrible things happen? He doesn't, then are we nothing more than highly complex animals ruled by purely by chemical reactions in a universe that is random, cruel and without meaning? That's pretty much it for me. I don't believe that life is entirely random and without meaning, but I do believe this idea, put forward by a former evangelical preacher turned evangelical preacher of the doctrine of inclusivity (as told on This American Life), meaning Jesus loves and forgives everyone and the only hell we should be concerned with is the one we create for ourselves here on Earth.

Continue reading "God In This World and In Others" »

Posted by Dawn at 10:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So my not-so-noticeable absence can be explained by one word: disruption. I've just been disrupted the last few weeks and as I sit on my bed now looking around a room half in boxes, I realize I'm almost through it. Almost.

But I haven't stopped wondering about things, which brings me to my primary point: terrorism. I don't really understand what goes through the minds of people who want to kill bystanders and threaten the fabric of free societies, so I won't guess. I do know when I board a plane headed to Europe next weekend, I won't be able to bring any liquids me with as a consequence. It's going to be a wonderful vacation, one I've worked hard for almost a year to pay for, but nonetheless, I am - as all airline passengers are - in the drag net of terrorism. And that makes it seem a little less joyous or maybe it should be even more so. But really, I'm going to drink beer and see friends, nothing else. I'll let you know when I get back.

Continue reading "The Bigger Threat Is Us" »

Posted by Dawn at 02:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What I was alluding to yesterday with Reinhold Niebuhr is his book The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness. I had never thought of WWII in terms of original sin and the implications it has had on human behavior throughout history. So Niebhur is writing this in 1944, when things in Europe are bad, to say the least (makes me think of Europe Central), and Neibuhr being a Protestant scholar and preacher, looks at what is engulfing Europe in terms of "universal good" and "universal law."

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Posted by Dawn at 09:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)