One of the best things I've listened to recently was an interview with John Doe. Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot spoke with John for their Sound Opinions podcast. While Doe has an impressive and surprisingly long acting resume, he's best known as the bassist and driving force behind one of the best, most enigmatic punk bands- X. Doe was interviewed on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the release of X's third studio album: Under the Big Black Sun.
Under the Big Black Sun, which I have been listening to this week, remains a truly great record. A longtime friend, who is a professor of Philosophy, and a musician himself, insists that X was and remains (in 2020 they released their album Alphabetland) a very "Catholic" band. I saw X live on 2 August 2018 with another good friend who alerted me to this podcast.
In addition to Under the Big Black Sun, I've also been listening to Bach's Mass in B Minor. It is sublime in every aspect. At least to me, there is not now nor has there ever been any incongruence in my listening habits.
I've also been reading more (I always read- it's like breathing). I am finishing up a fascinating and well-written biography of Saint Ignatius of Loyola- Ignatius of Loyola: The Pilgrim Saint, by the Basque priest José Ignacio Tellechea Idígoras, translated from Spanish by Cornelius M. Buckley, S.J. I am also finishing Barbara Walter's How Civil Wars Start: and How to Stop Them. This book is a good companion to the Congressional Hearings on 6 January 2021. In a different vein, I am also reading Arthur Brooks' From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life.
Once I finish these I am going to re-read Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World and read Amanda Ripley's High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out.
Thinking of reading in the summertime, I am reminded of how unencumbered I was during summers growing up. It was during summers that I received a good deal of my education. I am more autodidactic than is probably good for me. This "education" consisted of simply reading a lot of books. During the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school, I read 1984, Farenheit 451, and A Brave New World successively. This was 1982, the same year Under the Big Black Sun was released. The experience of reading those three books one after the other changed my life as much as any experience I've ever had. It was the beginning of my awareness.
Towards the end of my sophomore year, for English class, I read Orwell's short story A Hanging. Reading that was the effective cause of my opposition to the death penalty. Because this happened at a low ebb of my religious belief, while my opposition to the death penalty is certainly part of my religion, my opposition to it did have not its genesis in that.
In many ways, Orwell, most of whose works I've read (many I have re-read), remains something of my political lodestar. Another book I plan to read this summer is John Sutherland's Orwell's Nose: A Pathological Biography, which I acquired a few years ago from the University of Chicago Press, during their annual blowout sale.
If you haven't read it, I encourage you to read Jonathan Haidt's article for The Atlantic, "Why the Past 10 of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid." In an amazing chapter of her book, Walter demonstrates how our stupidity is exploited by and through social media. At end of his piece, Haidt makes some public policy proposals worth considering.
Since Easter, I've been working to ensure that July is what I've taken to calling a slack month. This means I have no commitments outside of my normal ones. I am learning to protect time, which is a way of protecting myself.
Unsurprisingly, our first song for the relaunched Friday traditio is from Under the Big Back Sun: "Riding With Mary."
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