Daily Office: Thursday
¶ Matins: We can’t decide if replacing “short-term” and “long-term” with “situational” and sustainable” is a substantial improvement, but we think that it’s worth floating for a while. Thomas Krugman recycles the counsels of ethcist Dov Seidman. (NYT)
¶ Lauds: We’re not quite sure that we understand the difference between form and content that Anne Midgette maintains in her complaint that classical-music lovers displace passionate response with too much information.
We think that the “content” of classical music here is what it means to you, the listener. Beyond “it’s pretty,” that is. We think. We’re interested, in any case. (Washington Post; via Arts Journal)
¶ Prime: As if on cue, Felix Salmon experiences cognitive dissonance at Davos. Also at Davos: Jonathan Harris.
¶ Tierce: The iPad is here, as expected, and — so what? How is there more to it than the next big whoop-di-doo? Well, if you follow the links in mpbx’s entry at MetaFilter, you may begin to get an idea of how.
Think: vook. It’s only a matter of time before the fun fumes burn off and the serious stuff begins to appear. So far as literature is concerned, we expect some exciting developments in graphic fiction (and graphic non-fiction as well) — and we don’t mean animation.
¶ Sext: Brooks Peters’s confessional entry at An Open Book is as compulsively readable as blogging gets.
¶ Nones: From the BBC News account, you might almost conclude that this is the end of the story for Manuel Zelaya’s truncated leadership in Honduras. But Radio France International’s report discloses the stinger that we knew had to be there somewhere.
¶ Vespers: Brooke Allen’s lively and penetrating review of Alice Munro’s Too Much Happiness made its first appearance at Barnes and Noble Review.com. That site is not on our list — yet. Thanks to the NBCC’s Critical Mass, we didn’t miss it altogether. After Ms Allen’s engaging consideration of one story, “Some Women,” one doesn’t doubt the final paragraph in the slightest.
¶ Compline: Martin Amis likes nothing so much as a good poke at a hornet’s nest. Calling for public “euthenasia booths” where the decrepit can end their misery with an ice-cold (and lethal) martini. (Guardian; via Arts Journal)