“That book was a very useful gift,” Anderson says now. “But it wasn’t the only one that I read back then on the general topic of Britain’s history of folklore. The countryside too provided me with some influence. Our countryside is quite rich in different traditions and cultures, and elements of fantasy and fable. Songs From The Wood also drew on my background of listening to other kinds of music than rock. I’ve never really been a fan of rock music. I was trying to stick to musical references that arose when classical composers fooled around with the vulgar folk music forms. Beethoven, for one, knew a good folk tune when he heard it.”
— Read on www.loudersound.com/features/lets-party-like-its-1399-the-story-behind-jethro-tulls-songs-from-the-wood
All posts by bradbirzer
The Roots of Political Correctness ~ The Imaginative Conservative
In graduate school—at Indiana University-Bloomington—I first encountered the dreadfully dull and dreary political correctness of the New Left. Prior to IU, I had encountered a number of left-wing academics, but they had all been interesting, on fire, and ready to listen to a variety of viewpoints. Indeed, they still believed in free exchange and the free and open debate of ideas. At Indiana, though, I found something quite different. There, certain opinions—sometimes explicitly stated and sometimes implicitly—were becoming orthodox. Those students who defended them did so with sincerity but not verve. This became especially obvious when the politically-correct leftist debated an anarchist or a black power supremacist. Usually, the more radical tore apart the PC, recognizing intellectual weakness for what it was. The politically-correct of IU had become so comfortable in their own opinions that they failed to develop them with any serious standards. I found them boring, frankly, but pervasive. Few things can be duller than a number of similarly-minded folks sitting around a table for two-and-a-half hours to agree and disagree upon all of the same things… but to do so with what could only be considered the Scandinavian white sauce of the culinary world!
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/06/roots-of-political-correctness-bradley-birzer.html
Microsoft’s Ebook Apocalypse Shows the Dark Side of DRM | WIRED
Microsoft made the announcement in April that it would shutter the Microsoft Store’s books section for good. The company had made its foray into ebooks in 2017, as part of a Windows 10 Creators Update that sought to round out the software available to its Surface line. Relegated to Microsoft’s Edge browser, the digital bookstore never took off. As of April 2, it halted all ebook sales. And starting as soon as this week, it’s going to remove all purchased books from the libraries of those who bought them.
Other companies have pulled a similar trick in smaller doses. Amazon, overcome by a fit of irony in 2009, memorably vanished copies of George Orwell’s 1984 from Kindles. The year before that, Walmart shut down its own ill-fated MP3 store, at first suggesting burn their purchases onto CDs to salvage them before offering a download solution. But this is not a tactical strike. There is no backup plan. This is The Langoliers. And because of digital rights management—the mechanism by which platforms retain control over the digital goods they sell—you have no recourse. Microsoft will refund customers in full for what they paid, plus an extra $25 if they made annotations or mark-ups. But that provides only the coldest comfort.
— Read on www.wired.com/story/microsoft-ebook-apocalypse-drm/
Apple iPad mini 2019 review: no competition – The Verge
People really love the iPad mini, so Apple’s updated it with Pencil support and a fast new processor. It’s great.
— Read on www.theverge.com/2019/3/21/18274477/ipad-mini-2019-review-apple-ios-pencil-lightning-specs-price-tablet
N.B. Patel is excellent. Voice and cadence. Enjoy.
Cicero’s Republic: The Duty to Make Whole That Which Is Broken ~ The Imaginative Conservative
Whatever his exact reasons for adopting a more Stoical approach to life, Cicero unwittingly (but perhaps gracefully?) prepared Rome for Christianity in ways that other pagans and paganisms could never have allowed or done. That generation of Stoics, including Virgil and Seneca, expected, amazingly enough, the human incarnation of the God of gods. It is little wonder, then, that so many of the early Church fathers—such as Jerome, Augustine, and Ambrose—considered Cicero to be a pagan Christian, more related to Christ and his teachings than not. Most certainly, his martyrdom on December 7, 43 BC, did not hurt his cause among Christians, either.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/06/cicero-republic-on-duties-bradley-birzer.html
Critical Moments: Tolkien’s Mythology, 1914-1937
As some of you might now, I’m in the middle of completing a book manuscript on the history of the Inklings for ISI Books. Here’s my partial list of critical moments in the creation of Tolkien’s larger mythology, from its earliest hints to the publication of The Hobbit.
“Bidding of the Minstrel” (poem) Winter 1914[1]
“Tinfang Warble” (Poem) 1914[2]
On Francis Thompson (paper) 1914[3]
“Earendil” (poem) September 1914[4]
“Kalevala; or Land of Heroes” (paper) November 22, 1914[5]
“The Story of Kullervo,” (story) late 1914
“Qenya Lexicon” (dictionary) 1915[6]
On the Kalevala (paper) February 1915[7]
“Man in the Moon” (poem) March 1915[8]
“Sea Chant of an Elder Day” (poem) March 1915[9]
“Cottage of Lost Play” (Poem) April 27-28, 1915[10]
“Shores of Faery” (poem) July 1915[11]
“The Happy Mariners” (poem) July 1915[12]
“A Song of Aryador” (poem) September 12, 1915
“Kortirion Among the Trees” (Poem) November 21-28, 1915[13]
“Over Old Hills and Far Away” (Poem) December 1915-February 1916[14]
“Habbanan Beneath the Stars” (Poem) December 1915 or June 1916[15]
Prelude, Inward, Sorrowful (poems) March 16-18, 1916[16]
“The Fall of Gondolin” (story) 1916-1917[17]
“Tale of Tinuviel” (story) 1917[18]
“Cottage of Lost Play” (story) February 12, 1917[19]
The Music of the Ainur (story) Between November 1918 and Spring 1920[20]
“Turin Turambar & the Dragon” (story) 1919[21]
“The Fall of Gondolin” (story aloud) Spring 1920[22]
“Lay of the Children of H” (poem) 1920-1925[23]
“The City of the Gods” (poem) 1923[24]
Question if Beren a man or elf 1925-1926[25]
“Lay of Leithian (poem) 1925-September 1931[26]
“The Silmarillion” (story) 1926[27]
“Silmarillion/Sketch” (story) 1926[28]
“Intro to Elder Edda” (paper) November 17, 1926[29]
“Mythopoeia” (poem) September 1931-November 1935[30]
The Hobbit (novel) Late 1928-1936[31]
“The Quenta” (story) 1930[32]
“Earliest Annals of Valinor” 1930[33]
“Annals of Beleriand” 1930[34]
Second version of Silmarillion 1930-1937[35]
“New Lay of Volunga” (poem) early 1930s[36]
“New Lay of Gudrún” (poem) early 1930s[37]
“A Secret Vice” (paper) 1931[38]
“Fall of Arthur” (poem) 1931-1934[39]
“Beowulf: Monsters and Critics” (paper) November 25, 1936[40]
“The Lost Road” (story) 1936-37[41]
“The Fall of Númenor” (story) 1936-37[42]
Draft of Silmarillion to Allen/Unwin November 1937[43]
“On Fairy Stories” (paper) March 8, 1939[44]
Sources
[1] CJRT, HOME 2, 269.
[2] CJRT, HOME 1, 107.
[3]Garth, Tolkien at Exeter, 30.
[4] CJRT, HOME 2, 267; Garth has it on November 27, 1914; see Garth, Tolkien at Exeter, 41.
[5] Flieger, ed., The Story of Kullervo, 63, 91.
[6] Parma Eldalamberon 12 (1998).
[7] Garth, Tolkien at Exeter, 42.
[8] CJRT, HOME 1, 202.
[9] Garth, Tolkien at Exeter, 42.
[10] CJRT, HOME 1, 27.
[11] CJRT, HOME 2, 271.
[12] CJRT, HOME 2, 273.
[13] CJRT, HOME 1, 25.
[14] CJRT, HOME 1, 108.
[15] CJRT, HOME 1, 91.
[16] CJRT, HOME 2, 295.
[17] CJRT, HOME 2, 146; and CJRT, The Children of Húrin, 9.
[18] CJRT, HOME 2, 3.
[19] Edith writes out story for JRRT, HOME 1, 13.
[20] CJRT, HOME 1, 45
[21] CJRT, The Children of Húrin, 9.
[22] To the Exeter College Essay Club, in CJRT, HOME 2, 199.
[23] CJRT, HOME 3, 1.
[24] CJRT, HOME 1, 136
[25] CJRT, HOME 2, 52.
[26] CJRT, HOME 3, 1.
[27] CJRT, HOME 2, 300.
[28] CJRT, HOME 4, 11.
[29] CJRT, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, 16.
[30] CJRT, Tree and Leaf, 7.
[31] “The Hobbit,” in Scull and Hammond, JRRT Companion and Guide, Reader’s Guide 1, 509-522.
[32] CJRT, HOME 4, 76.
[33] CJRT, HOME 4, 1.
[34] CJRT, HOME 4, 1.
[35] CJRT, HOME 5, 107.
[36] CJRT, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, 5.
[37] CJRT, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, 5.
[38] Given for Johnson Society, Pembroke College. See Fimi and Higgins, eds, A Secret Vice, xii.
[39] CJRT, Fall of Arthur, 10-11.
[40] CJRT, The Monsters and the Critics, 1; and Drout, ed., Beowulf and the Critics.
[41] CJRT, HOME 5, 8-9.
[42] CJRT, HOME 5, 7-9.
[43] CJRT, HOME 5, 107
[44] CJRT, The Monsters and the Critics, 3.
ICv2: Brands Live. Brands Die.
Daily coverage of the pop culture products industry, including toys (action figures, models and statues), anime (anime, manga, and Japanese imports), games (collectible card and roleplaying games or ccgs and rpgs), comics (comics and graphic novels), and movie and TV (licensed) merchandise. We feature business news, and in-depth analysis for retailers, publishers, manufacturers, distributors. Trade properties we cover include Star Wars, Star Trek, X-Men, Gundam Wing, Dragonball Z, Pokemon, Akira, Lone Wolf and Cub, Magic the Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons, Mage Knight, Superman, Spider-man, JLA, Batman, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, J.R.R. Tolkien, Sailor Moon, Sandman, Harry Potter. Genres we cover include fantasy, science fiction, horror.
— Read on icv2.com/articles/columns/view/43504/brands-live-brands-die
reMarkable vs Apple Pencil first impressions | Macworld
Adam surprises Leif with the reMarkable tablet and asks him to do a quick writing test versus the Apple Pencil to see what he thinks of the ‘paper like’ experience.
— Read on www.macworld.com/video/96307/remarkable-vs-apple-pencil-first-impressions
The Influence of Irving Babbitt’s Humanism ~ The Imaginative Conservative
Most diabolically, it had become—quite truly—a false religion. Founded by the former Baptist and Unitarian minister, Charles Francis Potter’s humanism went public at the very beginning of the fall of 1929 when he delivered a homily to 244 New Yorkers, having turned away well over 400 to meet the fire code. “Just as Protestantism was an offshoot of Roman Catholicism, and Liberalism, as represented by Unitarianism and Universalism, was born of Protestantism, so also Humanism has come forth from Unitarianism.”[1] Blatantly taking the name of his new faith from Babbitt and More (whom he thought would be allies in his new religion) he asked his congregants to give up their primitive “deity obsession.”[2] Only from man, Potter claimed, could one find true dignity. “Out of the heart of man have arisen all his noble impulses and aspirations.”[3] Babbitt and More, horrified, condemned the new movement, and the scare almost certainly moved More toward Anglican orthodoxy. Potter, however, with the aid of the effete John Dewey and bizarre Harry Elmer Barnes, founded the American Humanist Association and issued the Humanist Manifesto in 1933. To be sure, the word “humanism” has never recovered.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/06/irving-babbitt-influence-humanism-bradley-birzer.html
Book Review: ‘Mr. Straight Arrow’ Illuminates Writings of John Hersey | National Review
Ironically, one of Hersey’s talents lay in his ability to focus on people. In The Algiers Motel Incident, he focused on the victims of police brutality. In The Wall, he told the story of resisters in the Warsaw ghetto. In Hiroshima, Hersey wrote about six people, what they were doing when the atomic bomb fell, and how they were affected by the destruction it sowed.
As Treglown shows, Hersey was a “war poet as much as a journalist.” Although he did not write poems per se, reading Hersey, one sees how he transferred his musical ability and feel for rhythm to the sound of words.
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Hersey’s understanding of the power of imagery shines through his opus — especially in Hiroshima. Treglown says the book showcases Hersey’s “startling intimacy with the people he writes about” and his innate sensitivity for language. Even the title of the first section, “A Noiseless Flash,” suggests Hersey’s appreciation for the image.
— Read on www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/book-review-mr-straight-arrow-biography-john-hersey/
Spirit of Cecilia 
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