Contrary to the vast majority of my fellow scholars of American history, I have never found the account of the creation of political parties in the Founding Era and Early Republic to be credible. I see very little evidence of anything that we would recognize as political parties before 1837… (essay by Bradley J. Birzer)
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/04/political-parties-american-founding-era-bradley-birzer.html
All posts by bradbirzer
The Latest Edda: Bjorn Riis’s A Storm is Coming
Bjorn Riis’s A STORM IS COMING (Karisma, 2019).
The sheer amount of creativity that comes out of northern Europe never fails to astound or move me. From the moment the Scandinavians became Scandinavians, some 1,200 plus years ago, they seem to have existed to hunt, to farm, and to create. Even the very word “edda”—so properly associated with northern mythology—is not native to Norse, but is a word that seems to have sprung out of the moment rather than out a specific culture. We remember edda as a story, but it more properly means a divine outburst of creativity. From the creation of the AllThing (the world’s first congress) to Sigrid Undset, the Scandinavians keep shocking into life a western culture that wants to die but won’t. What is it? Is it the cold? The bleak winters? The harrowing landscapes? The daring raids? I don’t know, but I do know I thank the good Lord for their existence.
When a small package recently arrived from Norway—labeled Karisma—I was thrilled. Nothing I ever receive from that small but mighty label is unimportant. Indeed, it has to rank as one of the most important labels in the rock world, equal to Kscope, Insideout, and Sound Resources. That I found the new Bjorn Riis solo album in that package made the arrival even better. Frankly, it made it perfect. From the moment I first encountered Riis’s band, Airbag, roughly ten years ago—thanks to the recommendation of my English friend, Richard Thresh—I liked the band. Granted, their first album sounded like a sequel to Pink Floyd’s ANIMALS, but it was gorgeous, nonetheless, and it had the very James Marsh/Talk Talk-esque cover, of the eyeball crying blood. What a combination of excellent things. Since 2009, Riis has proven his genius time and time again through Airbag (IDENTITY; ALL RIGHTS REMOVED; GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH; and DISCONNECTED), each more lyrically existential and more musically creative than the last.
As much as I fell for Airbag, I fell even more in love with this solo work. LULLABIES IN A CAR CRASH; COMING HOME; and FOREVER COMES TO AN END. If you put Mark Hollis, Roger Waters, and Steven Wilson into the same room, you might come out with something close to Bjorn Riis, but still not quite there. Riis takes the best from each, but his music is very much his own.
Riis’s latest, A Storm is Coming, is more volatile and less longingly melodic than previous albums. It’s still brilliant, though. It can move from silence to a wall of sound and back to delicate piano line in a matter of moments. The title fits. The storm is coming, and Riis offers an album that looks not into the storm, but out from it. Let me revise what I just said a bit—there’s loving melody all over this album, but it feels less sustained (intentionally) than on previous albums. Honestly, I couldn’t really listen to track five, “This House,” without noting that it is melodic—in a David Gilmour fashion—to the nth degree.
I’m seeing several websites label this as an EP, but it’s 52 minutes long, so I can’t imagine what one of Riis’s LPs might look like. Yes, this is a full-fledged album. No doubt about it.
And, it’s a thing of eddaic glory. Enjoy.
Giancarlo Erra’s Adagio
Crazily enough, Apple’s iTunes gave me the choice to categorize Giancarlo Erra’s latest album, ENDS, as either “new age” or classical. I had no idea that “new age” was still a category or a genre or a label or anything less than a slur when still employed. The whole process of choosing this reminded me of how much I despise labels—for people or for music.
There’s really only one proper description for Erra’s album, ENDS: art. Best known for his rather ethereal and spacy art rock band (oh, those labels again!), Nosound, ENDS is Erra’s first solo album. Eight songs long, the album feels most like a wordless song-cycle, a meandering and a deepening and a widening of several achingly gorgeous melodies. There’s certainly nothing resembling rock—of any variety—on this album, but the various keyboards and deeper strings bring the listener very close to the music of the spheres, with elements of Henryk Gorecki and Mark Hollis informing but not shaping Erra’s creation.
Even the very titles of the eight songs–III, II, I, VII, V, IV, VI, Coda—seemingly offer us nothing in the way of personality.
And, yet, ENDS is nothing but personality, beautiful and wide and deep—we are shown the very soul the artist. Not in an egotistical way, but in a perfectly humane way.
Above, I mentioned Gorecki and Hollis, but the more I listen to this glorious album, I feel as though I’m dwelling one of Bach’s adagios.
South Bend, a postindustrial Everycity, is riding the Pete Buttigieg presidential wave – Chicago Tribune
South Bend, a postindustrial Everycity, is riding the Pete Buttigieg presidential wave – Chicago Tribune
— Read on www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-south-bend-underdog-rust-belt-city-buttigieg-20190416-story.html
Jeremy was a good friend of mine at Notre Dame. Great guy, even if I disagree with this politics. Enjoy.
The Horrors of Communism: Roland Joffe’s “The Killing Fields” ~ The Imaginative Conservative
In 1969, President Richard Nixon began a secret, illegal, and unconstitutional incursion into Cambodia, correctly believing that Vietnamese communists were using rural parts of the country to transport weapons from North Vietnam to South Vietnam. He ordered carpet-bombing as well as the establishment of military bases in Cambodia. The struggle between American and communist forces quickly destabilized the region, radicalizing many of the already-radical elements in the country.
The most important of the insurgents was a group of existentialist communists, the Khmer Rouge (Red Cambodians), under the leadership of Pol Pot (an assumed name and title) and his organization, The Ankor (The Organization). Pol Pot (1925-1998) was born, Saloth Sar. Though a Roman Catholic and a devout Jeffersonian coming out of high school, Sar attended university in in Paris, from 1949 to 1953, where he came under the influence of several Marxists and, especially, under the influence of the radical, former Nazi-collaborator-turned-communist, philosopher Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980).
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2016/05/horrors-communism-roland-joffe-the-killing-fields.html
Kalthoff receives Daugherty Award at spring convocation — Hillsdale Collegian
Professor and Chairman of History Mark Kalthoff received the Daugherty Award for Teaching Excellence for the fall semester of 2018 at convocation on Thursday.
“Mark Kalthoff exemplifies the kind of steady, wise teaching that we prize at the college,” Dean of Faculty and Associate Professor of Education Daniel Coupland said in an email. “The hundreds of Hillsdale students who have sat in his classes over the years have been shaped by his deep understanding of his particular field and of liberal education in general.”
Dean of Women Diane Philipp said the criteria for the Daugherty includes dedication to one’s profession and craft, sensitivity to students’ learning, and a demand for excellence.
— Read on hillsdalecollegian.com/2019/04/kalthoff-receives-daugherty-award-at-spring-convocation/
Forthcoming: Angelico Book on Christian Humanism
I’m very excited to announce that I have a forthcoming book (sometime this fall) from Angelico Press.
BEYOND TENEBRAE: Christian Humanism IN THE TWILIGHT OF THE WEST.
(initial) table of contents if you’re interested:
PrefaceIntroduction: Beyond Tenebrae
Section I: Conserving Christian Humanism• Humanism: A Primer• Humanism: The Corruption of a Word• The Conservative Mind• Burke and Tocqueville• What to Conserve?• Conserving Humanism
Section II: Personalities and Groups• T.E. Hulme: First Conservative of the Twentieth Century• Irving Babbitt’s Longings• Irving Babbitt and the Buddha• The Christian Humanism of Paul Elmer More• The Order Men• Willa Cather• Canon B.I. Bell• The Conversion of Christopher Dawson• Christopher Dawson and the Liberal Arts• The Gray Eminence of Christopher Dawson• Nicholas Berdyaev’s Unorthodoxy• Theodor Haecker: Man of the West• The Inklings• Two Tolkiens, Not One• Sister Madeleva Wolff• Peacenik Prophet: Russell Kirk• St Russell of Mecosta• Eric Voegelin• Eric Voegelin’s Gnosticism• Eric Voegelin’s Order• Flannery O’Connor• Clyde Kilby• Friedrich Hayek’s Intellectual Lineage• Ray Bradbury at His End• Shirley Jackson’s Haunting• Wendelin E Basgall• Julitta Kuhn Basgall• Ronald Reagan’s Ten Words• The Optimism of Ronald Reagan• Walter Miller’s Augustinian Wasteland• Alexander Solzhenitsyn as Prophet• The Ferocity of Marvin O’Connell• The Good Humor of Ralph McInerny• The Beautiful Mess that is Margaret Atwood; Conclusion: Confusions and Hope
Two Tolkiens, One Better World | The American Conservative
Of the original stories that Tolkien wrote for his nascent mythology, the first real attempt at depth as well as breadth was The Fall of Gondolin, most likely begun in 1916. From there, the story took on an unwieldy and unpredictable life of its own, like many of Tolkien’s writings. Tolkien’s wife, Edith, wrote out the story sometime in 1917 after he had first written it, and Tolkien offered a version of it as a public essay in 1920 at Exeter College, Oxford. The story appeared as one of the most drawn-out of Tolkien’s Lost Tales (the first version of the larger mythology that would one day become The Silmarillion); in slightly different form in the 1926 “Sketch of the Mythology”; in yet again slightly different form in the 1930 Quenta Noldorinwa; and, finally, in 1950 and 1951, as Tolkien was trying to write the history of the ages preceding the now completed but yet unpublished The Lord of the Rings. The final 1951 version ended up, more or less, in the 1977 Silmarillion.
— Read on www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/two-tolkiens-one-better-world/
Searching for Deeper Common Ground | wgvu
Today, guests from the Hauenstein Center join us to talk about the event Searching for Deeper Common Ground as part of the center’s Common Ground
— Read on www.wgvunews.org/post/searching-deeper-common-ground
Controversial Colorado gun bill becomes law, 11 sheriffs willing to choose jail over enforcement – CNN
Colorado’s controversial “red flag” bill was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis on Friday, with more than half of the state’s counties declaring opposition to it and many sheriffs promising not to enforce it at all.
— Read on www.cnn.com/2019/04/12/us/colorado-red-flag-gun-laws/index.html
Very proud of the Park Country Sheriff for being a true hero.
Spirit of Cecilia 
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