Category Archives: Republic of Letters

Faith, Music, Philosophy, Republic of Letters

Mark Hollis, Rest Your Head ~ The Imaginative Conservative

Despite the gravitas of the music and the lyrics, The Colour of Spring sold well enough that EMI gave Hollis and Friese-Greene free reign on the fourth album, Spirit of Eden. Along with famed audio engineer, Phill Brown, the two men went fully mystical. Renting an abandoned church for fourteen months, Talk Talk did everything possible to create timelessness in the sacred space. Relying on the lighting of the stained glass and lava lamps, the band spent over a year trying to capture specific sounds, piecing them together as a whole. Side one of the album became one eighteen minute track, begging the Lord to rage against injustice. Over its nearly twenty-minute length, the song moves from the sound of sea scapes to an utterly cacophonous passion, finally resolving with a recognition that a man is inherently flawed and, thus, unable to perfect all things. The album concludes with “Wealth,” a lyrical rewrite of the famous prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/02/mark-hollis-rest-your-head-bradley-birzer.html

Republic of Letters

Talk Talk’s Mark Hollis has reportedly died, aged 64

Mark Hollis of the band Talk Talk has reportedly died, aged 64. He was one of the driving forces behind the band in their early stages
— Read on www.nme.com/news/music/mark-hollis-talk-talk-reportedly-died-aged-64-2453863

One of my greatest heroes has passed from this world. May God bless and welcome a faithful artist.

Republic of Letters

On Loving Research ~ The Imaginative Conservative

Research, I see now, was a way for me to explore without limits of environment, without considerations for weather, and without borders. Additionally, my mind needed something that demanded lots and lots of attention. I suppose even at age eleven, I had more than a bit of OCD as well as a perfectionist streak. Add in that domestic life was, more often than not, horrific on the home-front, I was eager to escape—whether to Carey Park or to the public library.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/02/on-loving-research-bradley-birzer.html

Poetry, Republic of Letters

On Loving Definitions ~ The Imaginative Conservative

Throughout history, of course, tyrants and demagogues have always manipulated language for their own self-interest and political advantage. Perhaps no tyrants in history did this with more skill than did the caesars in maintaining the language, institutions, and symbols of the Roman Republic while establishing the iron-fisted rule of the executive. To be sure, others have done the same. The grand sociologist Robert Nisbet went so far as to describe the entire history of the political state as the history of euphemism. What is surprising in 2019, then, is not that politicians and bureaucrats manipulate language, but rather that American and western societies as a whole have fallen for the propaganda so easily and readily. Even with blatant warnings from Ray Bradbury and George Orwell, we have still fallen hard. Critical words—such love, myth, and imagination—have become things they were never meant to become, inverted, converted, and ripped apart until almost unrecognizable from their original meanings. Lesser words—such have gay, faggot, and dogma—have taken on entirely new meanings as well.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/02/on-loving-definitions-bradley-birzer.html