Peter Blair

-Bruce Gordon, The Bible: A Global History

"Another [fossil] find, near Albany, NY, was recorded by Cotton Mather, who argued in a letter to the Royal Society in London that they were the bones of the Nephilim...for Mather, the discovery confirmed that...key stories in the OT had actually taken place in the Americas"

-Bruce Gordon, The Bible: A Global History

"Unlike in the West, were clear lines of demarcation separated Catholics and Protestants, in the East [in the 16th century] there was a much more fluid culture in which a wide range of groups, from Jesuits to Unitarians, found space in lands such as Transylvania and Poland."

88 Elmira St.

Good evening open.spotify.com/album/0zcSjj...

"It is fair to say that as a creation of humanist Latin, Erasmus's New Testament was a jewel. In contrast, as a piece of textual scholarship it was a flop" (Ibid)

“[The Coverdale Bible] was known as the Bug Bible or Treacle Bible on account of two notable passages: ‘Thou shall not need to be afraid of any bugs at night’ (Ps. 91:5) and ‘There was no more treacle at Galahad’ (Jer. 8:22).”

-Bruce Gordon, The Bible: A Global History

...[the narcissist's] insecurity, which he can overcome only by seeing his 'grandiose self' reflected in the attentions of others, or by attaching himself to those who radiate celebrity, power, and charisma. For the narcissist, the world is a mirror"

-Christopher Lasch

-Bruce Gordon, The Bible: A Global History

"Chaucer likely did not have a Bible open in front of him for easy consultation for the plethora of scriptural references that pour from the mouths of his bawdy characters...his men and women quote scripture from memory...in a mostly illiterate world, the Bible was simply known"

Cold Irons Bound

Good morning open.spotify.com/track/2QCJcm...

Nirvanna: The Band - the Show - the Movie was great; I'm surprised I hadn't heard of these fellows before but I'm very much looking forward to the Bourdain movie now

25 Favorite Songs

Important updates in the 25 favorite songs playlist space: open.spotify.com/playlist/7yJ...

“[The Bible] is, as it were, a kind of river, if I may so liken it, which is both shallow and deep, wherein both the lamb may find a footing, and the elephant float at large” -Gregory the Great, quoted in “The Bible: A Global History” by Bruce Gordon

Jason Isbell

I almost entered a fugue state from how good this show was

"The desert was the only proper place for Yahweh and his beloved to start seeing each other again."

A Lenten sentence from Roberto Calasso's "The Book of All Books"

Joan Didion on Jackson’s 1988 supporters

“Evil does not reach its perfect state simply by being committed. It is at least equally importantly that it be wrongly named, since this guarantees that the mind cannot come to see it clear and whole” -Roberto Calasso, The Book of All Books

Singin’ to an Empty Chair

Now we’re talking open.spotify.com/album/74sjx2...

“The Bible has no rivals when it comes to the art of omission…Only by reading the Bible through can one weigh the omissions against the repetitions, which are equally glaring. And only by summing omissions and repetitions can one grasp that unique phenomenon…which is the Bible.”

-Roberto Calasso

She was used to men answering her with one part of their mind on religion. That was one of the reasons why Edward had become so unsatisfactory after he had ceased to be a curate and become an actor” -Muriel Spark, The Only Problem

Amidinin War Hi Toyed

Good morning open.spotify.com/track/2I88WC...

“These were exceedingly precarious footholds, though it’s true that for anyone writing in German, Goethe is their Homer” -Roberto Calasso, commenting on the antecedents (which included a passage by Goethe) for Freud’s “Moses and Monotheism”

Yeah they were great live (though sadly the set was on the short side)

Disintegrate

Check ‘em out open.spotify.com/track/71iLvQ...

Wild Pink @ MilkBoy Philadelphia

“For a long time people found it hard to accept that nothing should be known of Abraham, the patriarch, until, in his old age, Yahweh spoke to him…But what makes Genesis special, powerful and unique was precisely this empty space” -Roberto Calasso, The Book of All Books

A somewhat different thing but I’m waiting for my library hold to come in on “The Bible: A Global History” by Bruce Gordon. A couple of others in the pipeline I’ll surely post about whenever I get to them

Oh that’s a new one, going on my list (I’m doing a lot of reading of and about the Hebrew Bible rn)