You can find the documentary here: youtube.com/watch?v=L-vB1H…

The extreme low bar to creating "produced" music, universally accessible LLM text generation, and accessible text to video generation, has already increased the value of and hunger for small, in person cultural events. We can all do things in our own backyards.

In both his creative and critical output, Dana Gioia defends aspects of poetry that are often ignored by the mainstream. From our poetry editor James Matthew Wilson: modernagejournal.com/dana-gioia-enc…

I've just finished watching Sam Sorich's beautiful new documentary about René Girard. Bobby MiXa and I are looking forward to interviewing Sam and producer Trevor Cribben Merrill. The film is available for free online, and I highly recommend it. youtube.com/watch?v=L-vB1H…

plough.com/en/topics/cult…

Great Spe Salvi Institute conversation with Trevor Cribben Merrill and Sam Sorich about their documentary "Things Hidden: The Life and Legacy of René Girard." Andrew Petiprin and I enjoyed diving deep into Girard's influential ideas—check it out! youtu.be/Yfe9ekAzIYI?si…

Newly released (as of yesterday) book by Jean-Pierre Dupuy on Borges:

"Cervantes gives us an upside-down hero in a right-side up world; Stendhal gives us a right-side up hero in an upside-down world." -Girard, DDN, p. 141

For the afternoon crowd, some Friday Links — Dappled Things with Trevor Cribben Merrill Thomas Mirus Ross Douthat & more dappledthings.org/deep-down-thin…

"There are women who love the man someone else has chosen, just as there are poor middle-class women who hope to acquire our manners by copying our hats." --The Vicomtesse de Beauséant (Père Goriot)

I reviewed Matthew Gasda's new novel for First Things : firstthings.com/sleeping-throu…

“The Sleepers,” instead of setting out to mock internet culture, accepts it as part of contemporary life, its irony arising from relatable moments of human weakness presented without heavy-handed comment. firstthings.com/sleeping-throu…

Delighted to see my review of Matthew Gasda's The Sleepers on this list:

René Girard arrived in New York on the De Grasse in 1947; Saul Bellow took it to Europe in 1948:

Nice piece by Trevor Cribben Merrill about putting on backyard arts events in your own home - below

tcmerrill.substack.com/p/backyard-cul…

"...it is the idea of discovery and hard work that attracts me. The very act of putting my work on paper, of, as we say, kneading the dough, is for me inseparable from the pleasure of creation." --Stravinsky, The Poetics of Music

"Eventually, we’ll be like those reliant on Google Maps, who can’t get anywhere without a phone telling us where to turn." compactmag.com/article/welcom…

Also up today, Episode 1 of The Fretful Porpentine, my new podcast on classical music in books, co-hosted with Jeffrey Gross. First up is a Chopin scherzo in Philip Roth's The Ghost Writer.