“The spirit of Milton’s Paradise so breathes over the autumn ode, and the figure of Milton’s Eve in her solicitude for her fruits so melts into the figure of Keats's Autumn (who is part Spenserian season, part Eve, part Ceres) that we should not be surprised to find in Paradise

God is not a witch. giattino.substack.com/p/memorial-of-…

5 philosophy texts I’ve spent the most time with (using “time” somewhat loosely): (1) Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (2) Plato’s Republic (3) Descartes’ Meditations on 1st Philosophy (4) Levinas’ Totality and Infinity (5) Rousseau’s Social Contract

Forgiving Darth Vader giattino.substack.com/p/memorial-of-…

15 bands/artists to get to know me Beethoven The Beatles The White Stripes The Rolling Stones Nirvana Miles Davis Bill Evans John Coltrane Alice Coltrane The Byrds Oasis Bob Dylan Beach House The Violent Femmes Smashing Pumpkins

Pale is shy brilliance

“The unitive power of knowledge is less than that of love.” —Etienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas

Anything other than a private taxi service in Rome is “beneath my dignity” open.substack.com/pub/giattino/p…

Today’s Gospel made me think of Bonhoeffer open.substack.com/pub/giattino/p…

Brilliant cover

It’s sentences like this in Sam Tanenhaus’ Buckley book that blow me away: “The surgeon was one of the city’s best: Juan Negrín, Jr., the son of Juan Negrín, who had been the last Prime Minister of the Spanish Republic before Franco’s takeover.”

Early 4th century illustration of a (beardless) Christ raising Lazarus from the dead - from a tomb discovered in Plovdiv in 2012

favorite movies beginning with each letter of my name A - Apocalypse Now N - No Country for Old Men T - The Third Man H - Heat O - O Brother Where Art Thou N - North by Northwest Y - Yojimbo

“The night of the year is approaching. What have we done with our talent? All nature prompts and reproves us. How early in the year it begins to be late! The year is full of warnings of its shortness, as is life.” Henry David Thoreau Journal entry on August 18, 1853

“The poet’s relation to his theme is the relation of lovers. It is no more to be courted. Obey, report.” Thoreau’s Jan. 30, 1852 journal entry

My wife’s favorite Hitchcock, too.

Fordham changed its “F” to Gothic.

I’m excited to have DBH’s The Light of Tabor to read on a flight to Denver.

Dilectissime in Domino, Catholics pray. We also act in the world on behalf of the vulnerable. That’s our way. We need not defend ourselves to the world. We just need to do what we do, by instinct of the Holy Spirit and in obedience to Christ.

Memorial of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist open.substack.com/pub/giattino/p…