Quite the fun day in the Sunday comics today:
But it’s the annual Lucy-with-a-football day in Peanuts that sees Charlie Brown going for it yet again . . . and the banana isn’t even something for him to slip on.
Today’s Sunday-sized WuMo is a great reminder about planning ahead, but it’s today’s FoxTrot that reminds us of something vital in the conversation about AI in academics.
Lots of school and seasonal humor today. FoxTrot points towards the fantasy in fantasy football. Peppermint Patty tries to beat the clock with a math problem. And Calvin? Well it turns out that he’s the neighborhood alarm clock.
But it’s today’s Frazz by Jef Mallett with the imagery and the sentiment to be this Sunday’s Best.
This past week, Andrew Peterson celebrated the 20th anniversary of the release of The Far Country. It was the first of his albums after Carried Along that I learned to feel deeply, that tapped into something I was still just starting to understand about faith and myself. When it comes to Peterson, one thing that always amazes me is his ability to synthesize so many powerful parts of the life of faith. The title song to this 20-year-old album is no exception.
I suppose that writing and reading advice can be found just about anywhere these days (assuming that you can’t get something else to read or write for you, which is more likely the case). So it’s a rare pleasure to see Alan Jacobs (of How to Think fame) sharing a nice statement about reading that tracks well with his Pleasure of Reading in an Age of Distraction. Lots of great advice in the piece. And Jacobs is the first person to name the concept of “reading upstream” for me (it’s kind of a version of my “following the holy footnote”).
The Ringer has become a great place for thoughtful, very comprehensive lists. Case in point: in honor of the release of The Paper (the thematic sequel to The Office), the folks at The Ringer ranked all 173 cold opens of The Office. And the best part: they often include embedded videos. I’ll be the first to admit that my love of the show waned after Steve Carrell left (though I did come back for most of the final season). I think a cold open is the kind of thing that you learn to appreciate over time and that mostly fades into memory until you see it again. But the Ringer’s top choice? It’s one I totally agree with and think of, chuckle at, often.
Speaking of The Paper: I do plan on giving it a try. The premise sounds a little different, which is nice. Good sitcoms are hard to find and often feel at least a tiny bit derivative. The only new comedy for me recently has been St. Denis Medical on NBC. If The Paper can land jokes as well as that show, then there’s some hope it can have legs.
Here’s a great excerpt from this week’s Desert Fathers episode by Erik Varden about Christian joy lived out over time:
So my fidelity must be rooted at greater depth, beyond sentiment. St Benedict stresses this when, in the midst of prescribing minutiae of regular life, he puts in lapidary phrases like these: ‘The love of Christ must come before all else’; ‘Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ’. The abba in our saying uses the image of a dog pursuing a scent. To live and thrive over time as a monk, it is not enough just to feel drawn to the community, wanting to belong, to do what the others are doing. The community plays a providential part in the realisation of a vocation, but I do not make vows for the community’s sake.
I make vows in order to know Christ, ‘and him crucified’; to be his and for him to be mine. Only if I keep my eyes fixed on him constantly, ever striving to be near him, will I be preserved from distraction into mediocrity or retrogression or recalcitrance.
A good word, and definitely a strong word, especially for someone who often sees community as a pearl of great price.
Today we turned the first corner of the new school year in class: we started our second unit of study, which involves reason and arguments for God’s existence, with a discussion of “Maybe There’s a Loving God.” Here’s a recording of a live performance of the song by Groves from fourteen years ago. The acoustics in the church are amazing (it was probably intended to be that way). Such a great song that holds open the door of faith for those who are still out in the backyard staring up at the sky . . .
The Sunday funnies are high quality this week. In today’s classic Peanuts, for instance, Sally treats her attempt at writing as a spy-like cover-up. Then, in this week’s FoxTrot, Peter has to learn to speak Jason’s language as a way of helping Jason prep for the beginning of the school year. And Calvin? He’s sharing a poem about a parental alien invasion.
But it’s today’s Sunday-sized Frazz that is both funny and punchy . . . is it about birds, about people, or both?
The folks at the Ringer recently posted a nice piece on our current, not-quite-futuristic, sci-fi television moment. The three franchises he wrote about that I’ve got some investment in: Star Wars via Andor, Star Trek via Strange New Worlds, and Alien via Alien:Earth, three shows that I’ve recently been more invested in.
I have to admit, I wasn’t a big fan of Andor season one. It was too slow and meandering for me (or maybe it was my attention that meandered?). But season two was amazing: four three-part stories with each part telling the story of one year closer to the events of Rogue One. The end of the story was quite moving for me, with the final moment between Andor and Syral being something I’ve thought about often these last couple of weeks. Still no lightsabers or Jedi, but still enjoyable.
Like many others, I’ve waited a long time for the newest season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. In general, I’m more of a Star Wars guy, but once in a while a Trek show will grab me. This time it was the adventures of Captain Pike and the crew of the Enterprise leading up to the events of the original series. The show is a wonderful blend of simple and spectacle. The show’s 10-episodes seasons leave you really wanting more.
The most recent show the article talks about is Alien: Earth. I’m a late-blooming Alien fan. I caught up on most of the movies a few years ago (probably tied to an anniversary re-release of one of the first two movies). The fact that Noah Hawley of Fargo fame was writing a new series for FX got me excited for the show, even though I’m not a big “jump-scare” kind of guy. The show is three episodes in, beautifully shot, wonderfully acted, and interestingly paced. Turns out its as much (or more) about technology as it is about alien species.
The point of the Ringer article, though, is about the 1970s aesthetic of each of these shows (and others like them). Lots of great quotes in the piece about the importance of space (even future space) feeling lived-in and less about moving around big screens (a la Minority Report). It’s a good read, especially since it includes a couple of YouTube videos about the topic. Beyond the aesthetic, though, is this sense that such shows are “filling in the gaps” for each franchise, with all three happening before each franchise’s initial “main event.” That’s worked really well for Strange New Worlds, which had Spock and Nikita Uhura on the bridge from “go.” Along the way they’ve added a handful of other characters, including a young Captain Kirk. The challenge with all of this is maintaining a sense of tension when you already know how things are going to go. But that didn’t stop Rogue One from being a good movie, and it hasn’t stopped any of these shows from finding ways to emotionally engage fans possessing deep knowledge and super-critical lenses for stories they love.
Space Enough, and Time 