"though I don’t know if he’s aware that the highest rating I’ve ever given to a movie on Letterboxd was for The Muppet Christmas Carol."
lol, same, completely non-disqualifying as a marker for sophisticated taste!
"I’m sure that some people find my cataloguing and ranking of my media consumption strange."
I've often wondered how strong the correlation is between enjoying making ranked lists of books/films and leaning towards utilitarianism.
"I was fortunate enough to be at one of McLaughlin’s Indian-jazz fusion concerts, but regrettably never heard Hussain live."
I was supposed to see him in London last November before he had to withdraw. Was even sadder to have missed this opportunity after hearing of his passing.
Mark Williams' (very good!) book Ireland's Immortals has an argument that extends the influence of classics on Irish poetry. He claims that both mediaeval poets and scholars, and also 19th century revivalists, looked at the Tuatha Dé Danann (the native gods) through a lens of wishful thinking: they expected, or wanted, Irish pagan gods to conform to the model of pagan divinities offered by Greece and Rome, and so (intentionally or unconsciously) twisted the limited sources available to them to make the Tuatha Dé Danann more like their understanding of classical gods. Mediaeval scholars wanted a Irish 'pantheon' that they could use in literature in the same way Virgil used the Roman gods; and Celtic Revival authors wanted to deploy Aengus as an image that could rival late-Victorian usage of Pan, or (later) Nietzsche's use of Dionysus. And of course, the Revivalists' only sources were the mediaeval texts, so the Tuatha Dé Danann were 'classicised' twice over. Insofar as the Tuatha Dé are a subject of Irish poetry, there's a strong classical influence right there. (It's not Williams' focus, but I expect the same process happened to heroes and not just gods: Finn and Cú Chulainn recast to seem more like Aeneas and Achilles, because that's what the authors expected heroes to be like.)
See this recent paper for causal evidence on micro-plastics: https://voxdev.org/topic/energy-environment/exposure-microplastics-lowers-birthweights-and-damages-infant-health
"though I don’t know if he’s aware that the highest rating I’ve ever given to a movie on Letterboxd was for The Muppet Christmas Carol."
lol, same, completely non-disqualifying as a marker for sophisticated taste!
"I’m sure that some people find my cataloguing and ranking of my media consumption strange."
I've often wondered how strong the correlation is between enjoying making ranked lists of books/films and leaning towards utilitarianism.
"I was fortunate enough to be at one of McLaughlin’s Indian-jazz fusion concerts, but regrettably never heard Hussain live."
I was supposed to see him in London last November before he had to withdraw. Was even sadder to have missed this opportunity after hearing of his passing.
John Stuart Mill would have had a great blog
Angela Hewitt’s Goldberg recording is excellent too.
Mark Williams' (very good!) book Ireland's Immortals has an argument that extends the influence of classics on Irish poetry. He claims that both mediaeval poets and scholars, and also 19th century revivalists, looked at the Tuatha Dé Danann (the native gods) through a lens of wishful thinking: they expected, or wanted, Irish pagan gods to conform to the model of pagan divinities offered by Greece and Rome, and so (intentionally or unconsciously) twisted the limited sources available to them to make the Tuatha Dé Danann more like their understanding of classical gods. Mediaeval scholars wanted a Irish 'pantheon' that they could use in literature in the same way Virgil used the Roman gods; and Celtic Revival authors wanted to deploy Aengus as an image that could rival late-Victorian usage of Pan, or (later) Nietzsche's use of Dionysus. And of course, the Revivalists' only sources were the mediaeval texts, so the Tuatha Dé Danann were 'classicised' twice over. Insofar as the Tuatha Dé are a subject of Irish poetry, there's a strong classical influence right there. (It's not Williams' focus, but I expect the same process happened to heroes and not just gods: Finn and Cú Chulainn recast to seem more like Aeneas and Achilles, because that's what the authors expected heroes to be like.)