Tag Archives: mark twain

What the Lightning Said: My Definition of Art

Art, by my definition, is a report of what the lightning said. It’s bound up with the ontological mystery (the mystery of being itself); an artist’s attempt to represent to others an experience of that mystery (what it feels like … Continue reading

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Twitter Blasphemy: 18,000 Facebookers Call for the Death of Feminist Hamza Kashgari for Insulting the Prophet Muhammad

As of this morning, 18,000 is the number of Facebookers calling for the death of Hamza Kashgari for Twitter blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad. The number was 8,000 on Thursday, 13,000 on Friday, and 16,000 on Saturday. Does anyone know … Continue reading

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Photo for a Sunday: Christianity Militant? Whatever Happened to “Pray for your enemies”?

Didn’t Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, say to pray for your enemies? In Lancaster, California recently, I noticed this message outside a Presbyterian church, and it put me in mind of Mark Twain’s “The War Prayer“:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          . … Continue reading

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Here’s a Link to Mark Twain’s “The War Prayer”

In case you’re interested.

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Close Literary Reading 101: Stories and Style

I thought it might be fun (at least for me) to lay out, in a series of short blog posts, some of the basic terms and ideas that I present to my students when talking about the “close reading” of literary texts. Maybe … Continue reading

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