Saturday Good Reads

My iPhone has become saner, and, as a result, so have I. I read an article in Wired, and realized I could turn off push notifications for Facebook, LinkedIn, and several other apps (Facebook was the worst). The beeps, gongs, rings, and pop-up windows have disappeared. I’m in control of my phone again.

Neil Ennis is an Aussie who goes on some remarkable cycling rides in Australia, and takes numerous photos and videos of the ride and the terrain. Recently, he and his wife went on a vacation – to Iceland, and did some hiking.

It’s unfortunate, but most opinion articles and op-ed articles in newspapers today have become not only predictable but repetitious. I open the editorial page of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and see op-ed articles by Dana Milbank, Kathleen Parker, and Michael Gerson, and I don’t even have to read them to know what they will say, over and over and over again. An opinion article you don’t see every day is one by Bari Weiss, a staff editor for the Opinion page of The New York Times – taking the leaders of the Women’s March to task for embracing hate. My head exploded with the cognitive dissonance. An Opinion editor for The New York Times?

It was a fascinating week for poetry on the internet. Look at any of the six entries below. Better still, read all six.

And in the very first line of links below, just so you know, “Antient” is not a typo, either by me or the headline at Spitalfields Life. It’s how “ancient” used to be spelled. (Spitalfields Life has become one of my favorite blogs to read.)

British Stuff

Lost Spitalfields and John Thomas Smith’s Antient Topography– Spitalfields Life.

A Little History of Lammas – A Clerk of Oxford.

Victory from Retreat: Ten Interesting Facts about the Dunkirk Evacuation – John Rabon at Anglotopia.

Poetry

Rainy Evenings – Loren Paulsson at World Narratives.

A Spray of Feathers, Black – Phillip Williams at Tupelo Quarterly.

Eden – Ana Lisa de Jong via Facebook.

I Was Not Fit – Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

Bone Codex – Tom Darin Liskey at Boned.

By a Lake Near a Moon - poems from Kenneth Rexroth's 100 Poems from the Chinese – Michael Dickel at Meta (Phor)e Play.

Art and Photography

The Net That Caught the Sun Good – Tim Good at Pixels.

Hiking Mýrdalsjökull – Neil Ennis at Musings.

Faith

Our Lady of Czestochowa – Ann Weikers at Image Journal.

When your child leaves home, you both have to grow up – David Rupert at Red-Letter Believers.

A Love Louder Than Noise – Marlena Loughheed at Convivium.

Where Does Spiritual Doubt Come From? – Hugh Whelchel at the Institute for Faith, Work, & Economics.

Life and Culture

Turn Off Your Push Notifications. All of Them – David Pierce at Wired.

When Progressives Embrace Hate – Bari Weiss at The New York Times.

Writing

Overselling Your Book – Dan Balow at Steve Laube Agency.

Fiction: Astronomy Lesson – Corey Farrenkopf at JMWW Journal.

My Best Writing Tools to Get More Done (at Home and on the Go) – Ann Kroeker.

My Buddy: Patti Smith Remembers Sam Shepard – The New Yorker.

Write with Salt, Not Sugar - Mary Harwell Sayler.

Flight Lapse #01 – Milky Way – Sky Production

Painting: Man Reading (Portrait of the Artist’s Father), oil on canvas by Istvan Szonyi (1923).