Daniel Silliman

Reading material

Current:
The Savage Detectives,
by Roberto Bolaño
Toward a New Christianity,
ed. by Thomas J.J. Altizer

For the year:
1. Prophecy & Apocalypticism,
by Stephen L. Cook
2. The Salmon of Doubt,
by Douglas Adams
3. Absalom, Absalom!
by William Faulkner
4. Farewell, My Lovely,
by Raymond Chandler
5. Ham on Rye,
by Charles Bukowski
6. The Inner Circle,
by T.C. Boyle
7. Breakfast at Tiffany's,
by Truman Capote
8. The Crying of Lot 49,
by Thomas Pynchon
9. The Poet,
by Michael Conely
10. As I Lay Dying,
by William Faulkner
11. Slumdog Millionaire,
by Vikas Swarup
12. 2666,
by Roberto Bolaño
13. Teaching a Stone to Talk,
by Annie Dillard
14. The Most Beautiful Woman in Town,
by Charles Bukowski
15. White Butterfly,
by Walter Mosely
16. The End of the Affair,
by Graham Greene
17. Fathers and Sons,
by Ernest Hemmingway
18. Into The Wild,
by Jon Krakauer
19. Close Range,
by Annie Proulx
20. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men,
by David Foster Wallace
21. By Night in Chile,
by Roberto Bolaño
22. Kilshot,
by Elmore Leonard
23. This is Water,
by David Foster Wallace
24. Public Enemies,
by Bryan Burrough
25. Breath,
by Tim Winton

Daniel Silliman

17.8.02

Blogging for the crowd of one
I've been pushing record numbers here in the blog and, at the current rate of steady increase, may soon reach the number of hits I had from the one link by Instapundit.

This is heartening and inspiring and does lead to steady posting, but I'd write this stuff if no one read it. I write what I would want to read and hope that some others--now over 40 others--will enjoy reading it.

I'll soon be upon six months of blogging and plan to run a few "best of" pieces to celebrate.

Joshua Claybourn and Ben Domenech have apt and fitting words on doing what you want on blogging strategies and doing what you want to do, words that fit my idea of blogging for myself and letting the world come and enjoy my site.

by Daniel Silliman @ 7:01 PM. : Comments 0

My Glasses were run over by a firetruck in the rain in New York.
This is true. I am currently squinting at the world, eyes dialated, painfully, attempting to bring in enough light that I can see the world.

That said, the story is not as interesting as the statement and I am going to get another pair in the morning.

If anything can be said for blogging, let us say that like writing itself it alleviates the tragedy of life. The irony, the absurdity, the insanity. Oh, to get ones glasses run over by a firetruck in the rain in New York!

UPDATE: Through the services of Lenscrafters' one hour photo, I can see once again. I even have a one year insurence against accidentally breaking this pair including, one thinks, being smashed by a firetruck.

by Daniel Silliman @ 6:49 AM. : Comments 0

15.8.02

The Euthyphro Quandry, or
Who Says God is Good?
Seraphim, in his constant work to elucidate all things Greek, explains the quandry of the explaination and definitional standard of God's goodness. As Seraphim says:

"Is an action holy because it is holy, or is it holy because God says it is so? Now, Euthyphro says the latter, but Socrates tears his claim apart by asking a good number of semantical questions, to wit: Do we say that something "is being carried" because it is a "being carried thing," or do we say something "is being carried" because it is, in fact, being carried by someone?"

I think I'd like to come to Euthyphro's defense against good old Soc, but I'm waiting to see Seraphim's work before I venture into these waters.

I have faced the question before. One occasion was when an especially lame Evangelical pastor asked the congregation how we knew God was just. I was bothered by the question because it forced God to come before our court and submit to our standards and understanding of justice. I have some other arguments and, I think, a case that some of Soc's problems of questions of definition but we'll wait to insure the maximum intelligence and optimum arguing capabilities.

by Daniel Silliman @ 7:14 AM. : Comments 0

The Beloved Creeds of Christianity
Greg Uttinger has published a thrid installement, one I didn't expect, on the Christian creeds, this time on the work proceeding from Chalcedon. He does an excellent job, as I thought he did on the original defense of creeds and the explaination on the Apostles Creed, and I applaud him for the work.

by Daniel Silliman @ 6:58 AM. : Comments 0

14.8.02

Begger Threatens Bad Puns
Well the begging blogger thinks we owe him something and threatens to rise from his dirty begging blanket and tin cup with all his Irish ire to call forth damnation and lousy puns on all those who dare to question such pathetic whining.

"[N]aughty people who call me a whiner might be immortalized in bawdy verse full of cheap puns on their names and low, inexcusable rhymes, meters, and vivid, unforgettable imagery that will live on in people's minds long after this blog is dust. Never criticize an Irish writer, especially when he's engaging in shameless commerce," Shea said.

UPDATE: Gideon Strauss begs with humor, after complementing all concerned.

by Daniel Silliman @ 6:04 PM. : Comments 0

Intellectualism, Charity and Intelligence
Does intellectual charity, granting that your ideological adversaries aren’t necessarily stupid and intentionally seeking evil, rise with education and intelligence?

I’m enjoying the exciting pleasure of joining with other highly intelligent home schooled students and discussing the flaws of the gold standard, the questions and problems with dualism, the flaw of basing systems of thought on natural order and general philosophical subjects such as the work of Descartes, Kant and Postmodernists.

It is amusing and amazing and delightful how home schooled students—now somewhere in their college education—recognize each other, feeling the resonance of a superior education and an insatiable desire for knowledge.

UPDATE: These comments were not intended to apply to Dawn Olsen’s assault on all things home educated, but it fits rather well. (Though I generally see no reason to take Olsen or her arguments seriously except in the fact that she made them and others read them.)

Of course, most of this debate is mere anecdotalism—which reminds me of my previously blogged conversation on the airplane—though I appreciated the comments of Ben Domenech.

Remind me, when I have some time, to post the three reasons why I believe home schooling is the only educational option.

by Daniel Silliman @ 7:01 AM. : Comments 0

Will Blog for Free
Mark Shea tries to shame his readers into paying him something, anything.

C'mon Mark. You run a free site and there's no reason why I or anyone else should pay you. So please don't rattle the tin cup and beg. Either find a way to make the site pay without trying to use guilt and demand such benevolence like all those lousy public television advertisements, or find a job that pays you for your writing.

But really, stop the whining.

by Daniel Silliman @ 6:34 AM. : Comments 0

13.8.02

Knowing Hollywood
Our common cultural knowledge, even among the well college educated, includes almost all movies but very little literature.

I’m not surprised or upset by the fact that it includes movies, but by the fact that it includes any and all movies and only a few books. (Unless the book has been turned into a movie, when the phrase: “You know it from the movie…” is employed.)

No matter how silly or lame or cheap or dumb or obscure the movie one can cite it as an example.

“Remember in that movie X when A does T? It’s like that when…”

When can we demand and assume that normal intelligent people have read a moderate selection of literature?
[NOTE: I apologize for the admitted redundancy of this complaint.]

by Daniel Silliman @ 2:24 AM. : Comments 0

12.8.02

At the Foundation for Economic Education:
I'm busily trying to avoid illogical bloviation, inflated rhetoric that, violating such constraints as deductive logic, could prove anything.

It's not all this way, but how much is needed to bring frustration?

by Daniel Silliman @ 6:41 PM. : Comments 0

Conversation in the Air
I wasn't worried about what she thought of me, arguing for conservatism on an airplane as we approached the airport she refused to call "Reagan National," I was worried that I would become more evidence to confirm all her bitter dislike for the breed.

by Daniel Silliman @ 7:50 AM. : Comments 0

The Seattle Taliban
The Seattle Times runs a really weird story today about a Seattle Mosque cleaning up the neighborhood and creating an strict Islamic world--Taliban style--on their block.

I admit I kinda like the "no drugs in our neighborhood" attitude and effectivness at fighting their own drug war, but some of therest of this stuff is scary.

by Daniel Silliman @ 7:48 AM. : Comments 0

$7.42 for a one topping large with a two liter of pop
Coming from a college where everyone has the phone number of the local pizza place, Hungry Howies, memorized and can tell you the best deal and the price of that college special including tax, I found Dean's comments about the sad state of pizza affairs interesting. Can't say I'm familiar with the situation though I wish him the best of luck.

by Daniel Silliman @ 7:42 AM. : Comments 0

A Blogosphere is not a Church
How can there really be a "Christian Blogging Community"? It doesn't make any sense.

I like Blogs4God--it's nice in giving us a list of others in such a classification (a semi definitive list, which is nice) and an interesting place to look around--butsome of these other little blips coming up that claimto be the next thing for "Christian Bloggers" and will really unite the community and set up real standards.

Well goody-gum drops but this isn't church. Christs mandate for unity was never interpreted as a mandate for a guild.

The whole idea of thisuniversial community is silly. I am in an online community with the people who read my site and the people whos site I read. The affiliation is purely one of readership and an invention of another association is unrealistic.

Even granting the impossibility of creating some sort of community where it does not exists, I have no reason to submit to anyones imposition of allegedly Christian standards. Even more than that, I'm not interested in using such a grid to decide if I will read someone's blog. How do I know if a blog is good? I read it.

No standardized test--even if I agreed with it, which is unlikely--is going to tell me if the writing is interesting.

Perhaps the whole idea is a joke nobody has gotten yet.

by Daniel Silliman @ 7:34 AM. : Comments 0

Laughing in the Gulag
Sometimes black humor is very, very needed.

by Daniel Silliman @ 7:25 AM. : Comments 0

Goldstein against blind Dwarfs with Super Soakers
Goldstein tells us that a "scholar" blaming female suicide bombers on world wide patriarchy should be treated as "a blind dwarf in clown makeup who tries mugging you with nothing more than an unloaded Super Soaker and some harsh words."

Which seems pretty rough on the dwarfs.

by Daniel Silliman @ 4:23 AM. : Comments 0

11.8.02

The Neo-Factor
Gideon Strauss defines his self-definition of neocalvinism in a piece that's long on Presuppositionalism and the subsequent necessity--after we eliminate epistomological neutrality--for God's dominion to extend over every area, but really very short thosefive messy points.

Look at all the neat things you can do with a little neo!

by Daniel Silliman @ 8:19 AM. : Comments 0

"Outside of our moms, who reads bylines?" Page asked. "And the Chicago Tribune has a slogan: 'If your mother says she loves you, check it out.' "

My letter on one of the talks at the National Press Club, published over at Poynter.

by Daniel Silliman @ 8:07 AM. : Comments 0