Tag: Commonplaces

  • Commonplaces: Superbia

    “11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” Luke 18:11, ESV Among the different church traditions there is an inclination to identify sin as an infraction of God’s law and, historically, “God’s law,” “the law,” and “law” are…

  • Takeaways: Robert Earl Keen

    Macondo, Stonington, CT My introduction to Robert Earl Keen was his 1996 live album No. 2 Live Dinner A spirited performance of “Gringo Honeymoon,” a rowdy ballad tinged with melancholy performed before an appreciative audience hooked me. There’s always something special about hearing singer-songwriters performing their own work. The emotion is personal, the phrasing confident.…

  • Commonplaces: “Gradually and then suddenly”

    I first made note of this quote from Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises eight or ten years ago and I have noticed it cropping up on-line recently in different contexts. “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.” This is a good example of Hemingway’s economy of speech…