Blue on Black: Musing on the Songwriting Process
I have a confession that I suspect will offend a sizeable portion of my audience: I never really liked Five Finger Death Punch. I should be clear: I love the…
Layered Meanings in Folk Songs
This past week, I was introduced to the work of Luke Combs. There's a lot that could be said about this new artist, but I'd like to focus on one…
On Homer (Part 3): Connecting the Iliad and the Odyssey
In his book Why Homer Matters, Adam Nicolson pointed out how people seem to generally fall into two camps: those who like the Iliad, and those who like the Odyssey.…
On Homer (Part 2): What is the Iliad About?
In most stories, "what is it about?" refers to a question of the plot: what happened? In higher literature, there is -- in addition to the plot -- themes and…
Movie Review: The Phantom of the Opera
I have recently been relatively busy, and have had difficulty making the time to write new posts. To save on time, I decided to elucidate in video-format what I otherwise…
Meditations on the Theological Significance of Crowns in Musical Contemplation of Heaven
And it came to pass that on my journey homeward from labors in the city, I became trapped by fellow travelers moving likewise in a slow and crowded manner. This…
Helvegen: An Analysis
Kalandra recently covered Wardruna's song "Helvegen," and damn near surpassed the original in quality. I had been planning on writing about this song for a while, but the discovery of…
Tolkien and Lewis’ Curious “Paganism”
Any manner of theology can now be smuggled into people's minds under cover of romance without their knowing it. - C.S. Lewis, Collected Letters, 1939 Reader and commenter "My New…
NEW: Holy Nihilism Published
FINALLY! Editing has been a long slog, but Holy Nihilism is now out, in eBook format as well as paperback. As I say in the introduction, my purpose in writing this is…
Enjoying Joker
I decided to do a short video on everyone's new favorite movie to talk about. There are already hundreds of breakdowns, analyses, and comparisons out there, so instead of doing…