For the Love of Cats in Turkey: “According to Turkish historian Ekrem Buğra Ekinci, cats’ abilities to control rodents made them an ‘indispensable part’ of households during the time of the Ottoman Empire. Written accounts from the 16th century report the existence of cat hospitals and gardens in and around Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), where…
Tag: cormac mccarthy
weekend links: the bone orchard, war as divination, punishing wickedness
Don’t Waste a Good Crisis: “If you want to know what might come next, read the memoir of ‘White’ Russian general Pyotr Wrangel, Always with Honor, about the Russian Civil War. I’m not joking.” Godzilla: “A highlight of Heisei period Godzilla movies is Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah. It’s mostly a highlight for being completely bonkers Japanese nationalism. The…
Terra Damnata
What follows is a list of stray words and quotes that I highlighted for my own reasons while reading Blood Meridian a couple years ago. I’m sharing them because their aesthetic value is inherently high but also because, in aggregate their strangeness and desolate aesthetics are enhanced. They also act like luminol on my brain…
weekend links: twilight, starlings, gods
Christianity is Not Monotheistic: “…angels were made to sing. Specifically, to sing the cosmos into existence. That’s why the medievals organized them into ‘choirs.’” Cormac McCarthy’s New Books of Revelation: “Everyone easily notices the Old Testament style, but rather than saints and gods, we encounter simple men who are driven by an instinctive solidarity for…
Blood Meridian
I haven’t had the pleasure of reading Blood Meridian yet, but every single Blood Meridian quote I’ve mined from the internet is extraordinary. To wit: They rode on and the sun in the east flushed pale streaks of light and then a deeper run of color like blood seeping up in sudden reaches flaring planewise…