A fabulous collection (made available by a UK label) of doo wop, primarily of the N.O. variety comprising 65 tracks essential for anyone who has a soft spot for this kind of music (how can you not?), featuring The Hawks, The Spiders, Chuck Carbo and The Spiders, The Sha Weez, Boy Myles & the Sha-Weez, Sugar Boy and his Cane Cutters, James “Sugarboy” Crawford, and The Barons.
The always interesting and civilized Susan Haack.
“You don’t have an area” she asked, in the incredulous tone in which some people sometimes ask me, “you don’t have a cellphone?”
. . .
I would urge, first, that philosophers and would-be philosophers heed Locke’s shrewd counsel: that, instead of reading only one kind of book and listening to only one kind of person, they “venture into the great ocean of knowledge”—that they read novels, newspapers, biographies, history books, journals beyond the very narrow scope of the Philosophers’ Index, philosophers long dead as well as their own contemporaries, etc., and that they listen to people in other areas in philosophy and in other disciplines and in other countries and, yes, outside the academy, too.
“The ethics of Primo Levi” in the TLS — an overview of the Complete Works (H/T David Livingstone Smith)
44 years ago today, a musical earthquake occurred. See the Making of Ziggy here.
Play it again and again Sam. The first hour of this podcast focuses on Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and the political implications of the recent terrorist attack in Orlando. Podcast #38 — The End of Faith Sessions 2
Coming soon in Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science. Stay tuned.
1. PHILOSOPHER OF PRECISION AND SOUL: INTRODUCING WALKER PERCY by Leslie Marsh
This article introduces the work of philosopher-novelist Walker Percy to the Zygon readership. After some biographical and contextual preliminaries I suggest that the conceptual collecting feature to Percy’s work is his critique of abstractionism manifest in a tripartite comprising Cartesianism and derivatively misapplied science and social atomism.
2. LIFE ON THE ISLAND by Elizabeth Corey
Walker Percy was both a medical doctor and a serious Catholic—a scientist and a religious believer. He thought, however, that science had become hegemonic in the twentieth century and that it was incapable of answering the most fundamental needs of human beings. He thus leveled a critique of the scientific method and its shortcomings in failing to address the individual person over against the group. In response to these shortcomings Percy postulates a religious understanding of human life, one in which man’s life is understood as a pilgrimage or a search. The person who searches may not find the “object” of his search during his earthly life, but it is likely that he will come to a better understanding of himself by means of it.
3. SCIENTISTS IN THE COSMOS: AN EXISTENTIAL APPROACH TO THE DEBATE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION by Stacey E. Ake
Walker Percy’s use of the terms Umwelt (environment) and Welt (symbol world) as well as his separation of events into dyadic and triadic ones, where the latter involve human beings, is brought to bear on the relationship between science and religion with the upshot being that science (a dyadic enterprise) is not equipped to really understand or explain triadic entities (namely, human beings).
4. WALKER PERCY, LANGUAGE, AND HOMO SINGULARIS by John D. Sykes, Jr.
The novelist Walker Percy argued that modern science has a tremendous blind spot in its view of human nature. Unlike purely physical phenomena, which can be explained by the interaction of dyadic relationships, human beings must also be understood in terms of triadic relationships brought into being by symbolic language. The self brought into being by symbolic language is non-material but real, and operates by different “laws” than those that govern dyadic relations. In making this case, Percy drew a sharp line between human and nonhuman language, a line that more recent developments in science has challenged. However, Percy’s central point, that the agent of symbolic language cannot be understood within a materialist framework, remains valid.
5. CONFESSIONS OF A LATE BLOOMING “MISEDUCATED” PHILOSOPHER OF SCIENCE by Benjamin Alexander
This article provides a survey of Walker Percy’s criticism of what Pope Benedict XVI calls “scientificity,” which entails a constriction of the dynamic interaction of faith and reason. The process can result in the diminishment of ethical considerations raised by science’s impact on public policy. Beginning in the 1950s Percy begins speculating about the negative influence of scientificity. The threat of a political regime using weapons of mass destruction is only one of several menacing developments. The desacrilization of human life from cradle to grave leads Percy to assert that modern science’s impact is often radically incoherent. In The Moviegoer Percy finds his existential and theistic voice that would enable him to advance his critique of science.
If there’s one truth all outlaws know
To get to the light you need to cross the shadow
This phrase from Deltaphonic’s “Buckhorn Saloon” pretty much sums up the spirit animating this astonishing debut album entitled Texas, Texas. Without doubt it’s the Exile on Main Street for our time: dirty, earthy, gritty, soulful, sweaty, troubled, tongue-in-cheek — experiences that could only have emerged from someone who has seen and felt the dark side and therein has achieved a state of grace. The songs are permeated with a wistful world-weary philosophical intelligence that is so unusual for someone so young: Andrew Weekes is an old soul in a young body. Andrew, the prime mover behind Deltaphonic, kinda reminds me of the spirit that animated Amy Winehouse — clever lyrics without being self-consciously so, melodic, soulful, dark, brooding, searingly but eliptically self-revealing — Andrew’s song writing is pure genius. There is not a duff track on this album and not a cover in sight to appease the punters or a label or to mask songwriting inability. This said, when Andrew does play a cover he owns it in a thoroughly uncompromising way. Beyond the immensely gifted base of Andrew’s song writing, there is his psycho-killer guitar work and a voice that can go from “damaged tenderness” to dive bar “fuck it, live now, for tomorrow we die” abandon. Andrew has it all! If you love American music and the subtly blurred genres that informs New Orleans music (country, funk, blues, gospel, reggae), then this album is for you. The band is thus perfectly named!
I had the privilege of seeing them live three nights on the trot. But it was on the third night that Andrew and his new drummer, with whom he’d never played before, absolutely shredded the Apple Barrel — the greatest live performance of my life. The guys put in going on four hours, yes fucking four hours of heart and soul and groove. The ecstatic chemistry between the musicians was palpable and we the audience knew full that we were witnessing the birth of something very special. In years to come there will be people who will claim to have seen them on this particular night. In this troubled world, if this was to be my last night alive, I would have gladly accepted it.
This treasure of band needs our support — they do not do hack work so all the more reason why they need your support. Andrew has to be Andrew if one is going to plumb the depths of this man’s outrageous talent. So PLEASE buy their album now from here or from the “Factory” or go see them live (don’t be a dick head — put a note in the tip jar) and grab a copy of Texas, Texas — and of course spread the word. In the sea of mediocre shite Deltaphonic shines brightly as a beacon of poetic authenticity.
I’m not embarrassed to say that I adore this band — long may this love affair continue (p. s. I write as a fan and have no connection with the band’s business interests whatsoever). Listen freely to these tracks from the album.
David’s lyrics describe a Walker Percy-ish post-apocalyptic landscape where a revolutionary hides out in a deserted cemetery, surviving on peanut butter.
Quote from Wikipedia. Read Percy’s Love in the Ruins which is an incredibly prescient novel anticipating the shitstorm we are currently living through now.
