About the author
Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit": Embellishment is an Understatement
Every now and then in the history of the arts, someone creates something so radical that it changes the direction of its genre. An artist, often anonymous, stumbles across, say, counterpoint, or a capella poetry, or the talkie either by hard work or providence. For some time now, it has been apparent that filmmaking needs such a revolution: specifically, some new way of making film adaptations of books. There has bee...
Packing for "An Unexpected Journey"
A once-in-a-lifetime experience is about to be repeated. Peter Jackson, having made movie history with his epic film trilogy The Lord of the Rings, is about to release the first installment of another epic film trilogy: The Hobbit. Conversations among Tolkien fans and scholars are growing increasingly shrill. They were gratified by Jackson's lavish treatment of their favorite books in LOTR and betrayed by his “i...
Stories That Tell Themselves
I have written in the past—for instance, here, here, here —about theology embodied in a work of art. Embodied Theology occurs when a religiously devout writer, composer, or artist incarnates faith in the very form and fabric of his or her work. Literature, for instance, can be about some doctrine or belief; it can also enact it. The simplest examples are “redemptive” storylines (think Les Mis), or Christ-lik...
On Publication
Just as lawyers are asked legal advice over dinner and doctors are asked to diagnose conditions over cocktails, so writers are regularly asked to give free consultations on How To Get Published. Much more rarely are writers asked How To Write Well. The second is a lifetime's vocation; the first should be the natural result of that lifetime's vocation, but is more often seen as a quick route to affirmation, wealth, co...
Tiny Poetic Vessels
“That was epic!” This is what contemporary teenagers often exclaim after experiencing something impressive, whether the epic in question is a blockbuster film, a huge fantasy novel, a multi-state road trip, or a resounding crash by an accident-prone friend. From the Greek epic to the haiku, the tragic drama to the sonnet, poetry has spanned the history of literary scope as well as of social and linguistic c...
An Entrepreneurial Idea
The arts, I have long believed, are all interconnected, and, in turn, the great web of interdisciplinary arts is inextricably entangled with history, religion, technology, and science. Another way to put that is to say: Everything relates to everything else. Another way for me to put it is to tell you a story; and perhaps to inspire you to take an entrepreneurial leap into a previously unexplored business propo...
On the Validity of the Vogel Collection
A recent visit to the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) led me to ask several questions-- some specific, some general-- about little local art museums. I kind of grew up at my little local art-history-science-et cetera museum: the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts—at least, my memories of childhood visits there are extraordinarily vivid and beautiful. Yet the Berkshire Museum was a gallimaufry at best: a...
