This Week's Miscellany (03/25/22)

Notre Dame, White Kitchens/Greige Houses, King Richard III,Upcoming Events

Hello to new subscribers and welcome all to another edition of This Week’s Miscellany. TWM is full of my favorite things from around the web, typically trending literary.

Friends, I’ll spare you a continuation of the Stewart family illness journal. Suffice it to say that pinkeye is still in the house and that all four kids have only been in school on the same day twice since February.

Instead, let’s talk about Notre Dame, where it obligingly snowed the last night of my stay and looked like Narnia the morning I left.

Not too shabby. Whenever I visit beautiful schools, I want to be a student again. College visits with my teenager are going to be a struggle because I’m going to want to go, too. I’m sure he’ll love the idea!

But it’s hard to beat the grotto on a quiet Sunday morning as fluffy snowflakes swirl!

This trip was actually my second visit to Notre Dame. I presented a paper there my senior year in college and attended Mass in this basilica when I was still a Protestant. The experience was a turning point in my conversion journey. It was in this space that I realized I believed that the Eucharist was Jesus Christ—Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. And I felt a deep longing to receive.

There was something very special about returning 15 years later, going to Mass, and receiving the Eucharist in that same sacred space.

Watching

Because we’ve all been ill, I have watched more movies than usual this month. The highlight was Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris which is streaming on Amazon Prime.

It’s absolutely charming. I’ve loved Lesley Manville since North and South and she is just darling in this film. You’ll want to go to Paris, you’ll want to buy a beautiful dress, you’ll want to dance with a handsome Irishman!

And this film released yesterday and I’m going to see it this weekend. From the trailer I’m pretty sure that it was created especially for me—I hope that’s not too narcissistic. SALLY HAWKINS? The mystery of King Richard III? A middle-aged mom who solves a centuries-old historical puzzle that has baffled scholars? It was designed for me, I tell you!

I am extremely into Richard III and the mystery of the princes in the tower. Did I just about lose my mind on my first trip to the Tower of London last summer? Yes, dear reader, I did. And the book that started it all for me was Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time which I highly recommend if you want a very clever murder mystery (that turned out to be very close to the truth as more evidence emerged later!)

Interesting Links

The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke

A short story by one of my favorite living authors read by Daisy from Downton Abbey? Don’t mind if I do.

The ‘Mortuary Chic’ of Today’s Aspirational Kitchen by Clare Coffey

I will read anything by Clare Coffey and this one is great.

The all-white kitchen, by nature, foregrounds and exacerbates every speck of dirt and every irregularity. It requires constant work—not the craft of cooking, but the unending labor of cleaning—to keep it fit to be seen. Its clean tranquility is fundamentally at odds with the household role of the kitchen as a dynamic theater of domestic life, work, and hospitality—and therefore of mess, dirt, leftovers, activity, and bustle. Mortuary chic is, unsurprisingly, inimical to the living.

And while we’re on the subject of soul-less homes…

Liberating Our Homes from the Real Estate Industrial Complex by Kate Wagner

The home is no longer seen as a space of personal expression or comfort, or as the backdrop of everyday life, but primarily as an investment and as an asset—meaning that enforcing one’s aesthetics is a financially detrimental decision. Those with the capital to become homeowners (already a diminishing segment of the public) conceive of their houses as being for selling before they even live a day in them.

When Mary Wollestonecraft Was Duped by Love by Regan Penaluna for Nautilus

These evenings alone with her thoughts accumulated into an identity: She began to see herself as a philosopher. What encouraged this new self-understanding was a novel conception of the imagination that gained traction in the 18th century.

And we’re in the process of trying to figure out how to get our teenager a phone that can support group chats while still not having a smart phone or wifi.

Bonnie Kristian

writes about this particular feature (and I love her perspective on all things internet culture and social media). We’ve been happy with Gabb’s most low tech model for basic calling and texting with friends, but are trying to figure out if the Gabb plus would be what we’re looking for to have a small step forward in capabilities without being too much. If you’ve had a good experience with a youth phone that allows group text but not wifi/social media, then I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Listening

Really enjoyed the conversation on Old Books with Grace with

Grace Hamman

, this episode feature Katelyn Shiess on one of my favorite books, A Wrinkle in Time.

And this episode of The Ezra Klein Show with Maryanne Wolf discussing what happens in the brain when you’re reading, the differences between reading print and digital media, and why it’s becoming harder and harder for us to experience that all-consuming literary experience of deep reading when the world falls away around us.

And since this Substack is creeping up on reaching 5,000 subscribers, would you consider sharing it with someone you think would enjoy it? We’re less than 200 subscribers short of 5,000!

Upcoming Events:

• Together in Holiness Conference, Indianapolis, April 22

  I’ll be sharing about liturgical living.

• Book Signing, The BookShelf, Thomasville, GA, April 29

• Summer Literary Series, University of St. Thomas-Houston, July 18

  I’ll be speaking about children’s literature and how good stories draw us into a truer world.

• The 42nd Annual Chesterton Conference, Minneapolis, July 27-29

  I’ll be speaking on Chesterton’s detective fiction and how good detective mysteries draw on the Christian theme of bringing order from chaos.

And that’s all folks! Wishing you all a wonderful weekend. And a huge thank you to Susan and Vivien for upgrading to a paid subscription. This is a reader-supported newsletter so if you enjoy getting these emails, pleas consider supporting this Substack by upgrading to a paid subscription with the button below.

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Thanks for reading!

Haley

(Editor of Word on Fire Spark, Author, Former Podcaster)

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