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Melvyn Bragg on the rise of the ‘mass intelligentsia’
Last weekend I had a piece in the FT on the rise of philosophy clubs, which included some great quotes from Melvyn Bragg, one of the leading arts commentators in the UK. I thought readers might like to...
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A revelation in wood
Last weekend I met the American wood-carver David Esterly at a friend’s party. David told me the story of how he came to leave academia and become a highly accomplished wood-carver. He was doing a PhD...
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Paul Tillich’s mystic revelation in front of Botticelli
From ‘The mystical formation of Paul Tillich‘, by David Nikkel: Tillich’s decisive experience relative to art and mysticism occurred on his last furlough of World War I, which overlapped the end of...
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David Lynch on creativity
Here are some quotes from my favourite living artist, David Lynch, about the creative process. They’re from Chris Rodley’s book, Lynch on Lynch: On turning Mullholland Drive from a failed TV pilot to a...
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Roger Scruton: can high culture be a substitute for religion?
Last month I interviewed the philosopher Roger Scruton – the interview is on YouTube, above. If you want to download it as an MP3 just copy the URL and take it here. The interview was inspired by this...
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Art as transporter / transformer
Jeanette Winterson was walking through Amsterdam ‘one snowy Christmas, when the weather had turned the canals into oblongs of ice’. She says: ‘I was wandering happily, alone, playing the flaneur, when...
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‘Painting the heart’: how to create inner worlds
There is an anecdote in the psychotherapist Stephen Grosz’ book, The Examined Life, about a client who is always talking fondly about the house he is renovating. Whenever he’s had a bad week, he lets...
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What Act of Killing tells us about our powers of self-denial
Imagine if the Nazi regime was still in power – perhaps with the leadership changed, perhaps slightly less murderous and more pragmatic – but with no reconciliation or recognition of former crimes....
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Spiritual reading and the epiphany of poetry
Jane Davis says that literature saved her life. She grew up in a broken home, with a single mum who died of alcoholism. She left home and lived in squats, with a husband who also eventually died of...
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David Lynch and the art of trance
I was obsessed with Twin Peaks when it was first shown in 1990. We all were. Every Sunday after lunch at boarding school, we piled in to the TV room, pushed in the VHS cassette of that week’s episode,...
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Technologies for unselfing our Selfie culture
A lot of modern technology, particularly social media, is a technology for selfing. This is why we’re so addicted to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest etc (well, I am anyway). They’re technologies for...
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Aldous Huxley on upwards and downwards self-transcendence
Last week, I went to an exhibition on Goya, in Boston. It was filled with his bizarre and fantastic dream-drawings, exploring the strange manias and nightmares that fill humans’ minds when their reason...
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What can we recover from medieval contemplative culture?
Earlier this week, my girlfriend and I toured around Yorkshire and Northumberland, once the stronghold of English medieval monasticism. We visited the beautiful ruins of Rievaulx Abbey, which once...
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David Lynch and the art of trance
I was obsessed with Twin Peaks when it was first shown in 1990. We all were. Every Sunday after lunch at boarding school, we piled in to the TV room, pushed in the VHS cassette of that week’s episode,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Technologies for unselfing our Selfie culture
A lot of modern technology, particularly social media, is a technology for selfing. This is why we’re so addicted to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest etc (well, I am anyway). They’re technologies for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Aldous Huxley on upwards and downwards self-transcendence
Last week, I went to an exhibition on Goya, in Boston. It was filled with his bizarre and fantastic dream-drawings, exploring the strange manias and nightmares that fill humans’ minds when their reason...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What can we recover from medieval contemplative culture?
Earlier this week, my girlfriend and I toured around Yorkshire and Northumberland, once the stronghold of English medieval monasticism. We visited the beautiful ruins of Rievaulx Abbey, which once...
View ArticleClik here to view.
On Mad Men and the impossibility of transcending capitalism
The documentary maker Adam Curtis wrote in 2010: ‘In Mad Men we watch a group of people who live in a prosperous society that offers happiness and order like never before in history and yet are full of...
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On Cult and Culture
Cult is sacred, secret and always the same. Culture is public, irreverent, and strives for originality and innovation. Yet the two are intimately connected. Culture feeds on cult, and cult feeds off...
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Twin Peaks, the uncanny, and the re-enchanted West
26 years ago, when Twin Peaks first aired, I was a 13-year old boy, in my first year at an all-male boarding school. I was coming up on testosterone, discovering booze, porn and drugs, yearning for...
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