Reading and Writing
It's always nice to discover when you've got the creative juices flowing again. Sometimes you do have to make it happen, but when the dry spell ends, well, go for it.
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For some reason, I didn't put 2 and 2 together, because I only learned recently that a guy I know from Austin is pretty much responsible for Too Much Coffee Man. He's not the artist, but the artist used to hang out at his bookstore all the time and draw patrons. Why this didn't click, I do not know. I used to go wander through Desert Books way back when and peruse its internet theory, french poststructuralism, and classics sections. Back in the mid 90s, that was pretty much the only place to get them. And they actually HAD Loebs, which few bookstores did unless you special ordered them.
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I recently finish Augustine's Confessions. I had actually never read it all the way through - only half of it, last time I tried. It's a very thoughtful, yet convoluted read. I learned that his mother, Monica, was overly obsessive and doting. Gah. AND that his mother suggested that he marry a ten year old when he was thirty. As was the custom of the time. :(
She was even two years below the legal limit, but Augustine was willing to wait. Then he decided to go the chastity route. But this is not the most important thing about Augustine. Pretty much all of Western Christianity has been influenced him whether people want to realize that or not, Roman Catholic or otherwise. it's amazing how people think that they can read the Bible in a vacuum, when really they're influenced by 2,000 years of culture and history. It almost gives Hegel and his Geist some credibility, except... um... no.
Now, we're up to Augustine's City of God Against the Pagans, allegedly his most accessible work
