I grew up with CS Lewis -- I remember my 2nd Grade teacher reading us "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" the way I remember my first exposure to any great art -- but its greatest value is what the other work it inspired, including, btw, "The Magicians" by @leverus
Also, while I know JK Rowling is doing her best to set fire to the goodwill she created by writing them, the "Harry Potter" books are so much better than Narnia it's not even a contest.
Also, I literally haven't read them since I was a child, but as an insatiable consumer of fantasy I also loved "The Chronicles of Prydain," by Lloyd Alexander. When I was older -- young teens -- I loved "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever" by Stephen Donaldson.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Another worthwhile small film you may not have heard of that I would like to praise is "Avengers: Endgame" which I re-watched last night with my infant son. (He wakes up and cries every ten minutes, I'm not going to watch "Ikiru.") Spoilers, but c'mon, now.
I generally like the MCU movies -- they're all extremely well made, well acted, and most of all, smart. For the most part, they solve the biggest problem with comic book adaptations, ie: comic books are essentially stupid.
(I love comic books! But people solving problems by dressing up in tights and punching other people is pretty stupid. For evidence: see any comic book movie made before, say, 2000.)
A few words on Congressman Riggleman, who's leaving office shortly.
I first became aware of him when he ran for the office in 2018 and we made fun of him for being a fan of "Bigfoot erotica..." which... was sort of true! He's a Bigfoot lore enthusiast, though not a believer.
He won his election and served as a straightforward libertarian Republican. He himself owns and operates a distillery, so has a particular interest in deregulation of business, including the hemp business. congress.gov/bill/116th-con…
But in 2019, true to his principles (ie, Government should leave people alone to do what they want) he officiated a wedding between two of his campaign volunteers, both men. And the local GOP in his district Did Not Like That.
Ever since hosting "Constitution USA" on PBS 7 years ago I've given talks on the Constitution. The principle question I ask and then try to answer is: Why has our Con succeeded (+ or -) when so many others have failed or were instantly ignored?
Here's the Soviet Constitution of 1936, for example. Note: guaranteed universal suffrage, rights to work, health care, leisure time, etc. A liberal's dream. And of course, it was instantly and immediately ignored. Why wasn't ours?
After a long chat, with care to mark the places/times it WAS ignored (see: Jim Crow), I arrive at this answer: because what binds us together in America is not culture or national origin but a kind of civic religion of democracy.
But it's also useful in thinking about the Civil War, and its causes. Usually we talk about the South's motivation for seceding, because it's been so intentionally obscured and lied about. They did it to preserve chattel slavery, period.
But why did Lincoln fight them?
He himself said, famously, that it was to "save the Union." "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that."