Richard Carroll – Page 3 – Everything is Oll Korrect!

Cultured Grugs

Posted on 16 January 2022 by Richard Carroll

Not that long ago, around 2015 or so, the Right was drowning in blogs and podcasts, but had no books and no art. Now it seems that every Rightist from the most erudite Reactionary to the simplest shitposter has a book they’d like to sell, whether it be political analysis, a novel, or book of essays. A number of broadly Right-wing publishers have also appeared over the last few years. All of this is, of course, a welcome development, as social media and short-form writing, despite certain strengths, are also limited by being short-lived and lacking space to develop any serious ideas. Today, let’s take a brief look at Cultured Grugs: Dispatches From America in Collapse, a collection of essays by John Chapman (a.k.a. “Borzoi” on social media) and published by one of those independent outfits, Antelope Hill.

Most of these essays have been published previously, six in The American Sun, eight on Chapman’s own blog Race Borz, leaving nine original essays. Like most essay collections, subject matter and interest vary from entry to the next, but a few of these are excellent and all are at least worth reading. There’s also some thematic uniformity across the book so that all the essays do feel like they belong together. That theme is summed up in the subtitle, so if you’re looking for some pleasant reading you should look elsewhere. If you want to stare a collapsing culture in the face, though, Chapman has you covered. See, for instance, “PissEarth, 2025,” where he explains, “You must understand, I do not tell you these things to hurt you, but to warn you that this new world wants to hurt you. It will.”…

2021: For this Child did I Pray

Posted on 31 December 202131 December 2021 by Richard Carroll

This blog isn’t abandoned, though it’s only barely qualifies as active. At the very least, it’s not so dead that I’m not writing my annual year-end post, even if it is 5:08pm on December 31. That lack of activity is due almost entirely to a lack of time; other things are, ultimately, more important, and my free time lately has been spent mostly on family history.

What have I written this year? Let’s just go through post-by-post; it won’t take long.

First was “Consecration to St. Joseph,” about the book of that same name by Fr. Donald Calloway, which is pretty good but not great. Next up, in April, was “Snap Back to Reality,” reviewing Neovictorian’s most recent novel. Highly recommended, with a couple caveats. Jumping ahead to August, we arrive at “You’re the Mandarin Now, Dog,” the second-best article title of the year (this and “Snap Back to Reality” are among my best ever, if I do say so myself). My attempt at learning Chinese has slowed along with every other project I have, but I’ve managed to maintain it.

September brought “Two Books for Raising Saints,” a very important subject. Finally, in October, I discussed the film “The Road Home.” I can at least say that the five posts I did write were done well, probably better than last year’s five posts though with less variety.

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The Road Home

Posted on 6 October 2021 by Richard Carroll

Shortly after I began studying Chinese, I thought it would be interesting to check out some Chinese films. I can’t really understand spoken Chinese well yet, so admittedly, any movie would be more for entertainment and a touch of cultural immersion more than a language learning tool. Nonetheless, I decided to give The Road Home a shot recently since it’s well-reviewed and looked like a film my wife might also enjoy, which is rather rare with movies I like.

The Road Home was directed by Zhang Yimou and released in China in 1999. The movie is a bit unusual in that there are essentially two narratives, one told within a framing device that opens and closes the film, the other within the central portion. I’ll be a bit free with spoilers here, because the movie’s strength is its aesthetic and themes, not the plot. At the start we meet our narrator, Luo Yusheng, who is returning from a big city to his home village upon the news of his father’s death. His father, Luo Changyu, had been the village schoolteacher for forty years and died during a snowstorm while out seeking funds to rebuild the school building. When he arrives, his uncle and the village mayor inform him that they would like to hire a car to bring his father’s body back for burial, but his mother, Zhao Di, wants his body carried back in a ceremony that hadn’t been performed since the Cultural Revolution a good twenty years before at that point. Unfortunately, though they wanted to honour Di’s wishes, they lacked the manpower to carry this out since all the young men had, like Yusheng, left for the cities over the years, so they hoped to find a compromise.

Now, this framing device is filmed in black-and-white, but here it changes to colour as Yusheng narrates the story of how his parents met and married in 1958. This part of the film is visually beautiful, but the plot here is relatively simple. Di and Changyu were eighteen and twenty years old when he came to the village to teach. Di fell in love at first sight, tries to catch his attention and succeeds after a couple attempts, and her feelings are quickly reciprocated. However, he is called away due to a political investigation; he is able to sneak back briefly, but ultimately returns after a couple years.…

Two Books for Raising Saints

Posted on 11 September 2021 by Richard Carroll

Last year, many of the books I read had to do with marriage. Now that I’m married, much of my 2021 reading has to do with raising children. The topics vary; most useful are those that are just “this is what you do with a newborn,” that is, how to feed, diaper, take temperatures, that sort of thing. Baby sign language is another interesting topic, as it allows older babies (roughly six months and older) communicate their needs, as well as share observations with family as a bridge to speech. For instance, they can sign that they’re hungry, thirsty, want more, etc., as well as make signs for “dog” or “aeroplane,” among other things.

Thriving in the world is a first step, of course, but ultimately my goal is to raise my daughter to be a saint, so I’ve also checked out a couple of books on raising children to be good Christians: The Religious and Moral Training of Children, by Rev. James McGovern, and Parenting Towards the Kingdom, by Dr. Philip Mamalakis.

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