Keith “Maggie” Brown

  • Santa Maria dei Miracoli

    [Santa Maria dei Miracoli] …known as the “marble church”… is one of the best examples of the early Venetian Renaissance including colored marble, a false colonnade on the exterior walls (pilasters), and a semicircular pediment… Built between 1481 and 1489 by… Continue reading

    Santa Maria dei Miracoli
  • Food Friends Family Faith–A Lost Dream

    Wonderful little article that reminds us that the American Dream once centered on working less and having the leisure to enjoy the things that actually matter: among them, food, friends, family, and faith. Now that lost dream shows the foresight… Continue reading

    Food Friends Family Faith–A Lost Dream
  • My Man Godfrey

    An awesome little film with one of my favorite actors of the 1930’s, William Powell, and the beautiful Carole Lombard. Directed by Gregory LaCava. This is definitely a great way to spend part of your Sunday after you get back… Continue reading

    My Man Godfrey
  • Playfulness: the Point of Existence

    “A man’s maturity: that is to have rediscovered the seriousness he possessed as a child at play.” Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil “To escape boredom, man works either beyond what his usual needs require, or else he invents play, that… Continue reading

    Playfulness: the Point of Existence
  • Tears of Joy in my Life

    When tears begin to flow in the moment of an ecstatic joy, I find an awareness of just how much the body–with all its pains and perturbations–is the necessary crossroads of possible Transcendenz. The feel of my gut contacting, my… Continue reading

    Tears of Joy in my Life
  • It’s a hard world for little things

    Robert Mitchum terrorizes an orphanage defended by the faith and the gun of Ms. Lillian Gish in Charles Laughton’s brilliant, if often misunderstood, film Night of the Hunter.  Continue reading

    It’s a hard world for little things
  • Feel like shouting!

    So much hatred and dread in this old world. So much love and joy. All is flowing… all this beauty and happiness punctuated with this every day struggle and frustration. To be in this wonderful flowing reality and not let… Continue reading

    Feel like shouting!
  • Textimony 20140208

    To say that we are on the ONE WAY is not to say there is only a single way. Get to it, now… EXPLORE!!! Continue reading

    Textimony 20140208
  • Becoming the Vessel | The Ptero Card

    An informative piece from Ptero9 that reminds me how much philosophizing requires going to the margins or as Jaspers would call it, the boundary situations, where we engage in the loving struggle with others who are also attempting self-actualization. So,… Continue reading

    Becoming the Vessel | The Ptero Card
  • Military Metaphysics: How Militarism Mangles the Mind

    Homer in “The Iliad” showed his understanding of war. His heroes are not pleasant men. They are vain, imperial, filled with rage and violent. And Homer’s central character in “The Odyssey,” Odysseus, in his journey home from war must learn… Continue reading

    Military Metaphysics: How Militarism Mangles the Mind
  • Afternoon Memo 20140202

    My MEMO Status update on FB: Some caricature metaphysics as the most meaningless of abstractions: e.g. pondering how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Such examples work precisely to say that the “beyond” trumps the now/here… Continue reading

    Afternoon Memo 20140202
  • Night Vigil 20140201

    Night Vigil has been occupied with the issue of anthropocentrism. Of course anthropo– means human and –centric means center. So the term means to place humankind at the center of everything. Knowing how -centric got the usage, however, is very… Continue reading

    Night Vigil 20140201
  • It Is Expensive to Be Poor – Barbara Ehrenreich – The Atlantic

    The Great Recession should have put the victim-blaming theory of poverty to rest. In the space of only a few months, millions of people entered the ranks of the officially poor—not only laid-off blue-collar workers, but also downsized tech workers,… Continue reading

    It Is Expensive to Be Poor – Barbara Ehrenreich – The Atlantic
  • Capitalism vs. Democracy – NYTimes.com

    Thomas Piketty’s new book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” described by one French newspaper as a “a political and theoretical bulldozer,” defies left and right orthodoxy by arguing that worsening inequality is an inevitable outcome of free market capitalism.Piketty, a… Continue reading

    Capitalism vs. Democracy – NYTimes.com
  • body atlas

    Originally posted on coromandal: Happiness and depression are felt all over the body, while anger and pride only in the chest and head. These are images from research on emotion response by a group of scientists from Finland. The researchers… Continue reading

  • Marsilio Ficino

    Probably one of the least known yet most influential philosophers in the last 1000 years. Another way to understand Ficino and his academy is to examine the various ways he uses the word “academy” and its variants. What one finds… Continue reading

    Marsilio Ficino