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“The Festivals are all for rejoicing and pleasurable gatherings, which in most cases are indispensable for man; they are also useful in the establishment of friendship, which must exist among people living in political societies.” —Maimonides
The rain has stopped. The afternoon sun slants through the pine trees: and how those useless needles smell in the clear air! A dandelion, long out of season, has pushed itself into bloom between the smashed leaves of last summer’s day lilies. The valley resounds with the totally uninformative talk of creeks and wild water. Then the quails begin their sweet whistling in the wet bushes. Their noise is absolutely useless, and so is the delight I take in it. There is nothing I would rather hear, not because it is a better noise than other noises, but because it is the voice of the present moment, the present festival. —Thomas Merton
To celebrate a festival means: to live out, for some special occasion and in an uncommon manner, the universal assent to the world as a whole. —Josef Pieper
Next week, I’m launching a new podcast. It’s called FESTIVAL.
The idea is to have almost everything that a festival has, except in podcast form:
A main stage where we talk about what everyone’s talking about that month
Ample sideshows where we enter the realm of the strange and particular
And everything in-between—interviews, spotlights, investigations, experiments, reflections
These are dark times in our country—and we need to get to work turning things around. But that is exactly why we need to start with festivity, because celebration is the soil for everything new and good.
We have great friends, old and new, lined up to come join us each episode. And I want this to be a shared festival, where we are in conversation with viewers and listeners—so please reach out with ideas and suggestions.
To follow along, subscribe on:
RSS (can be used with most podcast players)
Substack (If you are already subscribed to my main Substack, you are all set — episodes flow through here.)
See you next week. For now, check out FESTIVAL’s trailer, which includes our wonderful theme song—“Last Dance at the Grove” by the great Boston band Noble Dust:
