Cogitating Ceviché’s Week in Review (25–26)
June 30 – July 4, 2025
Discussion via NotebookLM
From Gothic satire to civic mythmaking, this week’s selections span centuries and sensibilities. Our contributors examine beauty as theology, patriotism as narrative, and crime as performance. The result is a mosaic of commentary where aesthetic, political, and literary concerns all press toward the question: what do we owe to memory, and what do we owe to form?
📈 This Week’s Features
The Theology of Beauty: Art, Architecture, and the Case for Sacred Aesthetics
Freiheit defends the religious case for beauty, tracing how sacred architecture and liturgical form cultivate spiritual discipline. A counterpoint to utilitarian decline, the piece argues beauty is not luxury but liturgy.
🗓️ June 30 • Calista F. Freiheit
Oikophobia, or How the Left Learned to Hate Its Own Reflection
Hannon critiques what he calls cultural masochism in progressive politics. In a charged essay, he examines how institutions and narratives often punish Western traditions under the guise of critique.
🗓️ July 1 • Conrad T. Hannon
The Millinery Shop: A Mimi Delboise Vignette
Marron sketches a tense dialogue between memory and deception in this standalone moment of noir. The shop’s wares are distractions; the real merchandise is implication.
🗓️ July 1 • Gio Marron
George Etherege (1636–1692): The Witty Chronicler of Restoration Decadence
In his ongoing series, Hannon profiles the Restoration dramatist whose epigrammatic style both mocked and mirrored courtly decline. A defense of wit as both sword and scalpel.
🗓️ July 2 • Conrad T. Hannon
One of the Missing (by Ambrose Bierce)
Marron presents Bierce’s short story of dislocation, war, and spectral panic. The Civil War becomes stage and character alike in this unnerving narrative of identity collapse.
🗓️ July 2 • Curated by Gio Marron
A Call in the Rain: Sybil Ludington's Ride and the Spirit of Independence
With July 4th approaching, Hannon reexamines a lesser-known heroine of the American Revolution. Through rain and rumor, Ludington’s midnight ride becomes emblematic of feminine resistance.
🗓️ July 3 • Conrad T. Hannon
The Casket on Canal Street – Part 3: The Belle Orleans
In this installment, Marron expands the New Orleans mystery into its aristocratic strata. The past is perfumed, but something always smells off.
🗓️ July 1 • Gio Marron
The Casket on Canal Street: Part 4: Justice and Its Limits
Conclusion or complication? Marron questions whether truth and justice can coexist in a city built on masks.
🗓️ July 3 • Gio Marron
Speaking Platforms Demystified: A Guide to Pretentious Furniture
Hannon lampoons the aesthetics of modern speech-making, from TED Talk gloss to activist minimalism. Behind the podium lies the politics of posture.
🗓️ July 4 • Conrad T. Hannon
🤔 Reflection Questions
What does it mean to call something "beautiful" in a desacralized age?
When does critique become self-loathing?
How do physical objects (hats, pulpits, caskets) shape abstract meanings?
Is history curated, or does it curate us?
Can justice exist without performance?
📚 Further Reading
Ideas Have Consequences by Richard Weaver
The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word by Mitchell Stephens
The Confidence-Man by Herman Melville
The Satiric Decade by Harold Weber
🔍 Closing Thoughts This week’s offerings are united by one shared anxiety: authenticity. Whether in civic ritual or architectural form, the question lingers—is this sincere or a simulation? And if the answer is both, what does that say about us?
💬 Authors' Notes Calista F. Freiheit: Visit a church, even if you don't attend. Look at the ceiling. Conrad T. Hannon: Watch a political speech with the sound off. Gio Marron: Write down the last thing someone lied to you about—even if it was polite.
Thank you for your time today. Until next time, stay gruntled, curious, and God Bless.
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