A Visit to Vanity Fair

A Visit to Vanity Fair is a book of essays by Alan Jacobs. Jacobs calls them moral essays, subtitling the book "Moral Essays on the Present Age." I recommend this book to you. The book, in my second listen through its audio form from Mars Hill Audio (near the bottom of the page), is the inspiration behind this blog.

While I'm not sure I will be writing what Jacobs' calls "moral essays" I will be providing some critique on the culture. By using "Vanity Fair" (Vanity is a town in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress where a year long fair was held, hence the full title of "A Pilgrim in Vanity Fair") I am announcing a critical (or counter-cultural) spirit in examining the zeitgeist of early 21st century America.

If the blog has a tag line, it would probably be from Harry Chapin's "There Only Was One Choice" where Harry sings, "Harry, Can you honestly believe that the country's getting better when all you do is let her alone."

I'm not sure how frequently I will post here, or what all I will post on. One thought rattling around in my head is to start by touching on at least some of the essays in this blogs inspiration, but I've not committed to that yet.

I want to close with something that should go with out saying, but still needs to be said. The contents here are (generally - I will be posting quotes, etc. from time to time) my own rambling thoughts. Do not blame Alan Jacobs or anyone else for what I write. While the content will be very dependent on what I hear and learn from others, realize that it has been filtered through my brain which may or may not return faithful and/or agreed to conclusions from the source material.