Loren Paulsson

Poet Dana Gioia describes the experience of beauty  in his talk “Why Beauty Matters,”  first as “an unexpected slowing down  to saturate ourselves in a...phenomenon.” The writer of Psalm 104 imagines God in terms that feel like slowing down: covered “with light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a tent.” Gioia distinguishes beauty from prettiness:  “We see beauty in a hawk swooping down to seize its prey,  in the swirling cone of a tornado,  or in a thunderstorm....” We kids who marked birthdates before or after Mount Saint Helens find complicated comfort in the psalmist's lines: “Who but looks down to earth, and it trembles, but touches the mountains—they smoke,” Gioia describes us feeling joy: “a complex emotion...unlike pleasure...  beyond our power to summon, control, or possess.”  Then, “a heightened awareness of the shape...of things.”  The psalmist continues: “When you send forth Your breath, th...

Some will tell you Ratatouille is about a rat who can cook, but I think it’s about a critic who is won over by the quality of a rat’s cooking. The movie begins with Auguste Gusteau’s premise that “Anyone can cook.” Gusteau is the chef who originally inspired the movie’s hero, Remy, who emerges from the Parisian sewers to find himself in Gusteau’s kitchen just after Gusteau’s son gets a job as a garbage boy. But the plot turns on food critic Ego's realization that “not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.” Whatever else you can say, the folks at Pixar made a rat entertaining and sympathetic. Not everyone can do that.