The Stone Owl

2012... Anniversary / Resolution

2012-01-04T19:16:00.000-05:00

Jay Nordlinger likes to point out that orchestral programmers are fond of anniversaries.

Why all this Mahler-ing? This year marks 150 years since his birth, and next year marks 100 years since his death. You get the impression that, without anniversaries, concert programmers would be paralyzed.

This year is the 200th anniversary of Napoleon's invasion of Russia, so I expect we'll be hearing a lot of Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture".

It's a good year to be in the cannon rental business too.

I'm thinking of celebrating by finally reading War and Peace. Most likely in the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation (fêted in the New Criterion by Eric Ormsby.)

If you'd like something a little shorter than War and Peace, you can celebrate the anniversary by reading this comic strip by Kate Beaton about the fine French cuisine provided to the French Army as it marched on Moscow.

Cassian in the New York Times

2012-01-03T23:00:00.000-05:00

John Plotz brings the truly great books to the pages of the NY Times Book Review:

If the diagnoses in medieval texts were so psychologically acute, it’s very likely because the most ferocious accusers and denouncers were themselves acedia sufferers. Today, too, it takes an acediac to know acedia. When I read Cassian on “disgust with the cell,” I look around my own office and sigh deeply; and I greet like an old friend the monk whose gaze “rests obsessively on the window” while “with his fantasy he imagines the image of someone who comes to visit him.” Cassian’s description of acedia as mental drift, meanwhile, perfectly encapsulates the pointless and random detours that stop me from bearing down on a particular page: “The mind is constantly whirling from psalm to psalm, . . . tossed about fickle and aimless through the whole body of Scripture.”

Of course, the desert monks were emphatically not us. Stripping their lives down to the bare bones, they sought the divine and fought the demonic alone. What could be more different from us, tap-tapping away with social media always at hand? They gazed upward toward God; we shoot sideways glances at one another while trying to resist the allure of e-mail (nowadays, you can “desert your cell” without shifting from your chair). Still, “excesses meet,” and now that solitary unstructured brainwork has returned with a vengeance, we may be suffering an epidemic of early medieval acedia. Is there anything we can learn from the monks and nuns who came before us?

Let the Marsupial Madness Begin

2012-01-02T22:44:00.000-05:00

After this photo of Yo-Yo Ma communing with a wombat blew up on Twitter, Lang Lang is surely trying to get his hands on a kangaroo.

In Memoriam, [Ring out, wild bells]

2011-12-31T13:10:00.000-05:00

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
   The flying cloud, the frosty light:
   The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
   Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
   The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
   For those that here we see no more;
   Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
   And ancient forms of party strife;
   Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
   The faithless coldness of the times;
   Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
   The civic slander and the spite;
   Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
   Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
   Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
   The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
   Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

by Lord Alfred Tennyson

Robert's Rules

2011-12-26T19:17:00.001-05:00

"Thank you," Anselmo said to her and Robert Jordan realized suddenly that he and the girl were not alone and he realized too that it was hard for him to look at her because it made his voice change so. He was violating the second rule of the two rules for getting on well with people that speak Spanish; give the mean tobacco and leave the women alone; and he realized, very suddenly, that he did not care/ There were so many things that he had not to care about, why should he care about that?

Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

No, Really, Just No

2011-12-25T22:37:00.000-05:00

Netflix e-mailed me today to say, "Now is a great time to come back to Netflix." But really, no, just no. We're coming up on new year's resolution time and unlimited streaming Netflix is not the way to meet my "be more productive" goal.

Fun?

2011-11-26T02:22:00.001-05:00

Book Culture's e-mail newsletter says:

Fun Fact: On this day in 1970, prominent Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima committed ritualistic suicide (seppuku) after taking part in an unsuccessful coup.

Seamus Heaney at the 92nd St. Y

2011-11-22T23:35:00.001-05:00

I was at this wonderful reading earlier this fall:

Legio Patria Nostra

2011-11-18T19:24:00.001-05:00

Helen Rittelmeyer writes:

H. W. Crocker III declares the French Foreign Legion one of the ten best thing about Catholicism: “It seems to me that as the product of a Catholic culture, showcasing a Catholic militarism by accepting men of all nations and backgrounds, devoted to one common goal, and by bestowing a sort of secular forgiveness of sins via its traditional offer of anonymity for recruits, it is a good reflection of the Catholic spirit.”

Here's the Choir of the French Foreign Legion singing one of their traditional songs, "Ich hatt einen Kameraden":

Another Bit from the LRB

2011-10-31T22:46:00.000-04:00

Another bit from the current (Nov. 3) London Review of Books. This from an essay by James Meek:

"The lightness of the ebook medium, literally and figuratively, holds a terrible allure and an insidious threat to the heavily booked-up among us. How many marriages, seemingly held firm by the impossibility of moving several hundredweight of vinyl or CDs out of a family-sized home, have already foundered post the digitisation of music? How many more will break if apparently inseparable and immovable matrimonial libraries become something that anyone can walk out with in their pocket?"

Materialism: Then and Now

2011-10-30T22:44:00.001-04:00

Mary-Kay Wilmers reviewing Joan Didion's new book Blue Nights in the London Review of Books:

"Three months later he rang Didion and her husband to say he’d just delivered ‘a beautiful baby girl’ to a mother who was unable to keep her: were they interested? After they’d been to the hospital and looked at the baby and made up their minds to have her they called on Dunne’s brother and his wife in Beverly Hills for a celebratory drink (‘only when I read my early fiction, in which someone was always downstairs making a drink and singing “Big noise blew in from Winnetka”, did I realise how much we all drank and how little thought we gave to it’). Lenny, Didion’s sister-in-law, offered to meet her at Saks the next morning to buy a layette (in the 1960s people still talked about ‘layettes’); if she spent 80 dollars Saks would throw in a cot – a ‘bassinette’.
I took the glass and put it down.

I had not considered the need for a bassinette.

I had not considered the need for a layette.
It’s hard to imagine that happening now, when having a baby and having the stuff seem to be inseparable parts of the same enterprise.

For the IMLDB

2011-10-03T19:37:00.000-04:00

Another entry for the IMLDB, the Internet Movie Liturgical Database (like the IMFDB mutatis mutandis). In the 2nd episode of the new TV series Pan Am, from which this screenshot is taken, this is a Catholic Church in 1963 in Paris, France:

Which it's obviously not, but actually Riverside Church in New York City. They haven't even bothered to dress it to look like a Catholic Church in 1963 (6 candles, sanctuary gates, tabernacle for starters).

Addendum: in the a street scene set in NYC in the first episode, I spotted a Muni Meter, first installed in 1999.

Homer Nods

2011-10-02T07:00:00.000-04:00

The New Yorker is famous for its fact checking "et idem indignor quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus." Here's Rebecca Mead writing about Daphne Guinness (subscription only) in the September 26, 2011 New Yorker (my emphasis)

[Guinness] often wears a veil: "What's great is tying a bit of net around your face, and everything looks like it's in Super 8. It gives a bit of grain to the world." Even before J.K. Rowling came up with the idea, Guinness dreamed of wearing a cloak that would render her invisible.

What? Anyone over 25 with a bit of D&D in their misspent youth—or anyone who's read some Tolkien—knows that J.K. Rowling didn't invent the cloak of invisibility. Here's a version from Emily Watson's book Fairies of Our Garden

This book was published in 1867. That's a few years before Rowling could have "c[o]me up with the idea."

There Is No Mafia

2011-10-01T01:08:00.001-04:00

The New York Post reports on some religion news:

“Family” health coverage has proven pretty pricey for one high-level mobster.

The third-ranking member of the Colombo crime family is facing an 18-to-24-month prison stint after pleading guilty yesterday to a shakedown scheme designed to cover another mobster’s medical bills after a stabbing.

Richard Fusco, 75, admitted that he joined in a health-care reform “sit-down” of Colombo leaders.

At the meeting -- which was secretly taped by a mob turncoat -- it was agreed that the Gambino crime family would pay the injured mobster’s bills because a Gambino had done the stabbing.

Most of the $150,000 tab was to come from the Gambinos’ illegally skimmed cut of proceeds from the annual Figli di Santa Rosalia celebration on 18th Avenue in Brooklyn, federal prosecutors said.
...

One of the indictments that led to the arrest of more than 120 alleged NY and NJ mobsters last January has more details on the alleged mob involvement.

81. It was a part of the scheme that, on or about May 27, 2010, a “Preliminary Income Summary Statement” was submitted on behalf of the Figli di Santa Rosalia, in which the defendant ANGELO SPATA falsely stated that the estimated gross income from vendors’ fees at the 2010 Feast of Santa Rosalia (“Gross Income”) was $51,000, and thus the estimated payment to the City of New York, at 20 percent of the Gross Income, was $10,200, significantly understating the estimated gross income and the estimated payment due. It was a further part of the scheme that following the 2010 Feast of Santa Rosalia, a “Final Income Summary Sheet” was submitted on behalf of Figli di Santa Rosalia, in which a conspirator falsely stated that the Gross Income was $43,000 and the total payment to the City of New York was $8,600, significantly understating the actual Gross Income and the total payment due.

The annual festival didn't happen this year.

Anything New Under the Turtle Bay Sun?

2011-09-23T07:00:00.000-04:00

I first read poet and novelist May Sarton's memoir Plant Dreaming Deep back in 2003. I've reread it a couple of times since then. It's so good that it's perhaps more accurate to describe Sarton as "memoirist, poet, and novelist". Sarton describes here move to Nelson, N.H., near where I lived as a child and the people she met there and the life they lived starting in 1958.

Wednesday, I started reading a later book of hers, The House By the Sea, which recounts the period from November 13, 1974 to August 17, 1976, after she left Nelson and moved to the Maine seacoast.

It is interesting that I started reading it in this week, when Mahmoud Abbas goes to the United Nations to request full membership in that body for a Palestinian State, for November 13, 1974 is the date of Yasser Arafat's famous address to the U.N. General Assembly. This goes unrecorded in Sarton's journal on the day it occurs, but she brings it up in her December 5th entry. This excerpt starts with Sarton and then quotes at length from an article in the New Statesman, which apparently occasioned the reflection:

I have a leaden feeling when I wake up and need to shake myself awake like a dog. But the lead is in my mind, of course. It is not only the coming on of winter, but the coming on of old age that I shore up against these days. At all ages we are learning how precarious life is, as it slowly penetrates consciousness that we live in a dying civilization. It was dreadfully borne in on me when the UN allowed Arafat, a holster showing under his shirt, to speak, and so sanctified the most brutal terrorist organization in the world. At that moment something went out of us all in the West. Trust that the generality of nations would stand, at least theoretically, for justice under law? "The Age of Terror," Paul Johnson calls this one in the New Statesman (November 29) Now the truth is out after The Age of Anxiety when we felt vaguely uncomfortable and alarmed. Now the the truth is out—there is no court of higher appeal, no public generality to express revolt. We are all in the same boat and the boat is commanded by thugs.Johnson says,
"Here we come to the essence of the argument. No state throughout history has had completely clean hands. What marks the progress of civilization is the systematic recognition of laws, the identification and punishment of crime, and the reprobation of the offender. A civilized society is one which sees evil in itself and provides means to eliminate it, where the voice of conscience is active. the horrific record of Britain's indiscriminate bombing of Germany is in part redeemed by the protests of Bishop bell of Chichester. The brutalization of Vietnam by the United States is balanced by the critical millions who eventually brought it to an end. We need not despair at the devastating events of our times so long as we retain the ability to distinguish between right and wrong, between law and disorder, between justice and crime, and proclaim these distinctions from the roof-tops.

"The tragedy of the U.N. is that the distinctions have been first blurred, then wholly abandoned; and that its judgements are now delivered not according to any recognized set of principles, however inadequate, but solely in response to the pressures of political and racial groupings. Racialism is condemned in South Africa but applauded in Uganda; and the fruits of aggression are denied or blessed according to the race and political leanings of those to whom they accrue. Thus the UN has become a kind of kangaroo court; far from protecting international order, it undermines it. Not even the wretched League of Nations gave a welcome and a platform to Hitler."
It is possible, I suppose that we are returning to a Dark Age. What is frightening is that violence is not only represented by nations, but everywhere walks among us freely.One might even make a distinction between terrorism for an ideal or a dream such as the PLO and that which we condone here at home, violence for no reason, as a game or a way of snatching a few dollars. Are we in the West on the way out partly because we have provided our people with almost everything except an ideal.

Now there's plenty here to disagree with. The Whig View of History for a start, which plays out in the idea that the West doesn't have an ideal to propose—a consequence of believing Whiggishly that the ideals of the past have been surpassed and discredited. But there's plently to reflect on profitably as well, I think on the day that the Palestinian Leader again goes before the U.N. General Assembly.

Potok Compares Himself To...

2011-09-22T19:03:00.001-04:00

Chaim Potok describes his relationship to "Catholic" writers in a 1981 interview with S. Lillian Kremer collected in Conversations with Chaim Potok (edited by Daniel Walden)

Potok: ... Interestingly enough, I feel closer to someone like Joyce [than Roth] who really did, in terms of models, precisely what I'm trying to do. Joyce was right at the heart of the Catholic world and at the same time at the heart of western secular humanism. And this confrontation, both as an artist and as a human being in the twentieth century was a core-to-core confrontation. As a human being, he fused his Catholicism with his secularism and produced a Catholic-secular way of writing, if such a thing is possible. His epiphanies, his sacrament of language, the way he structures and sees things are all Catholic, Jesuitical, and he went the secular route through his Catholicism. That didn't happen to me. I stayed inside the Jewish tradition and took the secular into it. He took the Catholic into secularism and I took the secular into Judaism.

Kremer: Do you feel a similar kind of kinship to Flannery O'Connor?

Potok: To O'Connor, and interestingly enough, in no small measure, to Greene, who grapples with the problem of evil in a strange Catholicism. There are models, in this century, for what it is I'm trying to do with my work, but they aren't people like Roth.

Cerealism

2011-09-19T07:00:00.023-04:00

WKCR (89.9 FM) at Columbia University has a clever name for their morning classical music program, "Cereal Music"

An eclectic mix of music, spanning the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern periods. Tune in to hear such composers as Bach, Shostakovich, Bartok, Stravinsky, Schubert, Janacek, Carter, Schoenberg, Haydn, Hindemith, Debussy, Part, Boulez, and many others. From time to time, we present entire shows focusing on everything from 19th century lieder to 20th century string quartets, from Bach's cantatas to Scriabin's piano works, from the American art song to modern Russian masters.

They are, of course, punning on "Serialism."

For related sounded offbeat radio programs: KBOO's Celebration of Dada and Surrealism.

Meanwhile, artist Michael Albert creates collages out of cereal boxes. He calls it... wait for it... “cerealism.”

The Power of Photographs

2011-09-18T00:17:00.000-04:00

Sid Grossman (American, 1913–1955).

Mulberry Street, 1948.Gelatin silver print;

33.7 x 26.5 cm (13 1/4 x 10 7/16 in.).

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,

Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift,

through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1990

(1990.1139.2) www.metmuseum.org

The night and particularly the electrified night are the topic of a show of photographs closing this weekend at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Night Vision: Photography After Dark."

Sid Grossman's "Mulberry Street" (at right) is part of the show. It depicts the lights and gates of the San Gennaro Festival in Little Italy (coincidentally in its first of two weekends today and tomorrow).

There's some really fascinating work in the show, but it's appeal is damaged by the installation. The room is small and dark with a lowish ceiling and dark blue or black walls. The effect is claustrophobic, even on what was a relatively uncrowded day at the Met. But furthermore, this unpleasant presentation strikes me as unnecessary. Shouldn't part of the point of photographs of the night be that they convey the feeling of the experience when you're not actually in a darkened space?

The relative uncrowded condition of the museum today can be attributed partly to the passing of the seasons from Summer into Fall and partly to the Steuben Parade marching up Fifth Avenue, which made getting to the museum more challenging than usual.

Fr. Dougherty's "Marching Song"

2011-09-16T22:33:00.000-04:00

I've been looking at some old copies of The Remnant. The February 28, 1995 issue includes Fr. Eugene J. Dougherty's "'Marching Song' for the Traditionalist Movement." It's written for the tune AUSTRIA (MIDI), also known as the tune for the Kaiserhymne and the German national anthem.

It's not the world's greatest rewrite, but it's at least an historical curiosity and perhaps still has some value as a reassurance/examination of conscience for "traditionalists." I've preserved the somewhat idiosyncratic capitalization and punctuation.

"Lord Preserve the Old Tradition

Lord, preserve the Old Tradition: Save the Mass that stills my soul,
Fills my heart with veneration, guards my Faith and makes it whole.
Let the Church not split in schism; Falsehood, heresy prevent.
In they loving arms, enfold us, in the Blessed Sacrament.

Lord, commend me to Thy Mother, trust me to her loving care,
Lest Thy present crucifixion lead me into dark despair.
Send her forth in Apparition, Comforting the penitent.
In they loving arms, enfold us, in the Blessed Sacrament.

Lord, protect the Holy Father, Give him strength to lead his flock.
While the tempest rages o'er us, shelter us upon this Rock.
Make him strong his Church to shepherd, Make our hearts obedient.
In they loving arms, enfold us, in the Blessed Sacrament.

Lord, restore Thy Holy Priesthood; Raise Melchizedek of old.
Offer up the New Oblation, Which his sacrifice foretold,
Changing bread to thine own Boday, Wine to Blood our nourishment.
In they loving arms, enfold us, in the Blessed Sacrament.

Lord, bestow Thy Benediction, Foretaste of Thy Paradise.
Shining forth in Awesome Beauty, Lo the Holy Sacrifice!
Thus restore the Ancient Mystery, Eucharistic Wonderment
In they loving arms, enfold us, in the Blessed Sacrament.

Prayer to Overcome Sin in One's Life

2011-09-15T20:31:00.000-04:00

The following prayer is printed in the Summer 2011 issue of Cum Petro, the newsletter of the Confraternity of St. Peter (previously) in honor of the Feast of St. Peter in Chains (Aug. 1):

O God, who didst break the chains of blessed Peter the Apostle, and didst make him come forth unscathed, loose the bonds of Thy servant, N., held in captivity by the vice of (Name it); and by the merits of the same Apostle, do Thou grant me to be delivered from its tyranny. Remove from my heart all excessive love for sensual pleasures and gratifications, so that living soberly, justly and piously, I may attain to everlasting life with Thee. Amen.

Photo of St. Peter's Chains from Flickr user Alex Beattie under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Searching for Socrates

2011-09-12T23:01:00.001-04:00

Adam Kirsch writes about Socrates and the Loeb Library in the Barnes and Noble Review:

Pursuing the figure of Socrates through the Loeb Classical Library leads, then, to troubling conclusions. There's no reason to think that Xenophon's dull moralist or Aristophanes's comic foil is closer to the real Socrates than Plato's philosopher -- rather the contrary, since Plato was the closest to Socrates of any of them. But the three portraits are a reminder that we have no direct access to the real Socrates, whoever he was. We have only interpretations and texts, which both reveal and conceal -- just as ancient Athens has exercised such enormous sway on the imagination of the world based solely on the texts and images it left behind. Even so, the Loebs' promise of completeness is spurious -- after all, the Library can only give us what survives from 2,500 years ago, which is a tiny fraction of what the Greeks and Romans wrote. (We have eleven plays by Aristophanes, but we know he wrote forty.) The image of the Loebs on the bookshelf is an emblem of total knowledge, yet the totality is an illusion -- even if it's the kind of illusion that may be more intellectually empowering than truth.

These are clearly the reflections of the literary man Kirsch is. It's not a philosophers way of writing and speaking, but it's interesting nonetheless (and probably for some people, because it's not the philosophical voice!)

For what it is—obviously aimed more squarely at selling books than other literary reviews—I'm impressed with the seriousness and quality of the Barnes and Noble Review for what it is, though it's more .

Zukofsky, Heine, and Greenberg

2011-09-10T21:54:00.002-04:00

I'm awaiting an ordered copy of Louis Zukofsky's poem A. In the meantime, I was reading his Wikipedia page. There, I spotted mention of how

"The final lines of [another poem] Autobiography express Zukofsky's fear of permanent alienation from his upbringing and tradition as a bitter triumph of successful assimilation: 'Keine Kadish wird man sagen'. The lines are a variation on lines from Heinrich Heine’s poem Gedächtnisfeier [Memorial]: 'Keine Messe wird man singen, / Keinen Kadosch wird man sagen, / Nichts gesagt und nichts gesungen / Wird an meinen Sterbetagen'. ('No Mass will anyone sing / Neither Kaddish will anyone say, / Nothing will be said and nothing sung / On my dying days')"

That Heine poem is quite interesting. Looking around for a translation, I found that Martin Greenberg's had been published in the New Criterion in 1993. Here is an excerpt:

Keine Messe wird man singen,
Keinen Kadosch wird man sagen,
Nichts gesagt und nichts gesungen
Wird an meinen Sterbetagen.

Doch vielleicht an solchem Tage,
Wenn das Wetter schön und milde,
Geht spazieren auf Montmartre
Mit Paulinen Frau Mathilde.

Mit dem Kranz von Immortellen
Kommt sie mir das Grab zu schmücken,
Und sie seufzet: Pauvre homme!
Feuchte Wehmut in den Blicken.
...

No mass will be sung for me,
No Kaddish recited either,
Nothing said and nothing sung
When I depart forever

But maybe on a morning when
The spring has brought fine weather,
Frau Mathilde with Pauline
Will walk out in Montmartre.

With a bunch of immortelles clutched in
Her plump hand, she will come
And lay it on my grave and say,
Tears in her eyes, “Pauvre homme!”
...

"It was two days before the Nativity of the Mother of God..."

2011-09-06T06:00:00.002-04:00

"It was two days before the Nativity of the Mother of God, and they were reciting the litany of the day. It was an inexhaustibly eloquent outpouring of praise for the Virgin, and Yakonov felt for the first time the overwhelming poetic power of such prayers. The canon had been written not by a soulless dogmatist but by some great poet immured in a monastery, and he had been moved not by a furious excess of male hunger for a female body but by the pure rapture that a woman can awake in us."
Solzhenitsyn, In the First Circle, p. 169

War Bonds and the Debt Ceiling

2011-07-24T23:29:00.000-04:00

At the Metropolitan Museum this afternoon, looking at this and that.

In passing in the hallway, we saw war bond posters that are part of the excitingly titled exhibition, "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection". The selection on show is described this way on the Met's web site: "Also on view will be a group of World War I posters that focus on the ever-changing image of the Statue of Liberty..."

What struck me, however, in the midst of the debate over raising the federal debt ceiling was the difference in tone from our current debate. America had a great goal it was seeking to achieve--winning the World War. It raised the money the politicians felt they needed not only by raising tax revenue--though they certainly did that too--but by persuading Americans that America was a good bet and getting them to pony up their own cash voluntarily as a loan to the government.

This post would be better with photos. Another reason my next phone will be fancier!

Why I Stay Out of Bookstores (or should)

2011-07-17T23:13:00.000-04:00

Mutatis mutandis, though not quite so dire:

Even though we get a lot of people into the shop, only a small percentage of them buy anything. The best customers are the ones who just have to buy a record on a Saturday, even if there's nothing they really want; unless they go home clutching a flat, square carrier bag, they feel uncomfortable. You can spot the vinyl addicts because after a while they get fed up with the rack they are flicking through, march over to a completely different section of the shop, pull a sleeve out from the middle somewhere, and come over to the counter, this is because they have been making a list of possible purchases in their head ("If I don't find anything in the next five minutes, that blues compilation I saw half an hour ago will have to do"), and suddenly sicken themselves with the amount of time they have wasted looking for something they don't really want. I know that feeling well (these are my people, and I understand them better than I understand anybody in the world): it is a prickly, clammy, panicky sensation, and you go out of the shop reeling. You walk much more quickly afterward, trying to recapture the part of the day that has escaped, and quite often you have the urge to read the international section of a newspaper, or go to see a Peter Greenaway film, to consume something solid and meaty which will lie on top of the cotton-candy worthlessness clogging up your head.
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

Traditional Catholics: Just Like Spies

2011-07-15T14:07:00.000-04:00

A quote from the former head of MI5 reported in The Telegraph sounds just like some folks I know:

One Dartington audience member asked Dame Stella for her opinion of security services in other countries. She replied: “The Italians were all ex-admirals and terribly courteous - lots of hand-kissing and bowing. The French were extremely good and seemed able to do anything. We worried about laws, they seemed able to do exactly what they liked so we rather envied them.”

I think we can conclude that traditional Catholics are just like spooks in these respects.

via Jay Nordlinger

Shrimp and Watermelon

2011-07-14T14:10:00.000-04:00

Shrimp and watermelon was a combination new to me. It was one of the fun flavor combination dishes that we ate last night at Queen's (relatively) new Salt and Fat restaurant. Another was pork buns with apricot mustard. The buns themselves, meh, but the apricot mustard idea (with or without pork) I can really get behind.

But to return to shrimp and watermelon, today I get this in my e-mail from Havana Central:

a promotion for a "Watermelon Fiesta" featuring shrimp and watermelon. Is this some new trend? Nope, it goes back a ways. Here's a related recipe on Google Books from 1998. So not as creative as I thought, though still darn tasty.

Pot of Gold at the End of the Ethernet Cable

2011-07-09T12:13:00.000-04:00

Back in the days of MUDs and MUSHs there was a story going around about a guy—addicted to cocaine—who got so addicted to MUDding that when his "friends" laid out a line of cocaine next to his keyboard he couldn't stop playing long enough to sniff it.

But a couple of weeks ago, I read in the New York Observer the most outrageous internet overuse story since those days.

Here it is:

One college student sustained permanent minor brain damage due to heatstroke after he dozed off in his room next to four computers furiously mining Bitcoins. “I wish I was joking,” he said in a forum post that was reposted on the website BitcoinMiningAccidents.com.

Bitcoins are a virtual currency, created (or "discovered") by solving a mathematical problem with a computer. People can use their home computer setups (very powerful home computer setups) to create new coins and that's what caused the accident in this case. A later post on BitcoinMiningAccidents.com provides more details.

The gold standard is the most exhausting topic in politics, but discussion of Bitcoins has the potential to combine all that economic wonkery with hard core computer nerd-dom. Bitcoins may take over the world, but only if everyone doesn't fall asleep first.

You Can Buy Lots of Hats for 2,000 Sestertii

2011-07-08T12:45:00.013-04:00

Caesar militibus pro tanto labore ac patientia, qui brumalibus diebus itineribus difficillimis, frigoribus intolerandis studiosissime permanserant in labore, ducenos sestertios, centurionibus tot milia nummum praedae nomine condonanda pollicetur legionibusque in hiberna remissis ipse se recipit die XXXX Bibracte.
C. Iuli Caesaris
Commentariorum De Bello Gallico
Liber Octavus ab A. Hirtio scriptus

Caesar might have saved himself a bit of money if he'd outfitted his troops in warm and stylish knit hats like this from Etsy:

New Independent High School to Open in Norwalk

2011-07-07T21:14:00.000-04:00

The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny posted this news a few months ago: New Independent High School to Open in Norwalk:

A new independent Catholic high school, Cardinal Newman Academy, will open this fall in Norwalk, CT. The school will be closely connected with the highly successful independent Catholic elementary school, Anchor Academy. The photo above is a scene from an Anchor Academy classroom. The idea for the school arose from the desire among parents to provide a high school program for the graduates of Anchor Academy and to any students who are interested in receiving a solid Catholic, academic education. This fall the school will have a 9th grade, with plans to add a new grade each year until the school is complete. Anyone who is interested can direct inquiries to Kristjana Underhill, 203-536-3800 or krinkasig@hotmail.com.

This is really great news. Catholic schools with authentic Catholic distinctives are our chief weapon (o.k., amongst our weaponry) for building Catholic culture and Christian society.

Noli Me Tangere

2011-07-05T21:08:00.001-04:00

Many months later, I've finally finished reading José Rizal's, Noli Me Tangere. I don't recommend it. Aside from the setting, it feels derivative of writers like Dumas and Hugo.

It's place in the literary canon, enshrined in the Penguin Classics, is similar, it seems to me, to that of Uncle Tom's Cabin. They are books that are politically important, but not only secondarily artistically interesting, if at all.

Harold Augenbraum's introduction in this edition is interesting and useful, but the notes are idiosyncratic, one example suffices. Rizal's biblical quotations from the title on are offered in Latin. Augenbraum has used the King James Version to provide translations rather than the Douay or another Latin-based edition.

I wrote a previous post about anti-clericalism in the novel, which can be found here.

The Debt Ceiling, Fail-Safe, and Fire Ants

2011-07-04T01:59:00.001-04:00

Jonathan Alter has a nice piece at Bloomberg on the debt ceiling.

Alter gets some bonus points for his discussion of the wonky Fail-Safe, though not as many as if he'd mentioned the 1962 novel and not just the 1964 film. I've read the novel several times since discovering it in our middle school library. I like it a lot. The movie, which I saw at Film Forum a few years ago is not as good as the novel, but the novel sets a high bar (for the sort of thing it is anyways). The plot and conclusion (no spoilers!) are still profoundly upsetting in the film version, but the back-story is not explained as effectively. IMDB points out that the movie will air next Saturday, July 9, on TCM at 8 P.M. It's also coming to Lincoln Center's Walter Reade theater as part of a retrospective on director Sidney Lumet later this month, where there will be a Q&A with screenwriter Walter Bernstein.

(The live television adaption in 2000 was technically interesting and impressive, but ultimately not as good as either the novel or the movie. The sometimes odd casting choices did it no favors.)

But returning to the article, the part about Grover Norquist is fun:

Norquist Looms

Grover Norquist, the anti-tax crusader recently described by Alan Simpson as “the most powerful man in America, including the president,” has convinced the majority of House members to sign his pledge to oppose all tax increases. He’ll fight even these fail-safe triggers, just as he fought them under the first President Bush.

But even being the dark prince of the GOP doesn't prevent Stephen Colbert from stealing the show right from under you, though Norquist has a pretty good comeback:

(When Stephen Colbert asked Norquist this week whether he would support a tax increase if it would save grandmothers from being bitten to death by angry fire ants, he said: “I think we console ourselves with the fact that we have pictures and memories.”)

Liturgical Objects in Museums: Analogous to Musical Instruments?

2011-06-16T23:01:00.000-04:00

The Metropolitan Museum has published its program of Concerts and Lectures for the 2011-2012 season. One in particular caught my eye, because it seems linked to a topic discussed here a couple of days ago: the place in museums of religious ritual objects and how it isolates them from their proper context.

In October, the Met will offer a lecture "On Imprisoning Violins" presented by Jayson Kerr Dobney an Associate Curator and Administrator of the Met's Department of Musical Instruments and Sean Avram Carpenter, described as co-founder of the Salome Chamber Orchestra. The lecture is described in the program:

In 1920 Dwight Partello died, leaving his important collection of violins to the Smithsonian Institution and sparking a national controversy about whether fine instruments should be kept in museums or used by performers. The Partello collection did not go to the Smithsonian, but, soon after, two Stradivari violins did enter the Met. This lecture examines the context of violin collecting and the ongoing tension between preservation and performance.

These are certainly at least partly analogous issues. Instruments are used to enact music in much the way liturgical objects are used to enact liturgy.

An article from a musical instrument forum describes some of the views aired in the dispute from the 1920s

As executors of his estate, Partello had named George W. White, President of the National Metropolitan Bank, and his “life long family friend,” Flora B. Thompson, with whom Partello had been very close in his last years. Partello’s daughters didn’t trust Thompson and charged that she had unduly influenced Dwight to leave his valuables to the Smithsonian instead of to his children. Carita was still in Germany, so it was left to Adeline and her husband, Arthur Abell, to contest the will.

Since her father’s testament seemed to be in order, Adeline and her husband decided that their best chance of recovering Partello’s violin collection was to convince the Smithsonian to denounce the gift as not in the public good. To this end, they rallied the musical community to their defense. Arthur Abell, who had been a music critic for more than 20 years and was therefore acquainted with all the great international musicians, was particularly effective in this part of the strategy. Word was spread through the music grapevine that Partello’s collection of 25 important instruments were about to be lost to musicians forever and that the best chance of preventing this calamity was to write letters in opposition.

The letters began to stream in. On October 27th, Fritz Kreisler wrote that “In my opinion it is wrong to place fine instruments of old masters in museums.” Not only does it deprive musicians of their use, argued Kreisler, but instruments stored in museums often seem to deteriorate. Like many other letter-writers to follow, he highlighted Paganini’s violin at the Museum of Genoa, “which in spite of great care became worm-eaten and utterly useless. . .”

Others who wrote included such luminaries as Leopold Auer, Eugene Ysaye, Walter Trammell, Jacques Thibaud, Franz Kneisel, Kubelik and Leopold Stokowski. The great conductor Arturo Toscanini wrote a letter in Italian, which (translated) included this memorable analogy: “To put rare violins in a museum and thus deprive them of their tone is like condemning valuable paintings to a cellar and depriving them of a light.” Along the same lines, Auer wrote that “it would be equivalent to shutting up a Caruso, or a Schumann-Heink in a glass case where they could be looked at but no longer heard.” Kubelik wrote that “there is a crying need of such master violins among artists of our day.”

...

The controversy was played out in public following an editorial by the NY Times columnist Richard Aldrich on Feb. 27, 1921, in which he stated that “the collection of fine violins is an injurious pastime” and that “the assemblage of fine violins for any other purpose than having them used for the purpose for which they were intended is an injury to the whole musical world.” Without mentioning Partello by name, Aldrich made it clear that he was deeply offended by the idea of leaving the instruments to the National Museum.

You can read Aldrich's full column on the New York Times web site.

Thanks also to Eve Tushnet, who linked to my previous post on this topic. Her reflection "Mary, in the Glass Coffin of the Museum" is definitely worth reading.

Photograph by Wikipedia user "Husky" of a Stradivarius violin. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license.

Freemasons!

2011-06-15T18:09:00.005-04:00

In my last blog mention of Freemasonry in May 2010, I wrote

When Baronius brought out a book on Freemasonry a while back, we joked that you're not really a traditionalist publishing house until you have a book on your list about the evils of Freemasonry. This despite Masonic plots not being high on the list of things most people, even traditionalists, worry about these days.

Now a Catholic prelate is talking about Freemasonry again. This time because of the anglican ordinariates. In an address at an "Ordinariate Information Day", Bishop Peter Elliott, Auxiliary of Melbourne mentioned two specific obstacles that might keep Anglicans out of an Australian ordinariate. He said, "Again I need to raise a delicate but unavoidable issue. I urge Ordinariate-bound Anglicans who have remarried after divorce to take your situation to a diocesan marriage tribunal so that your reconciliation in the Ordinariate will in no way be impeded next year." This problem has been widely discussed. But the followup paragraph was a bit of a surprise

Another question is membership of a Masonic lodge. In spite of what you might hear from time to time, Catholics are not permitted to be Freemasons. Men seeking to enter the Ordinariate will need to resign from the lodge. This raises the spiritual challenge, whether commitment to Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour and membership of his Church takes priority in your life.

Don't be mislead, the Catholic Church hadn't ever relaxed its stance on Masonry (as Cardinal Ratzinger reiterated in 1983), but it's not something you've heard prelates talking about since at least Bishop Bruskewitz's excommunication of Freemasons (along with SSPX members, Call to Action members, and Planned Parenthood supporters among other groups) in 1996 (confirmed in 2006).

There's actually been a blowup over freemasonry in the Church of England as a result of the ordinariates.

It turns out that the man appointed as the new Anglican Bishop of Ebbsfleet (the previous holder of the office, the now Msgr. Andrew Burnham, resigned to become a Roman Catholic), the Rev. Jonathan Baker, was a Freemason and indeed a national chaplain for the organization in England. It didn't stop his appointment, though the Archbishop of Canterbury apparently asked him to consider resigning his membership, which the Bishop-elect has now done.

Back in 2003, Rowan Williams apologized to Freemasons after making harshly critical comments about "The Craft".

Catechism In France

2011-06-14T21:22:00.001-04:00

In its latest issue, First Things carries a review (subscription only for now at least) by Eleanor Everett Pettus of a new book by Brigham Young University professor Karen Carter, Creating Catholics: Catechism and Primary Education in Early Modern France. Pettus writes

Before the seventeenth century, few rural French laymen knew basic prayers, let alone many tenets of the Christian faith, but by 1800 almost every child in France had access to some form of religious education. Boys as well as girls were expected to recite the entire catechism as a condition for first communion—and the could. ... By 1800, though ... Bishops took personal responsibility for educating the young laity, selecting a catechism and distributing it in increasing numbers. During the bishops' visitations, the curés were required to produce children who could recite that catechism perfectly.

This history lesson was particularly interesting to me, because I have just started reading John S. Kennedy's Light on the Mountain: The Story of LaSalette.

La Salette was a Marian apparition that took place in France in the 19th century. Here's an excerpt from the account from the Catholic Encyclopedia

On 19 September, 1846, about three o'clock in the afternoon in full sunlight, on a mountain about 5918 feet high and about three miles distant from the village of La Salette-Fallavaux, it is related that two children, a shepherdess of fifteen named Mélanie Calvat, called Mathieu, and a shepherd-boy of eleven named Maximin Giraud, both of them very ignorant, beheld in a resplendent light a "beautiful lady" clad in a strange costume. Speaking alternately in French and in patois, she charged them with a message which they were "to deliver to all her people". After complaining of the impiety of Christians, and threatening them with dreadful chastisements in case they should persevere in evil, she promised them the Divine mercy if they would amend.

The story of the rise of religious education in France is useful background for understanding Kennedy's emphasis on the seers' religious backgrounds.

What prayers did Melanie, who had had not a day's schooling, know? The "Our Father" and the "Hail Mary" in patois, for she ahd just scraps of French. These prayers her mother had taught her, that perpetually worried woman who distractedly wondered what would ever become of her scrawny little ones. A few bits of the catechism, too, Mme. Mathieu had drilled into her daughter at long intervals. But they were no more than odd bits, which Melanie could repeat only laboriously and understood hardly at all. She had been to church but a few times in her life. Wasn't there the begging to be done, or the duty demanded by closefisted employers who considered Sunday simply another day of work? Fourteen years old, almost fifteen and she had not yet made her first Communion. How could she have? That had to be prepared for, at length in catechism classes conducted by the curé of Corps, M. Mélin, and he had not so much as set eyes on this professional herder, generally so far from home.

Objects of Art and Ritual Objects

2011-06-13T00:14:00.000-04:00

Sandro Magister's recent column "Only Beauty Will Save Us" excerpts from art historian and "immortel" Jean Clair's speech to the "Court of the Gentiles" in Paris in March.

He writes

How many of the works in the state museums concern Catholic iconography? 60 percent? 70 percent? From the crucifixions to the depositions in the tomb, from the circumcisions to the martyrs, from the nativities to the Saint Francis of Assisis . . . Unlike the Orthodox who kneel and pray before icons, even when they are still found in museums, it is rare, in the grand gallery of the Louvre, to see a believer stop and pray in front of a Christ on the cross or in front of a Madonna. Should we regret this? Sometimes I think so. Should the Church ask for the restitution of its assets? I tend to think this also. But the Church no longer has any power, unlike the Vanuatu or the Haida Indians of British Colombia, who have obtained the restitution of the instruments of their faith, masks and totems . . . Should the Church be ashamed of having been at the origin of the most prodigious visual treasures that have ever existed? Being unable to have them back, could it not at least become aware of the duty not to leave them without explanation in front of millions of museum visitors?

I think about this every time I go to the Met. Could not, for some objects at least, some accommodation be made. Could relics be venerated liturgically? Could chalices be used, say, once every ten years without seriously endangering them. Could we sing a Missa Cantata (because they probably wouldn't let us use incense and thus a Solemn Mass is out) on a portable altar in the Fuentiduena Chapel at the Cloisters. Etc.

The Boys of Pointe du Hoc

2011-06-09T20:23:00.000-04:00

Monday was the 67th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy, "D-Day". National Review Online reminded us that it is also, therefore, the 27th anniversary of the speech Ronald Reagan gave on the 40th anniversary of the landings, "The Boys of Pointe du Hoc".

What struck me in reading the text of the speech (which you can also watch below), was the strong religious language in it

What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief; it was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They fought -- or felt in their hearts, though they couldn't know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4 a.m., in Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying, and in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.

Something else helped the men of D-day: their rockhard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer he told them: Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we're about to do. Also that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: ``I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.''

These are the things that impelled them; these are the things that shaped the unity of the Allies.

...

Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: ``I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.''

Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their value [valor], and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

Thank you very much, and God bless you all.

Can you imagine President Obama giving that speech? Or even President Bush? How about presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty?

The question always arises though, was this sincere religious belief—civil and personal religion, if not institutional religion— or was this acting?

I remember Ronald Reagan as president, but just barely. Being born in 1981, my earliest strongly political memories are of the 1988 presidential election. But working after college as a research assistant on a biography of Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese, I got to know the man, to the extent one can from reading books, as I got to read all the major biographies, many of the memoirs written by administration figures, and some other books like the excellent and important Reagan in His Own Hand. My verdict from that study was that this is not just great speechwriting (by Peggy Noonan), but that these religious sentiments were parts of Reagan's true self.

Fountain Pens: A Guide to Their Construction

2011-06-07T21:40:00.001-04:00

This is just a link, but I liked it. Rick Connor's got a great site on fountain pens, including this guide to their construction.

UPDATE: Hah! I already linked to this page back in 2008.

Jimmy Fallon On Why He Doesn't Go to Church

2011-05-31T19:18:00.000-04:00

Comedian and former altar boy Jimmy Fallon talks with Terry Gross (story) (transcript) about why he doesn't go to Church anymore:

GROSS: Do you still go to church?

Mr. FALLON: I don't go to - I tried to go back. When I was out in L.A. and I was like kind of struggling for a bit I went to church for a while, but it's kind of, it's gotten gigantic now for me. It's like too, there's a band. There's a band there now and you got to, you have to hold hands with people through the whole mass now, and I don't like doing that. You know, I mean it used to be the shaking hands piece was the only time you touched each other.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. FALLON: Now I'm holding now I'm lifting people. Like Simba.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. FALLON: I'm holding them (Singing) ha nah hey nah ho.

(Speaking) I'm I'm doing too much. I don't want - there's Frisbees being thrown, there's beach balls going around, people waving lighters, and I go this is too much for me. I want the old way. I want to hang out with the, you know, with the nuns, you know, that was my favorite type of mass, and the Grotto and just like straight up, just mass-mass.

Sure, some of this is comic bluster, but it's not all shtick.

"The Best Guitar Mass"

2011-05-23T19:30:00.001-04:00

This past Sunday, we had a Solemn Mass and Benediction (with a Te Deum) in the afternoon at Holy Innocents (no Vespers this week) in thanksgiving for Fr. James Miara's 10th anniversary of ordination.

The choir sang Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli for the ordinary and the schola (including your faithful correspondent) the Gregorian propers. At the offertory, the choir sang Gregor Aichinger's Regina Cœli with accompaniment on lute and baroque guitar, causing a friend to quip, "That's the best guitar Mass I've ever attended." I'd embed a performance of the piece from YouTube, but I don't like any of them.

Picture above via Teddy Barboza. I'll link to more photos if they become available.

This Beats the Submerged Gong

2011-05-14T00:12:00.000-04:00

The New York Times reported last Sunday on a production of "Sonntag", the final opera in Karlheinz Stockhausen's seven opera "Licht" cycle.

The article notes that

Despite several attempts no company has found a way to pull off “Mittwoch” (“Wednesday”), partly because it incorporates Stockhausen’s infamous “Helicopter String Quartet,” in which each member of the ensemble flies in a separate helicopter, but also because the music is so fiendishly difficult.

However, while the opera that contains it has not been mounted, the string quartet itself has been. A 1995 article from the Times describes a performance of the work:

As part of this summer's Holland Festival, the composer staged the premiere of the Helicopter Quartet, written for four string instruments and, no less, four helicopters.

The work took off from a field on the outskirts of Amsterdam, at the Westergasfabriek, a former gasworks that has become a theater. Here, in the gentle evening light last month, Mr. Stockhausen said goodbye to the members of the Arditti String Quartet as each went off to his own helicopter and pilot.

Somewhat bemused, the audience stayed behind in the theater, with Mr Stockhausen in their midst, directing the event. At a large control table, he mixed the video images and the haunting tremolos that were sent down from the heavens and projected into the theater. Other sets of microphones picked up the whir of the motorblades, also delivering them to the composer's mixing desk. The audience could follow the event through banks of loudspeakers and television monitors that carried images from cameras aboard the aircraft.
...
The concert's four helicopter pilots belong to a stunt team of the Dutch Air Force known as the Grasshoppers, but the composer declared them to be musicians because the sounds of their engines were an intrinsic part of the highly detailed score. The pilots "played," so to speak, as their aircraft changed speed or turned, maneuvers that to the keen ear yielded different timbres from the rotorblades. It had taken several days of testing to know which microphone position on the rotor would yield the most desirable rendering.

Here's some video from another performance:

The American Colonel Who Spared Chartres

2011-05-10T20:02:00.001-04:00

Chartres Cathedral is (as you all know) one of the world's greatest architectural and spiritual monuments. It survived a plot to blow it up during the French Revolution. Less well known, is that it came close to being badly damaged by shelling during the Second World War. Worried that its tower was being used to direct attacks against the allied forces, an artillery attack was planned. Colonel Welborn Griffith volunteered to go enter the city and determine whether the Cathedral was occupied by Axis forces. It wasn't and the Cathedral was spared further damage, unlike the ancient Abbey of Monte Cassino, which was leveled in the fighting in Italy.

Shortly after his reconnaissance, Col. Griffith was killed in action. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross:

The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July 9, 1918, takes pride in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross (Posthumously) to Colonel Welborn Barton Griffith, Jr. (ASN: 0-16194), United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy while serving as Operations Officer (G-3) with Headquarters, XX Corps, in action against enemy forces on 16 August 1944 at Chartres and Leves, France. On 16 August 1944, Colonel Griffith entered the city of Chartres, France, in order to check the actual locations and dispositions of units of the *** Armored Division which was occupying the city. Upon observing fire being directed at the cathedral in the center of the city, with utter disregard for his own safety, Colonel Griffith, accompanied by an enlisted man, searched the cathedral and finding that there were no enemy troops within, signaled for cessation of fire. Continuing his inspection of outlying positions north of the city, he suddenly encountered about fifteen of the enemy. He fired several shots at them, then proceeded to the nearest outpost of our forces at which point a tank was located. Arming himself with an M-1 rifle and again with complete disregard for his own safety, Colonel Griffith climbed upon the tank directing it to the enemy forces he had located. During the advance of the tank he was exposed to intense enemy machinegun, rifle, and rocket-launcher fire and it was during this action, in the vicinity of Leves, France, that he was killed.

General Orders: Headquarters, Third U.S. Army, General Orders No. 75 (1944)

Action Date: 16-Aug-44

Service: Army

Rank: Colonel

Company: Headquarters

Division: XX Corps

via Jay Nordlinger's post to The Corner. Citation via Military Times.

An Extreme Test

2011-05-09T19:21:00.001-04:00

I came across a waiver for participation in a sporting event that starts with this language:

I acknowledge that this sport is an extreme test of a person’s physical and mental limits and carries with it the potential for death, serious injury and property loss.

What sport you ask? Ski jumping? Paragliding? NASCAR? Nope, it's Pétanque.

Sandburg the Surrealist (and other attributes...)

2011-05-08T22:34:00.000-04:00

Last Sunday, I picked up a copy of the Carl Sandburg anthology, Harvest Poems: 1910-1960 from one of the booksellers who have tables on the west side of Broadway in the 70's.

Though others of his poems, particularly "Grass"—and his biography of Lincoln—are well know Sandburg is perhaps best remembered by the wider public for his widely anthologized poem "Fog":

THE fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

That's not entirely typical of the poetry in this anthology though, much of which is closely observed and focused on industrial, not natural, topics. For instance in "Psalm of Those Who Go Forth Before Daylight"

...
The rolling-mill men and the sheet-steel men are brothers of
cinders; they empty cinders out of their shoes after the
days work; they ask their wives to fix burnt holes in the
knees of their trousers; their necks and ears are covered
wit a smut; they scour their necks and ears; they are
brothers of cinders.

[Sadly I don't have the html skillz to reproduce the formatting. Each line after the first is indented.]

The tone of some of these poems compares in a way to Peter Maurin's Easy Essays, but without the direct didacticism. I think this is partly a result of their shared fondness for the word "they". For instance in Maurin's "Selling Their Labor"

When the workers
sell their labor
to the capitalists
or accumulators of labor
they allow the capitalists
or accumulators of labor
to accumulate their labor.
And when the capitalists
or accumulators of labor
have accumulated so much
of the workers’ labor
that they do no longer
find it profitable
to buy the workers’ labor
then the workers
can no longer sell their labor
to the capitalists
or accumulators of labor.
And when the workers
can no longer
sell their labor
to the capitalists
or accumulators of labor
they can no longer buy
the products of their labor.
And that is what the workers get
for selling their labor.

I found an amusing irony in "Number Man". Sandburg dedicates this poem "for the ghost of Johann Sebastian Bach".

...
He was born to wonder about numbers.

He balanced fives against tens
and made them sleep together
and love each other.
...
He mananged eights and nines,
gave them prophet beards,
marched them into mists and mountains.

He added all the numbers he knew,
multiplied them by new-found numbers
and called it a prayer of Numbers.
...
He knew love numbers, luck numbers,
how the sea and the stars
are made and held by numbers
...

The irony is that Bach's music is highly numerical and Sandburg, despite paying tribute to this quality in Bach, writes free verse that aggressively spurns meter, the analogical quality in poetry.

So finally the surrealism, which prompted this post in the first place, it's a bit from "Arithmetic". After reading a whole bunch of poems like "Psalm of Those Who Go Forth Before Daylight" (quoted above), I was not expecting something like this:

If you have two animal crackers, one good and one bad, and you eat one and a striped
zebra with streaks all over him eats the other, how many animal crackers will you
have if somebody offers you five six seven and you say No no no and you say Nay
nay nay and you say Nix nix nix?

Wrapping up, a couple words on this edition. It features an adequate preface by Mark Van Doren (who was an important influence on Thomas Merton and who is perhaps today not as much remembered as his son Charles Van Doren) focusing on Sandburg's humor and a valuable excerpt from Sandburg's own "Notes for a Preface" from his Complete Poems.

Trees and the Abbey

2011-05-04T19:00:00.001-04:00

On their blog, the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer have an interesting angle on the trees used to decorate Westminster Abbey for the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge:

It is related of the confessor Dom John Baptist de Feckenham, the last Abbot of Westminster, that he was engaged in planting Elm trees when he was handed the message which, by an act of Parliament, dissolved his monastery and exiled the monks.

The bearer remarked, with a significant smile, that he had planted those trees in vain; for neither he nor his monks would enjoy them.

“Not in vain,” answered the saintly Abbot. “Those who come after me may, perhaps, be scholars and lovers of retirement; and whilst walking under the shade of these trees they may sometimes think of the olden religion of England and the last Abbot of this place.” And he went on with his planting.

May Day!

2011-05-01T08:11:00.000-04:00

A Friend's Photo

2011-05-01T00:20:00.000-04:00

This year we hit the flowering tree sweet spot for Easter.

Gordon Ramsey Complains About Chauvinism

2011-04-30T21:23:00.000-04:00

In this clip from Kitchen Nightmares:

Irony! This was presumably filmed before sexual harassment complaints led to a staff walkout at Gordon Ramsey at the London.

Universalism: Ascendancy or Eclipse?

2011-04-26T23:38:00.000-04:00

The New York Times Book Review printed an essay this Sunday by Lauren F. Winner on the controversy surrounding Rob Bell's book Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. Bell's been accused of universalism by his critics. I haven't read his book and don't want to comment particularly on that, but on the general issue of universalism in America and its history.

Winner places Bell's work in the context of the American tradition of books about heaven, including an 1869 novel by Massachusetts writer Elizabeth Stuart Phelps "offering a comforting view of the afterlife to women who had lost loved ones in the Civil War" as a bio from the Camelot Project puts it. Winner also cites Mitch Albom’s “Five People You Meet in Heaven,” and books by Don Piper and Todd Burpo.

Winner writes this about the history of universalism:

For all the controversy, this book’s argument has been building for a long time. During the 18th and 19th centuries, many evangelicals rejected universalism, even as it began to gain traction among liberal Protestants. Yet for the last half-century, universalism has been subtly reshaping North American evangelicalism, to the alarm of many evangelical leaders. As early as 1965, the theologian J. I. Packer warned that many evangelicals had “slipped into the practice of living and behaving as if universalism were true,” even though those same functional universalists would never declare a doctrinal commitment to universal salvation. Two decades later, the sociologist James Davison Hunter detected a creeping liberalism in evangelical thought. “There is a pervasive uneasiness both about the nature of hell and about who is relegated to it,” he wrote. “It is an uneasiness which may portend a greater cultural accommodation.” “Love Wins” can be read as a fulfillment of Hunter’s observation.

Reading that previously "evangelicals rejected universalism, even as it began to gain traction among liberal Protestants," and that "for the last half-century, universalism has been subtly reshaping North American evangelicalism," you might think there's been an upward trajectory for universalism, but only because there's a missing part of the story.

Universalist belief was a particular denominational affiliation—and an important one—in 19th century America, like being a Methodist or a Baptist. There's a collection of historical universalist denominational documents here. But universalism is no longer the independent force in organized religion it was in the 19th century. The denominational body that universalists organized long ago merged into the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations and ceased to be either Christian or universalist in theology. Part of what that means is that some of the evangelical warnings were correct. When you endorse universalism, moving away from the doctrine of historical orthodoxy and the Bible, you predictably start sliding away from Christianity in general.

P.S. One could read the essay and think Rob Bell started getting blow-back for his beliefs when the promotion for his book began, but that started years ago. In fact, I'd be unsurprised if controversy over his views is part of what made his book attractive to his publishers at HarperOne in the first place.

P.P.S. This essay was much more of an essay than the one they printed a few weeks back on Green's Dictionary of Slang, which was really more of a review. The essay is important and we need our publications to preserve the places available for it.

Touch Me Not

2011-04-04T12:45:00.000-04:00

This post goes in a number of different—though related—directions. It's somewhat rough, but... well here you go:

Dicit ei Iesus: Noli me tangere, nondum enim ascendi ad Patrem meum: vade autem ad fratres meos, et dic eis: Ascendo ad Patrem meum, et Patrem vestrum, Deum meum, et Deum vestrum.

Jesus saith to her: Do not touch me, for I am not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brethren, and say to them: I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and your God. (John 20:17)

I've been reading José Rizal's novel Noli Me Tangere, an indictment of colonial (and clerical) rule in the Phillipines. (There was a hiatus due to losing it on the train and having to repurchase it.) Described, reasonably, by Penguin's editorial material as an anticlerical novel, I'm struck by the irony of an anticlerical novel that takes its title from the Gospel of John.

Once you've allowed clericalism to define the terms of the debate, even to be anti-clerical is to participate in the religion based culture on which anti-clericalism is parasitic. In a truly secular society, anti-clericalism is nonsensical.

I'm also reading Patrick W. Carey's fascinating biography, Orestes A. Brownson: American Religious Weathervane. In Carey's discussion of Brownson's reading of French writers, particularly the Saint-Simonians.

With the exception of [Henri-Benjamin] Constant [de Rebecque], who perceived religion primarily as religious sentiment (a view that was vigorously criticized by the Saint-Simonians), most of the other French writers understood religion or Christianity in its historical and social dimensions, and they all, even Constant, understood the significant role religious institutions had played in history and would continue to play in the post-Revolutionary world of early nineteenth-century France. These writers had what André Siegfried called "the ineradicably catholic habit of the French mind." Even when the French writers were anti-clerical or anti-Catholic, they were catholic in outlook because they could not separate religion from politics, history, or society.

Even when they're anti-clerical, the clerical/non-clerical distinction pervades their thinking. This is in some ways similar to Émile Durkheim's sacred/profane distinction. The sacred is that which is set apart or forbidden (as clerics are). In Durkheim's model of how religion works, making this distinction is the fundamental characteristic of religion. But the sacred (in Durkheim's understanding) is not necessarily good, it can also be evil. Interestingly then, an anti-clerical view shares the same sacred/profane split as a clerical view, but reverses the polarity of how it views whether the sacred things in question (clerics) are good or evil. Of course, since Durkheim is French, his views about religion may be a result of being immersed in the clerical/anti-clerical world-view.

I came across something similar in Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog. Parts of that novel are intense indictments of trends in philosophy (e.g. phenomenology). One of the main characters presents herself as being anti-philosophical. But, just as the anti-clerical view is parasitic on the clerical view, when you attack philosophy in the way the book does, you accidentally find yourself doing philosophy as you try to explain why this or that philosophy is nonsensical.

At left: a detail of the painting "Noli Me Tangere" by Hans Holbein the Younger, which appears to feature Karate Jesus.

"New York's Most Obnoxious Prophets"

2011-04-03T21:44:00.000-04:00

"Black Israelites" preaching in my neighborhood in Queens.

The Village Voice has an article about Black Israelites in their most recent issue. It's not a great article, full of quirky detail in the alt-weekly way and light on theology, but the writer got good access to one of the Black Israelite groups.

A Hero of Our Time?

2011-03-31T22:53:00.003-04:00

I've recently finished reading Mikhail Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time in the lovely Hesperus Press edition. The book is a nice size, with easy-to-read type and a durable paperback format, with a fold-over outer cover.

I can't judge the fidelity to the Russian of the translation by Hugh Aplin, but it reads well in English. In an interview with Ready, Steady, Book, Aplin calls A Hero of Our Time, "right up there at the top of my list of favourites," and it shows.

Lermontov seems to me to be somewhat the anti-Jane Austen. His hero (better anti-hero) is male, rather than female; Russian, rather than English; and so despicable that the respectable reader roots against him, rather than for him. But the social settings and the concerns and preoccupations of the characters are mutatis mutandis quite similar: the capital and the provinces, imperial adventures, military officers, affairs of the heart, engagements, marriage prospects, and the gambling tables. The spa city of Pyatigorsk strongly recalls Bath, the setting for Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.

For more about Jane Austen and Bath, click on this handy reference card:

One question that presents itself: is Lermontov's anti-hero, Pechorin--ironically labeled by the title "A Hero of Our Time" also--and still ironically--a hero of our own time? His obsessions—sex, wealth, social status—are certainly not that different from the obsessions of our time. Neither are the conditions of his society—social stratification, endless military conflict, youth in search of excitement.

But if he's a "hero" of Lermontov's time and of our own time, is he perhaps a "hero" for all times? Should we suppose that any time is all that different from any other? After all, "Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: Behold this is new: for it hath already gone before in the ages that were before us." (Ecclesiastes 1:10)

Slavonic, Slavonic, more Slavonic

2011-03-28T19:43:00.000-04:00

Saturday, I ended up, by mistake, at St. Nicholas Cathedral on 97th street. By mistake, because I was aiming for the other Russian Orthodox Cathedral, the Synodal Cathedral of Our Lady of the Sign, where I wanted to hear the choir again. I'd heard them a little over a year ago when the relic of the head of St. John Chrysostom visited from Moscow.

The head of St. John Chrysostom (more photos)

But mixed up the names of the two cathedrals and ended up at the wrong one. I stayed for the Vigil anyways. Their choir isn't as good as I remember the one at the Synodal Cathedral being, but the Church is one of the most beautiful in Manhattan.

Photo part of a set of the Cathedral by Flickr user Chad Husby

The photo doesn't really do it justice, though part of that is that I visited at dusk. In the dark Church, the Bishop had the sparkliest miter This was two hours of solid Church Slavonic, of which I know about 5 words. Fortunately, the words I know, like "Gospodi, pomiluj" (Lord, have mercy), are repeated often. People think Latin is a challenge! I suppose it'd be easier if I had a foundation in Russian.

To the Gates of the Fukushima Daiichi Power Station

2011-03-26T22:33:00.000-04:00

The Independent is not the world's greatest newspaper. It's the home of Robert Fisk (who inspired the internet term "fisking"). But, credit where credit is due, they've published an excellent article from Japan. Reporter Daniel Howden travels all the way to the gates of the Fukushima Daiichi Power Station.

Via Jonah's radiation guy, World's Only Rational Man.

Reformed Ex-Felon or Arminian Ex-Felon?

2011-03-26T08:00:00.002-04:00

I can't tell if the New York Times is making a theology joke or not with their headline: "A Reformed Ex-Felon in Trouble Once Again". The article is about Barry Minkow who

has made many names for himself: as a boy-wonder entrepreneur, as a Ponzi schemer who served seven years in prison and then reinvented himself as a fraud-detection specialist, government informant and pastor.

His life took another turn when he was charged Thursday with conspiracy to commit securities fraud against the Lennar Corporation, one of the nation’s largest home builders.

The two churches where he was a pastor, the Community Bible Church of San Diego and The Church at Rocky Peak both have statements of belief on their web sites, but they're too sketchy for me to be able to tell if they are Reformed (which in today's Evangelical argot usually means Calvinist), or Arminian, or something else.

Here's an article from the Baptist Press with some background on the revival (so to speak) of Calvinism in the Southern Baptist Convention and the debate over whether it's a blessing or a scourge.

But even though the Times covered the Calvinist revival a bit in their 2009 Mark Driscoll article, I'm guessing there really isn't a wink from the copy editor in the Minkow headline after all.

If you're wondering where Catholics stand on these issues, I recommend (as I have before), James Akin's article "A Tiptoe Through TULIP".

Berlitz Breakup

2011-03-25T10:00:00.002-04:00

I've been brushing up a bit on my German.

The book German Step-by-Step professes to offer "a vocabulary of 2,600 words chosen especially for their frequency of use." It has a relentlessly chipper tone:

With GERMAN STEP-BY-STEP [sic], accent and pronunciation problems are solved forever. There will be no need to fear appearing gauche before a waiter or salesperson, no terror at buying a train ticket or sending back a steak cooked rare instead of medium. You will discover the music and rhythym of language as spoken by those born into the culture and tradition of a nation.

So I was somewhat shocked by this example conversation in the section on when to use the familiar "du" form for "you". It goes south fast:

Verliebte gebrauchen auch die Du-Form.
Lovers also use the "you" (familiar) form.

SIE:
Liebst du mich?
Do you love me?

ER:
Ja, mein Schatz.
Yes, my treasure.

Ich liebe dich sehr.
I love you very much.

SIE:
Für immer?
Forever?

ER:
Wer weiß? Wer kann das sagen?
Who knows? Who can say that?

SIE:
Warum sagst du — „Wer weiß?"
Why do you say — "Who knows?"

Du bist ekelhaft!
You are horrible!

Ich hasse dich!
I hate you!

Next time they talk, they may have to switch from "du" back to "Sie".

The Illusionist

2011-03-23T21:54:00.002-04:00

I saw The Illusionist Sunday.

My companions didn't like it at all. But really, see this movie for the beautiful visuals and the friendly humor. Though neither of those things comes across exceptionally well in the trailer below. It's a stunningly picturesque depiction of Scotland, as well as a homage to the then (1950's) vanishing and now vanished world of vaudeville. Like most animation, if you see it, you should do so on as big a screen as you can find.

Seeing this movie on Sunday was the breaking of my resolution to shift money from my movie budget to my book budget (after I spent more than I planned on books on Saturday). But my companions had between them seen almost every other non-obscene movie playing in Midtown and besides the MPAA was warning that the film contained smoking, which is often a good sign (e.g. Thank You For Smoking or Goodnight, and Good Luck).

There's apparently a big scandal about how and whether the "shooting" script and the final film with its publicity materials departs from the original script and does or does work as an apologia (and/or apology and/or apology) for screenwriter Jacques Tati's behaviour towards his illegitimate daughter and/or his younger daughter. (That's a confusing sentence, but the dispute is very much an unsettled one.)

I came to the movie without knowing about all this controversy. There's some further confusion about the plot, probably partly because the style of the film is to have very little dialog and what little there is is mumbled and often in French or Gaelic. According to the publicity materials:

THE ILLUSIONIST is a story about two paths that cross. An outdated, aging magician, forced to wander from country to country, city to city and station to station in search of a stage to perform his act meets a young girl at the start of her life's journey. Alice is a teenage girl with all her capacity for childish wonder still intact. She plays at being a woman without realizing the day to stop pretending is fast approaching. She doesn't know yet that she loves The Illusionist like she would a father; he already knows that he loves her as he would a daughter. Their destinies will collide, but nothing – not even magic or the power of illusion– can stop the voyage of discovery.

But Roger Ebert read the plot somewhat differently:

The story involves a magician named Tatischeff [Tati's full last name--SJH] who fails in one music hall after another and ends up in Scotland, where at last he finds one fan: A young woman who idealizes him, moves in with him, tends to him, cooks and cleans, and would probably offer sex if he didn’t abstemiously sleep on the couch.

Well, I can see why the family is upset about that movie if it's also about Tati's relationship with his daughters. I thought of all the controversy when I read Jennifer Reeser's poem "Despair" in this month's First Things. While the poem is in the 2nd person and I can separate the authorial voice from the author, I'd feel awkward to be her daughter right about now.

Saturday in New York (Not the Fourth of July)

2011-03-22T13:16:00.001-04:00

Down at St. Michael’s, the Russian Catholic (they might say Russian Orthodox in union with Rome) Church in SoHo, they don’t give up “Alleluia” for Lent—at least during vespers.

After the service ended, I headed a couple blocks down and across Mulberry Street to McNally Jackson Books, an independent bookstore, where I bought three books and left resolving (pace Walker Percy) to go to the movies less frequently to make up for the extravagance. I’ve gotten better at going to the library, but am not any better at returning the books on time. The price advantage over buying books slips away with my impressive ability to rack up late fees. (I'm so good at racking up that I could get a job as a set dresser on The Hustler.)

But returning to the checkout counter at McNally Jackson: the clerk ventured that I had made three fine choices. Flattery will get you everywhere, sir! Truly, I’ve lost his exact words, but they left the impression that it was more than just a case of “The customer is always right.”

It helped though that two of the three were from their recommended picks table, though in one case that was just a coincidence. They were recommending the collected poems of Elizabeth Bishop, which I was coincidentally seeking out. The latest New Criterion reviews an exhibit of the poet’s paintings at James S. Jaffe Rare Books, so I was looking to refamilarize myself before heading up to see them, maybe this weekend.

We read through Geography III in high school. Poems, as the collected works is called, fell open to one of the verses originally collected in Geography III:

In the Waiting Room
In Worcester, Massachusetts,
I went with Aunt Consuelo
to keep her dentist's appointment
and sat and waited for her
in the dentist's waiting room.
It was winter. It got dark
early. The waiting room
was full of grown-up people,
arctics and overcoats,
lamps and magazines.
My aunt was inside
what seemed like a long time
and while I waited and read
the National Geographic
(I could read) and carefully
studied the photographs:
the inside of a volcano,
black, and full of ashes;
then it was spilling over
in rivulets of fire.
...

I love this poem, because it recalls for me so strongly an experience that was part of my childhood, the early darkness of winter afternoons in New England.

The clerk wanted me to know that Poems is part of a publishing project from FSG that also includes a Elizabeth Bishop and The New Yorker: The Complete Correspondence—the power of the independent bookstore with clerks who are encouraged to be knowledgeable about books and urged to sell them intelligently. Amazon.com, actually suggests the same thing, but a visit to a brick and mortar Barnes and Noble wouldn't have. That book is going on the long-term reading list, the scales tipped for the reason the clerk suggested, insight into the editorial workings of the New Yorker during the years Bishop published there.

Not from the recommendation table was another copy of Noli Me Tangere. I’m on about page eighty and my copy disappeared a week ago into the maw of the LIRR. I’d previously tried to replace it at the Strand, but, if you go to the Strand looking for something in particular, you’re not all that likely to find it, though you may go home with three or four other unrelated things.

But I haven't made any more progress through Noli, because I've been distracted by the other book I bought from the recommendation table: The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson. Michael Chabon's charming introduction was also published in The Paris Review. Their staff picks pushes a metaphor way to hard in describing the book. I can go with calling it a Viking Hustle and Flow, but Peter Conroy sums up, "After all, it's hard out here for a thane." Ouch. The new paperback edition from New York Review Books Classics.

After my book binge, I had dinner at Two Boots, something I've somehow managed to miss in my (wow, as of last month, now six years) living in New York City. Their pizza has a cornmeal dusted crust, which I actually like, but they're much too fond of putting chicken on pizza, something I find entirely inexplicable. In fact, that and their "funky" decor were probably the two reasons I hadn't eaten at one of their branches already. But, they manage to serve tasty pizza by the slice that is actually hot, a common failing, so I expect I'll be back again.

The books over movies resolution lasted only slightly more than 24 hours, as a forthcoming post about Sunday will recount.

Rudolf Buchbinder Votes Against "Authenticity" Before He Votes For It

2011-03-19T07:00:00.003-04:00

Stuart Isacoff profiles Viennese pianist Rudolf Buchbinder in Thursday's Wall Street Journal. The article's pull quote was the bolded part of this paragraph:

But fitting together, in Mr. Buchbinder's view, never means compromising a personal vision. "When you grow up in Vienna," he explains, "you feel lucky, because you believe you are in the musical center of the world—the home of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Yet the only reason this music is still alive after hundreds of years is that there is no such thing as 'an authentic' interpretation. If there were, the music would be dead. Take a sample of recordings of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony by 10 conductors, and they will all be different. You can't say there is one right way."

Fair enough, but this later paragraph puts a different spin on things:

... Mr. Buchbinder also likes to play music by George Gershwin, though he won't play the "Rhapsody in Blue" with orchestra, because the composer didn't write it for those forces.

Wait. So there's no such thing as authenticity, but he won't play an orchestra arrangement of Rhapsody in Blue, because Gershwin didn't write it for those forces. That seems like a concern about authenticity to me or something very close to it.

What Students Should Learn in College

2011-03-19T00:49:00.001-04:00

This is a finished version of a post first drafted in 2005. On the way are posts about some of the books I've been reading this month.

K. Anthony Appiah in Slate on what students should learn in college:

I've been on committees at a couple of great universities charged with the task and, putting aside the political difficulties (which I guess you can do, if you have a magic wand) you come to see it's one of those problems you can't solve, only manage. Here's the basic dilemma: If you say that a general education should teach you all the stuff worth knowing, there's far too much to fit around a major in a four-year education. If you say, on the other hand, that it should teach you only the essentials, there's too little. You can live a perfectly decent life with what you have to know just to get out of high school; indeed, many people do.

That dilemma is why you can't put aside the political and, more broadly, the philosophical. Prof. Appiah has settled on a combined platform of equipping students with mathematical tools to participate in the policy debates of society and also broadening them beyond a parochially national perspective. Call it technocratic cosmopolitanism. Dude, at least it's an ethos.

But, it is an ethos. This is a solution to a philosophical problem. Assuming the purpose of teaching is to improve students' lives, answering the question, "What should a university teach?" requires answering the question, "What is the good life?" or "How shall we live?" When we seek to answer that question in a communal context, like a university, and act on our answer, we're also engaging in politics.

But seeking to set aside the political, which in our society almost always involves setting aside normative philosophical judgments, prevents us from judging the solution in the proper context.

Some colleges judge knowledge of the Bible to be more important than courses in statistics or a junior year abroad. If he hadn't set aside the political and, by implication, normative philosophical considerations, Prof. Appiah might be able to persuade them.

Bonus Big Lebowski/Walter Sobchak/Slate content: "Walter Sobchak, Neocon: The prescient politics of The Big Lebowski".

The Melodica

2011-03-18T06:00:00.000-04:00

There was a melodica player on the subway last night.

The melodica has all the irritation of the accordion with none of the charm.

But check out James Howard Young's multi-tracked melodica project:

For all your melodica needs, Melodicas.com appears to be pretty comprehensive.

St. Patrick's Day

2011-03-17T06:00:00.000-04:00

“Ut Christiani ita et Romani sitis.”

“As you are children of Christ, so be you children of Rome.”

Ex Dictis S. Patricii, Book of Armagh, fol. 9

The County Mayo Association with a statue of Our Lady of Knock at the 2010 Philadelphia St. Patrick's Parade (Photo by Jeff Meade from Flickr under a Creative Commons Attribution License)

Does the Phil Care About Selling New Music?

2011-03-16T20:16:00.000-04:00

I got a marketing e-mail today from the New York Philharmonic pitching the 2011-2012 season.

Since taking the podium at the New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert has been noted for his promotion of new music (or at least "newer" music). The Times (of London) wrote in January 2010:

For the moment, however, Gilbert resembles a more controversial figure in the orchestra’s past. Pierre Boulez enjoyed confronting the world’s most conservative audiences with the world’s most modern music, resulting in a string of critical successes and box-office failures. Since then new music has been kept at arm’s length. Until now.

“New music wasn’t presented in the best possible light in the past,” Gilbert admits. “It wasn’t clear why the orchestra was playing it or whether the orchestra really believed in it.”

The “Boléro effect”, as he calls it, which says that if you put a piece such as Ravel’s Boléro at the end of a programme you can slip anything else in earlier in the evening, was all too common. “You may be able to get people to buy tickets this way, but the clear message it sends out is that we don’t really believe in this,” he says. “It says: ‘Deal with it and we’ll get on to the fun stuff later.’ That is not a message we believe in.”

Which brings us back to the marketing e-mail. It leaves me with the impression that the new music is backed with something less than the full faith and credit of the New York Philharmonic. The Phil's Phlacks write:

The new 2011-12 season of Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic has been announced! It is no less than a feast of musical masterpieces — three Mahler symphonies, a festival of Beethoven symphonies, Mozart’s Mass in C minor, and much more — plus exciting premieres from the composers of today.

If new music is important, it's important enough to give us a name. "Exciting premieres"? This breaks the basic rule of writing: Show don't tell. Who are these exciting new composers? The copy doesn't persuade me. If the composers' names aren't worthy to stand alongside Mahler, Beethoven, and Mozart in the marketing e-mail—not as equals necessarily, but at least with a second billing that mentions their names—why should we be excited about them?

As for myself, I'm hoping to hear them do Leos Janácek's The Cunning Little Vixen in June.

America's Newspaper of Record

2011-03-15T17:54:00.002-04:00

...that's the New York Post, for those of you not up on your John Derbyshire sobriquets.

Here's a couple recent oddities from its hallowed Hamiltonian pages.

Today's Classroom Extra (no link) is a short biography of Albert Einstein. Suggested classroom activities include, "Write a report explaining Einstein's theory of relativity." I'm sure the kids will get right on that!

Last Week's Post included Page Six Magazine featured an article, "When Preppy Weds Hippie". If I told you the article was about Lauren Bush, Princeton graduate, granddaughter and niece of presidents, product of a high school the local Chronicle called "one of Houston's most exclusive prep schools", you'd probably ask, "So who's the hippy?"

But no, she's the hippy. The prep is David Lauren, son of the Polo Ralph Lauren founder.

There's a whole discussion to be had about whether Polo Ralph Lauren is really preppy or is just an appropriation of a culture or even a parody. But, we'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

Not exactly...

2011-03-12T21:30:00.000-05:00

Fr. Thomas Kocik wrote a post recently on the New Liturgical Movement about a proposed audio-book style version of the Latin Nova Vulgata.

This strikes me as an odd and not particularly useful project in this post-Summorum Pontificum world.

Vatican Press, in partnership with Faith Comes By Hearing (a non-profit, donor-driven, interdenominational ministry committed to the mission of reaching poor and illiterate people worldwide with the Word of God in audio), is preparing to record the Latin edition of the New Testament, the Neo-Vulgate,

A Latin edition. More on this below.

for use in Catholic seminaries, parishes, and personal individual study worldwide. The Neo-Vulgate is currently the official or "typical" Latin edition published by the Catholic Church for use in the Roman Rite. As the first vernacular translation of the Bible, it is only fitting that it be among the languages in which Faith Comes By Hearing makes Sacred Scripture available in audio using the rendering of the translator, St. Jerome (342–420 A.D.).

What? Jerome did two translations of the Bible into Latin. The Neo-Vulgate is not either of them. It's a new edition. Hence the "neo" or "nova" in the name.

It will also be available for free download onto technology devices for academic and devotional use.

Those of us who are regularly worshiping in Latin and studying the Latin scriptures for that purpose are overwhelmingly not using the Nova Vulgata, but the 1962 missal versions. Serious academics working on Biblical studies are only using the Latin (they use the Greek and the Hebrew) if they are doing specialized historical studies on previous interpretation (e.g. editions of sermons written by those who used the Vulgate). But they're not using the Nova Vulgata for these studies either.

The Latin Vulgate is the substratum for the prayers of the Roman liturgy and offers the spiritual milieu for it. I ask you to consider giving this worthwhile project your prayerful and financial support. To hear, as well as to read, the Holy Scriptures in Latin – the first language into which the original Hebrew and Greek were translated – would be a fine source for reinforcement of biblically grounded faith and cultural enrichment.

There's a historical error here too. The first language into which the original Hebrew of the Torah was translated wasn't Latin, but Aramaic and then later the Greek Septuagint.

A Life at the Track is built from Days at the Races

2011-03-11T12:45:00.002-05:00

I've just finished reading Ted McClelland's Horseplayers: Life at the Track.

I live right near Aqueduct, though I've never made it out there, but I have been to the summer meet at Saratoga once.

The book is well done, but it betrays its origins as an edited and reworked version of newspaper columns (even though he had a book contract already while the columns were being written.) The profiles of the people he meets at the track don't go as deep as you might like: newspaper column depth rather than magazine column or book depth. The same book suffers from the same difficulty as a memoir or as participatory journalism, never digging as deep into the authors psyche as a book like Ted Conover's Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing. Of course, Newjack wasn't Conover's first rodeo as Horseplayers seems to be for McClelland. I'll be keeping an eye out for a sophmore effort.

I discovered the helpful glossary at the back only when I had finished the book, but there was still no entry there for exacta! (I used the internet to look it up.)

One more thing about reading Horseplayers: a little more knowledge about handicapping gives me a sharper appreciation for this bit from A Day at the Races:

So Good It's Bad

2011-03-10T19:33:00.000-05:00

Dana Stevens writes in Slate about Love Guru:

There are good movies. There are bad movies. There are movies so bad they're good (though, strangely, not the reverse).

I'm not so sure this is true. Basically, the point here is that there multiple meanings for the words "good" and "bad".

But given this fact, aren't there all sorts of movies so "good" they're bad? Think, for instance of "morally improving" movies. Pauline Kael has an interesting comment about this in Afterglow: A Last Conversation With Pauline Kael:

[T]hey thought I was awful for panning the kind of movies I panned, the earnest movies, what's now called the independent film—the movies that have few aesthetic dimensions but are moral and have lessons and all. There was a great deal of sentiment for that kind of movie at The New Yorker, and from its readers. This was, after all, in the sixties and seventies, and New York was still full of a lot of refugees from Hitler, and they took movies very seriously, and morally. And my frivolous tone really bugged them. ...

Today, there's so much more of a feeling for films as aesthetic objects rather than as morally improving objects. But I was writing for a magazine that stood for moral improvement—New Yorker editorials during my years there could be so abstractly moralizing. There were things there that were so at odds with what I was doing that it amazes me that I lasted.

That captures the point, I think. A certain kind of moral movie could be called "so good it's bad."

I'm not sure if Kael intended to contrast taking movies seriously with appreciating them as aesthetic objects. Can't we take seriously aesthetic objects, even if they don't have "messages" attached? It's also interesting to think about how the "independent" label has broadened since Kael said this. Certainly today, plenty of what are called independent films are aesthetically focused, rather than message films. I'm not sure this wasn't even the case when Kael wrote the above.

This post was started in 2008, I don't run around the 'net searching for reviews of bad old Mike Myers movies, but I did want to clean up some of the drafts still lingering on Blogger. Finishing up this post makes me miss my former coworker and friend CeOtis Robinson, who definitely would have loved discussing this question.

Essays About Latin

2011-03-08T21:04:00.000-05:00

Professor Emeritus William Harris of Middlebury college has a great collection of essays on studying, translating and appreciating Latin.

How Many Roman Missals Do We Need?

2011-03-08T20:38:00.003-05:00

Responding to a post on the NLM about Midwest Theological Forum's plans to publish an edition of the new English Missal, Fr. Franklyn McAfee commented:

I hope they also will do an edition of the Missale Romanum (1962).

This got me thinking. Between the Benzinger reprint from PCP and the Vatican edition we're pretty well situated for 1962 Missals at this point, if perhaps not so well situated that another edition wouldn't be a good thing.

And anyways, what's the harm in another edition? Actually, there is a downside: economies of scale. The balance on the 1962 Missal might still tilt towards additional editions. I'm not as convinced that we need as many editions of the new missal as have already been announced.

While I'm glad we have other art choices than those of the Liturgical Press edition, is the difference between the Midwest Theological Forum edition and the Magnificat edition going to be worth the increased price of both missals?

Now, is there anything we can do about this? Unless we're liturgical publishers, probably not. Centralized control probably wouldn't work any better. But liturgical publishers should try to make sure they're offering something different from what the competition is offering and not just multiplying their offerings uselessly and wasting everyone's money and time. Newman House Press apparently has plans for a Latin/English Missale parvum, which sounds interesting.

Ollie's Noodle Shop &c.

2011-02-26T22:26:00.000-05:00

I'd been jonesing for some roast pork and won-ton soup for a couple weeks. So I head over to Ollie's Noodle Shop near Lincoln Center.

The food was it's usual tasty, but not haute self. But I love the scenery of eating there, that is the other diners. Most of the time, this is compounded by your being packed in nearly check to jowl with them.

On a previous trip, Skipp Sudduth (of Third Watch and who I saw in South Pacific) was at the next table.

Tonight, well it's hard to explain. I was sitting next to two teenage boys who were talking about (among other things):

Whether they could whistle/raise one eyebrow/roll their tongues/and a long list of other "genetic abilities"
Whether women could make them laugh (one said yes, the other said no)
Why girls did or didn't like them
How one guy's father always talked to him like he was the audience for his father's podcast!

Hmm, I'm not sure it comes across on the page. (The screen?) But it was all I could do to keep my head in my newspaper and not stare and laugh.

It's the first time I've been up here since the Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble closed. R.I.P. Also, the 7 o'clock showing of Of Gods and Men at the Lincoln Plaza Theatre was sold out an hour before showtime, which augers well for the prospects of the film. America needs more monastic witness.

As I walked by the Mormon Temple up there, I peeked in the glass at the side of the doors. I'd walked by before, but never thought to do that! You could see the folks walking around inside in their all white temple garb. The aforementioned Barnes and Noble had a huge section on Mormonism, which puzzled me until I spotted the (relatively understated) temple across the street.

Oh yeah, and the Apple Store architecture creeps me out.

The Big Fear

2011-01-15T00:19:00.000-05:00

David has the Big Fear. It doesn’t take a cabdriver too long to realize that once you leave the joy of shape-up and start uptown on Hudson Street, you’re fair game. You’re at the mercy of the Fear Variables, which are (not necessarily in order): the traffic, which will be in your way; the other cabdrivers, who want to take your business; the police, who want to give you tickets; the people in your cab, lunatics who will peck you with nudges and dent you with knives; and your car, which is capable of killing you at any time. Throw in your bosses and the back inspectors and you begin to realize that a good night is not when you make a living wage. That’s a great night. A good night is when you survive to tell your stories at tomorrow’s shape-up. But all the Fear Variables are garbage compared with the Big Fear. The Big Fear is that times will get so hard that you’ll have to drive five or six nights a week instead of three. The Big Fear is that your play, the one that’s only one draft away from a possible show-case will stay in your drawer. The Big Fear is thinking about all the poor stiff civil servants who have been sorting letters at the post office every since the last Depression and all the great plays they could have produced. The Big Fear is that, after twenty years of schooling, they’ll put you on the day shift. The Big Fear is you’re becoming a cabdriver.

Mark Jacobson, New York Magazine, Sept. 22, 1975

Christmas Trees Still Selling

2011-01-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

Obviously, it's a mistake to still have a big stock left over, but a Christmas tree seller in Queens discovered a new market for after December 25 (Gregorian), the Russian Orthodox!

The trees are still, slowly selling — Mr. Choi sold two on Wednesday to some customers who were Russian Orthodox and celebrating Christmas on Jan. 7. But really, Mr. Choi said he was trying to figure out how to dispose of them. He said he did not gauge the economy correctly and would be more careful next year.

Give 'Em The Pickle!

2010-12-30T19:40:00.002-05:00

Starbucks is doing its job "giving the pickle" tonight. The guy ahead of me in line got a tall cappuccino with a cup of whipped cream on the side. Then when he got his drink he asked for whipped cream on top. They didn't charge him extra for any of it.

Mmmm... pickles and whipped cream.

Overheard

2010-12-17T18:09:00.002-05:00

Earlier this week, when we had gotten the first snow of the year that "stuck," I heard a teen girl say to her friend, "I hate snow. It's so boring." Well, here in New York, where most people don't drive, it's probably true that the visual effect is more heightened and the excitement of trying to stay on the road is less critical.

Scene: a Deli in Jamaica, N.Y.

2010-12-16T20:32:00.000-05:00

Interior, Night
Sam: Do you have toothbrushes.
Counterman: Yes.
puts hot pink toothbrush on counter
Sam: Do you perhaps have a different color
Counterman: Sure, how's this one.
puts yellow toothbrush on counter
Sam: Thanks, that's slightly more manly.
fade out

Why You Can't Wear Dress Boots

2010-12-14T20:28:00.003-05:00

From Esquire:

Could you recommend some winter dress boots that are stylish and waterproof?

No, Jeremy, I will not recommend you a dress boot. Because you are not Errol Flynn and this is not the Spanish Main. What you need is a practical pair of rubber Wellingtons, which allow you to march to work through slush ponds without so much as breaking stride.

However, if you are friends with Errol Flynn, you can wear a monocle and roll your r's while singing Garry Owen.

Actually, They're Not In the Opera

2010-12-11T18:49:00.000-05:00

The New York Times article on the opening night at La Scala featured this terrific picture of Italian police officers. No, they're not in the opera, they're "[a] horse patrol facing hundreds of protesters in front of La Scala on Tuesday, opening night." The cops over there certainly know how to dress. There were other officers on hand with more practical riot gear.

A Very New York Conversation

2010-12-05T14:00:00.001-05:00

Buying pseudoephedrine at the drug store, the clerk asks not "Can I see your driver's license?" like they do most places, but "Can I see your state ID or driver's license?"

A Different Spin on "Keeping Christ in 'Christmas'"

2010-12-04T18:25:00.000-05:00

The Christmas season is a great time to think about those who do not have Christ. As I've been decorating my tree and listening to Christmas music, I think of what a colossal letdown Christmas must be for those who don't have Christ as the center of their celebration.

I mean, how long can you sustain excitement about shopping, food, decorations, gifts and parties? Come January, all those things are gone, and in their place are bills, trash, gift receipts and a 5-10 pound weight gain.

Lisa Anderson writing in the Boundless Update from Focus on the Family

"Distrahit animum librorum multitudo." --Seneca

2010-11-30T18:00:00.003-05:00

"I had nearly five thousand volumes in my library at Rome; but after reading them over many times, I found out that with one hundred and fifty well-chosen books a man possesses, if not a complete summary of all human knowledge, at least all that a man need really know. I devoted three years of my life to reading and studying these one hundred and fifty volumes, till I knew them nearly by heart; so that since I have been in prison, a very slight effort of memory has enabled me to recall their contents as readily as though the pages were open before me. I could recite you the whole of Thucydides, Xenophon, Plutarch, Titus Livius, Tacitus, Strada, Jornandes, Dante, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Spinoza, Machiavelli, and Bossuet. I name only the most important."

The Count of Monte Christo by Alexandre Dumas, père

Gilson: Latin Liturgy and Philosophical Education

2010-11-19T21:33:00.000-05:00

From Etienne Gilson's The Philosopher and Theology, published 1962:

Latin is the language of the Church. The sorry degradation of the liturgical texts by their translation into a gradually deteriorating vernacular emphasizes the need for the preservation of a sacred language whose very immutability protects the liturgy against the decay of taste. As his education is thus proceeding in keeping with the spirit of his own tradition, the young Christian imperceptibly becomes familiar with a Latin philosophical terminology (almost entirely Greek in its origin) embedded in the formulas of Christian dogmas. Liturgy itself forces this terminology upon his attention and fixes it in his memory, since he not only hears this language but also speaks it and sings it. Liturgical music permeates the meaning of the words so thoroughly that, thirty-odd years later, he will only have to sing the Preface to himself in order to recall the words: Non in unius singularitate personae, sed in unius Trinitate subsstantiae . . . et in personis proprietas, et in essentia unitas. . . . No mind can ascribe a meaning to such formulas without assimilating something of the philosophical notions they convey. In the liturgy itself, such words as substance, essence, singularity, propriety, person, point out directly and primarily only the mysterious truths contained in Christian dogma. The sentences that these words constitute are not philosophical propositions. Still, even though they do not bind it to any particular philosophy, a mind that has become familiar with them early enough in life will never be able to accept a doctrine that would consider them meaningless. The Church invincibly opposes any philosophical change that would oblige her to modify the received formulation of dogma. And in this the Church is right, for any change in words would entail a change in meaning, and propositions that have for centuries stood the test of councils cannot be altered without religious truth itself being put in jeopardy.
Thus, long before he begins studying philosophy proper, the Christian imbibes definite metaphysical notions.

More Horseradish!

2010-11-18T17:45:00.007-05:00

Headed to dinner at Wolfgang's Steakhouse.

"There is even a 'Wolfgang’s Steakhouse Old-Fashioned Sauce,' which is a near-exact facsimile of the famous Luger’s Steak Sauce, only it’s slightly sweeter, and contains a touch more horseradish." NY Magazine

Well that settles the question of whether I'll have steak. Remember the Great Horseradish Famine and eat it while you can!

40 years on...

2010-11-12T12:00:00.001-05:00

Folks continue to promote the Bayside Apparitions, more than 40 years after the "seer", Veronica Lueken, claimed they began and 15 years after her death. Recently "Our Lady's revelation" that Teilhard de Chardin is in Hell has been trotted out on FaceBook. Let's listen again (via EWTN) to what the Bishop of Brooklyn declared about these apparitions in 1986.

I, the undersigned Diocesan Bishop of Brooklyn, in my role as the legitimate shepherd of this particular Church, wish to confirm the constant position of the Diocese of Brooklyn that a thorough investigation revealed that the alleged "visions of Bayside" completely lacked authenticity.

Moreover, in view of the confusion created by published reports of messages and other literature by this "Movement," I consider it my obligation to offer Christ's faithful pastoral guidance, lest their faith be endangered by "messages" and "teachings" relayed by "visionaries," which are contrary to the Faith of our Catholic Church.

Therefore, in consultation with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, I hereby declare that:

1. No credibility can be given to the so-called "apparitions" reported by Veronica Lueken and her followers.

2. The "messages" and other related propaganda contain statements which, among other things, are contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church, undermine the legitimate authority of bishops and councils and instill doubts in the minds of the faithful, for example, by claiming that, for years, an "imposter (sic) Pope" governed the Catholic Church in place of Paul VI.

3. Those who persistently maintain that "no ecclesiastical permission is required for the publication or dissemination" of information concerning "revelations, visions or miracles," are erroneously interpreting the directives of the Holy See when they attempt to justify the publication of the propaganda literature on the "Bayside Messages."

...those publishing or disseminating this propaganda literature are acting against the judgment of legitimate Church authority.

4. Because of my concern for their spiritual welfare, members of Christ's faithful are hereby directed to refrain from participating in the "vigils" and from disseminating any propaganda related to the "Bayside apparitions." They are also discouraged from reading any such literature.

5. Anyone promoting this devotion in any way, be it by participating in the "vigils," organizing pilgrimages, publishing or disseminating the literature related to it, is contributing to the confusion which is being created in the faith of God's people, as well as encouraging them to act against the determinations made by the legitimate pastor of this particular Church (c.212, para. 1).

It remains my constant hope that all the faithful spend their time and energies in promoting devotion to our Blessed Lady, in the many forms which have been approved by the Catholic Church.

+Bishop Francis Mugavero
Bishop of Brooklyn

The Right Honourable The Earl Russell, OM, FRS

2010-11-11T16:16:00.000-05:00

a.k.a. Bertrand Russell, descendant of Thor.

Frank Swinnerton in The Georgian Scene:

Bertrand Russell belongs to one of the oldest aristocratic families in England, which I learn has been traced back as far as the God Thor. His grandfather, the first Earl Russell, was third son of the sixth Duke of Bedford, and Bertrand Russell himself, although it would be unbecoming in him, as a Communist, to use the title, is the third Earl.

Here's the general article on the Earls. The image at left is of Mårten Eskil Winge's painting Thor's Battle Against the Ettins.

We changed the name...

2010-11-09T12:54:00.000-05:00

(via Fed By Birds)

L'Osservatore Romano on the Simpsons

2010-10-18T12:38:00.003-04:00

Homer e Bart sono cattolici

di Luca M. Possati

Pochi lo sanno, e lui fa di tutto per nasconderlo. Ma è vero: Homer J. Simpson è cattolico. E se non fu vocazione - complice un'ammaliante pinta di "Duff" - ci mancò davvero poco. Tanto che oggi il re della ciambella fritta di Springfield non esita a esclamare che "il cattolicesimo è mitico". Salvo poi ricredersi in un catartico "D'oh!".

La battuta - tratta dall'episodio "Padre, Figlio e Spirito Pratico", in cui Homer e Bart si convertono grazie all'incontro con il simpatico padre Sean - è lo spunto dell'interessante articolo I Simpson e la religione di padre Francesco Occhetta comparso nell'ultimo numero di "La Civiltà Cattolica". L'autorevole rivista dei gesuiti italiani traccia una raffinata analisi antropologica ed etica del cartoon cogliendo al contempo l'occasione - questo l'aspetto più notevole - di dare qualche consiglio pratico a genitori e figli.

È fuori discussione che la serie creata da Matt Groening ha portato nel mondo del cartone animato una rivoluzione linguistica e narrativa senza precedenti. Abbandonata la tranquillizzante distinzione tra bene e male tipica delle produzioni "a lieto fine" della Disney, Homer&Company hanno aperto un vaso di Pandora. Ne è uscita comicità surreale, satira pungente, sarcasmo sui peggiori tabù dell'American way of life e un'icona deformante delle idiosincrasie occidentali. Ma attenzione, ci sono anche altri livelli di lettura. "Ogni episodio - scrive Occhetta - dietro la satira e alle tante battute che fanno sorridere, apre temi antropologici legati al senso e alla qualità della vita" (p. 144). Temi come l'incapacità di comunicare e di riconciliarsi, l'educazione e il sistema scolastico, il matrimonio e la famiglia. E non manca la politica.

Pomo della discordia, la religione. Che dire al cospetto delle sonore ronfate di Homer durante le prediche del reverendo Lovejoy? E che dire delle perenni umiliazioni inflitte al patetico Neddy Flanders, l'evangelico ortodosso? Sottile critica o blasfemia ingiustificabile? "I Simpson - sostiene Occhetta - rimangono tra i pochi programmi tv per ragazzi in cui la fede cristiana, la religione e la domanda su Dio sono temi ricorrenti" (p. 145). La famiglia "recita le preghiere prima dei pasti e, a suo modo, crede nell'al di là" ed è lei il mezzo attraverso cui la fede viene trasmessa. La satira, invece, "più che coinvolgere le varie confessioni cristiane travolge le testimonianze e la credibilità di alcuni uomini di chiesa".

Sia chiaro, i pericoli esistono, perché "il lassismo e il disinteresse che emergono rischiano di educare ancora di più i giovani a un rapporto privatistico con Dio" (p. 146). Ma cum grano salis occorre separare l'erba buona dalla zizzania. I genitori non debbono temere di far guardare ai loro figli le avventure degli ometti in giallo. Anzi, il realismo dei testi e degli episodi "potrebbe essere l'occasione per vedere alcune puntate insieme, e per coglierne gli spunti per dialogare sulla vita familiare, scolastica, di coppia, sociale e politica" (p. 148). Nelle storie dei Simpson prevale il realismo scettico, così "le giovani generazioni di telespettatori vengono educate a non illudersi" (p. 148). La morale? Nessuna. Ma si sa, un mondo privo di facili illusioni è un mondo più umano e, forse, più cristiano.

File under: Preferential Option for the Awesome

2010-08-10T12:45:00.001-04:00

A series of coincidences led to my taking another look at the Chabad-run site Askmoses.com. A couple of friends of mine are getting married this fall and, partly as a result, this question and answer by Rabbi Moshe Miller caught my eye. The questioner asked, "Why do people throw sweets at the groom [at the synagogue] on the Shabbat [Sabbath] before his wedding?

The candy throwing ritual is known as an "Aufruf."

It is customary to call up (aufruf = the Yiddish word which means to call up) the groom to the Torah on the Shabbat before the wedding. After his portion is read and he has recited the blessing after reading the Torah it is customary to sing and rejoice together with him. The congregation then throws nuts and candies at the groom as a blessing that the couple should be fruitful and have a sweet life together. (The candies are soft so no one will be injured).

I've heard it said that they pelt the young man with bags of nuts and candies so that any hard knocks due to him are already fulfilled by those who love and respect him, and even those have a sweet ending!

According to the Zohar, the blessings for the entire week emanate from the Shabbat beforehand. Furthermore, since Torah is the root of all blessings, we call up the groom to the Torah on the Shabbat before his wedding, to shower Torah-blessings on the auspicious upcoming week.

The entire ancient custom seems to be related to the statement in the Talmud [Berachot 6b] that everyone who brings joy to a groom is worthy of Torah (and this is why it is done when he is called up to the Torah).

After the services, it is customary for the family of the groom to sponsor a sumptuous Kiddush in honor of the soon-to-be-married couple.

The bride does not join the groom’s festivities because the bride and groom do not see each other for an entire week before the wedding. Instead, it is customary for the bride to have a festive gathering for her friends on this same Shabbat. This event is known as the “Shabbat Kallah,” or in Yiddish it is known as a fahrshpil.

Sephardic Jews generally do not observe the aufruf custom.

Before Cable News

2010-08-07T23:15:00.000-04:00

I ran across the following in the 1900 Union League Club annual report. The section of the report related to the Committee on Library and Publications reminded me that this was written during the Philippine-American War and the Second Anglo-Boer War. So what did they do before cable news? Books, serials and maps.

...your Committee unanimously resolved to return to ... expending in the purchase of new books, as distinguished from serial literature of any description, a reasonable proportion of the funds... especial reference has, of course, been had to timely publications, like books on the Philippine Islands and South Africa.

Your Committee feels that mention should here be made of the very beautiful and cartographically accurate maps of the Philippine Islands and of South Africa now posted in the Club-house, which were prepared by the War Department and sent to the Club by the courtesy of the Secretary of War; and also of the map of South African territory procured by the Committee from London. By placing a number of small flags upon these maps to indicate the location of the various troops, and by changing them from day to day, as advances or retreats are made, it has been found that the interest of club members in the different campaigns has been stimulated. This method of illustrating the progress of a war is quite general in the London clubs, but has never before to our knowledge, been used in any New York club.

Nelson: Priests, Popes, and Plate

2010-08-03T01:20:00.000-04:00

The English hero [Lord Nelson] was thoroughly devoted to the established church of his nation and was a Protestant by both inclination and practice. ... He appreciated the Neapolitans' Catholicism and certainly never let religious differences interfere with his zealous diplomatic efforts to keep Naples on Britain's side in the war. He was always respectful to Catholic dignitaries and went to great lengths to ensure that they knew he would defend their Church and its role in Catholic nations. He also demonstrated tolerance in a number of small-scale ways. For instance, he willingly acceded to a request from the queen of Naples for the discharge of one of Capt. Thomas Masterman Hardy's marines, who was a Catholic priest by training, so that he could serve in her kingdom. And when in 1804 he gave gifts to the Catholic residents of the Maddalena Islands to repay their hospitality, he chose church plate (a silver crucifix and candlesticks) for the local parish, a gesture that prompted the startled parish priest to cut short a trip elsewhere so that he could thank Nelson personally. The priest even promised, in a gushy letter, ever after to offer daily vows for Nelson's long life, prosperity, and glory.

Nelson also bemoaned that the frail and unwell Pope Pius VI, whom he had often hoped would join the war against atheistic France, had been deported to Valence (where he later died). It "makes my heart bleed," Nelson lamented. When the new pope, Pius VII, returned to Rome in 1800, Nelson wrote him a congratulatory letter. He explained that he himself played a part in making the Catholic Italian states safe for the pope's return. "Holy Father," he added, "I presume to offer my most sincere congratulations on this occasion; and with most fervent wishes and prayers that your residence may be blessed with health, and every comfort this world can afford." This was no mere polite letter to a distinguished personage to praise him for good fortune. The letter had a curious religious purpose; the admiral felt compelled to tell the pope that in 1798 a priest had predicted Nelson would, by providing naval assistance, play a key role in Rome's recapture from the French. This had "turned out so exactly," Nelson said, that he felt the pope should know about the "extraordinary" consonance between the prediction and the outcome.

From For God and Glory: Lord Nelson and His Way of War
by Joel Hayward

That return to Rome was the one that inspired the Feast and Month of the Precious Blood, as was discussed in a previous post.

Hayward was also caught up in a lengthy debate about his Master's thesis and holocaust denial. See his old web site here.

Crying to Heaven for Vengeance

2010-07-27T19:31:00.001-04:00

The New York Times runs a story today, "Most Ironbound Day Laborers Report Being Cheated", based on research from Seton Hall University:

Nearly all day laborers who gather for work in the Ironbound neighborhood of Newark have had employers who have either paid them less than promised or not paid them at all ... The report found that 96 percent of the workers reported that they had experienced at least one case of wage theft. Some 88 percent reported that employers had failed to pay them overtime wages, as required by state and federal laws; 77 percent had been victims of underpayment of regular-hour wages; and 62 percent had employers who refused to pay them on at least one occasion.

These employers might want to remember that defrauding laborers of their wages is one of the four "sins that cry to heaven for vengeance":

Behold the hire of the labourers, who have reaped down your fields, which by fraud has been kept back by you, crieth: and the cry of them hath entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. (James 5:4)

"I resolved to rise and take a turn in the garden..."

2010-07-10T23:25:00.002-04:00

The Fellows' Garden, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford

Philonous. Good morrow, Hylas: I did not expect to find you abroad so early.

Hylas. It is indeed something unusual; but my thoughts were so taken up with a subject I was discoursing of last night, that finding I could not sleep, I resolved to rise and take a turn in the garden.

Phil. It happened well, to let you see what innocent and agreeable pleasures you lose every morning. Can there be a pleasanter time of the day, or a more delightful season of the year? That purple sky, those wild but sweet notes of birds, the fragrant bloom upon the trees and flowers, the gentle influence of the rising sun, these and a thousand nameless beauties of nature inspire the soul with secret transports; its faculties too being at this time fresh and lively, are fit for those meditations, which the solitude of a garden and tranquillity of the morning naturally dispose us to. But I am afraid I interrupt your thoughts: for you seemed very intent on something.

Hyl. It is true, I was, and shall be obliged to you if you will permit me to go on in the same vein; not that I would by any means deprive myself of your company, for my thoughts always flow more easily in conversation with a friend, than when I am alone: but my request is, that you would suffer me to impart my reflexions to you.

Phil. With all my heart, it is what I should have requested myself if you had not prevented me.

Hyl. I was considering the odd fate of those men who have in all ages, through an affectation of being distinguished from the vulgar, or some unaccountable turn of thought, pretended either to believe nothing at all, or to believe the most extravagant things in the world. This however might be borne, if their paradoxes and scepticism did not draw after them some consequences of general disadvantage to mankind. But the mischief lieth here; that when men of less leisure see them who are supposed to have spent their whole time in the pursuits of knowledge professing an entire ignorance of all things, or advancing such notions as are repugnant to plain and commonly received principles, they will be tempted to entertain suspicions concerning the most important truths, which they had hitherto held sacred and unquestionable.

Phil. I entirely agree with you, as to the ill tendency of the affected doubts of some philosophers, and fantastical conceits of others. I am even so far gone of late in this way of thinking, that I have quitted several of the sublime notions I had got in their schools for vulgar opinions. And I give it you on my word; since this revolt from metaphysical notions to the plain dictates of nature and common sense, I find my understanding strangely enlightened, so that I can now easily comprehend a great many things which before were all mystery and riddle.

Hyl. I am glad to find there was nothing in the accounts I heard of you.

Phil. Pray, what were those?

Hyl. You were represented, in last night’s conversation, as one who maintained the most extravagant opinion that ever entered into the mind of man, to wit, that there is no such thing as material substance in the world.

Phil. That there is no such thing as what philosophers call material substance, I am seriously persuaded: but, if I were made to see anything absurd or sceptical in this, I should then have the same reason to renounce this that I imagine I have now to reject the contrary opinion.

Hyl. What I can anything be more fantastical, more repugnant to Common Sense, or a more manifest piece of Scepticism, than to believe there is no such thing as matter?

Phil. Softly, good Hylas. What if it should prove that you, who hold there is, are, by virtue of that opinion, a greater sceptic, and maintain more paradoxes and repugnances to Common Sense, than I who believe no such thing?

Hyl. You may as soon persuade me, the part is greater than the whole, as that, in order to avoid absurdity and Scepticism, I should ever be obliged to give up my opinion in this point.

George Berkeley
Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous,
The First Dialogue

Pick Your Battles

2010-07-09T21:52:00.018-04:00

Writing on National Review Online, Abigail Thernstrom dissents from the general fury at the Justice Department over their handling of the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case.

...it is very small potatoes. Perhaps the Panthers should have been prosecuted under section 11 (b) of the Voting Rights Act for their actions of November 2008, but the legal standards that must be met to prove voter intimidation — the charge — are very high.

In the 45 years since the act was passed, there have been a total of three successful prosecutions. The incident involved only two Panthers at a single majority-black precinct in Philadelphia. So far — after months of hearings, testimony and investigation — no one has produced actual evidence that any voters were too scared to cast their ballots. Too much overheated rhetoric filled with insinuations and unsubstantiated charges has been devoted to this case.

A number of conservatives have charged that the Philadelphia Black Panther decision demonstrates that attorneys in the Civil Rights Division have racial double standards. How many attorneys in what positions? A pervasive culture that affected the handling of this case? No direct quotations or other evidence substantiate the charge.

Thomas Perez, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, makes a perfectly plausible argument: Different lawyers read this barely litigated statutory provision differently. It happens all the time, especially when administrations change in the middle of litigation. Democrats and Republicans seldom agree on how best to enforce civil-rights statutes; this is not the first instance of a war between Left and Right within the Civil Rights Division.

...

A disaffected former Justice Department attorney has written: “We had indications that polling-place thugs were deployed elsewhere.” “Indications”? Again, evidence has yet to be offered.

Get a grip, folks. The New Black Panther Party is a lunatic fringe group that is clearly into racial theater of minor importance. It may dream of a large-scale effort to suppress voting — like the Socialist Workers Party dreams of a national campaign to demonstrate its position as the vanguard of the proletariat. But the Panthers have not realized their dream even on a small scale. This case is a one-off.

There are plenty of grounds on which to sharply criticize the attorney general — his handling of terrorism questions, just for starters — but this particular overblown attack threatens to undermine the credibility of his conservative critics. Those who are concerned about Justice Department enforcement of the Voting Rights Act should turn their attention to quite another matter, where the attorney general has been up to much more important mischief: his interpretation of the act’s core provisions.

Read the whole article at NRO.

Video and Audio from the Met Museum

2010-07-08T21:03:00.000-04:00

The inanity of Youtube comments is legendary, but this one is pretty high up there:

i went to see this this past weekend.. was prob the most interesting part of the whole museum..

The "this" in question? The current Picasso exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's a comment on Thomas Campbell and Gary Tinterow's video tour of the exhibit. There's so much at the Met. This is not the most interesting thing going on there! It's not even that special as an exhibition of Picasso's work, being a show just of works already in the Museum's collection.

On a recent visit, I found Side by Side: Oberlin’s Masterworks at the Met to be particularly fascinating. More on that in a future post, I hope.

But first, here's a bit of media from the Met's web site that I did really like. In an MP3 podcast, curator James Draper discusses Michaelangelo's "Young Archer": how it was rediscovered and how it ended up on display at the Met.

Somewhat Surprised He Stuck Around

2010-07-08T20:57:00.000-04:00

Wow. Bill Buckley tears into Norman Mailer in his introduction to their interview in this episode of Firing Line.

This Youtube playlist has all six parts.

Why July?

2010-07-02T17:46:00.001-04:00

Why is July 1st the Feast of the Precious Blood?

"Fr. Hunwike's Liturgical Notes" has the answer, which I had forgotten, if I ever knew it:

...surely one of the most crass examples of the Hermeneutic of Rupture incarnated in the Bugnini 'reforms' [was] ... when, with immense cynicism, the 'reformers' reduced July 1 to a feria on the flippant grounds that the Precious Blood would get a perfectly adequate 'covering' by being merely added to the title of Corpus Christi. Thus a nice piece of Pius IX liturgy disappeared: the memorial he placed on the calendar to commemorate his return to the City after the Roman Revolution of 1848. There is nothing vulgar, incidentally, about doing that sort of thing to the calendar, or, if there is, it is simply the vulgarity of an incarnational religion.

Pius IX assigned the feast to the first Sunday in July, Pius X moved it to July 1 as part of his effort to put back into use Sunday Masses of the Roman Missal that were frequent impeded.

I love that Armond White...

2010-06-28T00:49:00.001-04:00

...just doesn't care what other people think about him. Or maybe he does. But he certainly doesn't care a lot about what the Masses think about him. I don't agree with everything in his review of Toy Story 3 (which movie I rate O.K., not good, and certainly not great.)

Of course, he makes me love him right off the top by referencing a Whit Stillman film:

Pixar has now made three movies explicitly about toys, yet the best movie depiction of how toys express human experience remains Whit Stillman’s 1990 Metropolitan. As class-conscious Tom Townsend (Edward Clements) tries fitting in with East Side debutantes, he discovers his toy cowboy pistol in his estranged father’s trash. Without specifying the model, Stillman evokes past childhood, lost innocence and Townsend’s longing for even imagined potency.

Here's some more:

Look at the Barbie and Ken sequence where the sexually dubious male doll struts a chick-flick fashion show. Since it serves the same time-keeping purpose as a chick-flick digression, it’s not satirical. We’re meant to enjoy our susceptibility, not question it, as in Joe Dante’s more challenging Small Soldiers. Have shill-critics forgotten that movie? Do they mistake Toy Story 3’s opening day for 4th of July patriotism?

When Toy Story 3 emulates the suspense of prison break and horror films, it becomes fitfully amusing (more than can be said for Wall-E or Up) but this humor depends on the recognition of worn-out toys which is no different from those lousy Shrek gags. Only Big Baby, with one Keane eye and one lazy eye, and Mr. Potato Head’s deconstruction into Dali’s slip-sliding “Persistence of Memory” are worthy of mature delectation. But these references don’t meaningfully expand even when the story gets weepy. The Toy Story franchise isn’t for children and adults, it’s for non-thinking children and adults. When a movie is this formulaic, it’s no longer a toy because it does all the work for you. It’s a sap’s story.

Just go read it already.

So where we started this post--that Armond White just doesn't care what other people think--is reflected in the comments on Rotten Tomatoes on his review, all 800 of them. The negative ones are just vicious. People are trying to petition Rotten Tomatoes to not include White in their aggregation.

Oh, and for some more Whit Stillman, check out this 2009 interview with Stillman on WNYC when The Last Days of Disco was released on DVD as part of the Criterion Collection. I made a special trip to Barnes and Noble to buy it the day I heard this interview on the radio.

The trailer is terrible and gives almost no true sense of the film, so instead here's a clip from the film that is more representative:

In addition, you should read--who else's?--Armond White's review, though this copy is laden with typos, some of which I've corrected in this sample:

These are Stillman's fullest, most daring characters yet. Alice and Josh's first private talk ("I take no for an answer," he tells her when she teases) contains bold, humanist risk. Describing himself as a loon, Josh recites a hymn, then makes the sound of a bird, swaying off balance as he walks down the street, "You think I'm wacko?" he asks, taking Alice inside his loneliness, and her sad look communicates a shared confidence. Contemporary movies rarely get as intimate as that and Stillman goes further. English actress Kate Beckinsale achieves a striking American bitch transformation: Sleek, haughty and precipitate, her churning insecurities are protected by an impeccable, inherited facade. Beckinsale's Charlotte constantly abrades and one-ups her initial infatuations, yet Stillman shows a side of her character--she sings--that takes the entire comedy of manners into unexpected territory, revealing a suppressed cultural background that explains these urbane pilgrims at both their best and worst.

You can also check out this previous Whit Stillman post from March 2009. I also name checked Last Days in discussing Shattered Glass in 2004.

Jesuitica in Goethe

2010-06-24T00:26:00.000-04:00

I've just started reading Goethe's Italian Journey. My copy is the Penguin edition of W.H. Auden and Elizabeth Mayer's translation. The translation is noteworthy, because of the topic of this post, Jesuitica in Goethe, and because of this note in the translators' introduction:

One previous translator, an Anglican clergyman, omitted all favourable references made by Goethe to the Roman Catholic Church; we have confined ourselves to stylistic matters.(pg. 18)

And grateful we to Auden and Mayer we should be, for we find this pearl in the first chapter (though in fairness, it is in at least one earlier translation too):

The first thing I did [in Regensburg, Germany] was to visit the Jesuit College, where the students were performing their annual play. I saw the end of an opera and the beginning of a tragedy. The acting was no worse than any other group of inexperienced amateurs, and their costumes were beautiful indeed, almost too magnificent. Their performance reminded me once again of then worldly wisdom of the Jesuits. They rejected nothing which might produce and effect and they knew how to use it with love and care. Their wisdom was no coldly impersonal calculation; they did everything with a gusto, a sympathy and personal pleasure in teh doing, such as living itself gives. This great order had organ-builders, wood carvers and gilders among its members, so it must also have included some who, by temperament and talent, devoted themselves to the theatre. Just as they knew how to build churches of imposing splendour, these wise men made use of the world of the sense to create a respectable drama. (pg. 24)

I know Jesuits and I know organ-builders. Sadly I don't know any Jesuit organ-builders. I do know a Jesuit actor and theater technician though, which adds to the awesomeness of discovering this passage.

A paragraph further on he returns to the topic of the Jesuits:

I keep thinking about the character and the activities of the Jesuits. The grandeur and perfect design of their churches and other buildings command universal awe and admiration. For ornament, they used gold, silver, and jewels in profusion to dazzle beggars of all ranks, with, now and then, a touch of vulgarity to attract the masses. Roman Catholicism has always shown this genius, but I have never seen it done with such intelligence, skill and consistency as by the Jesuits. Unlike the other religious orders, they broke away from the old conventions of worship and, in compliance with the spirit of the times, refreshed it with pomp and splendour.

Ooh, we were with you right up until the last sentence, sir! It presents some difficulties.

The painting is J. H. W. Tischbein's Goethe in the Roman Campagna, 1787.

An Unusual Privilege

2010-06-20T00:38:00.000-04:00

An unusual privilege for missionary priests in China, permission to wear the biretta at the altar while celebrating Mass:

The Clergy in the Corpus Christi Procession

2010-06-07T19:45:00.001-04:00

Post updated to provide context for anyone not coming here from the NLM comment thread.

In response to a post on the New Liturgical Movement a commentator asked this question:

I just saw some pictures from a Corpus Christi procession at an FSSP apostolate in France. There were three additional priests in attendance. They were all wearing chasubles over surplices (not albs). I can't recall ever having seen this done, and I was wondering if anyone here can offer an explanation. Could it be because they lacked a sufficient number of white copes, and if that's why, is there a rubrical provision to allow chasubles in place of copes where copes are not available?

Gregor points out:

Under the rubrics of the usus antiquior, the canons of a cathedral chapte wear for the Corpus Christi procession the vestments corresponding to their rank in the chapter (the so called canonici parati, much like there are Cardinal deacons, priests and bishops, who used to wear the corresponding vestments for certain papal functions).

Having just looked at this question (and many, many others) in preparation for the Corpus Christi procession at Holy Innocents, I could point right away to the citation on pg. 388 of the 15th edition of Ceremonies of the Roman Rite:

"If the cathedral chapter assists, the canons out to wear vestments of their three orders; that is, subdeacons in tunicles, deacons in dalmatics, priests in chasubles; dignitaries in copes.(31) These are put on after the communion of the Mass and should be worn immediately over the rochet and an amice, without stole or maniple, as when the Ordinary sings solemn mass. The colour of the vestments is white. If the cathedral chapter is not present the clergy may be divided into groups wearing these vestments. (32)" [My emphasis]

Footnote 31: C.E., II, xxxiii, 5.
Footnote 32: Cf. S.R.C. 2362 Section 1.

That second footnote also seems to drive the wearing of albs instead of surplices as one might expect in place of the rochet. S.R.C. 2362 is now easily available via Google Books. Here's the relevant excerpt from the Decreta authentica.

Click the link to see the decree in the context of the book via Google Books.

This is just wrong...

2010-06-07T12:50:00.000-04:00

...For Love of the Game dubbed in French:

I hadn't realized that the movie is based on a novel by Michael Shaara, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Killer Angels.