Received Threat

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Strawberry and Rose Picking Time

Rejoice! For lo, the time of the harvest is here. Time to get all those strawberries and roses into the house where you can eat them and/or smell them.
So says the Venerable Farmer's Almanac – for it is full strawberry moon (as aboriginal Native Americans, particularly the Algonquin Tribes, refer and referred to it) or the Rose Moon as those of Europeans call[ed] it. There are other names as well, but let those two suffice for now. Well, shine on Harvest Moon – let that make three. I can type anything I want! Yippee hu, hoo-ha, and Hodie be unto us all! Lunatics unite! Che la luna... "Blue moon... I saw yü standing alone..." (Sorry – I'm a singer, and singers sing occasionally. Hard to stop us actually.) Dorothy Fields forever!!!

Here's a picture of this Strawberry or Rose full moon, or rather 2003's version (but it happens every year, like DUH) :

Here's lots of disparate images that Google picks when you ask them for graphics of the strawberry moon.

So if I'm so interested in this stuff, why did I have blueberry pancakes for break-fast this day – instead of strawberries or a full bowl of Rosen ohne Dornen? Heck, they just looked soooo good. And bacon... and starker black Kaffee... I digress, like again, eh?

By the way, sorry to all interested parties for the intermittency of these pages lately. I am presently visiting my beloved mother Ruth Signe in Wakefield, Massachusetts and Woburn ((Woooooburn!! Go team!)) and we've been too busy to do much of anything else but reminisce and laugh. Back to more regular reports of idiocy soon.

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p.s. as ever, elske Deg..... forever. World mit out End, your little punim. It's also nose-picking time. Heck, it's always nose-picking time.

Tags: Summer soltstice, harvest moon, strawberry, rose, lunacy, nose-picking, puppy, joy, eternity, God, Savior, Tribes and Family, Animals

Bringing in the sheaves

As anyone who actually reads these pages can tell I've been away for a while. I'm back now – be very ascared.

Today, June 13, 2005 is the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, the feast of the harvest and the remembrance (anamnesis) of the gift of the Torah (the Law) to Judischkeit, the people of God. Actually the feast begins at sundown... Jewish holidays, or even just plain days, begin at sundown. Lots of things happen on the day or night before things happen. It's a mystery. Anyway, if you want to learn lots of wonderful stuff about Shavuot (and you just might, who knows?) like why the biblical book of Ruth is usually read on this day, why those little huts appear all over the place, the chorus of shofarim, etc. try these wonderful places on our friend the Web:

Holidays Net

Judaism 101

I really liked this one a lot.

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And now for something not really all that different... wait for it...

photo by Bart the Anglican

Sometimes I think it would be a good idea if the American Civil War really ended. Maybe it's just me – but so many wars seem to have never ended no matter how many ceremonies and statues we make declaring this to be so. You see, I'm a dreamer. No one ever promised happy dreams, just dreams.

Many years ago now I was the Assistant Manager of a bookstore called The Trinity Bookstore. Actually there were two Trinity Bookstores, but I was only assistant manager of one of them. It was owned and operated originally under the name of Trinity-Seabury bookstore, part of The Seabury Press (named after Bp Samuel Seabury), then the official publication house of the American Episcopal Church in the USA (dfms.org, etc.). Then Seabury Press (see: Birmingham) sort of died, and the Parish of Trinity Church in the City of New-York took it over. I stayed on. Heck, I already lived there (in the choir), so why not?
(By the way, there is no Trinity Bookstore any longer – but that's New York. The competition is fierce.)

My boss and beloved friend, Gary Michael Arthur, was a Southerner – haling [sic] from Natural Bridge, Virginia if I recall correctly – I do remember he graduated from William & Mary – and you can't get much more echt South'run than that.... They even sing horses to sleep there. Heck, I digress. Gary introduced me to a good friend of his named, delightfully, Mills Bee Lane – a publisher from Savannah, Georgia and a US Navy veteran. Mills published glorious books of coffee-table size on the antebellum architecture of the South. The books were amazing.... after a while we carried them in the store.
((Secret message to Gary if ever you should see this: Deepest thanks, still and always, for the bowl. Jerusalem rocks!)) oops. Where was I?

Word has recently reached me that this dear man Mills Bee Lane has died. (Gary's successor at the bookstore, Arlene Bullard, told me.) He was far too young to die, and I don't believe it. I can't – not for one second. Requiescat in pace, sweetest Mills Bee. Eternal joy be yours as is your due and right.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine.
Et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion,
Et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem
Exaudi orationem meam
Ad te omnis caro veniet.
Requiem aeternam dona defunctis, Domine.
Et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine
Et lux perpetua eis.

Translation to English:

Eternal rest give unto them, O Lord
And let perpetual light shine upon them
A hymn, O God, becometh Thee in Zion
And a vow shall be paid to thee in Jerusalem
Hear my prayer
All flesh shall come before you
Eternal rest give unto the dead, O Lord
And let perpetual light shine upon them
Eternal rest give unto them, O Lord
And let perpetual light shine upon them.

The complete texts of the Requiem, in both Latin and English as well as clues to its history and structure may be found here.

But Mills's publishing concern, now a non-profit covenant with Southern History, continues. The Beehive Press is here, with all its old books and many new ones, including a great many about the Civil War – letters and journals, photographs and drawings. Which is why, perhaps, I've been thinking of the American Civil War, and other older wars both Civil and uncivil... including this mess we're in now. (Cf: any news purveyor.)

See what you think, but a careful reading of Civil War history reveals many parallels to our present time. The History Channel provides a service as to what happened during the Civil War on any given day here.

Another wonderful site for contemplation upon these things is Civil War Interactive. Their On This Day feature is introduced with these words: "Hilarious headlines highlight hostility! Find out what happened on every day during the war." Curious? I was. Go here.

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Well, that's all folks. Sorry, to those who asked, to be absent for so long. I've been knitting. So hard to type while you're knitting. Yeah – knitting, that's it...

Elske deg.

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Technorati Tags: acceleration, Apocalypse, Civil War, dumb stuff, Episcopal, Norwegian-American, puppy, puppy, Requiem

They Don't Make 'em Like This Anymore

No time to make this look pretty. Read and digest, only if you feel like it.

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin, the noted Russian composer, was born on Christmas Day and died at Eastertide -- according to Western-style calendrical reckoning, 7 January 1872 - 14 April, 1915. No one was more famous during his lifetime, and few were more quickly ignored after his death. Although he was never absent from the mainstream of Russian music, the outside world neglected him until recently. Today, there is worldwide resurgence of interest in his music and ideas. Scriabin wrote five symphonies, including the Divine Poem (1903), the Poem of Ecstasy (1907), and the Poem of Fire or Prometheus (1909). His ten piano sonatas are staples of many pianists' repertoire, with the Fifth being perhaps the most popular, while the Seventh (White Mass) and Ninth (Black Mass) follow close. Vladimir Horowitz in his late sixties began playing the Tenth, and it remains today in vogue among more daring virtuosi. Scriabin's hundreds of preludes, études and poems are considered masterpieces of 20th century pianism, and his "titled" pieces such as Fragilité, Satanic Poem, Etrangeté, Désir, and Caresse Dansé, are greatly admired. Scriabin's style changed enormously as he progressed. The early pieces are romantic, fresh and easily accessible, while his later compositions explore harmony's further reaches. It is thought by scholars, that had Scriabin lived beyond his brief 43 years, he would have preceded the Austrian school of duodecaphony, and Moscow would have become the center of atonality. Immediately upon Scriabin's sudden death, Sergei Rachmaninoff toured Russia in a series of all-Scriabin recitals. It was the first time he played music other than his own in public. In those days Scriabin was known as a pianist and Rachmaninoff was considered only as a composer. Scriabin, thus, was posthumously responsible for his friend and classmate's later pianistic career in Europe and America. Scriabin's thought processes were immensely complicated, even tinged with solipsism. "I am God," he once wrote in one of his secret philosophical journals. He embraced Helen Blavatsky's Theosophy. In London he visited the room in which Mme. Blavatsky died. Scriabin considered his last music to be fragments of an immense piece to be called Mysterium. This seven-day-long megawork would be performed at the foothills of the Himalayas in India, after which the world would dissolve in bliss. Bells suspended from clouds would summon spectators. Sunrises would be preludes and sunsets codas. Flames would erupt in shafts of light and sheets of fire. Perfumes appropriate to the music would change and pervade the air. At the time of his death, Scriabin left 72 orchestral-size pages of sketches for a preliminary work Prefatory Action, intended to "prepare" the world for the apocalyptic ultimate masterpiece. Alexander Nemtin, the Russian composer, assembled those jottings and co-created the Prefatory Action. Its three vast movements have been performed with great acclaim under conductors Cyril Kondrashin in Moscow and Vladimir Ashkenazy in Berlin with Alexei Lubimov at the piano. Scriabin's discography now numbers in the thousands of recordings, and his biography by Faubion Bowers is available in paperback (Dover).

Wot a guy.

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Freitag, aka Friday. Ole Ole Oleson Frei.

Dang it all. I promised myself, as a form of discipline and life-changing work, to try to blog even if it's only for me. To write, to make something, etc. after years of depression is a Good Thing. (Thank you, Martha Stuart [sic].)

But(t) I seemed to have petered out a bit...

Oh well. I'm still in an imagey frame of mind so let this then be my bloggo blob for the day.

Found this coolo neato picture of Robert the Bruce (1274 – 1329) and his wife Elizabeth de Burgh supposedly the only picture remaining painted from life:

Apart from being beautiful (which it is) it makes me think of Scotland... beautiful Scotland, itself at last. My husband Bill and I were in Scotland a year or so ago (he was on a choir tour; I was tagging along) and it was so magnificent to be there again. To wander about Edinburgh, and to see our friend Gavin Ingles (a writer of Hypertext)... What a place. "The Athens of the North" – and that light.

My father, one Robert Malcolm Griffin, always told me we were Scottish in some way, a mixture of things like all Americans are I suppose. But his father grew up in Texas, so go figure...

Anyway, here's a link or two to Robert the Bruce:

Britannia.com's bio
The Magic Dragon site which seems to have had something to do with Mel Gibson, back from when he was making the movie Braveheart – which we here still call Bravehair.)

Back to guzzling the briny deeps of fine Ethiopian coffee. See you.

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Lunedi, Moonday, Monday.

Well, this is actually Tuesday... but it's still my Monday, so heck.

I've been fixing stuff, and doing things like getting a new radio (one that actually works) for Haakon our aging Volvo, chastising cats, replacing household doodads... so there is no discernible theme here, sorry.

Much too tired for the writing of words... so here are some favorite images savored over the last few days.

The above is one of my favorites of the 97 miniatures in the Douce Apocalypse (English, 13th Century), so named because the manuscript was bequeathed to the Bodleian Library (UK) by Dr. Francis Douce (1757-1834). The Angel is St. Michael. (By the way, here's a great angel site.)

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New Scientist magazine has just launched its new and wonderful Space site on the web. This startlingly beautiful image of the ovum-like Milky Way appears there.

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The Earth, or as we say in our Book of Common Prayer (U.S., 1979) – sometimes – "our island home":

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Yesterday (and by that I mean Sunday) after church I got the new radio installed in the car, waited forever, then went to the grocery store. (Big doings here on Staten Island. <sigh>) While I was in the store a thunderstorm swept through... lightning, thunder, wind, heavy rain. All the clerks in the store ran to the windows to watch it. A pretty wonderful storm. By the time I got all my necessaries paid for and bagged the storm had ended, and the sun had come out again, all lemony yellow and turning all the colors of the trees to wet electric new spring green. People started shouting out happily in the parking lot to total strangers: "Have you seen the rainbow?" I sure hadn't yet, but I finally looked up. It was a blessing of a rainbow. I didn't have my camera with me (I so rarely go to the grocery store with my camera...) but this picture below is amazingly like it. And, No, not all rainbows look the same. The only difference was that the rainbow we here on Staten Island saw was a full hoop (perhaps the bands were bigger than this picture, too) but the center portion was obscured by leftover clouds. I smiled all the way home. As a dear lady I used to know said – no matter what you told her, good news or bad, and all the time: "God is Good." Yup.

To sleep now with me. Too tired to link (!)


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Technorati Tags: Apocalypse, cosmology, Earth (satellite)

Wazzup, oiseaux?

Is it just me, or is there a lot of bird news recently?

First there was the wonderful discovery that the white-billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis), thought extinct for the last sixty years, is alive and well, thank you very much, and was sighted in the Big Woods of Arkansas. There have been seven firm sightings of the bird(s) so far and it has been videotaped. (Things are just so much more real when they're videotaped.) Perhaps it had reasons to hide from us for so long...

Artist's image of an ivory-billed woodpecker.
George M. Sutton, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

But then another bird story caught my eye: Confused storks try to hatch golf balls. Seems that a pair of storks have made a nest in the middle of a golf course in Germany and filled it with stolen golf balls. The pair have gathered so many balls that they have built a second nest on the Krogaspe golf course. Hope springs eternal, especially in Spring.

For a while, my mother lived in a condominium on Long Island (New York) which had its own golf course for the residents. She started collecting golf balls, buckets and buckets of them. We, her children, couldn't help asking her when we visited, "Gee, mom, what's with all the golf balls? After all, you don't play golf." She said she collected them (a) because they were there, and (b) because they were cute. (She never met a Titleist she didn't like.) She always did like dimples... or, maybe she's a stork.

Hold me, touch me.

Yet another bird-related story drifted into the periphery of my consciousness a few days ago courtesy of Wired News. Their headline: Eggheads Invent Tele-Petting. What is this then, thought I, in the headpart of my self.
Well, perhaps it's easier to read it yourself. Some enterprising researchers have developed a cybernetic system to allow physical interaction over the internet. The system allows touching and feeling of animals or other humans in real time, but it's first being tried out on – chickens.
The story includes this charming quote:

"This is the first human-poultry interaction system ever developed," said professor Adrian David Cheok, the leader of the team, who has been developing the technology for nearly two years.

The pictures are great, by the way. Unfortunately I'm afraid this technology is going to revolutionize the porn industry. Again. (But science and medicine are also working on ways to do surgery remotely, so maybe it will be OK.)

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Aviary Sending Rare Bird Eggs to Russia: The National Aviary in Pittsburgh has sent fifteen eggs to Russia, twelve from the endangered red-crown crane and three from the threatened white-naped crane. The red-crowned crane is the third most endangered bird in the world and is native to Russia, China and Japan; only 4,900 – 5,400 white-naped cranes still live in the wild. Both species are threatened by loss of habitat because of human encroachment. Come on, cranes – go forth and multiply; reclaim your domain!

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DANGER! Grackles Attack Houstonians! Big black grackles are swooping down on people in downtown Houston, Texas and attacking lawyers, county clerks, and secretaries by dive-bombing upon their heads, hair, and backs...

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Scientists have recently made some wonderful discoveries about the songs of canaries. Their songs are apparently hard-wired, even in deaf canaries or canaries raised alone in soundproof boxes. (Terrifically unkind to keep a canary in a box, in my opinion.) LiveScience.com broke the news. You can hear samples here. Absolutely fascinating.

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And now for something completely different, except that it's still a bird, singing. (Shockwave video, mit sound.)

I really hate having my picture taken (reality is so depressing, I am so old) – so instead I fool around with any graphics site that lets one do so. Here's me, South Park style, as a Viking Christian in the forest:

OR... this is me, again South Parked, in a version my husband prefers – although I rarely wear my eyepatch and this one is on the wrong side, but heck he likes it:

Since he enjoyed my portraits so much I made one of him. This is the closest I could get to accurately depicting my Spousal Unit Bill of Bly:

Perhaps you too would like to South Parkify yourself, or someone you love. (Or do not love.)
Go here then.

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An oldie, but still a goodie: God's Total Quality Management questionnaire.

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Where do Lego™s come from? See for yourself. (Broadband connection advisable.)

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It would take too long to begin to describe this wonderful site, so I won't even try: Their Circular Life – Ah, bella Italia, bella technologia. (Thanks to Lindsay Marshall and his ever-lovely Bifurcated Rivets for this link, and the previous one, the Lego™ site, too.)

Oops – I almost mentioned the church. Next time perhaps... Meanwhile, feed the birds.


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Technorati Tags: birds, links of interest, odd links, South Park, science

One more time, with feeling...

"The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state."
– The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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A few days ago I ran across an organization and its web site which addressed many things dear to my heart, chief among them the worry that recent developments in these United States are serving to destroy the long tradition of separation between church and state which has long been a glory of this country.

The organization is the Christian Alliance for Progress: The Movement to Reclaim Christianity and Transform American Politics based in Jacksonville, Florida.

From the website:

The success of the Religious Right in appropriating the language of Christianity has led many people to become generally wary of religion in the public sphere and of Christianity in particular. The Religious Right has used the language of Christianity to promote an extreme and divisive political agenda that has helped polarize our nation. But foundational Christian values like compassion, justice and peace are largely absent from our political discussion. And there are millions of Christian Americans who share progressive views, or, at a minimum, are increasingly turned off by the extreme rhetoric and political agenda of the Religious Right.

The Christian Alliance for Progress is a national movement that started in Jacksonville, Florida among ordinary Americans who want to reclaim Christianity and change this current political picture. Members in the movement want to restore core values of Christianity while honoring diverse views about religion and Christian life. Many Americans, especially people of faith, are ready to hear from Christians who are tolerant, and who understand the many ways that our faiths impact our views of public life. The Christian Alliance advances a renewed, progressive vision of Gospel values and seeks to help Americans express this moral vision in our lives and in our politics.

A document entitled The Jacksonville Declaration appears on the site, and visitors who agree may sign on to the Declaration. Although it is not immediately clear to me to whom, or where, this Declaration will be presented, I think it is a worthy attempt at sanity in these seemingly insane times.

Here is the text of the Jacksonville Declaration:

The Jacksonville Declaration – An Open Letter

To The Political and Church Leaders of the Religious Right:

As responsible and patriotic Americans, we can be silent no longer. In light of the deepening polarization in our country's social and political life, we feel compelled to speak out to you in a spirit of sincerity.

For many people, your words and actions have identified Christianity with radical, far right politics. We believe that your use of Christianity has sown the seeds of deep discord in our nation and throughout the world. Hear some of your own words:

"You owe liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ."
– Church Leader Bob Jones
To George W. Bush after 2004 election

"I hope the Supreme Court will finally read the Constitution and see there's no such thing, or no mention, of separation of church and state in the Constitution."
– House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas)

"Our job is to reclaim America for Christ, whatever the cost. As the vice regents of God,we are to exercise godly dominion and influence…in short, over every aspect and institution of human society."
– Dr. D. James Kennedy
Coral Ridge Ministries

"…the liberal, anti-Christian dogma of the left has been repudiated…"
– Tony Perkins
Family Research Council

"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians …the ACLU, People For the American Way … I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen'."
– Rev. Jerry Falwell, on Pat Robertson's 700 Club
Discussing World Trade Center attacks

We must tell you now that you do not speak for us, or for our politics. We say "No" to the ways you are using the name and language of Christianity to advance what we see as extremist political goals. We do not support your agenda to erode the separation of church and state, to blur the vital distinction between your interpretation of Christianity and our shared democratic institutions. Moreover, we do not accept what seems to be your understanding of Christian values. We reject a Christianity co-opted by any government and used as a tool to ostracize, to subjugate, or to condone bigotry, greed and injustice.

If your politics flow from your faith, then we do not know the Jesus you claim to follow. We cannot imagine a Jesus who would say:

"You are strong and powerful; your ideals are noble. Make war to spread those ideals."
"The end is near - So it doesn't matter what you do to my Father's creation."
"Heal the sick - Provided they can pay."
"All are welcome at the table - As long as they are the same as we are."
"Follow me - And help me form a government to force others to follow."

Do you believe such statements truly reflect Christian or American values? Do these views follow what Jesus taught? Do you think it is genuinely American to steer our country toward a Christian theocracy? Is it Christian to foster intolerance? Is this the path to which Jesus leads us?

We say "No." Instead, we say "Yes" to values Jesus plainly and passionately practiced. Listen to his words:

"I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
– John 13:34-35

We hold up to all fellow Americans the heart of Jesus' teaching: his unwavering commitment to justice, compassion, responsibility, equality, and care "for the least of these". These are values Jesus taught, and they also serve among America's finest traditional values. Our political views flow from these values.

We also reaffirm a well-established American commitment to a clear separation of church and state. In your statements you often characterize America as a "Christian nation". We strongly disagree. As a nation of immigrants, America has been a land of freedom and diversity. Separation of church and state helps ensure liberty and justice for all Americans - not just those who are like-minded. Hear these words:

"The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state."
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

Know that you do not speak for us. We oppose so many of your words and deeds. But though we may disagree with you, we offer this declaration in a spirit of openness. We hope you will respond in kind. We call on you to stop dividing our country with your words and actions, and we invite you to turn to compassion and justice, values that Jesus lived.

In Truth and Faith,
Christian Alliance for Progress

[Add Your Voice]

If you agree, sign. If you're "mad as hell and won't take it anymore," write or call your Senator and/or Congressman, the White House... (the links to contact them are on this very web page in my links section on the right hand side). I have some nerve asking others to do this for I haven't done so yet, but I am going to.

Time to watch the news again. It's so bad for one's digestion, but....

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Tags: separation of church and state, religion, repudiation of the religious right

Syttende Mai, yashoor, yu bet yu.

HAPPY SYTTENDE MAI, EVERYBODY!

Oh shyoot, it suddenly occurs to me that not everybody will know what Syttende Mai is. Fewer still may care.
Besides the words meaning Seventeenth of May in Norwegian, today is Norway's National Day. Although 2005 is the centennial of Norway’s full independence, the country’s constitution dates back to May 17, 1814.

In Norway and in many cities here in the United States Norwegians and people of Norwegian ancestry march in goofy parades with floats and shout incomprehensibly and joyfully to each other. There's a parade in Bay Ridge (Brooklyn, NY)... I didn't go. Although there are darn few Norwegians left in Bay Ridge many come back for the parade. In Minnesota, North Dakota, and in Seattle, Washington Syttende Mai is a big deal.

I'm Norwegian on my mother's side. This means I've eaten a lot of cardamon, and that when I sing I do so loudly. My grandmother Signe Rognan (Amberson) immigrated to the U.S. early in the 1900s; so did my grandfather Leonard Amberson (but he started out from Norge as Lennart Ambrussen – a slight name change happened at New York's Ellis Island).

My grandparents ended up, under separate cover, in Rugby, North Dakota where they met, got married, and had three Norski-looking children: Leonard, my mother Ruth Signe, and Richard. Then the Dust Bowl stuff came, and they moved to Seattle, Washington to the Norwegian ghetto there, a noted hotbed of Lutheranism.

Grandma Signe never lost her strong northern Norwegian accent (Hammerfest-ian Old Norse) but Grandpa did. Even though Signe worked as a registered nurse, most of the people she knew or came into contact with spoke Norwegian and were Norwegian. (Norwegian-American, that is.)

I learned very little Norwegian from my mama's family. Grandma would scold me in Norsk – I remember a few words of that, and she taught me The Lord's Prayer in Norwegian (of which I only remember a few words).

What I did learn was Norwegian culture. I learned about Norwegian food – which is mostly white in color. Potatoes, fish, krumkaker, lefse, kransekaker, fattigmann, other baked goods, and the dreaded lutefisk.

My mother didn't like lutefisk either although everybody else in her family of origin did. (With egg or curry sauce no less.) From my mama I learned one of the two great eating lessons I still live by: Never eat anything that moves (or shakes) by itself.
(The other lesson, unrelated to the hell that is lutefisk, is not much like unto it, but is also important: Never eat anything bigger than your head.)

A nice recipe for lutefisk (besides the from-scratch one linked to above):

1. Get the lutefisk
2. Lay it on a pine board
3. Flatten with a meat cleaver
4. Salt and pepper it and pour on butter
5. Bake on board in oven for 30 minutes
6. Remove from oven and allow to cool
7. Throw out the lutefisk and eat the board

Lots of good Norwegian food recipes here by the way.

O heck – one more thing about lutefisk ... A hymn to the shivery fiske by Red Stangeland of Sioux Falls, South Dakota to be sung to the tune of “O Christmas Tree” (“O Tannenbaum”):

1. O Lutefisk, O Lutefisk, how fragrant your aroma,
O Lutefisk, O Lutefisk, you put me in a coma.
You smell so strong, you look like glue,
You taste just like an overshoe,
But lutefisk, come Saturday,
I tink I eat you anyvay.

2. O Lutefisk, O lutefisk, I put you in the doorvay.
I wanted you to ripen up just like they do in Norvay.
A dog came by and sprinkled you.
I hit him with my overshoe.
O lutefisk, now I suppose
I'll eat you while I hold my nose. (Continued...)

I am proud of my Norwegian heritage. I've been to Norway and loved being there. So beautiful... and the people are so kind. I didn't see any ruthless Viking behavior or Berserker behavior either when I was there, but to be fair it was a long time ago now.

In looking up things Norwegian I ran across a very interesting article (at least to me), “Being Norwegian in a Shrinking World: Reflections on Norwegian Identity” by Thomas Hylland Eriksen.

Our familial heritages, histories, and customs contribute so much to who we are. If we are good citizens of the world our varying heritages and individual ways of being are not matters for hubris but of delight, and to be shared.

Before Syttende Mai ends, join me in singing the Norwegian National Anthem. (Ja, vi elsker dette landet.) The MIDI file to sing along with is here; the lyrics (translated into Engelsk to metrically fit) are:

Norway, thine is our devotion,
Land of hearth and home,
Rising storm-scarr'd from the ocean,
Where the breakers foam.
Oft to thee our thoughts are wending,
Land that gave us birth,
And to saga nights still sending
Dreams upon our earth,
And to saga nights still sending
Dreams upon us on our earth

Men of Norway, be your dwelling
Cottage, house or farm,
Praise the Lord who all compelling
Sav'd our land from harm.
Not the valour of a father
On the battlefield
Nor a mother's tears, but rather
God our vict'ry sealed,
Nor a mother's tears, but rather
God for us our vict'ry sealed.

Norway, thine is our devotion,
Land of hearth and home,
Rising storm-scarr'd from the ocean,
Where the breakers foam.
As our fathers' vict'ry gave it
Peace for one and all,
We shall rally, too, to save it
When we hear the call,
We shall rally, too, to save it
When we hear, we hear the call.

Mangen takk.

Norway's Royal Coat of Arms, 1844 version

But[t] there are downsides to being Norwegian... Although Norwegians aren't nearly as goofy or silly as Swedes (for example) think they/we are, sometimes news reports do give one pause:

Thief Hopping Mad After Stealing 25 Left Shoes
Apr 8, 8:33 AM (ET)
OSLO (Reuters) - A thief who stole 25 shoes got a little less than he or she bargained for after realizing they were all for left feet.
The robber threw away the haul in disgust after breaking into a car in the Norwegian city of Bergen and finding a case full of women's shoes -- but no pairs. It belonged to a salesman who traveled with only one shoe of each type.

Woman shoplifter flees in wheelchair
May 18, 2005, first published Dec. 31, 2002 (Aftenposten.no)
A wheelchair-bound woman didn't let her handicap hinder her escape after she was spotted shoplifting in a western Norwegian town Monday. She simply gave full power to her motorized wheelchair and sped off, crashing through a glass door and literally shaking off pursuers along the way.
Shocked witnesses at the Co-op grocery store in Sandnes, outside Stavanger, described the incident as a scene taken right out of a Hollywood action film.

The drama began around 1:30pm, when a store security guard spotted the woman tucking food items into a bag. When she later cruised past the cash register line, without stopping to pay, he tried to stop her.

The woman clearly had other plans. Without hesitating, she powered past him and attempted to crash through one side of the store's double glass exit door. It held firm, so she backed up and tried crashing through the other side.

That worked. With glass splintering and flying in all directions, she made it through and took off through the parking lot, seemingly uninjured. [More...]

Somewhere on this computer I have another story saved about a Norwegian man who went home (slightly inebriated) to his little hut and lit a fire because he was cold. Unfortunately he used a pile of money, his savings, to set the fire with and burned up the equivalent of thousands of dollars. He felt pretty bad about this as I remember. Can't find the item.... must've burned it...

Oh – one more thing. Norwegians are generally unafraid of imbibing spirits. Here is what purports to be a traditional Norsk cure for a cold:

Aquavit is also considered useful for medicinal purposes, an essential ingredient in what I was once told is the Norwegian cure for the common cold. You get a bottle, a poster bed, and the brightest colored stocking cap you can find. You put the cap on the post at the foot of the bed, then get into bed and drink aquavit until you can't see the cap. I've never tried this, but it sounds as though it should work. – Peter Nelson

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And now, for absolutely no reason at all...

Badly drawn cats. Really.

A Game: aim at and hit cats and kittens with virtual rubber bands, reload, score points. Even though I truly love cats and have three of 'em, this is strangely satisfying. The cats there are far from defenseless.

Laughing Yoga dude (video). A bit odd.

Jesus Dress-Up
This site has been around for a long time... magnets version is available for sale ($14). Warning: some people will find this extremely distasteful.

Ditherati's mailing of May 13, 2005:

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D I T H E R A T I
see the digerati dither, daily

IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED, SELL IT ANYWAY

“In principle, you can only throw products onto the market and
then learn from your mistakes.”

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, who couldn't possibly be spending
enough to get things right the first time on his measly $6 billion
R&D budget, CNNmoney, 12 May 2005

http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/12/technology/personaltech/gates_cellphones.reut/

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Elske deg.

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Technorati Tags: dumb stuff, music, odd links, Syttende Mai, Norwegian-American

A mostly musical offering.

Monogram of Johann Sebastian Bach

Nicht Bach! Meer sollte er heissen: wegen seines unendlichen, unerschöpflichen Reichtums an Tonkombinationen und Harmonien.
Not "brook" [in German: Bach], but "sea" should he be called – because of his infinite, inexhaustible richness in tone combinations and harmonies.
– Ludwig van Beethoven

Wir sind alle Stümper gegen ihn.
We're all plodders compared to him.
– Robert Schumann

Studiert Bach! Dort findet ihr alles.
Study Bach, there you'll find everything.
– Johannes Brahms

Das ist doch einmal etwas, woraus sich was lernen lässt!
At last, this is something I could learn from!
– Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, upon hearing his first Bach composition.

The 98th annual Bach Festival of The Bach Choir of Bethlehem (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania) ended this past weekend. My husband Bill and one of our best friends, Liz Emmert, are both members of the Choir and are plumb tuckered out from all the singing. No matter how glorious the result, singing is hard work. The works performed at this year's Festival included Cantatas BWV 140, BWV 156, BWV 130, BWV 73, BWV 9, BWV 169, BWV 43, and two performances of the Mass in B Minor (BWV 232). [For titles and excellent information on all of Bach's works, see The J.S. Bach Home Page.]
In addition to the choral and solo cantatas, there were lectures, and performances of several instrumental sonatas, the Brandenburg Concertos No. 3 and 4, four French suites for harpsichord, and short gathering concerts of Bach chorales played by brass ensemble from on high in the tower of Packer Memorial Church on the grounds of Lehigh University.

The Festival is indeed festive, and is a proud tradition in Bethlehem. The Bach Choir of Bethlehem was founded in 1898 and is the oldest Bach Choir in America. The Choir gave the very first complete performances of The Mass in B Minor(BWV 232) and The Christmas Oratorio (BWV 248) in the United States.

The choir and orchestra performing Bach's B Minor Mass.

Johann Sebastian Bach

(1685 - 1750)

It is not necessary to be a religious person to be deeply moved by singing, performing, or hearing Bach's music. But if one is a religious person, specifically a Christian person, there are worlds of meaning there besides the immediately apparent beauty, sonority, and complexity of his works. Like any good story there is more to the story than merely what is on the page.
Bach was a profoundly theological being, deeply Lutheran and liturgical – and scholars have been investigating the "hidden" meanings he inserted into the structure of his canons and fugues, and the mathematical underpinnings of his works, for many years now – and these investigations continue.

There are many places on the Web where one can begin to explore the many layers of meaning in Bach's music. Here are just a few of my favorites:

Dr. Timothy Smith, of Northern Arizona University, has written and maintains many pages on J.S. Bach, and they are wonderful – carefully reasoned articles of great help to anyone interested in Bach at all. The main index provides links to most of his articles.

"Why Did Bach Write Canons?" is fascinating, if dense. An excerpt:

Chafe [in Tonal Allegory in the Vocal Music of J. S. Bach ] likens the allegorical canons of Bach's oeuvre with Lutheran paradoxa noting that they, too, are rooted in antithesis [...]. Bach's use of inversion, contrary motion, retrograde, major/minor and sharp/flat contrasts represented a microcosm of musical devices. But Bach's canons are more than compressed tonal materials. With enigmatical notations such as mi contra fa, concordia discors, cross/crown, and beginning/ending, Bach associates his canons with a peculiarly Lutheran dialectic in which antithesis (what Augustine called "antinomy") is a symbol for the cross of Christ. Thus Bach's canons may have stood for the affirmation of Lutheran precept as much, or more, than commentary on Baroque art.

Bach's Mass in B Minor as Musical Icon is a lecture originally given by Dr. Smith at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana which illustrates the iconic aspects and incarnational theology revealed in Bach's acknowledged masterwork.

See also: Intentionality and Meaningfulness in Bach's Cyclical Works.
Excerpt:

In the Mass in B-Minor Bach constructs a twenty-one-movement symmetry in which the Crucifixus is placed precisely between the Gratias and the Dona Nobis Pacem. Other than the repeat of the Hosanna (an essential component of this symmetry), the Gratias and Dona Nobis are the only movements in the B-Minor where a musical idea is repeated. The twenty-one movements begin in the Gloria and continue through the Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei to the end of the Mass. Corresponding movements on either side of the Crucifixus mirror key relationships, performance forces, use of cantus firmus, and compositional styles. The cruciform plan of the Mass is evidence that Bach conceived that work as a whole in spite of the fact that pieces of it were composed for different patrons and occasions, much of it borrowed from earlier works, and the completed Mass never performed during the composer's lifetime. [....]

On numerous occasions Bach puts himself into his music. In Contrapunctus XIV of the Art of Fugue, the third subject spells BACH. Two of canonic variations on vom Himmel hoch contain the BACH motive. The Kreuz und Becher aria from the St. Matthew Passion contains an amazing juxtaposition of the composer's name with the word Kreuz, in a context where textual associations make it clear that the composer himself is willing to pick up that cross and carry as the Savior did. Bernard Greenberg has observed that the theme of the bass aria BWV 87.1 Bisher habt ihr nichts gebeten in meinem Namen also contains the musical representation of Bach's Namen.

More than you really want(ed) to know about Bach and his works? Oh, just a little more....

A page of links to interesting articles concerning the meaning, and performance, of Bach's music.

Back to Dr. Smith, and his site on Das Wohltempierte Klavier (The Well-Tempered Clavier). Note: Shockwave and Broadband connection required. Also: click on "alternate entry via HTML" since the main entrance seems to be still under construction. Not only can you hear all the pieces of the Well-Tempered Clavier played (and very well, too) but you can follow the score measure by measure, watch the animations which reveal the structure of each piece in real time, and read accompanying essays if you so desire. Just letting them play is a delight too...

An article: Celebrating Bach's Legacy to the Church: After 250 Years, He Still Preaches Powerfully Through His Music, by Calvin R. Stapert.

Another nice Bach page.

Some quotes from the great Johann Sebastian Bach himself:

"I have always kept one end in view, namely . . . to conduct a well-regulated church music to the honor of God."

"Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God and the permissible delights of the soul."

"I was obliged to be industrious. Whoever is equally industrious will succeed . . . equally well."

"It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself."

"If you cannot please all by your art or your work, Satisfy the few: to please many is bad."

"I've not been allowed to do my work without opposition, and at present there is not the least appearance that things will improve... moreover, if I may say respectfully, modest as is my way of life, I've not enough to live on; with payment of rent and the purchase of essential goods."

"My present post amounts to about 700 thaler, and when there are rather more funerals than usual, the fees rise in proportion; but when a healthy wind blows, they fall accordingly..."

AD DEI SOLI GLORIA

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The Incredible Roll-Up Piano

To practice your Bach, or whatever, upon: the roll-up piano has four octaves; rolls up into its little case; is battery operated... Is this kewl or what? The non-MIDI version (list price $129.95 but available on E-Bay for a little more than half that) has been available for a while – the MIDI version (list price $249.95, but already seen on E-Bay and other places for less) ships May 28th.

Here's a review of the non-MIDI version.

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Listen to the world's oldest recording, made in 1878. From the site:

"Mere months after Edison's invention of the phonograph, inventor Frank Lambert shared Edison's vision of applying the new talking machine toward the development of a talking clock.
Realizing that soft tinfoil, which was the recording medium of the day, would not provide a lasting record (wax cylinders were still years away), Lambert (no relation to Thomas Lambert, inventor of the Lambert celluloid cylinder) apparently chose to experiment with a cylinder made of lead (see below). As a result, his early sound recording experiments can still be heard today after more than 120 years."

If you visit the site, listen to the many Edison cylinder recordings there – and buy one of their amazing CDs from the collection. The Hymns & Sacred Songs Collection (total playing time: 61:32) is $15.
(Orders also shipped outside the U.S.)

Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (of Gilbert & Sullivan) said of Edison's recording machine,
"I am astounded at the wonderful power you have developed – and terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music may be put on record forever."
So true. And yet...(?)

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"Listening to great music is a shattering experience, throwing the soul into an encounter with an aspect of reality to which the mind cannot ever relate itself adequately. Such experiences undermine conceit and complacency and even induce a sense of contrition and a readiness for repentence. I am neither a musician nor an expert on music. But the shattering experience of music has been a challenge to my thinking on ultimate issues. I spend my life working with thoughts. And one problem that gives me no rest is: do these thoughts ever rise to the heights reached by authentic music?"
– (Rabbi) Abraham Joshua Heschel

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Technorati Tags: J.S. Bach, music, links of interest, religion

A Doll's House of One's Own

When I remember my dreams (which is not often) they usually have something to do with houses or some other kind of sacred space. Houses are sacred space to me – they don't have to be grand or even the houses or apartments we wish we lived in. They not only contain the things we've accumulated over the years that mean a lot to us, as well as those things necessary – they provide a framework for the meaning of our lives. I'm pretty sure that my thinking on these things is influenced by having read and loved Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space: The Classic Look at How We Experience Intimate Places, still one of the best books I've ever read.

Like most children, when I was little I loved to make little spaces for myself, secret spaces in full view where I could hide or be my most secret self. A card table with a big blanket over it was perfect. The hollow under a rose bush's arms – absolutely lovely. The place under the stairs... Tents are good, and who doesn't like a good yurt?

When I've flown anywhere (in a plane, by the way – so far), I love peering down at the grids of houses, each little box containing a life or lives. I wonder about who is there, who lives there, how life is for her or him or them. We are all so alike and yet so different.

The house we live in was built around 1830. It was the original Rectory for St. Paul's (Memorial) Episcopal Church and built on land from Cornelius Vanderbilt (a Staten Islander). It's falling down in some places but it has wood floors, fireplaces, thick walls of real plaster lathing, and was built to last. With some loving care and a small fortune it could be restored to its full Federal-style glory, but that isn't going to happen under our watch. Neither will I ever win the Suzy Homemaker of the Year award. Just so you know.

This is all to say that the other day (May 10th to be exact) I ran into a wonderful link during a web foray that I find completely delightful I think I got the link from Romanesko's Obscure Store & Reading Room. Yup, I did – I just checked.

The link pointed to an amazing company in Iowa City, Iowa, The Tumbleweed Tiny House Company. The owner and builder, Jay Shafer, writes there:

My name is Jay Shafer, and I live in a house smaller than some people’s bathrooms. I call my tiny home Tumbleweed. My decision to inhabit just 100 square feet arose from some concerns I had about the impact a larger house would have on the environment, and because I just do not want to maintain a lot of unused or unusable space. Tumbleweed meets all of my domestic needs without demanding much in return. The simple, slower lifestyle my home affords is a luxury for which I am supremely grateful.

Since completing the construction of Tumbleweed in 1999, I have continued to make little buildings. How each house gets used depends on its occupant’s particular needs. What one person would enjoy as a quiet studio in their backyard, another couple might choose to inhabit as a full-time residence. What some people see as the perfect weekend hideaway in the country, others will use as a beautiful free-standing addition to their existing home for accommodating an elderly parent, an adult child, guests, or as office space.

Every structure is made-to-order to ensure that each client’s aesthetic and practical needs are met. This portfolio represents just a small sampling of what I can build. If you are thinking about a little dwelling but do not see exactly what you want on these pages, let me know so that I can make it for you.

And look at the magnificent work he does...


The Cross Gable

The Front Gable

Aah... tiny places to dream in and fill with thought... Perhaps a writing hut, or huts? One for my Bill and one for me within shouting distance of each other, with Dixie™ cups with strings strung between to communicate to each other quickly with when we're too lazy to get up or too tuckered to shout. A guest room for those guests who might prefer more solitude than they get with us in our house (which we've long called The Blytherings by the way, hence in part the name of this blog. We really wanted to name our house Blythering Heights, but since we're nestled in a little valley sort of that was right out.)?

I think I am very very fond of this Jay Shafer. Visit his lovely site – you'll be glad you did.

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An essay entitled "Chaos and the Arts, Magic and Medicine" by Margaret Grimes, a landscape painter, I found very interesting (which I forgot to include on these pages yesterday) can be found here. The html is a little odd – but maybe that's because it appears on the web site of a Colombian gastroenterological journal (its July-September 2000 issue).

Off to dream a bit. You too, ok?

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O their Papa... to me he's not so wonderful.

I am not a Roman Catholic, just to be clear. But I have always depended upon the kindness of Jesuits. (Well, most of them I've met anyway, or those whose writings I have read.) I admire the tradition of scholarship, spirituality, and service both to the church and the world that is the hallmark of the Society of Jesus (S.J.). My husband Bill even teaches a course for Fordham University, also known as The Jesuit University of New York, which is only one of the many fine Jesuit academic institutions in the USA.

Long ago now I was the associate editor for a theological quarterly. I adore theological or churchly magazines. One of my favorites is America: The National Catholic Weekly, a wonderful journal of insightful thought and opinion.

Jesuits have always been active in communications, not only communication through Word and Sacrament as priest-theologians or evangelists, but also as writers, editors, and producers. The web site of the Society of Jesus in the USA, in the section on Ministries, states:

Since St. Ignatius bought a printing press in 1556, the Jesuits have always been involved in communications through popular media. American Jesuits, under the leadership of the Jesuit Conference, produce several national projects of wide interest: America, a national weekly journal of opinion; Company, a quarterly magazine about Jesuit service; Theological Studies, a prestigious theological quarterly; The National Jesuit News, a monthly newspaper, reports activities and opinions of American Jesuits throughout the world; and "Contact," a weekly radio program profiling individuals and organizations who have developed grass roots projects to combat poverty.

The Institute of Jesuit Sources publishes important works on Jesuit history and spirituality. Many Jesuits teach communications at the university level, and others are involved in independent production works.

Jesuits also have a strong presence on the World Wide Web with academic and personal sites. The assistancy sponsors a general information site (www.jesuit.org) as well as experiential sites on spirituality and social and international ministries.

It was therefore with deep sadness and some bitterness that I read that Fr. Thomas J. Reese, S.J., the editor of America for the last seven years, was forced to resign under pressure from the Vatican and Pope Benedict XVI. (More).

This is the brief announcement which appeared in the People section of America:

Father Thomas Reese leaves America magazine

WASHINGTON (CNS) – Jesuit Father Thomas Reese announced May 6 that he is leaving America magazine June 1 after seven years as its editor in chief. Jesuit Father Drew Christiansen, an associate editor since 2002, who is widely known for his work on Catholic social teaching and international justice and peace issues, is replacing him. America is a New York-based national Catholic weekly magazine of news and commentary run by the U.S. Jesuits. "Father Christiansen is an ideal candidate to take over the reins at America magazine," Father Reese said in a statement. "He has wide experience, editorial expertise and a deep spiritual witness that will serve our publication well." Father Christiansen said, "Father Reese greatly improved the magazine, adding news coverage, color and the Web edition. His technical expertise, in this age of new media, will be greatly missed." In his statement he added, "By inviting articles that covered different sides of disputed issues, Father Reese helped make America a forum for intelligent discussion of questions facing the church and the country today."

Fr. Thomas J. Reese, S.J.

If you watched the coverage on TV of the death of Pope John Paul II, or of the conclave which chose Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger as the new Pope, or the outdoors service at which Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, you probably saw and heard Fr. Thomas Reese, S.J. He provided excellent commentary during the weeks in Rome for many news organizations and did so with perspicuity and gentle humor.

This is what Eugene Cullen Kennedy has to say regarding Fr. Reese's termination:

The Vatican Forced Editor Out Because It Could
By Eugene Cullen Kennedy

Eugene Cullen Kennedy, a longtime observer of the Roman Catholic Church, is professor emeritus of psychology at Loyola University in Chicago and author of Cardinal Bernardin's Stations of the Cross, published by St. Martin's Press.

(UNDATED) Many observers are puzzled that the Vatican should force the mild and moderate Jesuit priest Thomas Reese to resign as editor of America, one of the nation's oldest and most respected Catholic magazines. Father Reese is not a theologian but a political scientist and he and his associate editors have offered admirably balanced discussions of the great issues of interest not only to Catholics but to all persons concerned about the moral issues of our age. That, of course, is what made Father Reese the perfect target for an intervention aimed less at him individually than at theologically sophisticated Catholics collectively.

Several Roman Catholic friends have told me that under the papacy of John Paul II that the Jesuits were "out" and Opus Dei was "in." Pope John Paul II canonized the founder of Opus Dei, Fr. Josemaría Escrivá, in 2002.

Opus Dei describes itself as "a personal Prelature of the Catholic Church that helps ordinary lay people seek holiness in and through their everyday activities, especially through work." Pope Benedict XVI seems to view Opus Dei very favorably too, but many Roman Catholics ordained, religious, and lay do not.

There are many sites on the web concerning Opus Dei. This one tries to present a balanced view; this one does not.

It is interesting to note that America magazine published an article which was highly-critical of Opus Dei in their issue of February 25, 1995 (before Fr. Reese's tenure as editor) written by James Martin, S.J. Wherever one stands re Opus Dei, the article and subsequent responses from Opus Dei Prelature's Director of Communications William Schmitt and Fr. Martin make, umm, interesting reading.

Allow me a Basil Fawlty moment... (Do remember Basil Fawlty please, the inept hotel manager played by former Monty Python-ite John Cleese in the British TV comedy Fawlty Towers.)

In one of my favorite episodes, Basil, under the influence of a soporific or some similar medicine, repeatedly insults a small group of his German hotel guests who are attempting to eat dinner. His behavior is unforgivable, and well, hilarious. At one point, after making about fifty horrible Hitler references, including referring to a desired prawn cocktail as an Eva Braun cocktail, he whispers a warning to a member of his staff: "Don't mention The War. I nearly did..."

That may seem like a strange way of introducing the next item, but that's the way I think. When I think that is.

When Cardinal Ratzinger was elected Pope there were many words written all over the world about his enforced membership in the Hitler Jugend, as well as his service in the German military. Ratzinger certainly was no confirmed Nazi, and people all over the world reacted to these newspaper and TV reports with distaste that the media would sink to such a level. But with all the pomp of the Pope John Paul II's funeral, Ratzinger's election and investiture as Pope Benedict XVI being over now some further investigations into Joseph Ratzinger's life and his statements are surfacing.

The Chronicle of Higher Education just published (May 13, 2005 issue) The Pope's Sins of Omission by Carlin Romano concerning these matters.

More Pope news: Pope says being German makes him open to dialogue

It's far too early to tell what Pope Benedict XVI will do or say, or how his papacy will develop. As an Anglican/Episcopalian I do admit I am worried however – worried about the future of ecumenism, worried for AIDS's further rampage through Africa and other countries throughout the world, worried for women, for homosexual persons – deeply worried for many reasons. There is always prayer. Truly.

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Well this hasn't exactly been a laugh riot so far, has it?

Hmmm... let's see.... How about this?

It came from The Nation.
A few years ago they did a picture of W as MAD Magazine's Alfred E. Newman and it was such a big hit it seems they were moved to do it again. This is the new one, with its new advisory button. The web site said "Download it and print it." This is sort of like printing... isn't it?


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P.S. Well, I just noticed that my Technorati tags included "puppy." "Puppy" is the default tag one writes over in ecto. Be that as it may, here's your puppy if you came here looking for one:

Technorati Tags: Fr. Thomas Reese, Jesuit, media, Opus Dei, puppy, religion, Roman Catholic Church, The Pope

Spiraling out of control.

The Whirlpool Galaxy, maker of stars (15th anniversary Hubble telescope photo, NASA)

Genesis (Bereshit)

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

We are science junkies in this house. My husband Bill and I love cosmology, physics for non-physicists, and learning of new discoveries in space and of the nature of time. We read about string theory and are not a bit ashamed. I completely fail to see why those of a more fundamentalist bent than I in things religious seem to find the discoveries and conjectures of science so threatening. If anything these things increase my faith, granting the briefest glimpse of the workings of the One I know as God in creation.

We even went so far as to name one of our cats (long-deceased now, alas) Weak Boson, after boson(s), a particle which mediates between the strong and the weak force. Weaky once ate an entire catnip bush. We found her, spiral-eyed and terrified, under the deck outside. She was never the same again – but we don't think it happened because of her name.


Triskelion, medieval

The creation story in Genesis is our story, our myth in the true meaning of the word myth. Myth does not mean false. The creation myths of peoples all over this world throughout human history have striking similarities. A lot of them start with The Big Nothing and then there is The Big Something.

No matter how many books or articles I read, or how closely I meditate on Scripture, I often think of the creation of the Universe, or the Big Bang, as God's Laughter. God had an idea and laughed All into being.

A few years ago I ran into a book I simply had to have. This happens all too regularly, but I'm working on it. The book was (and is) God's Laughter: Physics, Religion, and the Cosmos by Gerhard Straguhn. "Dang," I thought, "...he stole my book idea." But then I remembered "there is nothing new under the sun" and "of the making of books there is no end" and felt a lot better. (Only kidding. I do know that the idea that God may have laughed the world into existence is an ancient one found all over the world. The book isn't really about that anyway – but it's well worth reading.)

...which leads me to another much-loved book, Sudden Glory: Laughter as Subversive History by Barry Sanders. Here is the first paragraph of this graceful and delightful book:

In the beginning was the Laugh. That is how the world comes to be, according to an Egyptian alchemical papyrus dating from around the third century B.C. God utters not one word, not a single syllable, in the act of Creation. For the Egyptian Creator, words and sentences will come much later. "Let There Be" resounds with too much authority. The first Egyptian god knows another, more lively and basic way into Creation. He confronts Chaos and laughs it off, delivering a world of joy and exuberance into the light: "When God laughed, seven gods were born to rule the world.... When he burst out laughing there was light.... When he burst out laughing the second time the waters were born; at the seventh burst of laughter, the soul was born." Compared to this god's bellowing laughter, the afflatus serpentis, the envious hiss of the serpent, sounds like an old tire giving up its air. Two different cosmogonies, two different kinds of air. Whenever an ancient Egyptian laughed, he or she automatically cleared the air, and joyously recreated the world anew.

The phrase sudden glory for laughter comes from Leviathan by the British philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), specifically from Chapter 6: Of The Interiour Beginnings Of Voluntary Motions; Commonly Called The Passions. And The Speeches By Which They Are Expressed:

Sudden glory, is the passion which maketh those Grimaces called LAUGHTER; and is caused either by some sudden act of their own, that pleaseth them; or by the apprehension of some deformed thing in another, by comparison whereof they suddenly applaud themselves. And it is incident most to them, that are conscious of the fewest abilities in themselves; who are forced to keep themselves in their own favour, by observing the imperfections of other men. And therefore much Laughter at the defects of others is a signe of Pusillanimity. For of great minds, one of the proper workes is, to help and free others from scorn; and compare themselves onely with the most able.

Sudden Dejection Weeping. On the contrary, Sudden Dejection is the passion that causeth WEEPING; and is caused by such accidents, as suddenly take away some vehement hope, or some prop of their power: and they are most subject to it, that rely principally on helps externall, such as are Women, and Children. Therefore, some Weep for the loss of Friends; Others for their unkindnesse; others for the sudden stop made to their thoughts of revenge, by Reconciliation. But in all cases, both Laughter and Weeping, are sudden motions; Custome taking them both away. For no man Laughs at old jests; or Weeps for an old calamity.

Good old Hobbes. The sudden glory that is laughter can simply be the result of delight and not due one whit to what one has done one's self or from any feelings of superiority. One wonders if Hobbes ever met a baby, for example. And lots of us, even Women and Children, laugh at old jests and weep for old calamities all the time. But no man (a guy thing)? Ok, men – I know, I know, hush.
(The real Calvin and the real Hobbes were probably not a heck of a lot of fun at parties. I'll take the cartoon versions, ok?)

Thomas Hobbes, party animal.

It's taken me two days to figure out what I wanted to blog about... and I still haven't gotten to a point.

Maybe this is it:

Whatever it was, the moment of Creation was a Singularity. As in, a point, a very big nothing. (See? There's the point.) Since we now know that Edwin Hubble (the scientist) was right, that the Universe is expanding, and that Albert Einstein seems to have been largely correct too, there are a lot of folks who are talking about the Next Singularity.

Is this a thing to laugh about? Maybe, maybe not.

Mandelbrot set fractal image

The Developmental Spiral — An Unexplained Physical Phenomenon
A consideration of accelerating cycles of developmental emergence.

What is it about the spiral shape that human mind finds so intellectually and visually enticing?
Has the universe tuned us to develop a deep intuitive understanding of its importance?

While my own best current intuition expects a 2060 A.D. singularity, Vernor Vinge, Ray Kurzweil, Marvin Minsky, Richard Coren, James Wesley, Damien Broderick, Robin Hansen, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Nick Bostrom, and a number of other careful thinkers have proposed a range of ETA's between 2020 and 2140, with 2020-2060
presently representing the majority of predictions, clustering around a 2040 mean. [....]

Read the material on the pages linked to above, and see what you think. I find it all quite fascinating – even if it does go on (and on) a bit.


Ancient Peruvian rock art

Aboriginal Alaskan pictograph

Meanwhile, the future of The Hubble Telescope has been in question. President Bush announced a few months ago that he didn't want it to be funded anymore or kept operational through repair. Scientists and interested persons all over the world rose vociferously to the Hubble's defense, and now it looks like NASA's new Administrator Mike Griffin is doing all he can to save the Hubble.

The Hubble does a lot more than take stunning pictures for us all to ooh and aah at and for people like me to put on their blog pages.... (ahem, see top of this entry).

Dr Stephen Beckwith, in charge of NASA's Hubble space telescope's science missions, notes its role in continuing observations of the expansion of the Universe and, in particular, its acceleration.
Hubble has to helped show that the acceleration is in response to some unknown force called "dark energy," which Beckwith described as being "probably the most important discovery in physics in 100 years."
With further research, he believes we will learn a great deal more about dark energy's role in the cosmos.
Dr. Beckwith also thinks Hubble is uniquely placed to search for extrasolar planets – planets outside our solar system – and to assess their potential to support life.

NASA Prepares for Possible Shuttle Mission to Save Hubble
NASA Bows to Pressure to Save Hubble
Appeal to save Hubble telescope

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The dimming of the day?

Here is an older posting from Metafilter.com:

"January 14, 2005 Global dimming.
It's official. Particulate pollution in the air has decreased the amount of sunlight reaching the earth. How much? A fraction of a percent? Try 10% globally over the past 50 years. Worse yet, global dimming is thought to be counteracting CO2 and its greenhouse effect, lessening the worldwide temperature increase called global warming. Why's that bad? Because, in the coming decades, particulate pollution is expected to level off, while CO2 emissions are expected to rise strongly, multiplying the effects of global warming as we know it. "That means a temperature rise of 10 degrees Celsius by 2100 could be on the cards, giving the UK a climate like that of North Africa, and rendering many parts of the world uninhabitable."

...BUT WAIT... THERE'S MORE...

The New York Times
May 6, 2005
Earth Has Become Brighter, but No One Is Sure Why
By KENNETH CHANG

Reversing a decades-long trend toward "global dimming," Earth's surface has become brighter since 1990, scientists are reporting today.

The brightening means that more sunlight - and thus more heat - is reaching the ground. That could partly explain the record-high global temperatures reported in the late 1990's, and it could accelerate the planet's warming trend.

"We see the dimming is no longer there," said Dr. Martin Wild, a climatologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and the lead author of one of three papers analyzing sunlight that appear in today's issue of the journal Science. "If anything, there is a brightening."

Some scientists have reported that from 1960 to 1990, the amount of sunshine reaching the ground decreased at a rate of 2 percent to 3 percent per decade. [....]

This world is amazing, y'know.

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On the other hand, the creation of a new black hole was detected on Monday (May 9).

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Attention all Mac OS X users – you felines of varying types: xSkyDesk is a really beautiful thing, speaking of things.
What does it do? It intrigues and fascinates – would that we could all say the same.
From the website:
"xSkyDesk is a sky simulation at your location on the Earth within your desktop. The simulation accurately portrays the sky during the day and the stars at night. The main goal is the synchronicity between what you see outside on a clear day and the simulation. In this way, the Great Outdoors can be brought inside and seen through your computer. While experiencing the outdoors is preferable, most computer workers do not have the opportunity to even marginally experience the sky overhead."

You specify your latitude and longitude (it helps you find yours) and then you can adjust it for light pollution conditions in your area. Settings range between rural and large city.
(Sorry – no Windows version.)

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Tired of the same old search engine? Try Grokker – graphical results, or as The New York Times says in their article, "Your Internet Search Results, in the Round."
Grokker was named for the word "grok" coined by the writer Robert A. Heinlein in his award-winning science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land. To "grok" something is to understand it almost immediately, in an intuitive way. (Gosh I feel old.)

I've always been fond of Kartoo too. And Toto too. Oops.

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Enough mit der Serious. Look what some marvelous person has made.
THE BARBIE DOLL USB DRIVE.


Come on, admit you want one.

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ACTION FIGURES AKA DOLLS TO WATCH OUT FOR:

I always hated dolls. Even when I was very young. This depressed my mother no end, who loved dolls and could hardly wait to have a daughter to play dolls with. She got me instead – and I was her first child.
Being a person who did not give up easily, she bought me dolls anyway. Besides the usual baby dolls and horrors like that she bought me a lot of small dolls in national costumes from around the world. These she put on a small shelf high up on the wall directly across from my bed. These forlorn and foreign things were the last thing I saw at night and the first thing I saw when I woke up. So, I threw them all in the garbage every day. They miraculously reappeared, always, as if nothing had ever happened.

It's only when I hit my 40s that I started to like dolls. But they have to be odd dolls, or nasty ones, or strange. The Herobuilders/Vicale Corporation makes dolls for people like me.

Here's their newest doll, a rush job I'm guessing, due to its extreme topicality:

THE RUNAWAY BRIDE DOLL ($24.95)

You can also get Condi Rice, Hillary Clinton, Jesus (yes), Michael Moore, Bush, Clinton, Putin, Chirac, Schroeder..,
Most dolls are priced between $24.95 - $29.95. (They will also make custom dolls.) The girls are here, the boys (mostly) here.
Warning: A few dolls found here may offend some sensibilities.

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Off to climb through holes.

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Technorati Tags: acceleration, cosmology, dumb stuff, Episcopal, odd links, religion, science, singularity

I remember Mama remembering.

Mother's Day, 2005

I called my mother today to wish her a Happy Mother's Day. No doubt many of you, or most of you, did so too – at least those of you whose mother is still living. My mother, Ruth Signe (Amberson) Griffin, has Alzheimer's disease. She lives in a nursing home near Boston, Massachusetts close to where my sister Lisa, her husband Dave, and their two children Katie and Adam live. She has no idea from moment to moment where she is, nor how she got there.

So much of what we call intelligence is a function of memory. What difference does it make how educated you may be, or how much you have been taught or have learned if and when you forget it all? ...when words and concepts themselves escape your frantic grasp?

I spend a lot of time thinking about this. I call my beloved Ruthie as often as I can. I go up and visit her when time and finances allow. And I feel guilty – for my calls and my visits are not nearly often enough. I still need her terribly. I need to hold her, to smell her neck, to see her startlingly blue eyes, her soft hair, her Norwegian-American square head.

My mother was a brilliant woman. For most of her life she read at least five books a week, largely literary works of the kind referred to as trade fiction. Our Ruthie always did The New York Times crossword puzzle in ink without mistakes, and read faster than anyone I've ever known, retaining everything. She was a noted dramatic soprano and sang with Eileen Farrell in the Bach Aria Group, with Arturo Toscanini for those magical concerts on TV, was one of the original members of the Robert Shaw Chorale and the Fred Waring Chorale... She sang opera; she taught voice at various colleges. But first and foremost she was and is Mama to her children: me, Lisa, and Richard.

Not many mothers sit you down on their laps to slowly turn through art folios when you're five years old. Mine sure did. She would point lovingly to the various plates and ask me in her softest voice, “Look, Debbie. Isn't that amazing? See how Roualt makes things look like stained-glass windows?” We worked our way through Cezanne, van Gogh, the Flemish Masters, Picasso... She didn't do this to make a little snot of me. (That I did all by myself. oops.) No – it was simply her wonder and delight. She wanted to share it with me, to have me see what she saw and love what she loved.

She read and sang me to sleep with all the usual children's books and songs – but also with S.J. Perelman, Dorothy Parker, and Max Beerbohm. She loved words, and we played with them together – tossing them back and forth like ping-pong balls.

She was also good at embarrassing her children. (Always a good idea in my opinion. Humbling and humanizing.) When we'd go on day trips to Manhattan, usually to some museum or fancy-shmancy restaurant or store, she'd get into the revolving doors and refuse to come out, circling and circling and circling, laughing until we were so embarrassed we thought we'd die right there on the spot.

My mother was often engaged as a soloist for major concerts. There was one particular concert I will always remember. (I hope and pray.) Mama had been hired to sing various arias by Wagner and Verdi with full orchestra. She was nervous about it – a concert like this is a nerve-wracking thing. She got dressed in one of her long formal gowns, a green satin one, and vanished into the bathroom to put the finishing touches on her hairdo. We heard some shouting, but then it stopped. All was quiet until at last she opened the door. Knowing we were waiting to see her, she slowly and regally descended the stairs to where we were standing.

The dress was smashing – but we already knew that; we'd seen it before for other concerts. But her hair...!

Her entire head was covered with white foam. In her best grand dame speaking voice she calmly announced,
“I just sprayed my entire head with Dow™ bathroom cleaner.”

By the time the concert started she passed for normal again and sang like an angel. Thinking about it over the years what impresses me most about that day was her decision to use calamity to amuse us. She must have been a frazzled wreck – but the opportunity for laughter, as usual, won out.

Mama taught me my prayers by patient repetition and gentle coaching. She told me that once, when I was about four years old, she was passing my bedroom door and heard me praying The Lord's Prayer by myself like this:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. That's right honey. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. That's right honey. And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. That's right honey. [....]

About ten years ago mama came to a special service I was singing for as part of my then-extant musical duo, The Miserable Offenders. Mom and I stood next to each other for the non-singing parts of the service. When The Lord's Prayer rolled around I put the “That's right honey”s back in, quietly. She shook delightfully with repressed laughter, and tried desperately to behave. I stayed totally calm, no expression on my face.

She still remembers that story. It is old enough and deep enough that it has not yet been strangled by the encroaching neurofibrillary tangles of Alzheimer's. Intelligence, memory: these may go. Emotional intelligence endures. When people have asked me about my mother, for they know we are extremely close, the best description I have ever been able to give is: She is Love Walking.

She is still Love Walking. So much is gone, is going – but Love remains. I sit and cry after our phone calls, those Mobius strips of repeating questions and answers immediately forgotten. But God is with her, as close as her elbow.

The daily losses grow greater. Nouns are starting to elude her, verbs too. My siblings and I are full of sadness and dread.

There will come a day when she no longer recognizes my voice on the telephone. There will come a day when she won't recognize me when I visit her.
I tell myself I'm ready for it. I'm not.

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Technorati Tags: Christianity, Episcopal, Mother's Day, Alzheimer's disease, religion

Sloganeering, slogans, slow-going.

Yesterday was Ascension Day. I wish I could say that I went to church, but I did not. I have always loved Ascension Day – the services are usually beautiful; the music grand. When in Europe I always look for representations of the Ascension, especially those that are painted or tiled in the domes or vaulting which show only Jesus' feet from below as he vanishes into heaven.

The blog Philocrites had a link yesterday to a wonderful Ascension Day related story:

Unitarian Ascension Day: Dedicate an elevator!

Coincidence? You be the judge: The venerable Unitarian Universalist church in Harvard Square has just completed installing an elevator to make all five levels of its facility accessible to people who can't climb stairs. The ribbon-cutting is this afternoon – and today, in the Western Christian calendar, happens to be the Feast of the Ascension.

Yesterday, May 5th, was also Cinco de Mayo (like, duh), the date the Mexicans defeated the French at the battle of Puebla in 1862. It was also the Danish religious philosopher Søren Kierkegaard's birthday (he's a fave rave of mine – happy birthday ol' Sorehead!), and Nelly Bly's birthday as well. Not my Nelly Bly (Elinor Whitely Bly, daughter of my husband), but Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman, the journalist and adventurer known as Nelly [alt: "Nellie"] Bly. (She is buried at Trinity Cemetery in uptown Manhattan by the way. Not our Nelly Bly – she's abundantly alive in Rockland County and delighting in her new baby Elijah.)

Today, May 6, is the anniversary of the Hindenburg disaster in Lakehurst, NJ (1937).

I warned you I reallly like "On This Day" thingies. As is said by the Russian ambassador Alexi de Sadesky in the film Dr. Strangelove, "my source was ....The New York Times." But there are so many sources for everything nowadays. "Everything everywhere all the time."is a slogan my husband Bill, our friends Lizzie and Bill, and I use for our putative think-tank The Center for Peripheral Studies.

MoveOn.org just sent out an appeal for people to sign a petition to be delivered to Republican Senate Leader Bill Frist and Majority Leader of the House Tom DeLay (hmm – his site won't connect. Odd... Some kind of delay.) to publicly condemn the widely-publicized televised comments of Christian Coalition founder the Rev. Pat Robertson. In addition to his judgment that federal jurists were a more serious threat to America than "a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings" and that Muslims were unfit to hold federal judgeships, he also said "all Muslims want to kill us."

You, like me, may have gotten many copies of MoveOn's appeal in your inbox. But in case you didn't, here is the full text of the petition:

TO: Republican Senate Leader Bill Frist and Majority Leader Tom DeLay
FROM: (Your Name and Email)
SUBJECT: Reject Pat Robertson

Dear Senator Frist and Congressman DeLay,

Pat Robertson’s comments on national television crossed the line. It is simply unacceptable in our democracy to claim that judges you disagree with pose a worse threat to our country than the civil war, the Nazis or "a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings." We demand that you publicly condemn these comments, and all similar examples of hate speech targeting American judges. It is up to you to stop this campaign of intimidation.

(Your signature and personal note will be delivered in a compiled format with the thousands of others who sign this petition.)

Just how much Bill Frist and Tom Delay will care about this petition remains to be seen. Both have been quite clear on their positions re the federal judiciary, but the comments of Pat Robertson were, as usual, pretty insane.

Please know that I read other things besides The New York Times... but this is from The New York Times. Op-Ed columnist Frank Rich makes the case that "Justice Sunday" shown on cable April 24th was "humbug," and nothing more than an attack on homosexuals.

Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church Frank Griswold has taken fellow U.S. bishops to task for asking the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to intervene in the ongoing dispute over homosexuality.

Recently Microsoft tried to withdraw its support for a gay rights bill before the Washington State Senate. The Rev. Ken Hutcherson has taken credit for "forcing" Microsoft to act the way it did. After taking a lot of heat, Microsoft subsequently announced they were "reconsidering their position."
It seems the wait is over. Steve Ballmer issued this press release today.

Meanwhile, in another part of the vineyard, Bishop V. Gene Robinson (Diocesan, New Hampshire) gave the sermon at an interfaith service celebrating what some have called the nation's first gay rights demonstration.



File under Department There Will Always Be An England:
Nik Roope, of London, England, grew tired of making cups of tea for his co-workers after nobody ever made tea for him. So he developed a website, Teabuddy. Truly social software.

Aren't these great new postage stamps? They were released by the United States Postal Service on May 4th. The stamps honor four outstanding scientists: thermodynamicist Josiah Willard Gibbs, geneticist Barbara McClintock, mathematician John von Neumann, and physicist and noted bongo-player Richard P. Feynman. Avoid the lines! (heh heh) Order online.

The Flynn Effect (No, not Errol.)
Believe it or not, in spite of everything going to Sheol in a handbasket, IQs all over the world are rising. Wired's article title: "Dome improvement."

Terrible Terrible Terrible News
No more "Louie Louie" for you, Blossomtime Festival.

The poop on outsourcing. Parents of college-age children, be advised.

Yo – don't go there. Really. Just don't go.

You're still here? Well then – this will put you right off your feed. The internet is a disgusting thing.


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Follies under the light of the waning crescent moon.

A girlwoman like me does not live by the separation of church and state alone. Sometimes hours go by without my poking around to find out what's happening in the Church. And I haven't even blogged about the cats of Bly either. Yet. Their names are Maud, Galway, and Lucy, by the way. They are bad today so why mention them.

So it's time to cast some more collected links upon the waters in hopes that you will splash around with them.

I am on record as not being overly fond of sports. I don't mind watching sports once in a while, but personally engaging in them is right out. Gymnastics is good, especially every four years. But from time to time even I can get interested, almost enthused – that is, if the sport is diverting enough.

I've been following the burgeoning of the sport known as Extreme Ironing. Wikipedia's entry on Extreme Ironing is enough to get you started on learning about this emerging sport, but here's a fairly-official website as well. Do watch the promo movie for exciting footage.



Most extreme ironers seem to be men. This confirms what I've long suspected – that men will iron happily as long as it's dangerous. The chance of a small hand burn is not nearly enough to set most men to ironing, no matter how wrinkly their shirts may be.

The extreme sports movement is not new of course. There are plenty of extreme sports, some might say even more than enough of them. I am heartened to see that Extreme Ironing seems to have emboldened the burgeoning of another extreme sport of a similar kind, that of Extreme Accounting.

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It's prom season again, or will be shortly, judging by the number of ugly white stretch Hummers I see lumbering about here on Staten Island. What do you do if your child doesn't have a prom date? Or if it's Bring Your Daughter (or Son) to Work day and you don't have any children?

Why you go to your friendly Internet and visit Rent My Son or Rent My Daughter of course! The company seems perfectly legit – and the rented children seem to have a good time.

From the website:

[RentMySon] [RentMyDaughter] is a subsidiary of ChildNet Services, with its corporate headquarters in San Diego, CA. In addition, we also maintain 4 regional offices across the United States.

[RentMySon] [RentMyDaughter] provides safe and trustworthy child-rental services in multiple metropolitan areas. Our service area is growing every year and we are on target to provide services in 50 cities by the end of 2006. <....>

We pride ourselves in being a one-of-a-kind company with a near-perfect track record. We are constantly evaluating our procedures to be sure we are offering a 100% safe environment for everyone involved.

Our goal is to provide reliable child-rental services in a fun and safe environment. We strive to make customer satisfaction a priority. Feel free to contact us with any cares or concerns. We thank you for your past and continued business.

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It's not considered polite to point out other people's spiritual flaws. Generally, people know that. But the musician Carlos Santana and his wife Deborah are accused of firing an employee for just that, and the former employee is suing. Oye como va,indeed. Oy.

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OK, say you've been surfing the web and you've gotten what seems to be the hundredth pop-up ad of the day. You're annoyed, frustrated... Go here and work it all out harmlessly.

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The Diagram – hard to describe. I really liked Adelheid Mers's MORAL POLITICS AND WORLD OF ART.

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The world's first photograph, a heliograph (calograph, calotype), of an 1826 summer day in France.

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File under Eeeww. But a pleased kind of Eeeww. A great idea, carried to extremes. Let's all get together to chew the fat, ok?
(One pound is the most attractive choice, in my opinion. YMMV.)

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Move over Blue Man Group – here's silhouette man group, or something very much like it. (Shockwave, Flash; broadband connection strongly suggested)

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Brandy the dog. No comment needed.

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Having never played a single video game in my life I've missed a lot, I realize that. But the revolution in graphics which games have made possible are sure fun. Take a tour through the Zoom Quilt. (also Flash, sorry.)

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Get your vicious personal abuse here: The Abuse-a-tron.
Warning: Some folks will really hate this. As in life, abuse yourself at your own risk and please don't tell me about it.

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And another big Eeeww goes to.... The envelope please..... Why You Should Never Lick Envelopes.

"Works of art are indeed always products of having been in danger, of having gone to the very end in an experience, to where one can go no further."
Rainer Maria Rilke, (from Letters)

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The separation of Church and State. As if.

If you hear a lot of slang or use it you probably know the term McJob.

According to the Urban Dictionary, a McJob is "Any menial, low-paying, unskilled, dead-end job, including (but not limited to) those in the fast food industry, which requires zero creative or intellectual involvement, and whose sole motivation is a paycheck (i.e., no one works a McJob because they like it or care about the work)."

This term is probably a bit unfair to the McDonald's corporation, but that's language for you.

Now there are all kinds of jobs. There are also MacJobs, make that Mac jobs – jobs for folks who know how to use and/or maintain Apple Macintosh computers. I'm a Mac person ((Go, Tiger, go! Oops.)), and I've often considered applying for a Mac job.

Turns out Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family is looking for a Mac specialist. (Do check out the job responsibilities and requirements.) Too bad they're in Boulder, Colorado and I'm here in New York.
I have my doubts that they'd really want a female liberal Episcopalian who finds intolerance intolerable for the position anyway.
I can imagine the conversation now: "Unfortunately I don't think we'd be a good fit, Mrs. Bly, but thank you for coming. So few heretics bother to apply."

Unlike the Focus on the Family group and its leader Dr. James Dobson, I and a lot of other people still believe in and support the separation between Church and State which has been part of American history since its beginning. I think it's a mutually beneficial arrangement – and also good for those who do not espouse any religious belief at all and still manage to be good Americans.

People for the American Way has researched Dobson and his organization and maintains a detailed white paper at their site.

In cruising about the web I happened to visit a site called the Jeremiah Project. They (ahem) do not believe in the separation of church and state, you bet you. Here's a quote from their pages:

The Leftist social liberals continue to harangue on the "separation of church and state" as justification for eliminating religious issues from public view. The phrase "Separation of Church and State" has been bandied about for so long that 67% of all Americans believe that it is actually in the Constitution. In fact, those three words appear nowhere in the Constitution.

Oblivious to the irrelevance of their arguments, and at the same time refusing to acknowledge that no document of state, let alone the Constitution, has ever proposed such a concept, those on the Left have tried to convince the American people that our founding documents warned of the dangers of mixing politics and religion. (....)

The words "separation of church and state" do not in fact appear in the Constitution. What most people are thinking of when they mention the principle of the separation of church and state is the first amendment to the Constitution in the Bill of Rights (1789), namely:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

One might ask, "What would Thomas Jefferson do?" or rather, "What did Thomas Jefferson think or say?" (I do ask, but I don't have the bracelet yet.)

On October 7, 1801 the Danbury Baptists Association in the state of Connecticut met and drafted an address to the newly-elected President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. Here is part of that address:

Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious liberty – that religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals – that no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious opinions – that the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbors; But, sir, our constitution of government is not specific.

Thomas Jefferson answered them on January 1, 1802 in a letter which includes the first acknowledged usage of the phrase "separation of church and state." (Jefferson's original is in the Library of Congress.) Here it is, in its entirety with Jefferson's spelling and punctuation retained:

To messers Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem & approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful & zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, and in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more & more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state. [Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from presenting even occasional performances of devotion presented indeed legally where an Executive is the legal head of a national church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect.] Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the common Father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves and your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.

(signed) Thomas Jefferson
Jan.1.1802.

Well.

Before I totter off to bed, a quote from Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun seems fitting:

"When the government puts its imprimatur on a particular religion it conveys a message of exclusion to all those who do not adhere to the favored beliefs. A government cannot be premised on the belief that all persons are created equal when it asserts that God prefers some."
(Lee v. Weisman ruling, 1992)

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Organizations of interest and further reading:

Americans United for Separation for Church and State
AU's Religious Right Research
The Radical Religious Right
The Interfaith Alliance
ReligiousTolerance.org
Political Research Associates
Southern Poverty Law Center: Hate Watch
Southern Poverty Law Project: Tolerance.org
HateCrime.org: anti-gay hate speech. actual words and citations. Warning: reader discretion advised.
'On a Mission From God': The Religious Right and the Emerging American Theocracy, by Maureen Farrell
Avenging angel of the religious right:
Quirky millionaire Howard Ahmanson Jr. is on a mission from God to stop gay marriage, fight evolution, defeat "liberal" churches -- and reelect George W. Bush, by Max Blumenthal, Jan. 6, 2004
If You Read the Gospels, the Religious Right is Most Often Wrong, by Rick Mercier, November 29, 2004, TheFree-Lance Star/Fredricksburg, Virginia
Audio (mp3) of a phone call between a telemarketer calling on behalf of the religious right selling "Christian telephone service" and a man calling himself Eugene Merman. Warning: Laughter may ensue. (Or crying.)

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The Bible and things.

I've been researching all kinds of things I burn to blog about, and boy are my fingers tired. So this is short – but about something worth noting.

The first edition of the King James Version of the Bible (in English) was published on this day in 1611. This was a revolutionary act. You all probably knew that already.

I didn't know that today, May 2, was the KJV's anniversary. Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac told me so. I get the newsletter version of The Writer's Almanac delivered daily via e-mail (you can too) – which is not just for writers, but for anyone who likes poetry and writing in general.

Most people know of Garrison Keillor from his long-running radio show A Prairie Home Companion, from his charming books, or from the humorous articles he used to write for The New Yorker magazine.

Today's edition of the The Writer's Almanac supplied a link to the KJV at the Electronic Text Center of the University of Virginia. There are a great many sites for the KJV all over the web – but this is a nice one.

If you like "On This Day" information as much as I do, Reference.com's On This Day newsletter, delivered to your e-mail box, is a good one. It's not too long, and is full of fascinating things. You can subscribe here. That is, if you want to.

Back tomorrow to inflict way too much stuff on you all...

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Technorati Tags: Christianity, religion

Graphical User In-Your-Face (GUI)

This week a rather funny picture surfaced during my web meanderings. I think the first place I saw it was on Bifurcated Rivets: Eclectica for Epopts, a blog from Lindsay Marshall who is a senior lecturer in the School of Computing Science at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK.
What the heck is an epopt? I didn't know... Turns out an epopt is one initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, or one instructed in the mysteries of a secret system. (Carlyle)
Heavens! Perhaps we're all epopts?

I don't know where Lindsay Marshall finds the time to collect all the links he does let alone to post them, but I and countless others are profoundly grateful.

Soon I ran into links to this funny picture all over the place. Metafilter too posted a link to it and collected comments. Many other places did so as well. Who was first? We'll never know.

Here it is then, in all its glory:

[In most browsers if you click on the image it will enlarge.]

Web scuttlebutt has it that this is the front page of the April 25, 2005 edition of the Dallas Morning News (although it might be the issue of April 26, I don't know for sure.)

Layout is a funny thing. Although there is a chance that the interesting juxtaposition of headlines shown above was an accident, I doubt it. Newspaper people famously tend to have a sense of humor and often show their points of view in their own ways. President Bush is fond of saying "Don't mess with Texas." But some folks in Texas are messin' with you, Mr. President.

Forgive yet another personal story here... It was one of the high points of my life so far although I'm still not sure about it.

During the U.S. presidential campaign of 1996 (Dole vs. Clinton) a large photo ran one day on the cover of The New York Times that I found amusing in the extreme. I don't still have a copy of it, alas, but it showed Bob Dole, the Republican presidential nominee, standing in front of a huge campaign banner. The way the photo was taken (and it was taken by a photographer I know who is on the staff of The New York Times) Dole was standing on the stage directly in front of the banner. The banner looked just like this bumper sticker but much much larger:



Because of where Dole was standing you could only see Senator Dole and the words OLE PRESIDENT.

Accident? Hmm.

Anyway, for the first and last time in my life so far I dashed off a letter to the The New York Times. In it I suggested that although I personally found the photo delightful that perhaps they should consider that even Republicans might "get it." (News flash: I'm a Democrat. Also, at the time there was some argument that Dole was too old to be President.) I faxed my letter to the newsroom.

Less than an hour later I got a phone call. I answered the phone, but nobody seemed to be there. Then I realized I was hearing the telltale line sound of a call placed using speakerphone. Suddenly I heard applause (!) – the sound of many hands clapping. Then the caller or callers hung up. I glowed for hours.

Multiple pictures of George Bush and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah holding hands appeared all over the world and have occasioned much comment.

It probably will surprise no one that I am a liberal on most issues. I'm not on the screaming edge of liberal – but I strongly believe in the strengthening of support for and full acceptance of women and of gay and lesbian persons and their vocations in secular society and in the Church.

It was with special sadness that I read a report from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force issued on April 26, 2005. In his statement Executive Director Matt Foreman writes:

The leaders of America's anti-gay industry are directly responsible for the continuing surge in hate violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. While other forms of crime continued to fall, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs has documented a 4% increase in anti-LGBT crime in 2004, coming on the heels of a 26% increase in the last half of 2003. This spike in violence parallels the exact same period since the Right went into demonic, anti-gay hyperdrive following the Supreme Court's Lawrence v. Texas decision in July of 2003. Since then, church pews and the public airwaves have been awash in ugly, anti-gay rhetoric and fear-mongering.

– Matt Foreman, Executive Director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

Here's an unlovely item about the otherwise lovely state of Virginia.

A new web site called OutNotes launched today. The site includes this statement:

this site is about you. it is about your friends. it is about your family. it is about your loved ones. chances are you or someone you love has struggled with their sexuality. this site is about these people breaking out of the shackles of an oppressive society and reaching out to the ones they love. it is a collection of letters written in search of acceptance. if you have come out, are struggling to come out, or had someone come out to you; this site is about you. if you aren't in any of these groups, chances are that someone is struggling with coming out to you or your community; and this site is about you.
gay rights are currently a major civil rights issue around the world. every day gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people struggle against a bigoted society. if the letters on this site can reach out to even one person and help them realize that these are real people looking for their acceptance, then it has succeeded. if it can give inspiration to one person who is struggling with their sexuality, then it has succeeded.

In a surprising and welcome (in my opinion) turn-around, an appeals panel of the United Methodist Church has reinstated a lesbian minister who was defrocked in December after revealing that she was living with her gay partner. (The New York Times; registration required.)

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), with whom The Episcopal Church is linked through Called to Common Mission, released Recommendations From the ELCA Church Council to the ELCA Churchwide Assembly on Sexuality Studies on April 11, 2005. It makes interesting reading; lucid and helpful to all.

As in so many things, one's view depends on where one stands.

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Debbo ludens.

I love tacky religious things. Truth be told I also love Whoopee™ cushions and lots of other silly non-religious things that people seem to find distasteful or stupid. But it is a particular joy to laugh at bad versions of things which reference what one loves best. Laughter is Sudden Glory.

If you don't like tacky religious items, or are an easily offended person it would be better not to click on all of these links. Just so you know.

Here beginneth today's collection of highly mysterious links:

Let's start with the Old Testament, or the Tanakh (the Law and the Prophets) if you prefer. It's a very good place to start.

You probably have been needing a Bag of Plagues, right? OK!

The Nonist's Old Testament activity book is available for download as a .pdf. Not for those who are unfamiliar with the stories of the Old Testament.

On to the New Covenant...



The indefatigably cheerful Christian Ned Flanders, a character from (US) Fox TV's The Simpsons is apparently much-loved in the UK. (Heck, we love him here too,) The Ship of Fools has even organized special Ned Flanders events, one as part of the Greenbelt festival in 2002. It is said that thousands of churchgoers attended the Ned Flanders night (many dressed Ned-style) and fellowshipped to the sounds of the tribute band Ned Zeppelin who purportedly performed their theme song "Whole Lotta Ned."
I hope Ned Flanders continues to be an example to the many unchurched persons of the UK – I haven't heard any more recent reports. Do tell me if you hear any Ned-centric news, okelydokely?

$22.99 will get you an excellent Ned Flanders doll.
The Simpsons Wave 2 Action Figure: Ned Flanders
"This is a very Hard to Find Wave 2 NED FLANDERS Interactive Figure From the Simpsons. Intelli-Tronic Voice Activation allows character to talk when used with compatible World of Springfield playsets!"
Does it refuse to talk without the playsets? Ned knows so much.

Going Jesus is the blog of a wonderful woman named Sara who is a church secretary for an unnamed Episcopal church in the Pacific Northwest (USA). Her blog description is "the adventures of the church secretary at St. Ned of Flanders Episcopal Church." You go, girl!

One of the most famous purveyors on line and off of splendidly tacky merchandise is Archie McPhee, based in Seattle, Washington (USA). Their Enlightenment pages are the home for their religious items - here's their Christian merchandise, but the items for other religions are equally handy.

Ship of Fools Gadgets for God page is a longtime favorite of people who like this sort of thing everywhere – but not everything pictured can be found for purchase. Dang.

Coming soon! Talking Jesus and Moses dolls; other biblical notables expected to follow.
Great picture by the way, dudes.

The goofy looking Buddy Jesus from Kevin Smith's movie Dogma is available as a dashboard statue, complete with Sacred Heart.

Next year, no more plastic Easter eggs filled with tooth-rotting candy! Try some Resurrection Eggs instead. (After-Easter price reduction: now only $11.99) "The Easter Story for Children" is printed on the egg carton.
Inside the eggs are a spear, a tiny chalice, nails, pieces of silver, praying hands, a crown of thorns, dice, a little donkey, a small puffy loaf of bread, and what looks like a tiny Veronica's veil – and a whip.
From the item's description: "Lead your kids on a fun, faith-filled Easter egg hunt this year - one that will teach them about Jesus' death and resurrection!"

[Kubicek balloon of St. Gallen]

Perhaps you have longed for your very own cathedral. I think it helps if you have a really big yard .
(This link was first spotted by The Ship of Fools – but it's so wonderful I can't help including it.) The folks at Kubicek can make a balloon for you in almost any shape. At last we know where the late Malcolm Forbes had his balloons made I guess.

I really want one of a Norwegian stavkirke, but that's probably just me.

[Norwegian stave church, Borgund]

Singing Bible Keychain: sings Handel's Hallelujah Chorus. Wow, I bet that's annoying.

This isn't churchly or in nearly bad enough taste for this particular collection of links, but heck - the amusements on this page are lovely.
Are you keen to hear your name (or whatever else) in Morse code? Or, try these other wonderful things.

Finally, because we know the Universe is a very big place and is ineffably beautiful:

NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft photographs its target comet for the very first time.

Any questions? Just remember the answer is almost always 42.

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bare ruined choirs; the holiness of places.

Sonnet 73:That time of year thou mayst in me behold
– William Shakespeare (1609)

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals all up in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

[Rievaulx Abbey, built 1132 C.E.,Yorkshire, England. Photo by Bart Parren, Dreamstime.com.]

Most literary scholars agree that in Sonnet 73 Shakespeare was not writing of his own impending death. Of course it does concern itself with death – but Shakespeare would only have been about 44 years old when it was published, and there is a good chance that he may have written this sonnet ten years before that. The phrase "bare ruined choirs" may also refer to Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries (which began in 1538). Wherever the truth might lie it is a provocative and evocative formulation, one which like so many other Shakespearean phrases has been used for book titles, articles, and poems.

The phrase "bare ruined choirs" has been haunting me for weeks. Last Sunday as my husband Bill and I hurried to the Staten Island ferry to get to pre-service choir rehearsal in Manhattan I asked him where the phrase came from. Being the excellent scholar and teacher he is, he said "One of the Shakespeare sonnets I think." Ah, yes... I'd forgotten. Thanks again, Man-Called-Darling.

Forgive a brief digression: I've been reading Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel. In the book, which is set in the early 19th Century and concerns the practice of magic in England, a Mr. Norrell (who is the only practical magician in England as opposed to the theoretical magicians who do no magic, but merely study past wonders) proves his skill by making all the statues in the York Minster (Cathedral) suddenly start speaking and telling all the secrets they've seen and heard over time. It's a wonderful scene – and, having been to York Minster quite recently I really wish this had happened while we were there...
Reading the description of the din of the voices of the statues of York I couldn't help but think of Jesus admonishing the Pharisees for telling him to rebuke his disciples (who were telling of Jesus' miracles, rejoicing, and praising God): "I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out."

Maybe stones really do cry out.

They do to me. Probably to you too. There are buildings, places and spaces all over this world where the sense of the Holy is felt almost as fabric upon one's skin or as pricklings of the scalp. The Celts (Keltoi) saw the world as full of holy spots – hills, valleys, wells and springs, groves – as did the Norse. Most peoples on this globe have.

But I don't think it is the particular place that calls out this sense of the Holy in us. Beauty itself can do this – nature often reveals the Divine. But many buildings or spaces, whether whole and functioning or in ruins, that evoke something instantaneous and strong in us (in my opinion) might have more to do with the concentrated history of all those who have gone before us, are here now, and will come after us who have worshipped, cried, laughed, prayed, suffered – lived – there. These places are haunted.

Now by haunted I do not mean that greenish protoplasmic entities are floating about. These are en-spirited places, en-thused places. (From en theos.) They are geistliche Plätzen (German, sorry. ) Ghostly (spirited) places. As in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit. Her/Him/It/Them again.

Anyone for etymology?

Evocation: 1574, from Latin evocationem (nom. evocatio), from evocare "call out, rouse, summon," from ex- "out" + vocare "to call" (see voice). Evoke is from 1623, often more or less with a sense of "calling spirits," or being called by them. Evocation was used of the Roman custom of petitioning the gods of an enemy city to abandon it and come to Rome; it was also used to translate the Platonic Greek anamnesis "a calling up of knowledge acquired in a previous state of existence."

Then to evoke is (or was) to call out to the spirit(s) or God. For something to be evoked in you is for the spirit(s) or God to call you out. I realize that all this might sound pagan in some way. So while I'm at it, boring you all (all four of you?) to death, a word about the word pagan. Pagan didn't always mean people who don't believe in the God of Abraham, or however one might put this. The word survives in peasant, in the Italian paisan, in the French pays. And in that big gallon bottle of Gallo Paisano you secretly cook with. Those called pagans were often just "country folk" – seen as rough and rude.

A formulation for Holy Space(s) (from the mystical tradition of Celtic Christianity encompassing the 5th-12th Centuries) which has gained currency again in many books and sermons is the idea of "thin places" as space(s) where the quotidian and the divine seem to meet, their boundaries blurring.

Here are a few neat sermons on "thin spaces":
The Rev. Dr. Agnes Norfleet, North Decatur Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, Georgia.
The Rev. Sam Alexander, Old First Presbyterian Church, San Franciso, California.
Donel McClellan, First Congregational United Church of Christ, Bellingham, Washington.

(There are plenty of Anglican/Episcopal sermons on "thin places" out there too, fret not. These three are merely ones I located and found interesting.)

Those of you who have been to New York or are fond of art know of The Cloisters. The Cloisters is the home of the majority of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's extensive medieval collection. The cloisters there are genuine cloisters – no longer hallowed liturgical or monastic space, but brought over piece by piece by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and reassembled (with additions) in Fort Tryon Park in northern Manhattan. In Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain he mentions seeing part of what we now know as The Cloisters while he was living in France – and how odd it was to see it again in Manhattan.

I'm a New Yorker born and bred; my parents took me to The Cloisters many times. When I was a young teenager and a budding singer I would go there with a bunch of my friends (by ourselves, with or without permission), taking the scary noisy A train up to 190th Street from Penn Station. Once there we would wander around, look at the Unicorn tapestries (great story in The New Yorker magazine, by the way), the herb garden, the reliquaries (golden St. Foy was our favorite), and all manner of things – and then start singing medieval chants or Renaissance motets. After about an hour or two, sometimes longer, a guard would tell us we weren't allowed to sing there.
They were wonderful guards, and we were pretty good singers (and free).

There is a small place at The Cloisters which is still one of the thinnest places I know. I started going to this special place long after I was out of my teens, and usually alone. I haven't been there in a long time – but just thinking about it I know I will go again soon. It's just a little place, a very small cloister room or arcade of old French stone. No bigger than a modern living room in fact. But the surfaces of the banquette seating (original) against the four walls has been sculpted into butt-shaped depressions by generations of monks and now tourists, me included. I find it incredibly moving sitting there, soon becoming oblivious to the gentle noises of the museum, petting the stone and winding my hands around the carvings, clutching at the cool immensities of time and the shared existence or persistence of faith. Then I don't feel so bad.

[Chapter House, Notre Dame de Pontaut, 12th Century; The Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum of Art]

I am worried about this Church, or (let it not be so!) – these Churches – of our communion. The angels in the Bible (evangel-s) – bringers of news, good or bad – these messengers always seem to preface their news to us, cowering humans, with "Be not afraid."

We are always surrounded by ruins. Holy ruins. We are often ruins ourselves. But the church is not dead. The church will not die. We are ekklesia – those called out into community with our God and with each other.
Angels know they bring change, the most frightening thing in the world to us, and still say: "Be not afraid."

We are evoked; we evoke. We invoke; we have vocations. It's all a matter of call-and-response I guess. Sort of like the way we Anglicans (and others) corporately pray the Psalms, eh?

In closing this overlong torrent of musings, there are so many places I think of or know as "thin places." One of our favorites, Blywise, is a place on the trails at Mohonk Mountain House. (We honeymooned at Mohonk in 1982, and have been back many times since then.)

It's a cathedral-like space of huge trees which form a canopy as tall as the nave of Chartres. There are huge ancient rock formations and boulders surrounding the path, and the only noise is the sound of pine needles crunching under one's feet and the murmurings of birds. We talk to each other there in hushed voices, calling out the best in each other.

The first time we stopped there Bill said, "Imagine what we look like to these stones. Like flitting bugs, our whole lives no more than an instant in their time." Yes – but we're there at the same time.

Mutatis mutandis.

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a chair for Elijah – well, at least a rabbit.

Elijah Bly Arougheti, born to my precious step-daughter Nelly Bly and her lovely husband Mike Arougheti, entered this world on February 26, 2005. Behold the child (pictured at about one week old):

Aside from the fact that my husband Bill and I are both far too young and kicky to be grandparents, we are completely thrilled by this most hoped-for development. He has been presented with things from people all over – the usual wonderful things: onesies, blankets, fluffy toys, bassinettes, carrying contraptions, etc.

As grandparents we have given him a few things too, but what can we give him that will nurture his growth in the deeper mysteries of Bly tradition? OK, we are going to get him one of those silver engraved baby cups with matching spoon but those do not specifically point to our larger reality (to use a phrase of which theologians are over-fond).

Elijah needs this.
But this is nice too. (He'll grow into it – they always do.)

Perhaps some explanation is necessary. ((sigh))

We are old, father William and I. We are of that class who once presumed to think ourselves counter-cultural from deep within the comfy stranglehold of middle-class suburbia. Artifacts mean a lot to us. Our cultural references are mostly those of the 1970s and 1980s – not that we stopped caring or anything – but disco music, tinkle-down-on-you economics, and neo-conservatism broke our spirits a bit. We trudge onwards anyway – but whatever happened to the Duke of Earl? Well, he's now the Duke of URL. We live on and largely through our computers now, connecting with other bobbing souls in the great Sea of Cyber.

For us the words of Monty Python skits and cult movies are common parlance. We often have Plan 9 from Outer Space moments, more and more often now.
The Broadway show Spamalot, based loosely upon the Monty Python film Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail (1975) opened recently here in New York to great critical and public acclaim.
Written by Python-emeritus Eric Idle and directed by Mike Nichols (the noted husband of Diane Sawyer), the show is booked solid for the foreseeable future.

The gentle reader was perhaps expecting Anglican/Episcopal content from me this day. To be frank (or ethel), I find this all very Anglican/Episcopalian. Why, you ask?

Well, Spamalot is sort of about England, was written by Eric Idle (British) of Monty Python (British) fame which appeared on BBC TV (British) – and the Anglican Church began as the Church of England (umm, British) – which still exists – and here in the USA the still-official (so far as of this writing, anyway) branch of the Anglican Communion is the Episcopal Church (an extremely clunky web site, by the way), so that's why.

Anglicans/Episcopalians are usually somewhat fond of things English (i.e. British).
Happy now? I thought not. Oh well...



Blessed be the cheesemakers.
Take that, you Belgians.

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Technorati Tags: Episcopal, Monty Python, odd links, grandson, killer rabbit

Godfather, not Father God. Sorry.

Sheyoot. I spent hours today trying to learn how to do things in HTML and CSS... By the time I figured out what I needed to figure out my brain had oozed out my ears making a proper blog entry today impossible to contemplate.

But I can't help posting a link to a strange (and, perhaps, highly inappropriate) purchasable item I ran into during my daily web meanderings. Click under the fine medieval horse to see this terrible terrible item.

By clicking on this link, you promise not to yell at Deb, ok?

Sweet dreams.

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so, how's Bayeux?

Reading about all the developments, as well as the lack of developments, in the Anglican and Episcopal church world lately can be both distressing and tiresome – but it's always interesting.
Instead of committing my thoughts on the various matters besetting the Church to screen I was moved to act pictorially... the picture you see before you now.

No, I didn't weave and stitch my own version of the Bayeux tapestry. My talents, such as they are, do not run in that direction. I did, however, employ the help of one of my newest favorites among websites: The Historic Tale Construction Cit [sic]. I can't recommend it highly enough. You can even make your own 'comic strips.' Go thou and do likewise.

That being said — or rather, not much being said — here are some other things of no particular import other than I found them delightful at the time:

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Time. You are wasting time right now by reading these words, admit it. Alas, no one knows that better than I do. It might be handy to see, in a different manner, just how much time you're wasting.

Watch life tick by at these two sites:
Nice clock thing.
A dot for every second in the day.

Long ago, as part of one of those tedious corporate exercises, many of us on staff where I then worked had to take one of those personality type identifying tests. No matter how many times I've taken these tests I always come out as an ENFP. For those of you who are unfamiliar with what these letters mean — don't worry about it. Suffice it to say that ENFPs are supposedly easily-distractable. As in when ENFPs are in the middle of something terribly important they might interrupt themselves to say, “Look! ...a bird!”

So, Look! ...a bird.

Let a banana make your website for you. Actually, a lot of websites are made by bananas — but you don't have to pay this one. Something very good has come out of Denmark.

And here I must hoist a glass of fine Chianti Classico Riserva (I wish) in the general direction of the Georgia-Pacific Corporation. Yes, they cut down trees, but they also made this. As I have told all the friends I've foisted this link upon, I'm a confirmed Bounty™ paper towel buyer – but I'm now considering giving Brawny™ a chance. Bravo for innocent escapes!

Almost time to lie upon my pallet. But first (or last), a quote of some interest which drifted in a day or so ago:

“You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists, and this and that and the other thing. Nonsense! I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist.”

– Pat Robertson, quoted in the book The Most Dangerous Man in America?: Pat Robertson and the Rise of the Christian Coalition by Robert Boston, (p. 149)

Courage.

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that sinking feeling of discovery

There is a lot of stuff going on in the Episcopal Church (the American church – known as ECUSA. PECUSA, or DFMS – take your pick). I am loath to comment on these mostly unsettling and painful matters although I certainly have my opinions. These opinions may surface from time to time. Be forewarned.

Since my interest in these matters is great I have all my news-gathering web pages customized to deliver whatever Episcopal or Anglican news there may be. I should be more specific. This morning Google News had snagged a headline for me that made me mutter, "Oh no. What's next? What kind of protest is this now?"

The headline was Episcopal girls roll past Mount Lebanon.

Since that page asks you to register, here's a bit of the story:
"Mount Lebanon, No. 4 in Pennsylvania girls' lacrosse, according to the LaxPower Computer Rankings, traveled six hours across the state by bus from the team's home near Pittsburgh looking for some competition.
So said Mount Lebanon coach Julie Gartley. Her Blue Devils found all the competition they could handle yesterday in Episcopal Academy, which held the visitors scoreless for nearly 20 minutes en route to a 10-4 win.
The loss dropped Mount Lebanon to 6-2. Episcopal, which appears in the computer rankings as No. 21, is 5-2."

Sometimes it is good not being a "sports" or "sport" kind of person. I often think of the Monty Python TV news sketch where the news-reader segued with the words, "And now, for those who do not like sport is .... Sport!" Sadly, so true.
Years ago I remember being particularly pleased that so many sports figures talked about the ERA so often. "Finally, some athletic supporters." thought I.
Of course while I was employed (many years ago now) by a bank, I also once went to one of the junior officers to bring to his attention that we seemed to have a lot of customers who had illegally set up rather large accounts to fund the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

I have often been an idiot in my life. I may be one now. People are usually too kind to mention it. Especially, thanks be to God, religious people.

So, nu, vot else?

Why Happy Pesach, of course! Happy Passover to all Jewish persons far and wide! Shalom aleichem.

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On a sad note, the wonderful British actor Sir John Mills (born as Lewis Ernest Watts) died today at his home in Denham, west of London, at the age of 97. There are few actors whose film work I have enjoyed more. (I never saw him on stage.) Although he was most noted for his film roles as military men of bravery and wit, it is in the more goofy type of role that I loved him most. Might I strongly recommend The Wrong Box?

The Wrong Box is based upon a Robert Louis Stevenson story – but the movie is undeniably a 1960s movie of the odd and delightful variety. In addition to (Sir) John Mills (father of Hayley Mills, by the way), (Sir) Ralph Richardson, Michael Caine, Nanette Newman, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, (Sir) Peter Sellers, and the amazing Wilfrid Lawson (as the butler Peacock) appear ...as well as loads of those magnificent character actors of which Britain always seems to have so many.

Rent it, buy it, watch it. I mean it. If you don't like it, well, too bad. I defy you to not absorb some of its dialog into your permanent personal vocabulary however.

Rest in peace, John Mills... or Lewis Watts. May God recognize you.



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usefulness is over-rated

I have way too much time on my hands.

Instead of attempting to write a Great American Novel or a Great American Already-Been-Done I use up my time in fairly worthless pursuits. Go ahead – envy me. I'm used to it.

After I've had almost a full pot of coffee (btw, this week's variety is Ethiopian. My Spousal Unit Bill usually makes it for me, and hands it to me saying, "Here's your tall black Ethiopian" which puts me in a tizzy for at least 4 minutes), I read my E-mail and start webbing about in search of the odd and entertaining bit or byte.

Several things have caught my eye this week.

Check this out...



Yes, you too can make text from Flickr letter images. Go here
Warning: a real time-waster.

As anyone who knows me can attest, I am first and foremost interested in things religious. Although I am an Anglican/Episcopalian, all religions are of interest to me. This news item from Ananova.com sort of stood out yesterday:

'Holy man' broke coconuts on naked woman's head

Police in India have arrested a 'holy man' who allegedly forced a woman to strip naked and broke coconuts on her head.

Senthil Kumar, 27, promised to treat the woman, 30-year-old Selvi Dhanalakshmi, after her parents brought her to his hermitage at Velliraveli, near Erode.

Kumar claimed she was possessed and offered to exorcise her of the evil spirit, reports the Deccan Chronicle newspaper.
He locked himself up with the woman in a room before stripping her of her clothes and lighting camphor on her palms and breasts.

The woman began yelling in pain when the holy man, chanting prayers, started breaking coconuts on her head.

Her parents, alarmed by the screams, forced open the door with the help of the locals and found her naked and bleeding from head injuries.

It is reported villagers gave the holy man a good thrashing before handing him over to the police who have since charged him with attempted murder and fraud.

Let me say that the suffering of this poor woman is not one bit funny. But those who declare themselves Holy are often funny. The principles of Holy Marriage (and the subsequent Perfect Family) of the Unification Church (the Rev. Moon et alia) – for only one example – to me aren't too different from being hit on the head with coconuts.

Holiness cannot be claimed. It can only be seen and recognized by others. Let's be careful out there, folks. The coconuts are everywhere.

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ok, so it still bothers me.

I've been waiting to see if something that's been bothering me would go away.
It hasn't – so I'm going to attempt writing it out of my system.

This last week or more has been a time of big endings and big beginnings. The death of a Pope, the choice of a new one. The marriage of Charles, Prince of Wales, to his long-time love, Camilla. The death and funeral of Prince Rainier of Monaco. Big doings on the international level of all kinds. But funerals and weddings, like birth and death, do catch one's interest.

Of the late Pope and the just-chosen Pope I will not, at this time, comment. It is hardly my place. I am not a Roman Catholic and the chances of my ever becoming one are, let us say, slim to none. I do have my opinions – especially concerning Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, but[t] I will endeavor to keep these at bay.

I am an Anglican. More properly, since I am an American, I am an Episcopalian. Yes, one of those.

So – I will blyther on about the wedding of Charles and Camilla: not the legal ceremony, but the religious blessing service at St. George's Chapel, Windsor.

First, as a singer, I must note that the choir of men and boys sang in tune. That in itself was heartening since at the funeral of Pope John Paul II the choir persistently came back in a full third flat. Oops. Who made me say that? Anyway...

The blessing of the marriage of Charles and Camilla was lovely. In spite of seemingly everyone everywhere carping on about how supposedly unattractive Camilla is (a blatant falsehood, in my opinion), she looked wonderful. Charles seemed pleased. HRH Mum seemed, well, resigned; the Prince Consort, bemused. The British milliners's art was displayed in all its bizarre fecundity.

So what bothered me (that is, if you're still reading this)?

What bothered me was or is the reactions to the blessing service which surfaced in news reports, the monologues of comedians such as Jay Leno and others. I realize that it is the job of news organizations to pique our interest in some way, even if their reports are wrong. I also know that comedians will go for a laugh rather than informed understanding. Heck, I've been known to do it myself. Some things just demand to be said, or written, because they're funny rather than scrupulously true.

What caused the news comments and the jokes was the Prayer of Confession from the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England (1662 and still official). News reports and comedians made the assumption that this prayer was specially written for Charles and Camilla, for their special situation of determined sinfulness.

As Brits might say, "Pish tosh."

Here is the prayer, from the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England (1662):

ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father; We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou them, O God, who confess their faults. Restore thou them that are penitent; According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesu our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake; That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy Name. Amen.

Here's what that prayer looked like in the Elizabethan Prayer Book of 1559:

ALMIGHTIE and most merciful father, we have erred and straied from thy waies, lyke lost shepee we have folowed to much the devises and desires of our owne hartes. We have offended against thy holy lawes: We have left undone those thinges whiche we ought to have done, and we have done those thinges which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us, but thou, O Lorde, have mercy upon us miserable offendours. Spare thou them O God, whiche confesse their faultes. Restore thou them that be penitent, accordyng to thy promises declared unto mankynde, in Christe Jesu our Lorde. And graunt, O most merciful father, for his sake, that we may hereafter lyve a godly, ryghtuous, and sobre life, to the glory of thy holy name.

In the interests of overkill, here's that prayer from the American Book of Common Prayer (1979):

Rite I:

Almighty and most merciful Father,
we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep,
we have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts,
we have offended against thy holy laws,
we have left undone those things which we ought to have done,
and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.
But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us,
spare thou those who confess their faults,
restore thou those who are penitent,
according to thy promises declared unto mankind
in Christ Jesus our Lord;
and grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake,
that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life,
to the glory of thy holy Name. Amen.

All-righty then. Maybe the supposed novelty of the prayer has been disproven. (?)

Might I add that the Sarum Rite is not completely dissmilar? Nor the prayer of confession in the Lutheran Book of Worship? Or the prayers of other faiths?

So – what's my point...

My point is that we live in a time of profound ignorance of our own past, even of our own literary past. Yes, the world is largely secular – or secularized – although peoples everywhere persist in praying from whatever foxholes they find themselves in, literal or metaphorical.

We may well have reached the stage where the need to seek forgiveness from others let alone from our Maker seems foreign. "You're OK [or not]; I'm even better." seems to rule. And the culture seems to find admissions of the need for forgiveness, generic or particular, downright hilarious.

Of course, it would've helped things if the J.S.Bach cantata performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Choir at the blessing service was not Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (BWV #62, 1724), which the perky blond announcer on BBC-America TV announced in its English translation, *Now come the Savior of the Heathen.

Now that was funny.

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*An alternate translation of the German for this cantata's name would be Now come the Savior of the Gentiles. Not as funny, sure... butt.

What is this, then, that blog we must?

First blythering from this woman named Bly... but[t] first, why blog? Why join the babbling hordes in this new global Tower of Babel? Well, why not.

My estimable Spousal Unit, Bill, loves to tell a story about one of his old writing teachers who upon reading Bill's work said, "Mr. Bly, you have an excellent facility with language, but you have nothing to say." Bill has been a writer ever since. Go figure.

I too have been a writer, on and off. Mainly off.

Only time will tell if I have anything whatsoever to say. Meanwhile, it is late (or early) – and now I will lay me down to sleep.

There is an old Spanish proverb: How good it is to do nothing, and then to rest.
Truer words were never spoken.

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