Better Than In Byzantium

I'm currently reading through a three volume history by Lord John Julius Norwich. For enjoyable reading, it has plenty of everything one could want in history: wars, riots, intrigues, treachery, betrayals, palace coups, greed, debauchery, strange turns of events, strange peoples, unexplained mysteries, religious tumults, murders, mayhem, tortures, mutilations, parricides, fratricides, suicides, and regicides.

The history of the Iraq War and the Bush Administration? Hum, No.

Actually, it's Lord Norwich's Byzantium. I just finished the first volume, "The Early Centuries", and have started the second, "The Apogee". I am at the point where Basil the Macedonian, in a plot to grab the imperial Byzantine throne, has finished murdering his buddy and friend, the last dynast of the Amorians, Michael III (aka "The Sot"). Actually, Basil wasn't Macedonian but instead an Armenian; he had only lived in Macedonia for a short time, and he spoke Greek with a heavy Armenian accent.

Confusing? Well, let me put it this way: when reading Byzantine history, one has to pay very close attention.

So far my only complaints about Lord Norwich's history are: firstly, his contempt for Xnty is barely disguised — although he is, for some reason, more laudatory of Islam — and secondly, he simply makes no serious effort to help his reader fully understand the reasons behind some of the religious controversies in the eastern church, controversies which were so important in Byzantine history. Like a good Modernist, he simply throws up his hands and says it's all quite "impossible" to understand. Furthermore, there were a couple of spots where I thought he was getting things simply flat-out wrong. For example, he mistakenly labeled the Paulicians a Xtian sect, when in fact they were just another recrudescence of Gnosticism, an altogether different thing, which back in the Middle Ages would pop up in various times and places, decked out in different styles and flavors. Gnosticism is still around even today and has never really gone away — just check around the local big-chain bookstores to see what I mean. Academe and writers of cheesy novels especially love Gnosticism. However, understanding the distinction between Gnosticism and Xnty was just too subtle for Lord Norwich apparently. But other than that, I found his Byzantium to be well written and very engrossing.

[addendum] I finished the second volume, but I am going to take a short break before tackling Lord Norwich's third book in the series, "The Decline and Fall". One can overdose on this stuff. I do have something to say to those in the Catholic and Orthodox churches who still are hankering for a return to the old Constantinian amalgamation of church and state: sorry, but no, thank you. Byzantium was where that old arrangement existed in spades, and besides corrupting the church, it never really worked right.

They Did Not Mix

I do keep a dream diary, a noctuary. I try to record any dreams that seem particularly noteworthy. Here is one that I continue to vividly remember, which occurred sometime during the summer, although after checking my noctuary it appears I neglected to record it:

It was evening, and I was standing outside the entrance to a church. The doors were open, and I could see inside a service going on, with many people inside. At first I felt reluctant to enter. Next, I was inside the church, but I don't recollect whether there were any other people there. The inside was very beautiful and well lit. The walls were a light greenish-blue in color, and there were beautiful windows. But what was important was this: I looked up and there on the wall, above the windows, was a large, broad mural depicting a scene. The mural showed a large group of men lounging in a grassy field on reclining chairs of some kind. Their appearance indicated that they enjoyed their leisure. They were leaning back very nonchalantly. Next, I look at a different part of the wall, above the windows, and I see a different scene, one showing a large herd of very woolly sheep. But there were no shepherds attending these sheep.

Here is what I think is the interpretation. It might concern the Church in general, or perhaps just the particular church that I attend. But I really don't know for sure whether the dream is specific or general. But what it did show, paradoxically speaking, was that the sheep and shepherds didn't mix. The lounging men in the dream were the shepherds, but these were concerned only for their own ease and comfort. They seemed satisfied with things as they are. The sheep on the other hand had no one watching over them. They were in a flock by themselves, unattended by anyone. The sheep didn't relate to the shepherds nor the shepherds with the sheep. They seemed to be in different worlds, that are apart from one another.

So I wonder. Can pastors really empathize with the concerns of their people? Do they actually relate to them? Or do pastors view themselves as a specialist class of some kind, up in a lofty tower surrounded by a wall of professionalism, being the people with all the answers and possessing the correct procedures; and down below are the sheep, who are merely their clientele or customers?

The world already has plenty of professional classes of various kinds. We recognize them immediately, and we know exactly what to do during our encounters with them: We take a number and get in the queue. When we get their bills in the mail, we dutifully pay them. But professionals can never be our friends, not really. Therefore, professionals are not like us ordinary folks. They are above us. We might talk to them, but there is a strange albeit polite silence across the table, as though there was an ongoing calculation happening. Professionals calculate because they're professional. They compute their answers before they respond. On the other hand, Sheep lack guile and they bleat stupidly.

Perhaps, initially, the shepherds didn't start out intending to become professionalized. Most professionals have good intentions. But being around sheep can get one's clothes dirty. Sheep are grubby creatures. Perhaps, after a while, the shepherds underwent a process where they begin to distance themselves mentally, and a wall went up, a diplomatic demeanor maintained, a certain distance kept, because it's "professional."

Anyhow, it was an very odd dream, and I cannot help but remember it. Perhaps, this dream is showing a ongoing problem in the Church. Perhaps, the act of looking upwards indicated that it represented the heavenly perspective on what is happening on earth below. I don't know. Interpreting dreams is a very slippery business. And, of course, nobody is going to pay any attention to this anyhow. It's just a silly dream.

The Unnerving Hobo

On Friday night I finally watched "Polar Express". The idea of a magical train was interesting, and the movie was very dream-like in places. In fact, some parts bore a resemblance to some of my dreams, especially the urban landscape of Santa's North Pole metropolis. The Hobo on the carriage roof was unnerving in a Stephen Kingish sort of way, but apparently he was not malevolent as he rescues the main character at various points in the story. However, Santa's Elves at the North Pole seemed downright creepy to me, more like midget, shopping-mall versions of Nosferatu. The Conductor's final admonition, which ran something like "it doesn't matter where the train is going just as long you get on", was just about the most stupid advice ever given out in a Hollywood production.

Relentlessly Depressing

I very recently finished reading Mark Steyn's book "America Alone, The End of the World as We Know It".

It was the most relentlessly depressing book I've read in a long time. But Steyn writes with such wit and sardonic humor, even with dealing with gloomy topics, that it was a very enjoyable book to read. I highly recommend it. Demand it from your local library so that others can enjoy it as well, or else be sure to pick it up at your favorite bookseller. Share it with others when you're done.

Oh, by the way, if you like European vacations — visiting famous museums, seeing great art, admiring gothic cathedrals, pilgrimaging to famous shrines, dining at fabulous cafes and restaurants, seeing the beautiful sights, etc., all in comparative safety — well, you had better boogie and get your kicks in now while there is anything left that can recognizably be called Europe, because soon all of it will be gone. Totally. Utterly. Gone. It'll be history just like Nineveh and Babylon are history. It'll be gone just like the Hittite civilization is gone.

Gone, as in Ozymandias gone:

… Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

And Russia, poor drunken-in-an-oil-funded-stupor Russia, is literally aborting itself right out of existence. If there ever was a "Holy Mother Russia", it had better learn once again to be a mother and had better get some holiness, and right quickly, if there's going to be any Russia left at all. For starters, if you ask me, they need to kick out of office that materialistic, one-dimensional-minded, KGB apparatchik goon they have for a president. It might help.

Be sure to read Steyn's book to understand better what I mean.

Not Invited To Davos

Thursday I went on my usual evening walk out towards the alfalfa field. It was deepening twilight, and the sky was still unstable from the hinder part of a frontal system that was moving across the area. As I walked westward, I could not help but be reminded of the dream I had some time ago. The sky looked very much the same, looking westward toward the horizon with the clouds tinted with bluish-greens, pinks and purples. It was beautiful. Reaching the alfalfa field, I turned around and started back, walking east. There, above Canfield Butte, the sky was very dark and thickly crowded with massive clouds, dark grey and fretful but with splashes of faint, ethereal whiteness here and there due to the fading twilight. Seeing this, I rehearsed to myself what I had seen in my dream, wherein the eastern sky was so astonishingly dark and awesome. The whole experience seemed so similar to my dream, only lacking the strange orb of light high up that I had seen in the east. Later that evening, the wind started to pick up strongly, and my wife asked me to go outside to tie up the blind because it was flapping insistently against the sliding glass door. The sky had started lighting up with flashes of lightning, almost continuously. And a few minutes later, we had about the most spectacular lightning storm I've seen here in many years. Going outside to watch, I could see the flashes going mostly cloud-to-cloud, overhead, northward, and in the east, and they were nearly constant. The clouds were eerie and fiery-white luminous. There was a low continuous rumble. It seemed the whole sky was in great turmoil; it felt as if I were about to behold the vision of Ezekiel's, that at any moment the cherubim and the ophanim and the ineffable sapphire firmament would come crashing through the clouds, splitting open the thick darkness. About fifteen or so minutes later, it began to drizzle fairly. An hour thereafter, the storm already had moved onward towards the Bitterroots, the sky having completely cleared, revealing the pale stars, faintly peeking through the obnoxious city glare in the still, cool air.

I guess it was a confirmation of the truth of my dream. I need to be more careful about writing my dreams down.

The wife has gone to Oregon for a day-visit with her sister. I'm alone today, feeling rather melancholic. This morning, after getting the oil changed in the truck, and after lazily lounging at Starbucks for a while, munching a scone while reading one of Jack Deere's books, I stopped at the branch library to check the new book shelf. It's cheaper than buying books. I looked at a recent one, by some well known Salon literati, talking about how we terrible Bible clingers  are about to take over and rule America, and make everybody else's life supremely miserable—what with our Taliban-style theocratic government, Blue Laws, and Concentration Camps, I guess. "What a crock," I muttered to myself, although I wished I could have said it more loudly. The book is hysterical too. I wish I could remember the authoress's name right now. It seems when the Republican win office, we xtians get blamed by the various Lefties and feverish Kossacks. And when the Republicans lose office—which they're about to do, as they sorely deserved to be punished—we get blamed as well, only this time by the fancy-pants crowd of Globalists and Corporationists because we somehow tainted the Republican Party, making it too "ideological" for their superior and refined tastes.

Die Christen sind unser Unglueck.

Oh well, we, the off-scouring of the world, can't win no matter what we do. Either way, what are we accomplishing? But don't blame me for anything after this November; I will have voted for the Neither Party. That makes me a Neitherist, I suppose. Perhaps I should write up some sort of Neitherist Manifesto? Nonetheless, before I left the library, I asked a librarian to procure Mark Steyn's newest book, "American Alone: The End of the World as We Know It." It looks like it will be a good read.

After the library, next was the Farmer's Market. The morning air was crisp and cool, as the sun began peeking through the fog. The weather here in Land-In-Between is starting to change, and I have started wearing my double-lined winter jacket. The farmer's market is always nice to stroll through. One booth I saw had some strange looking pictures, crudely framed, having leatherwork that had been indented by a tool to form a picture, and then painted sloppily. Some of them looked very much like they were derived from icons. "Who's that?" I asked the peddler, as I pointed at one which was only describable as having picture of someone with a beard. "It's Joseph, Jesus's father," was his answer. "You mean his guardian?" I responded. "Well, that depends on your point of view," came his answer, which was combined with a bit of a silly chuckle. It was obvious to me that this work was an imitation of something the artist had seen elsewhere. And it was a pretty sorry imitation at that, because there was nothing to indicate whose portrait it was, and it was rather badly done. And Joseph's nimbus, if that's what it was, was painted green. Green is a funny color for a nimbus. Good Joseph, being of true royalty, should have had gold. But I liked the Farmer's Market. It relaxed me somewhat to go there, as tanked up and buzzing as I was on Starbucks.

One thing for sure, I'll never be invited to a Davos Conference.

New Age Thunderstruck

Book Review

Title: The Great Turning, From Empire to Earth Community
Author: David C. Korten

A few days ago I picked up from the public library a book by David C. Korten.

I highly recommend Korten's book if you want to quaff down a heady draught of Dawning-of-the-Age-of-Aquarius political thinking, the kind that tends to grow up in the misty lands of the Puget Sound, which heavily gets discussed by blogliobibuli over steaming lattes at Starbucks. Now Korten bills himself, on the book cover, as "a co-founder and board chair of the Positive Futures Network" (which publishes YES! Magazine from Bainbridge Island, WA), the "founder and president of the People Centered Development Forum", "an associate of the International Forum on Globalization", and "a member of the Club of Rome".

Yes, those are impressive credentials. Club of Rome, no less! I am sure he gets to hobnob with the powerful and well-to-do … while nobodies like me get to live, in run-down single-wides in flyover country.

On the book's dedication page, Korten says:

Dedicated To … George W. Bush, whose administration exposed to full view the imperial shadow side of U.S. Democracy, stripped away the last of the illusions of my childhood innocence, and compelled me to write this book.

Beyond all doubt, Korten must have felt so violated as regards to his innocence. But at least he thanked Bush, because without him this magnificent book might never have been written. And considering that there's a whole chapter in the book that begins with the title "When God Was a Woman", it's easy to get a feel for the general direction the book will going: to wit, those aweful Bible clingers are the real cause for all the problems in world … you know, what with that awful patriarchal Hebrew God of theirs, and all that.

At the start of the book, there are four pages of "Praise for The Great Turning", which contains effusive encomia, written by 22 different people, extolling this book's greatness. For example, here's what Matthew Fox, the very spiritual theologian and educator, had to say:

Employing history, psychology, economics, spirituality, and common sense, Korten not only critiques the dilemma we are in as a species, he also shows us doable and workable ways out of our morass. He has created a tour de force — a call to compassion as much as a blueprint for survival. This book is a kind of Bible to the 21st Century, a revelation of where we might travel if we have the moral imagination and the courage to choose and act wisely.

Another person, Jan Roberts, said "THIS is the book we have been waiting for!" Still another, Bill Knuth, said "Brilliant. Challenging. Inspiring. Practical. Spiritual. Intelligent. Once again, David Korten challenges us with his keen analysis and elegant wisdom …" Even Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich weighs in with "David Korten has presented a clear blueprint for a powerful emerging majority."

As we can see, THIS is the book that momentarily left Bill Knuth so thunderstruck he was reduced to uttering one word sentences. And the rest of Korten's admirers are equally besides themselves with the marvelousness of his book.

But somehow I have the feeling I won't get treated too well by that "powerful emerging majority" Kucinich was alluding to.

Gosh, to have a command of so many diverse fields, to have such praise from so many of the world's cognoscenti, David C. Korten must be a prodigious polymath, and maybe even a Supreme Guru on his way to becoming an Ascended Master. Wow, if Matthew Fox thinks his book is the Bible for the 21st Century, I guess we can throw away our old ones; for David C. Korten must have come down from Mt. Sinai, amid the thick darkness and the lightnings and thunders, and the voice of a trumpet, with an entirely new revelation: Worship the Golden Calf.

Elkins Resort

Yesterday, we got back from a short vacation at Elkins Resort. It's a nice place, located on the western shore of Priest Lake at Reeder Bay, a little east of Nordman. We had nothing particularly fancy, just a plain one bedroom cabin. Off in the distance, we could see the ridge of the Selkirk Mountains, jutting up into the sky east of us.

Priest Lake drains at its south end through the Priest River, which connects with the Pend Oreille which flows northward to Canada. Unfortunately, there were some fires going, out beyond the northern tip of the lake, which had the effect of making the air very hazy, giving the Selkirk Mountains a rather abstract look.

The entire area around Priest Lake is "so Idaho", quite mountainous or hilly, heavily forested, but punctuated with a meadow or marsh here and there. Now if you are a lover of the hustle bustle of city life, do avoid the area because you'll find little that is interesting there, unless looking at every variety of conifer under the sun constitutes excitement for you. And if you like sightseeing and visiting lots of curious tourist traps, along with extravagant restaurants, well, the Priest Lake really doesn't have any of that.

In fact, the Priest Lake area is rather sparsely populated, even by Idaho standards. If soul-searing isolation is something you love, well, I recommend Priest Lake. There's only one road in and out, state highway 57. If you have a heart attack, count yourself dead because it's a long way to the nearest fully equipped hospital.

Elkins Resort was nothing terribly fancy. It had a marina, along with boat slips that looked a hundred years old, and some nice narrow beaches. You can rent boats, canoes, and bicycles. And it did have an excellent dining room, although a little on the expensive side. The "huckleberry whiskey barbeque chicken" was very tasty. But my recommendation is to bring most of your own food and drink. Many of the cabins are equipped with a stove, refrigerator, and microwave. But there are simply not that many nice restaurants in the area. Most of the boat marinas, here and there around the lake, however do have cafes, of varying quality. But remember it's Land-In-Between; expect things to be rough.

Addendum: A little east of the Selkirk Mountains is a specially protected area set aside as habitat for the mountain caribou. Consequently, it is off limits from many recreational uses. According to one of the locals, however, the mountain caribou no longer actually live there; and over the last ten years only two had ever been spotted. "Were they all dead?" I asked. "No, they just migrated up to Canada," was the explanation. Well, I guess they threatened to move to Canada if George Bush got elected, which explains it.

Farmers' Market

Today, my wife and I had an enjoyable time at the Farmers' Market, which is held on Saturdays not far from where we live, here in Land-In-Between, in a grove of tall ponderosa pine adjacent to a small industrial park. We bought some lemon cucumbers, and also some organically grown apples, about the most perfect looking apples I've ever seen, and very tasty too. There was some fellow with a guitar and harmonica up on a small stage, playing some jazzy outdoor music which added greatly to the pleasantness of the place. And indeed, the place was more crowded than usual and very lively. I had a good time.

Peculiar People

A Book Review

Title: A Peculiar People
Subtitle: The Church as Culture in a Post-Christian Society
Author: Rodney Clapp

Here is today's entry from my dream journal:

I am walking westward down a street much like the one near my home. Looking west, toward the vast field where alfalfa is grown, I see a magnificent storm in the sky, like a vast thunderstorm with dark clouds filling the sky. It was a beautiful sight. I turned to look east and, behold, in the sky there was a storm so great, so dark, so awesome that I was greatly astonished at the sight of it. But in the midst of the clouds, shining through them, was a bright light, that was beautiful like to the full moon at night. This sight lasted a moment and then my vision went blurry and grey. I felt as if I was trying to open my eyes but couldn't. Then I woke up.

I mentioned earlier that there is an answer, even if it's hidden in darkness. I have my suspicions as to the interpretation of this dream, but I need to think about it for a time.

After reading Rodney Clapp's book "A Peculiar People", I do recommend the book, especially for pastors. But it's the sort of book that has to be read very carefully, at least twice, first of all, because Mr. Clapp covers a great deal of territory in his book, and secondly, because, I think, he can be easily misunderstood in what he is saying. For example, Clapp sometimes uses words in a way that have peculiar meanings, and one has to pay careful attention to understand exactly what he is talking about. As an example of this, sometimes he uses the words "politics" and "political" in a sense that really has nothing to do with their usual meanings, which most people would probably associate with political parties, Republicrats and Democans, lobbyists, pressure groups, and the rest of the usual hubbub of secular governments. It is actually the case that Clapp is using the words with the far more subtle meaning of "that which constitutes the structuring and maintenance of an independent community in its essential nature and identity".

It would almost require a book of its own to completely analyze what Clapp had to say. But to put it very briefly, in a nutshell, he is saying that the Church has truly entered an entirely new epoch in its history: it has entered what he calls a "post-Constantinian" era. But one would have to read his book to understand all the ramifications of what this means. But what is important to note, as Clapp sees it, this pivotal development is actually a great opportunity wherein the Church can fulfill its true destiny as the eschatological community of God's people here in this temporal age. Basically, I agree with Clapp's thesis; it resonates with me in many ways. But I would go one step further: the Church in not just a community, but it was meant to be a supernaturally empowered community, which exists as a prophetic testimony to the truth of the Resurrection, Ascension, and Glorification of XP, and to His ineluctable Second Coming.

Although it constituted only a small sidebar in what his book was really about, the one area where I would disagree with Clapp is in his espousal of pacifism. For me pacifism is a respectable but mistaken position, understandably mistaken, but mistaken nonetheless. Nevertheless, "A Peculiar People" is one of the best xtian books I have read in a long time, and I rate it up there with Marva J. Dawn's book "Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down".

All Perfectly Legal

Book Review

Title: The Constitution in Exile
Author: Andrew P. Napolitano

Most people probably have seen judge Andrew P. Napolitano on the Fox News network, where he is often called upon to be a judicial analyst. I am currently working through his book "The Constitution in Exile, How the Federal Government Has Seized Power by Rewriting the Supreme Law of the Land".

It's an interesting book, and it is full of plenty of legal information regarding important case histories. On that level I do recommend the book.

But on another level, the more I read the book the more I found myself saying stuff like "pul-leeze!" or "give me a break!" or "you can't be serious!" Napolitano might long for the glory days of the good old "Lochner Court", but for my part I have no desire to return to any of that. Yes, Napolitano might be completely correct in saying the rapacious, laissez-faire capitalism of the 19th Century — with its 60-hour work weeks, gruesome sweatshops, 14 year old children working in coal mines, union-busting Pinkerton Detective thuggery, greedy and bloated monopolies, and whatnot — may have been all perfectly legal and "constitutional", but he should remember that it was also perfectly hellacious.

When the nation's founders wrote the Constitution, they never anticipated the direction that the 19th Century Industrial Revolution would take, especially in its more destructive aspects. That a private individual like John D. Rockefeller could amass such immense power was probably unimaginable to them. Therefore, it is clearly foolish to think that the founders necessarily had the ultimate and final word on everything. If they had been able to foresee what was going to happen, my bets are they probably would have tweaked the Constitution accordingly. And truly it might have been more honest back then, in the 1800s, to have had another constitutional convention to better delineate the course of things and how to handle the situation, rather than dealing with it by a convoluted process of stretching the document with overly-inventive interpretations. But for me, returning to anything like the "Lochner Court" is must plain lunacy.

Reading the book has clearly brought back to me just why it is that I can never embrace the radically libertarian wing of the Republican Party.

Worst Ever Made

The movie I was trying to think of was entitled "The Pride and The Passion", released back in 1957, which was almost half a century ago, a fact which makes me feel really old. Although they didn't exactly present some of their best performances, Cary Grant, Sophia Loren, and Frank Sinatra starred in the movie, along with a cast of thousands. Of course, Sophia Loren was cast as the stereotypical fiery "Latin woman", who in one scene couldn't feign dancing a flamenco convincingly enough if only to save her own life — at least according to one reviewer I glanced over. Another reviewer I read classified it as one of the worst movies Hollywood has ever made. None of the synopses I came across mention anything about the statue of Santa Teresa showing up at the end of the movie, but I am very sure that I recollect that happening. In any case, Ávila was definitely the city that got bombarded by the really big cannon.

Transverberation

Book Review

Title: Teresa of Ávila
Author: Shirley du Boulay

I just finished reading Shirley du Boulay's book "Teresa of Ávila—An Extraordinary Life". I had previously read St. Teresa's own autobiography, but Boulay's biography covers her entire life and fills in several details that I did not know about. For example, Teresa did a good deal of traveling all over Spain, and considering just how difficult traveling was in the 16th Century, her journeys were often feats of endurance. Boulay's book was very well written and quite vivid, and it kept its attention squarely fixed on the person within the context wherein she live, and best of all, it refrained from trying to conscript St. Teresa into serving some sort of 21st Century political purpose.

St. Teresa of Ávila, who canonized in 1622 and was later declared the "patroness of Spain" in 1812, had a very active and extraordinary life, to say the least. And, in many ways, her life was very far-removed from my own: I'm a 21st Century "charismatic" (for lack of a better term), and she was a 16th Century Spanish Catholic "mystic" and foundress of numerous Discalced Carmelite convents. That's a pretty wide gap in fact, but nevertheless, for some strange reason, I found her life fascinating, and although she had some rather beyond-this-world experiences — and I'm one of those persons who doesn't have too much trouble accepting the possibility of beyond-this-world experiences — Teresa always seemed very lively, witty, humorous, practical, and down to earth in many ways.

However, the thing that was shocking to me was how veneration of relics got a little out of hand especially with regard to Teresa after she died in October of 1582. Over the course of time, her body, to put it crudely, was pretty much carved up and spread all over the landscape, with pieces here and pieces there, even if it was done with the best of intentions. As regards to the resurrection of the dead, well, even so, it presents no difficulties. In any case, I imagine that the Catholic Church is nowadays a little more strict about how these matters are conducted. By the way, I remember finding the website of an organization dedicated to stopping the illicit trade in relics.

I do recommend Boulay's biography. I picked it up at Borders Books just recently.

Addendum: Of course, everyone is familiar with Bernini's erotically overwrought depiction of Teresa's "transverberation". And it's funny but I also vaguely remember seeing long ago a movie about some Spaniards stealthily hauling a really big cannon to go blow some holes in the walls of a city occupied by soldiers of Napoleon. They were doing it for Santa Teresa, if I remember it rightly. Or at least they were invoking her help in driving Napoleon out of Spain. I'm not completely sure which, but I'm pretty sure St. Teresa was somewhere in the movie. But it was helpful for the Spaniards to have the cannon, and the French general had a rather surprised expression on his face when he saw it.

Sucking lemons

Book Review

Title: A Church In Search of Itself
Author: Robert Blair Kaiser

This week I took a look at Robert Blair Kaiser's book "A Church In Search of Itself", which I picked up from the "new book shelf" at the nearby public library, mostly out of curiosity. Kaiser is currently the editor of the website Just Good Company, which describes itself as a "A Cyberjournal of Religion and Culture". And in times past, Kaiser had been a "religion reporter" for the NY Times, Time, and CBS, at least according to the blurb on the book's dust cover. And the website says he now "lives and works in Rome as a reporter and editor for Newsweek magazine and The Tablet".

Anyhow, to put it briefly, Kaiser's book concerns recent events in the Catholic Church since the death of John Paul II and the installation of Benedict XVI. And I think I can tersely summarize it as follows: Kaiser is sucking lemons because things have not turned out the way he wanted, which was for the Liberals to have taken over, completely, the Catholic Church. In fact, if one glances at his picture on the dust cover, Kaiser even looks like he's been sucking lemons, what with his stern glare of a man who is peevishly disapproving of everything. While his straight forward news reporting was okay, by and large Kaiser's book was very slanted. And I think it's fair to say that Kaiser made no effort to disguise his disrelish with Benedict XVI.

Liberals can be very peevish, I guess, when they're not getting their way.

Broke His Neck

Book Review

Title: The Silver Chalice
Author: Thomas B. Costain

I picked up, for 50 cents, from the "ugly book sale" at a nearby public library, an old copy of Thomas B. Costain's book, entitled The Silver Chalice, published back in 1952. I vaguely remembered seeing long ago the movie version, starring the very young Paul Newman in the role of Basil (an appearance which Newman is now embarrassed about). However, the only thing I could recollect about the movie was the spectacular yet disappointing belly-flop into the pavement which was done by the villainous Simon Magus, from a great height for entertainment of Rome and Emperor Nero. Simon had been boasting of his magical ability to fly, so he was put to a test. Out of curiosity mostly, I picked up Costain's book — it was cheap anyway — and started to read it.

I only got about half-way through before I conked out. The worst part was that it was a rather boring book. The language was silly and stilted. And the main character, Basil, was completely uninteresting. Of course, I never expected the book to be historically accurate, which it wasn't. Later, I might try to pick up where I left off as a sort of personal challenge, just so I can say I had read it all.

However, let me point out what was said in chapter 31, at the end of section 3. After seeing Simon the Magician do his belly-flop, Gaius Petronius (who probably wrote the Satyricon) turned to Caesar Nero and said, "He has broken his neck most thoroughly … And most artistically." So I guess he gave Simon a high score there. Nevertheless, the emperor Nero was not pleased with the performance.

Talk To The Hand

Book Review

Title: Talk To The Hand
Author: Lynn Truss

I recommend Lynn Truss's book "Talk To The Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door". Truss is a good writer with a smooth, concise style, which is well punctuated, of course. She is not only humorous and sometimes guffaw provoking but also perceptive. I wish I could emulate her writing style, for it is excellent.

One word of caution: since Truss deals with the subject of rudeness, of necessity she has to cover the topic of foul language and its prevalence in society. She does manage, delicately, to handle the subject without letting things get too coarse. But I should point out that she does use minced versions of some bad words.

Dull Boy of Baltimore

A Book Review

Title: Mencken — The American Iconclast
Subtitle: The Life and Times of the Bad Boy of Baltimore
Author: Elizabeth Roger

Mencken was a wag and influential newspaperman who admired Nietzsche, imbibed Huxley, and despised Bible-believing xtians, especially evangelicals and "holy rollers" (such as myself, though I really don't do that much rolling). Though despising them, yet for some strange reason, he was also fascinated by them. Also, he smoked cigars and was something of a roué who wasn't above callously jilting someone.

Just those two things tell me a lot. In many ways, Mencken was a thoroughly modern man. I recall many years ago a high school teacher telling me that she thought my writing style, at the time, reminded her of Mencken's. She gave me a book having some of his selected essays, which I read. I remember finding him humorous and witty, scornfully so, but only mildly interesting. His writing also seemed insubstantial and not really going anywhere — like someone obsessively talking about an itch he has and doing so with a perpetual sneer on his face. I never read much of him after that.

But he was a notable character back in early 20th Century America, and so I'd thought I might read up on him a little bit. He was a contemporary of Aimee Semple McPherson, although the book doesn't say very much about what Mencken might have said or thought about her specifically, although I heard that he came to her defense when she was being prosecuted by the district attorney regarding the famous "kidnapping" episode.

Anyhow, I have Marion Elizabeth Roger's recent biography of his life. On the front cover is a flash photo of him quaffing a beer. I guess he was celebrating something. The End of Prohibition perhaps? Roger's biography was pretty well written, though in places I suspect she "imaginatively" supplies some interpolative details to grease the gears of her narration.

After getting one-third the way through the 553 pages of Roger's book, I decided to call it quits. It wasn't because her biography was anything less than comprehensive and well written. If someone is a Mencken fan, then I would definitely recommend her biography of his life. But honestly speaking, I just didn't find H.L. Mencken all that interesting a person to read about. Yes, indeed, in his day he was a influential journalist with a smart-aleck attitude, sometimes witty and humorous. But also combined with it was an ineradicable arrogance and an inelastic conviction of his own intellectual superiority to the mass of his fellow men. I guess he got that from imbibing too much Nietzsche and Social Darwinism. Occasionally, he was given over to visceral antipathies. It seemed to me his hatred of William Jennings Bryan was pretty close to being downright pathological. I guess it would be comparable to the "Bush Derangement Syndrome" often found among the loonier portions of today's Left.

But his antipathies weren't just limited to Bryan. After reading instance after instance where he is calling someone or another a "mountebank", or denouncing this and that, even if in differing and clever ways, still, it all gets to be rather threadbare after awhile. Invective, even if combined with a clever turn of phrase or bon mot, can get very tiresome. More than anything else, I found him a boring subject and what he had to say so much wind. Plowing through all 553 pages of Roger's biography just didn't seem worth the effort.

Tragicall Historie

Things at work have kept me very busy lately, and consequently I have been more than usual tired, which is why my blogging has been very sporadic over the last few months. That and my reading binge have made blogging with any regularity more difficult for me. For example, I just worked through an recently published scholarly biography about the 16th Century English playwright Christopher Marlowe, who died young, a dagger in the eye, in what could be described as a barroom brawl with some shady people.

Now, long ago when I was a young college lad, I directed the lighting for a stage production of Marlowe's "The Tragicall Historie of Doctor Faustus", so naturally I took a look at the book about Marlowe when I saw it on the new book shelf at the local library, here in Clingerville in Red State America. The book certainly provided a flood of detail about university life in Cambridge, the Elizabethan spy network, the Privy Council, people getting tortured on the rack, intricate political intrigues among Tudor era aristocrats, women dying in childbirth, life in Canterbury and London and Shoeditch, when manly men ran around dressed in those funny lace collars; Reformation Wars, various bombastic actors, Tamburlane, the mysterious Thomas Dee, Thomas Walsingham, Sir Walter Raleigh, James VI of Scotland, various rogues, pamphleteer, lawsuits, corrupt judges, Puritans, and swindlers. But much of what actually concerned Marlowe's life, outside of his poetry and plays and the little bit we know about his family, seemed more like "informed conjecture" than anything else, based on the scant body of hard evidence we actually have about his life.

Much of the book seemed, in my opinion, more like educated interpolation based mostly on what we know about his times and the milieu he lived in. Yes, he translated into English some of Ovid's smuttier stuff. His Tamburlane was a real sensation on the stage, as was his Faustus. Shakespeare probably borrowed a line or two from him. Did they ever meet? Nobody really knows for sure. And yes, it is pretty certain Marlowe was a spy of sorts for Her Majesty's government. And he was here and there at various times. And on occasion he was arrested but released. He had enemies, some of whom didn't exactly have squeaky clean reputations themselves. He was allegedly an "atheist" and a homosexual. Possibly, which may explain some of the revived interest in him. University Humanities Departments nowadays love those sorts of things — though it seemed that the author of the book tended mostly to punt on the matter.

Now the front cover of the book had a restored painting of a young man, arms crossed, with a insouciant smile and thin mustache, dressed in a Elizabethan doublet decked with gold buttons, painted around that time, but even then there's no real certainty that it was actually a portrait of Christopher Marlowe. We only know the painting's date, and that its Latin motto reads as "That which nurtures me destroys me". While little is actually known about Shakespeare's personal life, not all that more is known about Marlowe's.