The Artist’s Vision: Romantic Traditions in Britain

Life

Dawn’s office was closing early, so we had planned to go Friday afternoon to the National Gallery to see the British Romantics exhibit. But she ended up working late, and it was supposed to rain, so we go on Saturday instead.

I have no idea who the British Romantics are, when or what they did, but still I’m excited that we’re seeing something. We haven’t been to the Gallery in a while, I think. Not since the Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre exhibit with Mother Dillon? And the Thomas Gainsborough before that?

We have a little trouble finding the works themselves, though. All Dawn knows is that they’re on the ground floor. We wander around a little before we find a desk with maps and a listing of current exhibitions. There’s a brass quintet playing upstairs, we can hear. Playing Christmas music. But we’re heading down to the west end to galleries C23 to C25.

And when we get there I’m delighted, first to learn that the period covered is late eighteenth through early twentieth centuries, which period includes my recent obsession of Britain during the Napoleanic Wars, and secondly that included are William Blake and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. And in general, the exhibition is all of like sixty-nine works, so it’s sort of perfectly sized. Not too big, not too small.

First up are some romantic landscapes. Think like Elysian Fields, or better yet, think pastoral. Like farm workers viewed from a great distance, surrounded by beautiful scenery, and the distance making their work look idyllic. Romantic.

But then also apparently a theme of this romanticism is a kind of macabre grotesqueries. Included in this are the works by Blake. There’s an etching, two paintings, and two bound volumes. (The bound volumes are under glass, so we can just see a page or two; we can’t turn the pages and peruse.) The one I assume is most familiar is The Great Red Dragon and the Beast from the Sea, which I guess is the one that Francis Dolarhyde eats in Red Dragon. (Alas. Wrong. That turns out to be The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in the Sun. That’s at the Brooklyn Museum, still there, not really eaten of course, but anyway not here.)

And then, just for kicks, the Pre-Raphaelites are here. What a treat. First up is Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, (most famous for The Beguiling of Merlin, also not here), with an Ariadne and a Saint Barbara. Ariadne’s face doesn’t seem to be finished, although I’d swear that’s Jane Morris under there, whereas Saint Barbara is apparently egg tempera, maybe, so says the ID information, with a question mark.

Then there’s Rossetti, with two chalk treatments of Desdemona, and an honest to God actual work (pen, though, not painted) of she herself, named for her even, the impossibly beautiful Jane Morris. We used to, Cathy and I, have a poster of Rossetti’s Proserpine on our living room wall, in our apartment on Barton Street. That’s my favorite Jane Morris of all. Oh did I love that face.

A grand little exhibit. They’ve got it until March 18, 2007. Go see it.

Downloading Music

Life

We got Tivo recently. Well, almost Tivo. The DirecTV DVR version. DirecTV used to have a deal with actual Tivo, but they went out on their own a year or so back.

But anyway the point is that I got this certificate in the mail, kind of a rebate or something, for ordering the DirecTV DVR and service, for fifty free downloads at eMusic. After signing on to, and signing up for, eMusic, I found that the normal two-week trial to emusic affords one thirty free downloads, so I guess I got twenty free downloads from DirecTV. Whatever.

But then the problem was that emusic isn’t iTunes. They don’t have any of the usual mainstream stuff. Which is okay, I guess. I’m hopelessly out of touch as far as mainstream pop music goes nowadays. Not to say that I’m some sort of indie hipster either, though. More accurate to say that I’m hopelessly out of touch altogether.

I ended up downloading two records, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood and Furnace Room Lullaby, by Neko Case, and then Peddlin’ Dreams by Maria McKee, and Your Country by Graham Parker. Oh, and with three songs left over, I grabbed Marieke, from the recent off-Broadway revival of Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, sung by Gay Marshall. And then I found a recording of Jacques Brel himself singing it. And lastly The Day After Tomorrow by Tom Waits, from a record or two ago.

I couldn’t find any Wilco records, or anything by Sarah Harmer. Would probably have gotten something from one or both.

But, all in all, so far, I’m really really digging Fox Confessor. By turns exhilerating and disturbing, Neko Case is like some strange combination of Patty Griffin and Liz Phair, if you can imagine. Great singing chops and bizarre lyrics, maybe, is the key to the combo.

I heard Tom Waits sing Day After Tomorrow on the Daily Show, of all places. They don’t generally have musical acts, not performing anyway. The rest of the album from which the song comes seems like more normal Tom Waits barrelhouse raucous bluesy kinda stuff with weird clanging percussion, but Day After Tomorrow is just a real slow sad dirge. It’s very much like his Fall of Troy from the Dead Man Walking soundtrack, actually, which song I also love love love.

And Marieke, actually, I like a lot better sung by Gay Marshall rather than Brel himself. It’s easily my favorite song from Alive and Well. I didn’t see the recent revival off-Broadway. I saw it, actually, way way way off Broadway, in the basement of Kelly’s Irish Times in DC back in the mid-nineties. Went with the woman whom I dated soon (too soon, really) after my first marriage blew up. Said woman knew the producer of the show, had had like a one-night stand with him in college. Or just a few minutes up against a Pepsi machine affair, really. But anyway he was a really cool guy. Good-looking fellow. And I don’t know what he did in his day job, but he produced this excellent show.

And something about the song and the way that the woman sang it, and how she really emoted, or maybe over emoted but in a way that really worked anyway, it just really got to me. And part of it maybe is the lyrics in Flemish or Dutch or whatever they are, part of the song in this sad different language. It all just really sank in, stuck with me.

The way Jacques Brel himself sings it should probably be the definitive, right? But for me it just fits so much better with a woman’s voice, and Gay Marshall just does it right.

Third Sunday of Advent

Catholic

So very similar to the previous Tuesday’s Zechariah, and either Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion or Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion, today’s first reading is from Zephaniah and begins Shout for joy, O daughter Zion!

The Gospel reading though is the one that’s a real true treat for me, one that I know from way way back. The full reading is from St. Luke, from chapter 3, verses ten through eighteen. But, as it happens, on my old Datsun 510 station wagon years and years ago, my license plate was LUK-313. First time I saw it I figured it meant Luke 3:13. So of course I looked it up immediately.

I must have looked it up in a King James Version, because I remember it as “Exact no more than that which you are appointed.” Oh, but of course I remember it wrong. The quote from the King James is actually “Exact no more than that which is appointed you.” Either way, though, someone is not supposed to exact more than some specified amount. Or, as I’ve always translated it, “Take no more than what you’re supposed to take,” or, more generally, “Take no more than you need.”

And I remembered it as being St. John the Baptish preaching to the tax collectors of Lebanon. Now though I’m not so sure as to why I thought that they had to be especiallly from Lebanon. He’s baptizing in the Jordan River, which is mighty mighty long, running from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, in or between Israel, Jordan, and Palestine. Kinda south of Lebanon. Although I guess I’m looking at present day boundries, not like whatever the Romans said was what, back when they were in charge, two-thousand years ago.

But anyway, looking at the passage now, years later, (when my license plate is CB-0083,) I’m struck more by what surrounds the passage. The NAB that we use in the Catholic Church translates it itself as “Stop collecting more than what is prescribed.” But what I like is that it isn’t just St. John the Baptish spouting off on his own, although I like it when he does that too. No, here, the tax collectors ask for advice. So do the soldiers, and the regular folk too.

The crowds asked John the Baptist,
“What should we do?”
He said to them in reply,
“Whoever has two cloaks
should share with the person who has none.
And whoever has food should do likewise.”
Even tax collectors came to be baptized and they said to him,

“Teacher, what should we do?”
He answered them,
“Stop collecting more than what is prescribed.”
Soldiers also asked him,
“And what is it that we should do?”
He told them,
“Do not practice extortion,
do not falsely accuse anyone,
and be satisfied with your wages.”

And that’s stuff I’ve been thinking about forever, and thinking about lately. Like, why do I believe what I believe? Or, more generally, just what am I doing here, on Earth or even today in this church? And then, more specifically, what should I do? What should I be doing?

And it’s comforting to remember that these are not new questions. Clearly people have been asking these questions for thousands of years.

And it’s some good answers that St. John the Baptist gives as well. Sure, it’s real simple, common-sense advice, but it’s still good advice. You maybe can’t solve all the problems, but at least don’t be the cause of some of those problems. And also: share.

Lovely music today, too, as Ellen Kliman takes a little solo part during the Kyrie that just knocks your socks off. And then she solos wonderfully during communion on the Handel, But who may abide. We go up to her like groupies after Mass and tell her how wonderful she is. Dawn mentions that she’s great on the St. Matthew’s Choir Christmas CD that we bought as well.

Holiday Party

Work

We’ve got a short Friday of work, as our office holiday party starts at one. Or, even earlier, or shorter, I guess, since it, the party, is at Zola, at Eighth & F Streets. We’re at Nineteenth and M. So we pile into cabs to get there.

I ride with Ryan, Michelle, Nancy, and Joe. Ryan’s in front with this giant poinsettia, so the other four of us are smashed in the back seat. It’s your basic Ford Crown Vic cab, like most of them seem to be, built to seat three in back. But four of us make it work somehow.

At Zola we’re led this way and that. Through the kitchen at one point. I tell Joe I’ll give him a dollar to yell La Migra to the kitchen staff. We’re led by a landing, where we’re up above the Spy Museum, which is next door to Zola. Then we head to a back room, our private dining room.

It’d be fairly grim, with its concrete walls, but said walls are somewhat cheerfully masked by hanging sheer fabrics. Scrims? The tables are round and seat ten each. There’s an open bar that we pass on our way to the tables. I ask after their white wine, but they’ve got no pinot grigio, just chardonnay. Yurk. I go with the red, a shiraz. We’re each given a slip of paper with whatever entree that we chose by email a few weeks back. Rodney hands out the tickets for the prize give-away.

I sort of semi-follow Joe and Ryan to a table in the back corner. Ryan’s recently bought a house in Silver Spring near Joe and they’re standing discussing the neighborhood. They’re also standing directly beneath a speaker blaring music. I choose at the table as far away from the speaker as possible, although I’m not sure it’ll be far enough away, that I’ll be able to hear anything.

Kyra and Lauren arrive and sit next to me, to my left. To my right, along the wall, are two empty seats, then Ryan, then Joe. Gladys sits to Lauren’s left. Michelle sits to Joe’s right.

There’s munchy vegetables as appetizers. Then Marty speaks. Or tries to, but we can’t hear her until they turn the music down. Marty gives a nice speech summing up the year. Then we eat. Then Marty and Matt give out the fabulous prizes.

I win something that I’m supposed to pick up back at the office, which thing I promptly forget all about. Days later I’m in crisis as to what is the protocol for such a situation. Should I ask around about whom to ask about the thing that I can’t remember? Should I keep quiet and hope that whoever is holding said thing at the office notices that I haven’t picked it up? (Though I’m pretty sure that there’s no like physical record that I was the winner of whatever it was that I won.) Should I keep quiet and hope that no one ever notices the one prize that’s left unclaimed? If there’s like an email out to all staff about unclaimed prizes, should I still keep quiet, so as not to be that guy who’s so ungrateful as to not even remember what it is that he won?

Happy Birthday, Gordon!

Life

My best friend Gordon turns 43 today.

I first met Gordon in August of 1983. He worked at Crown Books, at store #828, in Bradlick Shopping Center. That’s in Springfield, or maybe Annandale. It’s at the intersection of Braddock and Backlick roads.

Eileen was his boss, the manager of the store, and Gordon was her assistant manager. And Eileen was … well …. my friend, I guess. Boy, is that a long and complicated story. Long and complicated to me, anyway. Maybe not so interesting to you, though.

So anyway I went to see Eileen at her store, I think to talk to her about Mark Buckley, maybe. And while I was there I met some of her staff and co-workers, Gordon being one of them.

Oh, and I bought a porn magazine, a copy of Swank, while I was there. And Gordon rang up the purchase. I seem to remember now that he maybe asked to see my ID, I think to see how old I was. Since Eileen was older he thought that I was older too, but then learned that I was a few months younger than he was.

Swank had bought some pictures of John and Yoko naked, that somebody had found in the trash at the Dakota, is the only reason why I was buying the issue. I mean, hey, don’t get me wrong: I loves me my porn. But Swank? Not really my particular cup of tea. Way too outre for my tastes.

And but anyway, so then I had a passing acquaintance with Gordon, more so when Eileen moved over to Crown #807 and took Gordon with her. And I saw more and more of Eileen over fall and winter 1983 and 1984. And then Gordon and Babs and I all got dumped by our respective dating partners all around February and March of 1984, and all started hanging out together. Lots of dinners at the Pizza Hut across Beauregard Street, playing Back on the Chain Gang on the jukebox.

I used to call Gordon Dad for many years. It came mostly from Daddy Gordon (or maybe Daddy Gordo), what his girlfriend’s daughter called him. And I think it partly related to the Our Speaker Today episode of the Good Neighbors, where Richard Briers refers to the young Robert Lindsay as son, so Robert Lindsay kinda testily then calls Richard Briers dad. But still, calling Gordon Dad. That seems kind of weird and significant, now that I think about it, twenty years later.

And now Gordon is a dad, of course. He and Babs finally got married, and then they had Ally, who’ll be eleven next March. Goodness, how time flies.

Happy Birthday!

Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Catholic

Today is the feast day of the patron saint of Mexico, among other places. I’ve been living with her all year in the form of the calendar that adorns the wall right behind me, right between the two windows of my office.

I’m not sure where or why or how I came to possess this calendar. I think maybe I bought it on sale at Borders, after Christmas, after New Year’s Day. Dawn likes whimsical cat or folk art calendars, whereas I’m more generally a fan of religious ones. And a calendar where each month is a different depiction of the same icon, well, that’s right up my alley.

The first reading from the Lectionary for today is from Zechariah. It’s similar to, so very similar to, but in fact just ever so slightly different from, the great soprano piece from Handel’s Messiah, Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. That’s actually from Zechariah 9, whilst today’s reading is Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion and is from Zechariah 2.

(And as it turns out, we hear this very Handel piece this coming weekend at the 10:00 a.m. Mass.)

And the Gospel is the from St. Luke, just slightly before the Magnificat. Hey, it’s the Hail Mary!

The angel Gabriel was sent from God
to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph,
of the house of David,
and the virgin’s name was Mary.
And coming to her, he said,
“Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.”

When I was first in inquiry at St. Matt’s, Will Young pointed out how great the next line was: But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Will said that this showed what a special relationship the Blessed Virgin had with St. Luke, because the only way that he would know that she was troubled, or what she pondered in her heart, is because she told him so.

Pinochet

News

Speak no evil of the dead? Not this time. Pinochet died yesterday.

Oh, I’ve been feeling sick and angry all over again about him, since his birthday last month when he announced that he took “full political responsibility for what was done.”

I have to keep returning to the Onion story, about Atta and company, Hijackers Surprised To Find Selves In Hell. I can only comfort myself by thinking of these same unspeakably obscene tortures being visited today and in perpetuity on one Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte.

But then, of course, I read the companion piece, God Angrily Clarifies ‘Don’t Kill’ Rule, from the very same post-9/11 issue, and I feel ashamed.

Growing increasingly wrathful, God continued: “Can’t you people see? What are you, morons? There are a ton of different religious traditions out there, and different cultures worship Me in different ways. But the basic message is always the same: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Shintoism… every religious belief system under the sun, they all say you’re supposed to love your neighbors, folks! It’s not that hard a concept to grasp.”

“Why would you think I’d want anything else? Humans don’t need religion or God as an excuse to kill each other—you’ve been doing that without any help from Me since you were freaking apes!” God said. “The whole point of believing in God is to have a higher standard of behavior. How obvious can you get?”

“I’m talking to all of you, here!” continued God, His voice rising to a shout. “Do you hear Me? I don’t want you to kill anybody. I’m against it, across the board. How many times do I have to say it? Don’t kill each other anymore—ever! I’m fucking serious!”

Upon completing His outburst, God fell silent, standing quietly at the podium for several moments. Then, witnesses reported, God’s shoulders began to shake, and He wept.

Second Sunday of Advent

Catholic

Oh, but I didn’t mention the music we’ve been having! Even starting two weeks ago, the week before Advent began, November 26, the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King, we get someone from the Schola Cantorum doing a solo from Handel’s Messiah. On Christ the King it was Worthy is the Lamb. Last week it was Thus saith the Lord and But who may abide.

And this week it’s O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion. I don’t know the names of the singers in the choir, so this woman who sings it I always just call Kate. She vaguely reminds me of Kate Winslet. After Mass she’s out in the nave greeting what appear to be her grandparents, so I stop by and introduce myself and Dawn and tell her how good she was. And she introduces herself as Heather. Ah, not Kate. Heather.

And continuing the theme of waiting and anticipating, today’s Gospel reading, from St. Luke of course, gives us good old St. John the Baptist, preaching from Isaiah. And it’s those lines that Handel uses right at the beginning of Messiah.

A voice of one crying out in the desert:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight his paths.
Every valley shall be filled
and every mountain and hill shall be made low.
The winding roads shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth,
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

So I’m totally expecting that as the Handel solo during Communion, Every valley shall be exalted, but, as I said, we get O thou that tellest instead. Or we could totally expect this part of Isaiah to be the first reading, right? Wrong again! We get Baruch instead. But, still, it turns out to be interesting in its own way. Check this out:

For God has commanded
that every lofty mountain be made low,
and that the age-old depths and gorges
be filled to level ground,
that Israel may advance secure in the glory of God.

It’s the same thing! Cool and fun. Our man Baruch tying into Isaiah, or channelling Isaiah. Or maybe the other way around? Wonder which was written first? I’m guessing Isaiah, since he’s like such a rockstar prophet, while poor Baruch is deuterocanonical. (Or apocryphal, depending on your particular persuasion, right?) Some quick Wikipedia research puts Isaiah around 740 BC and Baruch around 580 BC.

I have to admit, though, that I’m a bigger fan of Handel’s old King James, with its rough places being made plain, rather than the NAB’s smooth.

And I especially like the beginning of the Gospel reading, setting the scene, placing it in historical context:

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar,
when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea,
and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee,
and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region
of Ituraea and Trachonitis,
and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene,
during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas …

The way I understand it, there’s no contemporary record of Jesus, the Gospels all being written some forty to seventy years after the Resurrection. So I like this tie to events and people where there maybe are extant records. I don’t know if St. Luke’s account matches up exactly, like if Lysanias and Herod were in fact contemporaries, but it sounds good to me.

Circuit 9

Home

We’d been having this problem with an electrical circuit in the house. It’s been really weird. Dawn noticed it at first, watching Midsomer Murders on the Biography Channel while knitting. The power to the TV and satellite receiver would just momentarily go off and then back on. It’d be especially annoying because then the receiver would have to take a minute to reacquire the satellite signal. As a couple of weeks went by it started to happen more frequently, and then the power started staying out for more than just an instant.

We tried cycling the circuit breaker off and on, but that didn’t help. There are only two outlets on that particular circuit, so I bought replacements. I replaced the first outlet, the one nearer to the breaker box. The outlet further downstream turned out to be like two outlets covered by a double plate. I didn’t feel like replacing just one of the outlets or going out to buy another one, and frankly I didn’t think that it was the further downstream outlet(s) causing the problem anyway.

But replacing the one outlet didn’t help, either. So the one last thing I wanted to do before calling in a competent electrician was to check the circuit breakers themselves, since this problem only started since we had had some work done, when the guys added the two new circuits. And but actually, when they did that, I had seen how the circuit breakers plugged into the main panel, is really the only reason that I even thought to check this.

To get to the breakers I had to remove the front panel. It was attached by three screws (although there should have been four, but one was missing). After taking out two of the three screws the front panel shifted partially sideways, hanging from the one remaining screw. And it must have touched something otherwise inside, because the main circuit breakers tripped and the whole house went out.

Okay. Probably should have shut off that main circuit before taking the panel cover off.

Anyway, I pulled out the breaker for the circuit, but nothing seemed amiss. But it was a smaller breaker, one that plugged in together with the circuit breaker right above it, both going on the same main panel connector. And both of these were directly below the new circuits the guys installed. And the little pin on that companion circuit breaker looked bent somewhat to the right. So I bent that back straight, plugged both circuits back in, and now the problem seems to be solved. I think the way that the one pin was bent on the one circuit breaker was pushing the pin on the other circuit breaker just enough to sometimes break the connection, maybe as the weather the getting colder and these metal connections were contracting ever so slightly.

And I found the fourth screw that the guys seemed to have forgotten, so now the cover is back on a little more stable.

All in all, I’m very pleased that it’s working correctly again, but also that I didn’t kill myself.

The Nutcracker

Life

It’s a holiday season tradition, seeing the Washington Ballet perform The Nutcracker at the Warner Theatre. We meet Becky beforehand at Red Sage around the corner, have dinner, and then head over for the show.

Artistic Director Septime Webre reimagined the whole thing a couple of years ago, giving it a Washington setting and flavor: Clara living in a big house in Georgetown, the land of the Sugar Plum Fairy springtime under the cherry blossoms, that sort of thing. We had originally heard that there’d be some sort of George Washington Nutcracker battling a Mouse King George III – awful, dreadful, yuck – but thankfully it doesn’t go that far. True, the Russian dance is transformed into a frontiersman and women, but it’s okay. And the Arabian dance is Anacostia Indians, but that’s a really good touch. I’m underwhelmed by the Clara shrinking/Christmas tree growing special effect, but that’s a very minor point.

We have fun trying to figure out which dancers are dancing which parts. We had expected some sort of an announcement, at least for like Clara’s parents and the Sugar Plum Fairy. But, no, nothing.

Looks like Sona Kharatian and Erin Mahoney-Du switch off with each other on different nights, one playing Clara’s mother and the other in the Spanish Dance. Sadly this is Erin Mahoney-Du’s night to be Clara’s mother. Much less dancing, but at least she is completely lovely in a gorgeous deep rich red gown. My other favorite, Elizabeth Gaither, is the Snow Queen this year. Last year, or maybe it was the year before, she was the Sugar Plum Fairy. This year the SPF is Maki Onuki, and Dawn announces, correctly it turns out, that Jonathan Jordan will be her Cavalier.

Most amazing are the Anacostia Indians, Laura Urgelles and … we’re not sure who. He’s wearing a mask. The program says that it’s one of: Chip Coleman, Runqiao Du, Alvaro Palau, Tyler Savoie, Luis Torres. We can tell that it’s definitely not Chip Coleman or Runqiao Du. I’m reasonably sure that it’s not Luis Torres. Dawn’s sure that it’s not Alvaro Palau. (The next day’s review in the Post will say that it’s Alvaro Palau. Dawn stands by her determination.) Whoever it is, though, mightily and quite impressively lifts and holds Laura Urgelles straight up on one arm. Wow.

Mother Ginger in this production is called Mother Barnum, and she (although played by either Jason Hartley or Luis Torres) is a big merry-go-round. I like that a whole lot better than productions where she’s this giant and the kids (clowns, or, technically, Polichinelles) get like creepily birthed out from under her skirt.

It’s cold and windy when we get out, and we catch a cab home, the one day of the year that Dawn will take a taxi. And he’s just about the fastest craziest cab driver in the city, this guy is.

De mortuis nil nisi bonum

News

Jeane Kirkpatrick apparently died in her sleep last night. She was 80.

I yelled at her once. Not that she likely heard me, mind you, as she was at the time being yelled at by a lot of people. But I did yell at her.

Twas way back in the early eighties, when she was the US ambassador to the United Nations. She had come to the University of Minnesota to give a speech, which speech at the Northrup Auditorium was booed and jeered and heckled by many dozens of the students and guests present. I myself sat politely and just quietly listened and observed, until she began taking questions. Someone asked if we, meaning the United States and its citizens, bore some responsibility for the killings and atrocities and torture being carried out by the government of El Salvador, and by its proxies and death squads, since we supported the junta so heavily.

Ambassador Kilpatrick, with venomous condescention, explained, that by the same logic, the Americans who protested the Vietnam War now bore the responsibility for the behavior of the government in Hanoi. Oh, I was so mad. I stood up and just shouted obscenities at her.

Later, since it was the first Wednesday of the month, and around noon, we held our usual die-in1 on the steps of the auditorium. A news photographer snapped a picture of us, which photo ended up on the front page of the Minnesota Daily the next morning. You can see me beatifically propped on the steps in the background. I still have a copy. Found it recently when cleaning out the filing cabinet.

 

1 A die-in was like a sit-in, except that instead of sitting, you’d like fall down and pretend to be dead for five minutes. This we did on the first Wednesday of every month, when the civil defense sirens would go off. Maybe it wasn’t noon when they tested them. Maybe it was one. Or maybe noon. Doesn’t matter. The point was to protest the idea that maybe sirens and fallout shelters weren’t a particular wise policy vis-à-vis nuclear war. Maybe preventing nuclear war was the way to go.

First Sunday of Advent

Catholic

Happy New Year!

It’s now Year C, according to the Lectionary readings schedule. Readings from St. Mark? That’s so last year. It’s St. Luke this year.

The readings today, as they would be in Advent, are all about anticipation. Something’s a-comin’. First, from Jeremiah:

The days are coming, says the LORD,
when I will fulfill the promise
I made to the house of Israel and Judah.
In those days, in that time,
I will raise up for David a just shoot;

I like the botanical imagery, describing a shoot. Oh, and not just any shoot, but a just shoot. Why such a phrase, a just shoot? Well, I guess I understand the just part of it, as the Messiah will be the king, who limns between right and wrong. And maybe the shoot, the plant image somehow makes it all the more natural, more organic. That it’ll just grow and happen. Somehow that makes it more likely?

And what should we do while we’re waiting? St. Paul says to “conduct yourselves to please God.” And in the Gospel, Jesus warns that there will be signs, scary signs, that people will die of fright, even. Be vigilant at all times, he says. Pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations.

Oh, yes. Something’s a-comin’.

In his homily, Father Caulfield, dressed in festive purple vestments, explains that it isn’t quite Christmas yet. Soon. But for now, we wait and anticipate.

Thanksgiving

Family

We have much to be thankful for this year. And we start out being thankful for the annual Thanksgiving Day hayride.

I go to help Papa Joe load up the bales of hay on the trailers promptly at 8:00 a.m., but he’s almost finished by the time I get down there. I feel terribly guilty. I try to grab two bales in each hand at once, to try to make up for lost time. I have trouble getting both hands loaded. Joe yells at me, saying I’m going to bust them.

My main job is to drive the Gator behind Joe on the tractor pulling the trailers, while he takes the rig up to the road and turns it around. I wait to drive him back to the house. People are starting to arrive. Getting closer to 9:00 we head down to the road to load up.

Riding around the farms, sitting on the bales, we drink Bloody Marys out of styrofoam cups. Heidi helpfully opens and closes the gates. Back at the house we have food, especially Mary’s biscuits and sausage gravy, and hot buttered rum. Then it’s downstairs to Joe’s pub where Jake is pouring the beers.

It’s good to be totally drunk at 10:30 a.m.

Travel

Life

We drive from Washington to Atlanta. Well, to Newnan, somewhat south of Atlanta. We drive all day.

For some reason, on road trips, Dawn likes to drive first. And that’s just fine with me, because we’re up early and I’d just as soon snooze in the passenger seat as much as possible. She fires up the first CD of the day, the soundtrack to Zeferelli’s Romeo and Juliet. We listen to it through like four or five times, for a couple of hours. I’ll fire up something more rocking after lunch.

At some point Dawn plays some Philip Glass. It sounds to me like … insanity.

We leave just after seven in the morning and finally arrive at the Dillon farm around eight-thirty p.m. Long drive.

Veterans Day

Life

So we’ve got Armed Forces Day, which is for current members of the military. And we’ve got Memorial Day, which is for past dead members of the military. And today is Veterans Day, which is for past living members of the military.

Happy Veterans Day, guys. Especially my father and brother.

Of course was originally Armistace Day, commemorating the end of World War I. And that’s a day worthy of Owen’s most famous poem.

Wilfred Owen
Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!– An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.–
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Happy Birthday, Ma!

Family

My mother, Patricia Marie, was born this day. Some years ago, we won’t say when.

She retired to Florida this year. Was able to sell the house in Fairfax County and use the proceeds to buy a nice little place in the middle of the state. I’d never been to Florida, not before last week when I went to visit Ma’s new place and help install a door.

My mother’s a very private person. Even now I think I’m maybe revealing too much here.

It’s funny. Just now I’m thinking of memories I have of my mother, from when I was a little kid. And the first two that come to mind are, this one time when she was bundling me up to go out ice skating with the other kids and I stepped on her bare foot with my skate, and the other was when my dad got back from Vietnam. And I realize that I’m thinking of times when she cried. Wonder what that means.

When I was learning to drive, when I had my learner’s permit, I remember going out with my parents to drive the neighborhood when it was their turn to drive around for the neighborhood watch. We had this 1975 Buick Skylark. Had an eight track player, and I was playing Bruce Springsteen’s The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle. My mother declared Incident of 57th Street to be the dumbest song she’d ever heard. I don’t know why, but that still tickles me to this day.

As a kid I used to complain about her smoking. She was surprised when as an adult I took up smoking too. I remember her dancing with Nana at my sister’s wedding. And she took me in and took care of me after my first marriage collapsed.

Rumsfeld and Mehlman

Politics

Secretary Rumsfeld “resigned” yesterday.

Most interesting to me is the timing. I haven’t seen any pundits anywhere say so, but to me the President’s announcement smacks of diversion, as a way of making big news himself the day after the Democrats made such big news of their own. He says that he would have been announcing Rumsfeld’s “resignation” either way, win or lose, but I don’t believe him.

And I say that I don’t believe him, I can say that the President is simply lying, because in his press conference the President admits to having lied about Rumsfeld’s tenure only a week before. (Emphasis mine.):

Q Thank you, Mr. President. Last week you told us that Secretary Rumsfeld will be staying on. Why is the timing right now for this, and how much does it have to do with the election results?

THE PRESIDENT: Right. No, you and Hunt and Keil came in the Oval Office, and Hunt asked me the question one week before the campaign, and basically it was, are you going to do something about Rumsfeld and the Vice President? And my answer was, they’re going to stay on. And the reason why is I didn’t want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign. And so the only way to answer that question and to get you on to another question was to give you that answer.

The truth of the matter is, as well — I mean, that’s one reason I gave the answer, but the other reason why is I hadn’t had a chance to visit with Bob Gates yet, and I hadn’t had my final conversation with Don Rumsfeld yet at that point.

The President lies. The President admits to lying. Nobody much notices or cares.*

But what it makes me think of more is, after the Republican revolution in 1994, Speaker Gingrich seemed to be the bigger figure in Washington. There was even a press conference where a reporter asked President Clinton if he, if the presidency, were still relevant. I’m sure that’s why President Bush is if front of reporters and announcing major changes. To insist that he’s still relevant.

It’s a politically smart move, but then nobody ever accused this guy of being politically dumb.

And the long knives are out not just for Rumsfeld, though. News today is Ken Mehlman is “resigning” as well. Or, rather, not running for a second term as chair of the RNC. Looks like he’s taking the fall, for Libby Dole at the NRSC, for Tom Reynolds at the NRCC, but even more so for Karl Rove, the Emperor to Mehlman’s Darth Vader. (Or, Mehlman is to Rove what Rove used to be to Lee Atwater, and the lot of them being the bad cops to Bush good cops.)

* Now, if he’d lied about having sex with that woman, now that’d be some news, wouldn’t it?

Say Goodnight, Gracie

Politics

Burns and Allen concede. Republicans lose Senate as well.

Especially gratifying is the Allen loss, for the fact that he is so odiously repellent, but then also since it dashes whatever presidential aspirations he may have had. And that goes maybe double for Santorum in PA, although I do feel a slight twinge of guilt about him as well, being that he’s a fellow Catholic and I’ve seen him going to Mass at St. Joe’s.

Otherwise gratifying is McCaskill’s win in MO, after the whole flap where Michael J. Fox had to defend himself for having a debilitating disease. And then there’s the 22nd district in Texas, Tom Delay’s old seat, flipping to the Dems. Although that pickup is somewhat diminished because the GOP ran a write-in candidate named Shelley Sekula-Gibbs. Honestly, people, you expected voters to write in S-e-k-u-l-a-G-i-b-b-s? Next time try something less complicated and weird.

Glad to see Sherwood the mistress throttler lose in PA, but that’s offset by Gibbons the waittress molester winning in NV. Glad to see Curt Weldon lose, after he weirdly accused the FBI of some sort of Democratic conspiracy when they raided offices of lobbying shops connected to him.

Disappointed, though, by Ford’s loss in TN, after the outrageous RNC bimbo ad against him, and Ken Mehlman pretending that he had nothing to do with it. And disappointed that the evil Jean Schmidt seems to be holding on in Ohio’s 2nd district, although it’s still so close that it hasn’t been called.

And locally, glad to see both Ehrlich and Steele go down in flames. Apparently they hired homeless people to campaign near polling stations in Baltimore and PG County. Well, okay, except they hired homeless people from Philadelphia, who wouldn’t especially know that the sample ballots that they were handing out listed Ehrlich and Steele as Democrats. No, I’m not kidding.

Regime Change

Politics

I’d been so looking forward to today’s entry, hoping I’d be able to say something about the President and Republicans in general getting spanked by the American people.

And it seems to be the case, more or less, looking like the Repubs having failed to flip anything their way. The New York Times always has the best graphics for elections, and, where they have little blue cubes for Democratic gains and red for Republican, there’s not a single red. Not a single Republican gain. Not a single House or Senate seat. Not a single Governor. They held on to some, but they gained nothing. And lost quite a bit more. The House is clearly in the Democratic majority. More than half of Governors will be Democrats. And the Senate is hanging in the balance, but looks like the GOP will lose it.

But, I’d also been describing to people how I would be only happy with a real bloodletting. A Republican bloodbath, is what I called it. Just metaphorically, of course. But somehow the news about Adrienne Shelly being murdered kinda puts a damper on things. Makes me feel ashamed for using such coarse terms.

Still, the election news itself does cheer me somewhat. I wear a blue sweater, to celebrate the blue victory, but I’m wearing a green shirt underneath. Today I may be blue on the outside, but I’m still green on the inside. Tomorrow I’ll go back to remembering that I’m not a Democrat, that they’re not my party.

Somebody Got Murdered

News

I don’t normally read much normal news beyond the headlines on Yahoo and the Washington Post. I used to read the New York Times quite a lot, before they walled off so much behind Times Select. But today being election day I find myself unable to resist checking CNN.com every other minute, trying to glean anything, any sort of belwether as to election results. And so then I’m also horribly tempted by worse than useless celebrity news. Faith Hill pretending or not pretending to be upset at losing at the CMAs. Kirstie Alley showing off her new sleeker physique. That sort of thing.

And some guy admits to killing some actresss. I hadn’t heard anything about any celebrity being murdered. What’s that all about, I wonder. So I click.

And I’m totally shocked and stunned and saddened. Immediately to the left of the story proper is a picture of Adrienne Shelly, a production still from some movie called Revolution #9, with one Michael Risley. Never heard of him or the movie, but seeing her picture and thinking that maybe she’s the actress in question, it’s a strange sinking sickening feeling. It’s not about her, is it? She’s not the one, is she? Murdered?

And of course it is.

She really was.

Now, I never met the woman. I’m the first to sneer at poor dim fools who think that they somehow know or are close to actors or actresses or pop stars or whomever, based on simply seeing them on TV or hearing them on the radio. So it’s not so much a personal reaction, finding out that she’s been killed. But then it really is a personal reaction, a real tangible visceral thing, although I’ve no fucking clue why.

I call Gordon, to find out if he’s heard this news, to wonder why he didn’t tell me if he did. Turns out he just found out today, and he sent an email to my Yahoo account about an hour ago. And he was similarly stunned. So we talk about it.

Gordon thinks maybe our strong reactions have something to do with discovering independent film as young adults, especially the films of Hal Hartley, where young Adrienne Shelly starred in his two first hits, The Unbelievable Truth and Trust. How maybe Adrienne Shelly forms a part of our youth, or a part of our lives, probably gone now, through age and cynicism. Hell, I don’t even go out to movies anymore, just do the NetFlix, right? And I didn’t even much like the last Hal Hartley that Dawn and I rented, The Girl from Monday. Although of course Adrienne Shelly wasn’t even in that one. And the last thing I saw her in was this movie called Hexed, with Ayre Gross and Michael Knight and R. Lee Ermey. Saw it with Cathy and Dave and my Dad of all people, in the theater in 1993. She was very cute in it, although the movie itself was thoroughly dreadful. But not her fault. But anyway I haven’t seen her in anything in a while. Or not new, I suppose. I’m sure I’ve re-watched Unbelievable Truth and Trust in the years since. I know I owned them on VHS up until just recently.

Maybe also for me this feeling of a cruel blow has to do a lot with Abby, with whom I had a somewhat long and difficult relationship. And one of the first times I ever talked to Abby was to ask her if she knew that she looked a lot like Adrienne Shelly. And Abby had seen something with her in it on like HBO or something that very weekend, so she even knew who she was.

And I suppose our reaction may be a bit intensified by the details, the especially grisly details of the murder itself. So not just that she died, but that she was so cruelly bludgeoned and strangled. And that she leaves behind a husband and a daughter only three years old.

Just awful.

Back to Ballet

Life

The usual Saturday morning, with yoga at Tranquil Space. On the drive there I see a woman, hailing a cab at Eleventh and Mass, who looks like the new temp in the Education & Training department at work. A cab next to us makes a really crazy move to get to her, making at least two and maybe three illegal turns.

Later, after lunch, we pack up the car for the demi-annual household hazardous waste collection. I go up Fifteenth, confusedly thinking I’m going to Bladensburg or Brentwood Road, when in fact we’re going to Benning Road. Luckily we have to actually cross Benning Road, at which time Dawn reels me back from the abyss and sets me in the right direction.

We have the address of the transfer station where we’re going, but even better there are lots of signs on the way for the collection today. We turn in and join a long line of cars waiting. We’ve been listening like the last week or two to some classical CD of Dawn’s, and we finally tire of it and I pop in one of mine. One of my all-time favorites, the Housmartins The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death. Dawn doesn’t like it so much.

We have only paint and varnish and oily rags and the like, but we see they’re also collecting electronics. We see a man whom we only know as Tiger’s Dad dropping off some computers. We wave at him but he doesn’t recognize us, is only crabby so that we don’t cut in front of him.

Back home we pick up and clean and vacuum and all that,getting ready for dinner. Becky’s coming over. I don’t so much like doing house chores, but I sure do love the house when it’s all sparkly clean.

Then we’re off to the Kennedy Center for the Washington Ballet. First up is a piece called In the Night by Jerome Robbins, music by Chopin. I think it’s wonderful. Next is something called oui/non. It’s choreographed by Washington Ballet’s Artistic Director Septime Weber. And that’s the good news. The music is Karen Akers singing Edith Piaf. The best that can be said is that it’s live music, that Karen Akers is actually up there on stage singing. I always prefer actual live music to recordings. And hey, who doesn’t love Edit Piaf, right?

At intermission we see Dr. Claudia from St. Matt’s. We joke about Jason Hartley hurling himself around on stage.

Last up is In the Upper Room, which I positively hate. I hate the music, by Phillip Glass, and I hate even more the choreography, by Twyla Tharp. It’s all modern jogging around.

But, still, Erin Mahoney is so very tall, and I really like Elizabeth Gaither, despite Dawn’s complaints about her gawky floppy hands. And that Luis Torres is one strong man, able to toss Brianne Bland like way high in the air. Dawn moons over guest artist Sean Stewart.

ASH Kickers v. A-Bomb Kids

Life

I get stuck at work and don’t make it to the game until 6:20 p.m., twenty minutes after start time. I hope there were enough guys there to field a team without me, without having to forfeit.

Turns out the A-Bomb Kids had only seven players show, so they were the ones to forfeit. But the teams are playing anyway, just for fun, scrimmage. It does seem a smidgen unfair that we field the full complement of eleven against them, while they’ve only got seven. But we’re not like that good either, so we need all hands we can get.

I jump in and play catcher and emcee for one half inning, then am the first up to kick on offense when that’s over and we change. I kick the first ball high into right field, and it’s promptly caught. And surprisingly that ends the game. Apparently the scrimmage agreement was to play only until six-thirty.

And that ends our season as well. Our record of 3-9-1 puts us fourteenth out of the sixteen teams in our division.

Well, I was on the math team in high school

Life

For no good reason, the article of the day in Wikipedia today is about 0.999…, meaning a zero followed by a decimal point followed by an infinite series of nines. So far so good, as we’re all used to seeing, for example, one-third represented by both a fraction (e.g., 1/3) and as a similar decimally notated number (e.g., 0.333…) or some other representation, like having a bar over the last three.

But the point of the article is not to simply note that such a recurring decimal exists, but rather to also say that it is equal to one. As in:

0.999… = 1

Not that they’re just similar, or like really really close. No, not just that. But that they are in fact absolutely equal. They are two ways of representing the same number.

So at first I’m amused by such a silly notion. Then I’m a little distressed when they offer a number of mathematical proofs. (The simplest of which is starting with that 1/3 = 0.333… and then multiplying both sides by 3. Gets you there, don’t it?) So then I actually start to get slightly pissed off about it.

The article goes on to discuss the stress that math students feel about this particular concept and its proofs, so I’m not unique or anything in my reactions. But still, it’s like the stages of grief, you know, having to deal with this new fact that I really could’ve done without knowing.

And so then the only thing to do now is to burden you with it.

Sorry.

(And yet I’m still hoping that this is some sort of MIT or CalTech version of an April Fool’s joke.)

Life

Dawn and I are walking up Mass Ave in the morning, walking to work. At some point we’re talking about tall and short or something about height anyway, and Dawn mentions that, compared to me, she’s closer to the ground.

It makes me think of, and so I immediately start singing to her, the wonderful song Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground. It was written by Willie Nelson, but I’ve never actually heard any version that he’s done. I know the Bob Dylan version. I think it was a b-side of some single in the early to mid eighties. I had a 7-inch of it, and I must have played it to death in my room that I rented in Fairfax when I was going to George Mason University. I think it was 1985.

And I had it around the time that Francois Truffaut died. It always makes me think of him. And the single that I had was misprinted, or erroneous, in that it listed the songwriting credit as Dylan himself, rather than Willie Nelson.

(Some Googling shows that Truffaut died in October of 1984. Harder to track down the song. Probably the b-side to Union Sundown, and a European release apparently. Most likely I bought it at Yesterday and Today Records in Rockville, to which we made frequent pilgrimages in those days.)

A Stirring Time for People That Have Wished to Have Powerful Self-Reliant Defence Capability One-Hundred Percent

News

It’s a really scary world out there with a nuclear North Korea. So we look for silver linings where we can. On that note, who can resist their news releases, with their endearingly screwy English syntax?

DPRK Successfully Conducts Underground Nuclear Test

Pyongyang, October 9 (KCNA) — The Korean Central News Agency released the following report: The field of scientific research in the DPRK successfully conducted an underground nuclear test under secure conditions on October 9, Juche 95 (2006) at a stirring time when all the people of the country are making a great leap forward in the building of a great prosperous powerful socialist nation.
It has been confirmed that there was no such danger as radioactive emission in the course of the nuclear test as it was carried out under a scientific consideration and careful calculation.
The nuclear test was conducted with indigenous wisdom and technology 100 percent. It marks a historic event as it greatly encouraged and pleased the KPA and people that have wished to have powerful self-reliant defence capability.
It will contribute to defending the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the area around it.

I dreamed we were there

Life

Harper’s whole monologue:

Night flight to San Francisco; chase the moon across America. God, it’s been years since I was on a plane. When we hit 35,000 feet we’ll have reached the tropopause, the great belt of calm air, as close as I’ll ever get to the ozone.

I dreamed we were there. The plane leapt the tropopause, the safe air, and attained the outer rim, the ozone, which was ragged and torn, patches of it threadbare as old cheesecloth, and that was frightening. But I saw something that only I could see because of my astonishing ability to see such things: Souls were rising, from the earth far below, souls of the dead, of people who had perished, from famine, from war, from the plague, and they floated up, like skydivers in reverse, limbs all akimbo, wheeling and spinning. And the souls of these departed joined hands, clasped ankles, and formed a web, a great net of souls, and the souls were three-atom oxygen molecules of the stuff of ozone, and the outer rim absorbed them and was repaired.

Nothing’s lost forever. In this world, there’s a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we’ve left behind, and dreaming ahead. At least I think that’s so.

Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Catholic

A stunning first reading, so clearly pre-figuring the Passion.

For if the just one be the son of God, God will defend him
and deliver him from the hand of his foes.
With revilement and torture let us put the just one to the test
that we may have proof of his gentleness
and try his patience.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death;
for according to his own words, God will take care of him.

I love Old Testament readings that do this.

The Gospel reading is from St. Mark, where the disciples are arguing, arguing as to who among them is the best disciple. What are they, like junior high students or something? I’m the best, says one. No way, I’m so totally the best of the best, says another. I’m pleased at how utterly human they are, like we are as followers today, as much as I’m annoyed by them.

Surprise Party

Life

We’re up early to drive to New Jersey. Main and Erin are throwing a graduation party for John. Supposedly.

Rumors have been flying about this party all summer. I’m so dense I wouldn’t have figured it out for myself, but Rob & Carol decide that it’s going to be a wedding rather than a graduation party. I initially dismiss such talk as silly, but the closer we get to the actual event the more I’m convinced that they’re really getting married.

So we get to the Madison Hotel in Morristown NJ, all of like fifteen minutes before the official start time of one p.m. I’m a little panicky, really not wanting to be late for a wedding, in case it is a wedding, right?

And first thing I see is the sign directing various folks to the various functions being held in the hotel, and the item of note says Lawler/Melick Surprise Party. Now, this was billed as a simple graduation party. No surprise. Yup, must be a wedding.

I quickly change in the spacious restroom, and when I come out I find Dawn. Then we find Main and John. I see John’s in a suit, and Main’s, yup, in a white dress. It’s a wedding.

But there’s cocktails from one to two, so needn’t have worried about being late. Who is late, however, is Annmarie. We chat with her son Patrick and his wife Valerie, who have been in cell phone contact with her, but don’t want to tell her why she should hurry.

Happily Annmarie shows up in plenty of time, whereupon Main assures her that she wouldn’t have started without her, and Annmarie bursts into great sobbing tears anyway.

The bride is lovely and the groom is especially spiffy. Erin is spectacularly dazzling. A Catholic priest good-naturedly performs the civil ceremony. Main and John touchingly recite their own vows.

And Erin later gives her own touching speech for a toast to the happy couple.

What grand fun.

Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Catholic

Some tough readings today, all about action. Can’t just talk the talk; rather, gotta walk the walk.

Isaiah tells of real hardship for following the Lord. I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting. Really raw suffering, for his faith. And St. James asks us, What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? He says that just wishing the poor and hungry a good day doesn’t do them any good. It’s feeding them and clothing them, not just sympathizing but comforting, actually providing, that counts. And Christ tells us:

Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake
and that of the gospel will save it.

I think about these things and wonder: how much is enough? And I know that however much I think is enough, it’s not enough.

And but then I think of poor Martin Luther and justification by faith alone.

So, as I see it, you gotta walk the walk. It doesn’t count. But you gotta walk it anyway.

The Holy Father and Islam

Catholic

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI gave the speech on Tuesday, days ago now, but it’s all just now starting to get into the news. Certainly I first year about it today. I of course do the right thing and go find a copy & read it. Hard to know what to think about reactions to what the Holy Father said without actually knowing what he said, huh?

So I read it and am not especially outraged. He quotes a fourteenth century Byzantine emperor, quoting a rather charged statement actually, but qualifying the quotation by noting that it’s a rather charged statement. And apparently I read an early translation of the orginal German into English, which translation misses even more qualifiers.

But, okay, I’m not a follower of Islam, so I won’t pretend that I can adequately judge their sensitivies to bias and insult. I myself am fairly sensitive to anti-Catholic sentiment, heck, was so when I didn’t particularly believe in God. So let’s just stipulate that what the Holy Father said is in fact offensive to Islam.

Does that justify fire-bombing churches? (Although neither of the two churches bombed in Nablus were actually Catholic churches. One was Anglican and the other Greek Orthodox.) And shooting and killing a Catholic nun in Mogadishu? That’s just fucking crazy.

Afterwards

Life

My mother was stuck in Mexico, having been scheduled to fly back later on the day of the attacks. My father’s girlfriend Sharon was actually in the air, coming back from Germany, and got diverted to Canada. Dad later drove to Detroit to get her.

I wasn’t sure the next day whether to go to work. Whether the office was open. Whether the city was open. And we were all pretty keyed up for like a whole month after that, where any emergency vehicle siren was upsetting, where guys were stationed on every street corner on top of Humvees and holding machine guns. National Airport didn’t open for more than a month.

I remember rallying behind President Bush. Heck, we all did. And Le Monde saying, Nous sommes tous Américains, remember? Where did that go?

I didn’t especially relish the idea of invading Afghanistan, but I didn’t especially oppose it either. I mean, the President certainly gave the Taliban every opportunity to give up Bin Laden. (Although I suppose that Bin Laden pretty muched owned the Taliban, so it’s not like they very much could do anything. But live by the sword, you know?)