Here's the poem on which I am writing my final J-Po paper. I thought that some might enjoy making its acquaintance.
Icarium Mare
Richard Wilbur
We have heard of the undimmed air
Of the True Earth above us, and how here,
Shut in our sea-like atsmosphere,
We grope like muddled fish. Perhaps from there,
That fierce lucidity,
Came Icarus' body tumbling, flayed and trenched
By waxen runnels, to be quenched
Near Samos riding in the actual sea,
Where Aristarchus first
Rounded the sun in thought; near Patmos, too,
Where John's bejeweled inward view
Descried an angel in the solar burst.
The reckoner's instruments,
The saint's geodic skull bowed in his cave--
Insight and calculation brave
Black distances exorbitant to sense,
Which in its little shed
Of broken light knows wonders all the same.
Where else do lifting wings proclaim
The advent of the fire-gapped thunderhead,
Which swells the streams to grind
What oak and olive grip their roots into,
Shading us as we name anew
Creatures without which vision would be blind?
This is no outer dark
But a small province haunted by the good,
Where something may be understood
And where, within the sun's coronal arc,
We keep our proper range,
Aspiring, with this lesser globe of sight,
To gather tokens of the light
Not in the bullion, but in the loose change.
November 30, 2009
November 29, 2009
Friday Night: Cookies for Dinner
All of the ingredients
Roommate Joe (behind towel) and Brittany
We decided to whip the butter, and it started to look like mashed potatoes.
Then it looked like scrambled eggs...
FAIL
The cookies had too much butter, I think, because they melted and spread out all funny. They were yummy though.
November 26, 2009
In the words of Bon Jovi, "We're half way there"
My friends, especially to the relativists in the street,
It is this day, this epic wonderful day that we celebrate and gather together with our families in order to give thanks for the many spiritual and temporal gifts we have received. So, I extend a warm and happy Thanksgiving Day to all of you, dear friends. Now, hoping that this is not out of style--I shall tell you that I am grateful for:
It is this day, this epic wonderful day that we celebrate and gather together with our families in order to give thanks for the many spiritual and temporal gifts we have received. So, I extend a warm and happy Thanksgiving Day to all of you, dear friends. Now, hoping that this is not out of style--I shall tell you that I am grateful for:
- my faith
- my family
- my friends
- my education
- a job doing what I love
- poetry
- being
- memory
- Reese's Puff Cereal (the rentals wouldn't allow that growing up)
- Jerry
There is a certain rambling quality to all things biological, and I am biological, and therefore I have a certain rambling quality. I would call that last statement a "sequitor."
Enjoy your Thanksgiving, whether you're near or far from your family.
Happy Thanksgiving, and don't get caught out there on "Black Friday!"
-The fantastic Mr. Bloch
November 24, 2009
repartee and a song
while i mostly agree with neu's previous post re: relativism and applaud his conclusion wholeheartedly, i would like to claim that, despite neu's case study and carefully recorded dialogue between the catholic and relativist men-on-the-streets, the types of relativism are not so dichotomously stratified. a lot of the men-on-the-streets out there, and even more-so the women-on-the-streets (women tend to be better at intuition and less rashly extreme) out there, do not have such an ignorant, nihilistic apprehension of what relativism really means. a lot of them know quite consciously what neu has only credited them with knowing subconsciously. no big deal, really, but the people-on-the-streets are a good deal more thoughtful than you give them credit for. they have lives and brains too, and i believe that most of them believe in this, even though the next disheveled hipster you meet in the street might not know that's the terminology for his beliefs.
and, the song.
and, the song.
Responding to the Relativism of the Street
This is the first draft of an article I'm writing for De Rebus, an intraseminary publication on culture and politics. Yes, I'm part of the editing staff. Yes, I'll probably run it next year.
Responding to the Relativism of the Street
Joshua M. Neu
With regards to the relativism rampant in our culture, there are at root two distinct types: the relativism of the scholar and the relativism of the street. Of course, both may be divided and subdivided into their constituent doctrines and adherents, but that more or less does it. The relativism of the scholar, most prevalent in the universities, boasts a wide variety of pedants and ne’er-do-wells, from A. J. Ayer with his heady doctrine of emotivism to Friedrich Nietzsche who supposes that truth is woman whom each man must lure away, but the particularities of these views relate little to the baker, the butcher, or the newspaper delivery boy. No, the relativism of the street, that is, of the man-in-the-street, is much less thought out, and perhaps, therefore, much more honest. As it is on this man that the wheels of our day-to-day culture turn, so it is to this man that the Catholic-in-the-street must respond. With that in mind, I will tease out what it is that the man-in-the-street actually believes and offer a response, constraining myself to comment only on relativism applied to religion, rather than ethics or some other category.
The conversation between the Catholic-in-the-street and his fellow man usually runs a bit like this:
Relativist: “You cannot tell me what to believe. All truth is relative.”
Catholic: “The claim that all truth is relative is a claim about absolute truth.”
Relativist: “But some things are true for me, whereas others are true for you.”
Catholic: “Truth is not merely relative or subjective. You claim that there is a truth, namely that ‘all truth is relative,’ which is true regardless who believes it. In doing so, you both contradict your claim and show that you believe in some sort of absolute truth.”
Usually, the relativist remains unconvinced, while the Catholic walks away mumbling about the principle of non-contradiction and wondering how someone could be so obstinate. It seems that they might as well have had two different conversations. I contend that, for all practical purposes, they did.
The man-in-the-street maintains an unspoken premise, one which he may never have thought through. He believes that truths regarding religion are essentially unknowable. Since it is unknowable, religion is a way of organizing one’s experience, coping, or imparting meaning to one’s life. Therefore the man-in-the-street uses the word “truth” in two ways. The first is exactly as the Catholic means the word in the above conversation—as Aristotle says, “To say that [either] that which is is not or that which is not is, is a falsehood; and to say that that which is is and that which is not is not, is true.”[1] The second way is that a truth is a belief about that which cannot be known, for the purpose of organizing the believer’s experience, coping, or imparting meaning to the believer’s life. With this hidden distinction, the man-in-the-street can claim that truth is relative and go on unscathed by the Catholic claim that there is an absolute truth.
In a certain sense, the man-in-the-street is correct. Religious truth as such cannot be known through reason. It is known through faith, and faith is a supernatural virtue that is a gift from the personal God who reveals Himself in Jesus Christ. Faith is primarily the belief in a person, not in a set of propositions—crédere in Deum rather than crédere quod Deus sit. This, however, does not justify fideism. The propositions, such as that purgatory exists or that the universe is not founded on an infinite series of causes, are quite important, but they are only knowable through believing in Him who reveals. Were it not the case that God is Who He says He is, then the man-in-the-street would be correct about all religious truths. All would be of the second sort, wanderings through a dark wood while refusing to awaken to life’s essential tragedy.
Is it, then, the case that there is “[n]othing to be done,” as Estragon would like us to believe while he and the man-in-the-street await the arrival of Godot, whether that figure is a person or nothing at all?[2] Of course not, but although intellectual debate of nuanced propositions can be helpful for conversion, the Catholic tradition has always recognized that the Holy Spirit is the one who works, converting the soul to the person of Jesus Christ. In every age of the Church, the Holy Spirit commissions this work to witnesses, beginning with the primary witnesses, the martyrs. One has to wonder if Our Lord allowed Stephen to die just so that Paul could see it happen and have the passing thought that Christ might in fact be Who He says He is.
Augustine arrives only a few centuries later, and as Christ is the archetype for all the martyrs, Augustine may be an archetypical convert. Even Augustine, an intellectual next to Christians like Gulliver hovering over Lilliput, was inspired not by argument so much as by a witness, for example, the life of St. Anthony the Great. Through his well-tuned rhetoric, Augustine’s very Confessions encourage us to follow Christ with Augustine himself as witness.
The Catholic must demonstrate that the truth of the Catholic faith is a truth in the primary sense of the term, and that demonstration is one not of propositions but of martyrdom. The priest or religious primarily submits this proof because all aspects of his life flow from and lead toward the person of Jesus Christ. When truly all aspects of his life are so directed, no one can deny that the religious claim is one of absolute truth. Such an all-encompassing devotion cannot be confused with a belief for the purpose of organizing the believer’s experience, coping, or imparting meaning to the believer’s life. No man is celibate in order to cope. The response to relativism is what all Catholic responses essentially have been, martyrdom for the person of Jesus Christ, in whom the martyr believes as absolute truth.
A Commentary on Christian Culture
The new photograph, perhaps taken with Lord Bloch's recently purchased digital camera, reminds me of what I've been thinking about lately, namely, of the death and restoration of Christian Culture. I finished The Death recently and am now in the midst of The Restoration. It was a fascinating text, particularly the first two and last three chapters. Some of the middle chapters got a bit repetitive--Senior spends a lot of time teasing out what he calls "the perennial heresy." Nevertheless, the book is, as one might suspect, a must-read, even if only for the last chapter or two.
On Thursdays I teach 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th grade religion classes at a Catholic school right outside of Philadelphia. The kids are wonderful but, as you might imagine, terrible uninformed. Basically, I go in there and talk about saints. That's the whole class. Saints. Last time, we talked about St. Teresa of Avila, mainly because she's nuts, which I told the students right from the get-go. I told them various stories about Teresa's life, you know, going off to be martyred by the Moors, living in a makeshift hermitage in her backyard garden, falling in the mud, the reform of the shoeless sisters. I didn't make it to the transverberation, but oh well. That all went pretty well, as it usually does.
So here' s the thing. I'm trying to teach them about saints because saints are, in my opinion, a large part of the central myth (in the Father Maguire sense) of all of Catholic Culture. Of course, the central myth is the Eucharist, or perhaps we might say that the Eucharist is the omphalos around which all other myth revolves.
This is what is supposed to happen: after Sunday Mass, the old grandmother makes the whole family a stack of her world-famous pancakes and a heaping bowl of grits. When that's done and dad is asleep on the Laz-e-boy with the newspaper opened wide and draped over his belly and mom sips her tea in the sitting room, the grandchildren run around outside playing tag without really knowing who's "it" or how he got to be so androgynous. That's when the selfsame grandmother slips out the screen door down the path through the yard onto the sidewalk toward the church. And every once in awhile, her grandkids tag along. She gets there, says a few blue-haired prayers, lights some candles near the altar to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and proceeds to introduce her grandkids to the Lady with such comely countenance. And that's when it happens. She proceeds to introduce those children to every man, woman, and child depicted on the walls, ceiling, altars, and pulpit. Perhaps a kid remarks something delightful, as I found in a recent clipping of the "Family Circus" from the funnies pages--something like "It must be tough to be a saint since you have to pose so much." But that's what is supposed to happen, when you are 6.
Senior doesn't mention this lack of a phenomenon in his book, perhaps because the saints hadn't been out of the public eye long enough in 1978. But any Catholic of late who has stumbled upon the old edition of Butler's will agree the saints are conspicuously lacking in modern Catholic art and the modern liturgy. 40 years is a long time for a smoke break, so I tend to think something else is afoot.
But I am not here to discuss who is keeping our kids from meeting their older brothers and sisters in the Faith. The fact is that each Catholic kid is an only child for all practical purposes. An only child grows up to be an only adult, and that's what most Catholics under 45 tend to be, along with a good number of people 0lder than that. It's going to be awfully awkward when Christ calls us to the big family reunion and we wish everybody could wear a nametag. Our Lord won't be the only one to say "Never did I know you."
Dr. Senior exhorts us to read the 1000 Good Books. That's the first way to restore our Christian culture. Well, it's second only to smashing the television set. It seems to me, though, that getting the saints back in our lives is high up on the list as well. I imagine it is important to the Holy Father, too, who recently spoke with artists from around the world at the Sistine Chapel, calling them custodians of beauty. And perhaps with the oh-so-long-in-coming new translation of the Mass, we will start to hear bit more about them as well. According to a Catholic artist friend of mine, however, the artists at the papal meeting were mostly part of the mod squad, and as far as the liturgy goes, in order to shove some saints back into it, priests will still have to pray the first Eucharistic prayer, rather than the other three, or at least mention them in the homily. It may be true that "Beauty alone will save us;" in the meantime, I wonder what can be done.
So back to my class. Rather than rambling about doctrines and dogmas without the context of that Catholic culture in which the doctrines and dogmas make more sense, I decided to start with the 1000 Good Saint Stories, as it were. Such humble beginnings.
But what else can be done?
Well we could...
Joshua Neu
On Thursdays I teach 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th grade religion classes at a Catholic school right outside of Philadelphia. The kids are wonderful but, as you might imagine, terrible uninformed. Basically, I go in there and talk about saints. That's the whole class. Saints. Last time, we talked about St. Teresa of Avila, mainly because she's nuts, which I told the students right from the get-go. I told them various stories about Teresa's life, you know, going off to be martyred by the Moors, living in a makeshift hermitage in her backyard garden, falling in the mud, the reform of the shoeless sisters. I didn't make it to the transverberation, but oh well. That all went pretty well, as it usually does.
So here' s the thing. I'm trying to teach them about saints because saints are, in my opinion, a large part of the central myth (in the Father Maguire sense) of all of Catholic Culture. Of course, the central myth is the Eucharist, or perhaps we might say that the Eucharist is the omphalos around which all other myth revolves.
This is what is supposed to happen: after Sunday Mass, the old grandmother makes the whole family a stack of her world-famous pancakes and a heaping bowl of grits. When that's done and dad is asleep on the Laz-e-boy with the newspaper opened wide and draped over his belly and mom sips her tea in the sitting room, the grandchildren run around outside playing tag without really knowing who's "it" or how he got to be so androgynous. That's when the selfsame grandmother slips out the screen door down the path through the yard onto the sidewalk toward the church. And every once in awhile, her grandkids tag along. She gets there, says a few blue-haired prayers, lights some candles near the altar to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and proceeds to introduce her grandkids to the Lady with such comely countenance. And that's when it happens. She proceeds to introduce those children to every man, woman, and child depicted on the walls, ceiling, altars, and pulpit. Perhaps a kid remarks something delightful, as I found in a recent clipping of the "Family Circus" from the funnies pages--something like "It must be tough to be a saint since you have to pose so much." But that's what is supposed to happen, when you are 6.
Senior doesn't mention this lack of a phenomenon in his book, perhaps because the saints hadn't been out of the public eye long enough in 1978. But any Catholic of late who has stumbled upon the old edition of Butler's will agree the saints are conspicuously lacking in modern Catholic art and the modern liturgy. 40 years is a long time for a smoke break, so I tend to think something else is afoot.
But I am not here to discuss who is keeping our kids from meeting their older brothers and sisters in the Faith. The fact is that each Catholic kid is an only child for all practical purposes. An only child grows up to be an only adult, and that's what most Catholics under 45 tend to be, along with a good number of people 0lder than that. It's going to be awfully awkward when Christ calls us to the big family reunion and we wish everybody could wear a nametag. Our Lord won't be the only one to say "Never did I know you."
Dr. Senior exhorts us to read the 1000 Good Books. That's the first way to restore our Christian culture. Well, it's second only to smashing the television set. It seems to me, though, that getting the saints back in our lives is high up on the list as well. I imagine it is important to the Holy Father, too, who recently spoke with artists from around the world at the Sistine Chapel, calling them custodians of beauty. And perhaps with the oh-so-long-in-coming new translation of the Mass, we will start to hear bit more about them as well. According to a Catholic artist friend of mine, however, the artists at the papal meeting were mostly part of the mod squad, and as far as the liturgy goes, in order to shove some saints back into it, priests will still have to pray the first Eucharistic prayer, rather than the other three, or at least mention them in the homily. It may be true that "Beauty alone will save us;" in the meantime, I wonder what can be done.
So back to my class. Rather than rambling about doctrines and dogmas without the context of that Catholic culture in which the doctrines and dogmas make more sense, I decided to start with the 1000 Good Saint Stories, as it were. Such humble beginnings.
But what else can be done?
Well we could...
- Start praying to the saints for help, since that's what they're there for,
- Learn about cool saints like St. Francesco di Paolo, who floated on a cloak to Sicily and ticked off Satan so much that the old devil kicked a footprint into the wall of a city, which old Italian ladies spit on as they pass by,
- Read what they wrote, which Dr. Senior remind us is not hard to read but hard to do,
- Tell stories about St. Joseph Cupertino with the same passion that one might describe the performance of the Shrimp Shack Shooters, and tell them to only adults as well as only children,
- Get friends like Klaus to start painting St. Francis,
- Invite your friends for a St. Lucy's Day party (and trust me, it can be more fun than you think, and no, I'm not just saying that because I'm a seminarian and therefore don't know what real fun is; seminary is just like senior year except funner)
- Dig around on Ebay until you find an OLD copy of Butler's Lives of the Saints, and read it.
Joshua Neu
November 23, 2009
I bought a camera!
I just bought a new digital camera; I don't know why, but the first things that you take pictures of are usually really boring and/or experimental. Isn't it true that a lot of people think that just because they have a camera they are "artistic" all of a sudden? What about people (like me) who get cameras and lose their "artistic" ability??
Here are the things that I took pictures of with my brand new camera:
The living room.
Keeps us humble.
Let me know if any of these do not belong to me.
Cheap version of curtains.
Love all things!
-Pietro
Here are the things that I took pictures of with my brand new camera:
The living room.
Keeps us humble.
Let me know if any of these do not belong to me.
Cheap version of curtains.
Love all things!
-Pietro
November 22, 2009
Happy Birthday
Today A Draught of Vintage is officially one year old!
<<Gloom and sadness fill the air, people dying everywhere, but happy birthday!>>
A favorite birthday memory:
@ that one male auction: "But it's MY BIRTHDAAAAY!!!!!"
<<Gloom and sadness fill the air, people dying everywhere, but happy birthday!>>
A favorite birthday memory:
@ that one male auction: "But it's MY BIRTHDAAAAY!!!!!"
November 21, 2009
The Streets
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you like weird music, you should check out The Streets.
They're UK Grime Rap.
November 19, 2009
Worst Late Night Show Ever
http://www.hulu.com/watch/109835/late-night-with-jimmy-fallon-wed-nov-18-2009
Start the clip at 18:35
This guy interviews the actress from Twilight New Moon and I can't see any reason
why this guy has his own late night show...
Start the clip at 18:35
This guy interviews the actress from Twilight New Moon and I can't see any reason
why this guy has his own late night show...
November 16, 2009
November 15, 2009
Fleet Fox Robin Pecknold's Side Project
Lead Singer and Guitarist for Fleet Foxes, Robin Pecknold, has a solo set side project. Aparently he's going through some hard times and can't write, so he's doing some really amazing covers. The band is called White Antelope. He covers traditional songs such as Silver Dagger, and he even has a cover of Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe; you'll hear the same haunting voice and use of driving rhythm guitar. I highly recommend the song False Knight on the Road.
Visit his Myspace page and listen to his tracks: http://www.myspace.com/awhiteantelope.
The background for his myspace is, I think, a drawing by N.C. Wyeth (the guy who illustrated all of Howard Pyle's King Arthur and Robin Hood books). This makes me happy.
If you want to read a bit about the White Antelope project go here: http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2009/11/10/white-antelope/
On that website above, you will find some mp3 files of his songs. You can actually download and keep these songs for yourself by right-clicking on the link and then clicking "save link as;" then simply save it and add that mp3 file to itunes or whatever music player you use.
Tanti Auguri,
Peter Bloch
November 14, 2009
November 12, 2009
Student Art Work
November 11, 2009
Is it borrowing or stealing?
Borrowing from Dylan and the folk tradition (a real fixer-upper):
"Rain and Snow"
"Abington Sea Fair"
by Nerissa & Katryna Nields
http://new.music.yahoo.com/nerissa-katryna-nields/tracks/abington-sea-fair--200790534
"Rain and Snow"
by The Be Good Tanyas
"Abington Sea Fair"by Nerissa & Katryna Nields
http://new.music.yahoo.com/nerissa-katryna-nields/tracks/abington-sea-fair--200790534
November 9, 2009
Last night I couldn't sleep, so here is a villanelle.
A Better Man
A better man would turn to lead to test
the movement of the leaves in human show
the half-life of the human heart at rest.
A better question than he’d ever guessed
is the logic and direction of the snows.
A better man would turn to lead to test.
The passion of the waves upon the crest,
with purpose readied, will presuppose
the half-life of the human heart at rest.
The mysteries of the stars that wink in jest
and fall for beauty, beauty commanding so,
a better man would turn to lead to test.
Who gives up that by which he is possessed
will quit his lab and run to love to know
the half-life of the human heart at rest.
Til one should bring him love, by Love’s request,
his sought-for sun is angling in the close.
A better man would turn to lead to test
the half-life of the human heart at rest.
November 6, 2009
Waking Up Early in the Morning
To My Missed Loved Ones:
Is there a keener pleasure than not waking up early?
The ancients are silent on the subject, because they were all awake in the morning, and--to my knowledge--miserably without coffee. Today I awoke from my most excellent slumber at an unreasonable hour in order to finish preparing for school. Since that time I have done nothing of the sort.
Of all the great night's sleeps that I've had, of which there have been many, there are none that protrude in my brain-memory enough to recall specifics; however, I can recall most vividly several bad night's sleeps with unholy accuracy and precision. For instance, the night I spent outside the columned keyhole of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, or an epic night on Peter's Beach in Sorrento, or even a few times that I decided to sleep on the couch in the Bar. We remember the bad, not the good, but for some reason, I would rather remember those nights than the nights of drowsy bliss, since to look upon painful experience from from the past is usually an activity of happy remembrance for me.
In closing, no one remembers painful experiences on the "weak sauce" scale, they have to actually be painful, and so, I probably will not be remembering the pain of waking up early today.
PB
P.S. - I am learning French. It is nasal-intensive. I have a problem (called naivety) with giving phone numbers out to [tricksy] people. Can anyone give me that quote from the Aeneid about looking back and remembering something with joy?
Is there a keener pleasure than not waking up early?
The ancients are silent on the subject, because they were all awake in the morning, and--to my knowledge--miserably without coffee. Today I awoke from my most excellent slumber at an unreasonable hour in order to finish preparing for school. Since that time I have done nothing of the sort.
Of all the great night's sleeps that I've had, of which there have been many, there are none that protrude in my brain-memory enough to recall specifics; however, I can recall most vividly several bad night's sleeps with unholy accuracy and precision. For instance, the night I spent outside the columned keyhole of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, or an epic night on Peter's Beach in Sorrento, or even a few times that I decided to sleep on the couch in the Bar. We remember the bad, not the good, but for some reason, I would rather remember those nights than the nights of drowsy bliss, since to look upon painful experience from from the past is usually an activity of happy remembrance for me.
In closing, no one remembers painful experiences on the "weak sauce" scale, they have to actually be painful, and so, I probably will not be remembering the pain of waking up early today.
PB
P.S. - I am learning French. It is nasal-intensive. I have a problem (called naivety) with giving phone numbers out to [tricksy] people. Can anyone give me that quote from the Aeneid about looking back and remembering something with joy?
November 2, 2009
How to Get the University News without actually being in Irving, TX.
As you all thank God that you're not in Irving Texas, it might make you pause to think that, because of this joyous fact of not actually being in Irving, you can no longer pick up a fresh copy of the University News. (So fresh and so clean clean).
But this is no longer the case. Now you can electronically view this newspaper.
All you have to do is click here, or go to www.udallasnews.com
Chortling,
Peter Bloch
But this is no longer the case. Now you can electronically view this newspaper.
All you have to do is click here, or go to www.udallasnews.com
Chortling,
Peter Bloch
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