A Draught of Vintage

The Latest Hubbub in Claremont

2011-02-05T22:42:00.003-07:00

Hey Everybody,
I hope the Spring is treating y'all well, and that you're not getting too stir crazy with all that snow. My Spring been pretty hectic so far, but by the grace of God I'm keeping my head above water. I thought y'all might enjoy reading some of the latest controversy I've been involved in here at Claremont. Basically, I was asked by some kids at the undergraduate school, Claremont McKenna, to debate a guy from the ACLU on the topic of "gender neutral housing." That's right, dudes and chicks living in the same dorm room. Unfortunately CMC is probably going to go for it, but not before I've throw down an argument:

Separate Housing: It’s not Prudish, It’s Prudent
By Christopher Wolfe, Claremont Graduate University

I would like to offer some reasons for why I think the gender separate housing policy at Claremont McKenna is a good idea. What I will be explaining is not some prejudice, but a rational basis from the real costs and real benefits of the two housing situations- gender neutral and gender separate. There are economic, practical, and moral reasons to keep gender separate housing, and virtually no benefits to allowing a gender neutral housing option--other than perhaps a feel-good moment for the ACLU.

Before I get into these pluses and minuses, I’d like to indulge in a little ad hominem against the ACLU and its claimed defense of “civil liberties” through this initiative. What civil liberties are they defending exactly? Fair and equal treatment of each woman and man certainly is a civil liberty we should fight for, but that is not what is at stake with gender separate housing. Whenever the word “separate” is used, people assume some kind of unfair discrimination. The word “separate” recalls the famous 1896 segregation case, Plessy v. Ferguson, in which the Supreme Court upheld the racist “separate but equal” doctrine, preventing blacks from riding in the same train cars as whites. However, separate dorm rooms for women and men say nothing about either gender’s superiority. Differences between citizens are recognized all the time by the government; without them, we could not have a progressive income tax, for example. Recognizing differences is only a violation of civil liberties when citizens are mistreated on the basis of indelible characteristics such as race, as blacks were back in the 50s. Blacks required the status of a “protected class” to prevent the unfair discrimination of segregation. There is no discrimination based on indelible characteristics here, and these students do not merit the status of protected class. Students who don’t believe in “biological sex or gender identity” can always attend some other private college. For CMC to delve into the minds of its students and protect every imaginable opinion would be impossible and contradictory. That is why the premise of the ACLU’s “civil liberty” argument is absurd.

The current housing situation at Claremont McKenna provides comparable dorm rooms for men and women and respects their differences. Men and women will have different demands in terms of the cleanliness, organization, and upkeep of their facilities; separate housing allows for the most economical and satisfactory fulfillment of these different demands. Just take a tour of a Men’s and Lady’s restroom and you’ll see what I mean. That is not to say that men’s facilities are always more messy, but they at least tend to be more spare and Spartan. When men’s and women’s dorm rooms are combined, their different preferences will be combined to the dissatisfaction of all. With gender neutral housing, either CMC will have to spend more money on upkeep of the dorms or many CMC students will be unhappy with their environment.
Separate dorm rooms for men and women are also good for the soul of the university. There is a certain esprit de corps that goes along with men’s and women’s dorms that is lost when housing is neutral. Claremont McKenna does not have any fraternities or sororities, but that same brotherly and sisterly attitude can be found among friends in the dorms. Men and women often laugh at different kinds of jokes, pull different dumb pranks, and drink alcohol in different amounts when they are “with the girls” or “with the guys.” And the fact of the matter is, when men and women are around the opposite sex, they act differently. There will be fewer occasions to “talk trash” with your “bro’s” in neutral housing, and I for one think that is a shame. CMC should preserve its strong manly and womanly character that makes it unique among the Claremont Colleges.

Last and most importantly, there are moral problems that result from mixed-gender dorm rooms. Two key phrases that have disappeared from the college moral vocabulary: “occasion of sin” and “scandal.” Occasions of sin are compromising circumstances that could have been avoided and end up getting us into trouble. An obvious example would be getting drunk and sleeping in the same room as someone you are sexually attracted to; mistakes often happen as a result. But this is exactly the kind of compromised circumstances gender neutral housing will encourage, whether it is men taking advantage of women or women taking advantage of men. “Scandal” is a more nuanced problem, the leading of others to do bad action by our apparent bad action. Even if nothing is going down in the gender neutral dorm rooms, it sets a permissive tone on campus when unmarried men and women sleep in the same room every night. In their proposal the ACLU offers a ridiculous stipulation, that CMC “strongly discourages students from rooming together with a romantic partner.” If CMC really cared about such things, they would not go in for gender-mixed dorm rooms! These concerns are not just the prudishness of the 1950s, they have experience on their side. Mr. Lifson says that moral concerns are not “philosophical or practical objections.” That is nonsense. Morality is of the utmost long-term importance for living a happy life, and is always a concern of philosophy and practical reasoning.

The ACLU of course does not understand any of this, but presents sentimental reasoning to promote its favored “opinion” about gender. Their argument in this case is unsound, and it would be a mistake for the Board of Trustees of CMC to instate gender-neutral housing. After the feel-good moment is over, the students are the ones who would deal with the result- a changed college culture.

Isolated Love? - It doesn't exist...

2010-09-27T18:49:00.000-07:00

So my time of late is occupied with writing a thesis exploring Dietrich von Hildebrand's "The Nature of Love" & Karol Wojtyla's "Love & Responsibility." The following is something that will go somewhere in the overall body of the thesis (at some point...) Enjoy!

Love is never an isolated experience. It cannot be one singular moment whereby two people are caught up in a passionate experience and then are able to “move on.” This is contrary to the very nature of love, because love is, at the very root, an experience of discovery. One can clearly not discover one moment and not be discovering the next. Rather, one embarks on the journey of discovery and having set out, is now committed to continuing that journey for the rest of their life. Love, then, as a journey of discovery, means that one has set out to come to discover the beloved.

There is a goal set when one embarks on this journey of love, then – a goal satisfied each and every time the lover recognizes, yet again, the unique distinctness of the beloved. One loves not out of necessity or to fulfill a desire or because they are obligated to do so. No, one loves because they are drawn to this other person and hope to continue reveling in the delight of the other’s very existence. The goal, simply, is to discover all there is to know about the beloved; the lover wants to know, to see the glory that is this other person’s very existence, to be permitted to plumb the depths of another’s soul and see who they truly are and what gives them the life they so gloriously live.

Love cannot be isolated, then, for if it were, one would never plumb the depths as much as they would want to. They’d only be skimming the surface of an infinitely deep ocean, merely snorkeling rather than truly diving in to come to understand what lies beneath the simple top. If love were merely a “one time thing” experienced singularly without any “follow up” or “return,” then each and every person would be dissatisfied, unhappy, lonely, and above all frustrated at life itself.

When love is the expansive discovery that it is meant to be – when it is the journey of discovery of another that leads one to a true and complete understanding of the very self of the beloved – then we rejoice. We blush and giggle and spend hours swooning over the very thought of the other person, for they have awakened in us a delight that cannot be contained, but rather pours forth in everything we do and say. It brings us unbridled joy, this journey of discovery that is “loving another”, and it is a joy we each seek to know…a joy we each want to experience. And so we set out, our hearts open, our souls attuned to the souls of those we notice, and look for the moment when we can set out on this journey and seek to discover the beauty of another.

Nakey-Time

2010-07-31T13:04:00.010-07:00

Another, very good naughty that might have a bit more of a bearing on my life than rap, Slipknot, or WWE this coming year needs some kind of defense. Of course, I can only refer to the phenomenon of “nakey-time” at Saint Gregory’s Academy. Disclaimer in the interests of keeping my job: part of my job entails that I try to prevent and suppress nakey-time, and that I punish the malefactors who do it. I intend to fulfill that part of my job.

According to Jean Borella (“Love of Self and Love of God," in The Secret of the Christian Way, 119-129), original sin is “the fall of the I into the psyche.” “The basis of the ego is remorse for the ontological fault. Remorse is even, in a certain way, a poor imitation of a perfection that has become inaccessible through an amorous returning to one’s own imperfection.” For an example, we can see poor, ridiculous Mde. Holhakov of The Brothers Karamazov. In the chapter “A Lady of Little Faith,” the elder Zossima suggests that she is being prideful in her assessment of her own imperfection. She asks:

“In active love? There's another question—and such a question! You see, I so love humanity that—would you believe it?—I often dream of forsaking all that I have, leaving Lise, and becoming a sister of mercy. I close my eyes and think and dream, and at that moment I feel full of strength to overcome all obstacles. No wounds, no festering sores could at that moment frighten me. I would bind them up and wash them with my own hands. I would nurse the afflicted. I would be ready to kiss such wounds.”

“It is much, and well that your mind is full of such dreams and not others. Sometime, unawares, you may do a good deed in reality.”

“Yes. But could I endure such a life for long?” the lady went on fervently, almost frantically. “That's the chief question—that's my most agonizing question. I shut my eyes and ask myself, ‘Would you persevere long on that path? And if the patient whose wounds you are washing did not meet you with gratitude, but worried you with his whims, without valuing or remarking your charitable services, began abusing you and rudely commanding you, and complaining to the superior authorities of you (which often happens when people are in great suffering)—what then? Would you persevere in your love, or not?’ And do you know, I came with horror to the conclusion that, if anything could dissipate my love to humanity, it would be ingratitude. In short, I am a hired servant, I expect my payment at once—that is, praise, and the repayment of love with love. Otherwise I am incapable of loving any one.”

She was in a very paroxysm of self-castigation, and, concluding, she looked with defiant resolution at the elder.

“It's just the same story as a doctor once told me,” observed the elder. “He was a man getting on in years, and undoubtedly clever. He spoke as frankly as you, though in jest, in bitter jest. ‘I love humanity,’ he said, ‘but I wonder at myself. The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. In my dreams,’ he said, ‘I have often come to making enthusiastic schemes for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually have faced crucifixion if it had been suddenly necessary; and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with any one for two days together, as I know by experience. As soon as any one is near me, his personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he's too long over his dinner; another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.’ ”

“But what's to be done? What can one do in such a case? Must one despair?”

“No. It is enough that you are distressed at it. Do what you can, and it will be reckoned unto you. Much is done already in you since you can so deeply and sincerely know yourself. If you have been talking to me so sincerely, simply to gain approbation for your frankness, as you did from me just now, then of course you will not attain to anything in the achievement of real love; it will all get no further than dreams, and your whole life will slip away like a phantom. In that case you will naturally cease to think of the future life too, and will of yourself grow calmer after a fashion in the end.”

“You have crushed me! Only now, as you speak, I understand that I was really only seeking your approbation for my sincerity when I told you I could not endure ingratitude. You have revealed me to myself. You have seen through me and explained me to myself!”

Anyway: for man to “renounce this imperfection, which constitutes his whole reality, is to renounce all that remains to him of himself.” “Natural love for others is a falsehood, perhaps not subjectively and intentionally, but objectively and despite all our efforts.” (It seems that such a false love for others motivates Mde. Holhakov’s desire to be a minister of the sick.) “Love of one’s neighbor can only be realized, therefore, by an interiorization of proximity. In order to become the other … one needs to become other than oneself; which means that I am not myself…. Thus, true love of self implies a conversion from natural love of self or amour-proper.” [Fritzhof Schuon: “Their existence (that of those who deny God) is condemned to a kind of divinity, or rather to a phantom of divinity, whence the appearance of superiority already mentioned, a posed and polished ease too often combined with a charity steeped in bitterness and in reality set against God” (Light on the Ancient Worlds, 40; italics mine). It is a bit disturbing to see that “The soul descends once more in bitter love” in “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World;” true love of others is “for one to give oneself not so much to the other as not to give the other to oneself.”]

“Nakedness is part of love’s destiny. To love, to commit oneself to the destiny of love, is to accept one day [the] encounter of nakedness. Now to stand naked is also to be stood naked, to offer oneself such as one is, in objectivity, and therefore somehow to renounce oneself…. In nakedness there is necessarily a moment of sacrifice and vice versa: nakedness, under one mode or another, is an integral part of sacrifice.

“It cannot happen otherwise for the love of the self. In a certain manner, we need to be exposed to ourselves, to renounce our imperfection, that is to accept it as such…. All too easily the renunciation of one’s own imperfection seems to imply a prideful desire for an inaccessible perfection, or seems to be the effect of a too scrupulous conscience. In reality, by virtue of the ego’s illusory subjectivity, to renounce one’s imperfection and to see oneself objectively, such as one is, are two faces of one and the same conversion. Humility is objectivity first. It should not be humiliation, even and above all when it is ourselves whom we humiliate. So we need to stand naked in ourselves, to strip ourselves of egoic garments, to accept no longer watching over ourselves, to lose sight of ourselves.”

[Wow! Let’s hear it for the nudist colonies! Yes, Borella says “to reject the wearing of clothes means … that one has laid a claim to purity he is incapable of sustaining and, leaving behind the mantle of mercy, has pridefully exposed himself to naked rigor.” But, Borella acknowledges at least the possibility that “an ascetic naturism, accompanied by a profound spiritual intention, is, in certain instances, Christianly acceptable” (199-200).]

But seriously: Borella is speaking of the nakedness of the ego, which obviously does not always necessitate nakedness of the body, but it seems that nakey-time corresponds with the rejection of clothing that could be Christianly acceptable.

See, I think that there are two key elements to Borella’s formulation of a naturism that could be Christianly acceptable: the term ‘asceticism’ and ‘accompaniment of a profound spiritual intention.’ It may seem difficult to apply these elements to nakey-time. I'll try briefly now (perhaps this deserves an in depth post in itself), just giving the example of a couple righteous men for my 'proof.'

It seems that the profound spiritual intention of a Christian naturism is in the boys’ actions, even if the boys are not fully conscious of it; but, it is there. I recall Boomer quoting from Zach Culley’s poetry to that effect at the Burns banquet last Spring. Hopkins’s “Epithalamium” might be an appropriate example of finding the unconscious spiritual intention in boys’ nakedness:

………………………………........................
We are there, when we hear a shout
That the hanging honeysuck, the dogeared hazels in the cover
Makes dither, makes hover
And the riot of a rout
Of, it must be, boys from the town
Bathing: it is summer’s sovereign good.
By there comes a listless stranger: beckoned by the noise
He drops towards the river: unseen
Sees the bevy of them, how the boys
With dare and with downdolphinry and bellbright bodies huddling out,
Are earthworld, airworld, waterworld thorough hurled, all by turn and turn about.
This garland of their gambols flashes in his breast
Into such a sudden zest
Of summertime joys
That he hies to a pool neighbouring; sees it is the best
There; sweetest, freshest, shadowiest;
Fairyland; silk-beech, scrolled ash, packed sycamore, wild wychelm, hornbeam fretty overstood
By. Rafts and rafts of flake-leaves light, dealt so, painted on the air,
Hang as still as hawk or hawkmoth, as the stars or as the angels there,
Like the thing that never knew the earth, never off roots
Rose. Here he feasts: lovely all is! No more: off with—down he dings
His bleachèd both and woolwoven wear:
Careless these in coloured wisp
All lie tumbled-to; then with loop-locks
Forward falling, forehead frowning, lips crisp
Over finger-teasing task, his twiny boots
Fast he opens, last he offwrings
Till walk the world he can with bare his feet
And come where lies a coffer, burly all of blocks
Built of chancequarrièd, selfquainèd rocks
And the water warbles over into, filleted with glassy grassy quicksilvery shivès and shoots
And with heavenfallen freshness down from moorland still brims,
Dark or daylight on and on. Here he will then, here he will the fleet
Flinty kindcold element let break across his limbs
Long. Where we leave him, froliclavish while he looks about him, laughs, swims.
Enough now; since the sacred matter that I mean
I should be wronging longer leaving it to float
Upon this only gambolling and echoing-of-earth note—
What is … the delightful dene?
Wedlock. What the water? Spousal love….

Surprise

2010-07-26T09:54:00.000-07:00

A Draught of Vintage will be making some changes around here soon, so stay tuned!

The Deadly Syndrome - Wingwalker

2010-07-25T15:15:00.002-07:00

The Deadly Syndrome - Wingwalker - Aquarium Drunkard Session from The Deadly Syndrome on Vimeo.

2010-07-19T17:07:00.003-07:00

Jesse Bates ladies and gentlement, Jesse Bates.

Viva Espana!

2010-07-15T18:21:00.007-07:00

In honor of Spain’s recent victory, here’s a story from Saint Gregory’s senior class pilgrimage on the Camino di Santiago.

The senior class of St. Gregory’s Academy biked into Alba Franca, a town just before one of the steepest climbs through the mountains. Tired, wet, hungry, and penniless, Luke Culley led the lads to a hostel where he had previously found one of the five good faces of the earth. This was a privately-owned hostel, owned by a true Christian. This man had not only allowed the students to use the kitchen and sleep under a roof, for the customary fee of a juggling show; he had been so taken with the Saint Gregory’s spirit that also gave the boys food and good company for a night the year before. With the prospects of an old friend, warm food, and a dry place to sleep in front of them, the band arrived at the door of the hostel.

There, they met not the owner of the hostel, but two of his friends, workers at the hostel. One of them spoke English; the other didn’t. As Luke attempted to explain the situation (that they were poor pilgrims on the Camino, that he knew the owner, what they had been allowed in the past), it became apparent that the workers were uncomfortable at the prospect of allowing the ragged bunch into the hostel. ‘The owner can't see you,’ they protested. ‘Just let me have a word with your boss,’ Luke said, ‘and that will clear everything up.’

But, the workers were obstinate. They even resorted to an old trick, hiding behind the language barrier. The English-speaking worker pretended that the Spanish speaker was really the one in charge, and thus neatly sidestepped any possibility of understanding the situation. ‘We cannot disturb the owner; he is too busy,’ he said, ‘you must go:’ and left the conversation. Meanwhile, the Spanish speaker side-stepped as well, insisting that he could understand nothing. He did, however, understand the words “Leave now!” and was surprised that the Americans had trouble with that order.

Disappointed, if only because of their high hopes, the students turned out into the wet. Luckily, they found a place to sleep just outside of Alba Franca. This wasn’t the nicest place. It was an abandoned nunnery, filled with old bones (at least one of which was human), old papers (there was a letter from the 19th century), and … yesterday’s newspaper? Fresh food in the kitchen? What was going on? Needless to say, the students bunched together in one room for the night, not wishing to spread themselves out, though the convent was very large. Luke asked, jesting, the next morning, whether anyone had been too afraid to leave the communal room to go to the bathroom late at night; a few students admitted ruefully their fear.

So, after a hearty breakfast of water, a vitamin pill, and doughnuts that were found in the convent kitchen (they weren’t from the 19th century), the students, colder, hungrier, and more down in spirits than the night before, climbed their steeds/bikes and began the arduous path up the steepest climb of their trip.

About ten kilometers out of town, a truck came up behind the stretched-out convoy of bikers. It is common (though rather impolite) for drivers to harass the convoy with their horns as they try to pass the large group of bikers on the narrow mountain roads. The man in this truck, however, outdid the others. Honking, waving his arms, shouting at them--really annoying. Everyone arrived at an overlook where they could pull over, take a break, and find out what the problem was with their follower.

The driver, as you might have guessed, was the owner of the hostel. After hearing from his workers how a group of jugglers had harassed the hostel the night before, the owner, distraught at his workers’ inhospitality, left the next morning, driving around town for an hour trying to find the students and apologize to them. I mentioned before that the hostel was privately owned, not involved with the tourism bureau. The owner took pride in the fact that he, being the owner, could extend hospitality to those who needed it, and was literally in tears from anger at his workers for having failed to practice the beatitudes. He personally spoke with and apologized to everyone in the group; Luke and co. assured him that they were not angry or put out at all; the students sang a few songs and juggled for a bit; the owner left; and the Camino continued.

The owner was not done with them, however. He had driven ahead to the nearest rest stop and bought the pilgrims plates of food--and not just the fare that characterizes the pilgrimage, the old standards bread and cheese: but plates of deli meats and hot quiches.

Considering that the owner’s name was Jesus, haven’t we heard this story before?

And they brought to him young children, that he might touch them. And the disciples rebuked them that brought them.
Whom when Jesus saw, he was much displeased and said to them: Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.
Amen I say to you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall not enter into it.
And embracing them and laying his hands upon them, he blessed them. (Mk 10:13-16)

And, the Scripture passage that guided the pilgrims’ reflections:
Be not solicitous therefore, saying: What shall we eat: or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed?
For after all these things do the heathens seek. For your Father knows that you have need of all these things.
Seek therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you. (Mt 6:31-33)

These things added included good food, camaraderie, wine, cigarettes, candy, and café a leches on the Camino. It happened just like that, time and again. “Beauty will save the world,” says Elder Zossima; we are lucky to have so many beautiful people like Jesus (or, like Peter Kane) and beautiful places like Spain and SGA (or, like Old Mill).

Barthes on the WWE

2010-06-30T08:01:00.011-07:00

I wanted to give some kind of justification for the guilty pleasure of watching WWE (almost "wee"), or at least for watching the film “The Wrestler,” but it seems that Roland Barthes already did so, even though he was writing way back in 1957. Barthes’s 13 pages (condensed quite a bit) follow. I must apologize in advance for atrocious grammar. I guess one instance of it could be blamed on my slicing and dicing, but most of it is due either to poor writing from Barthes, which would be kind of inconsistent, or to poor translating, which is more likely (sorry, Miss Lavers).

“The virtue of all-in wrestling is that it is the spectacle of excess. Wrestling is not a sport, it is a spectacle. Of course, there exists a false wrestling, in which the participants make a show of fair fight; this is of no interest. True wrestling, wrongly called amateur wrestling, is performed in second-rate halls, where the public spontaneously attunes itself to the spectacular nature of the contest, like the audience at a suburban cinema.

“The function of the wrestler is not to win; it is to go exactly through the motions which are expected of him. The gesture of the vanquished wrestler signifying to the world a defeat corresponds to the mask of antiquity meant to signify the tragic mode of the spectacle. As in the theatre, each physical type expresses to excess the part which has been assigned to the contestant. In the body of the wrestler we find the first key to the contest.

“The physique of the wrestlers constitutes a basic sign, which like a seed contains the whole fight. Wrestling is like a diacritic writing above the fundamental meaning of his body, the wrestler arranges comments which are episodic, but always opportune. What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself. There is no more a problem of truth in wrestling than in the theatre. In both, what is expected is the intelligible representation of moral situations which are usually private.

“Each moment in wrestling is like an algebra which instantaneously unveils the relationship between a cause and its represented effect. What is displayed for the public is the great spectacle of Suffering, Defeat, and Justice.

“Everyone must not only see that the man suffers, but also and above all understand why he suffers. What the wrestlers call a hold has precisely the function of preparing in a conventional, therefore intelligible, fashion the spectacle of suffering, of methodically establishing the conditions of suffering. Wrestling is the only sport which gives such an externalized image of torture. But here again, only the image is involved in the game. It is not true that wrestling is a sadistic spectacle: it is only an intelligible spectacle. There is another figure, more spectacular still than a hold: in the forearm smash, catastrophe is brought to the point of maximum obviousness, so much so that ultimately the gesture appears as no more than a symbol.

“We have already seen to what extent wrestlers exploit the resources of a given physical style to unfold before the eyes of the public a total image of Defeat. In wrestling, Defeat is not a conventional sign; it is not an outcome, but quite the contrary, it is a duration, a display, it takes up the ancient myths of public Suffering and Humiliation: the cross and the pillory. It is as if the wrestler is crucified in broad daylight and in the sight of all.

“But what wrestling is above all meant to portray is a purely moral concept: the very limit of the concept of Justice, this outermost zone of confrontation where it is enough to infringe the rules a little more to open the gates of a world without restraints. One must realize that ‘fairness’ here is a role or a genre, as in the theatre: the rules do not at all constitute a real restraint. In actual fact a fair fight is nothing but an exaggeratedly polite one; conversely, foul play exists only in its excessive signs. A fair fight surprises the aficionado; he feels suddenly moved at the sight of the general kindness of the world, but would probably die of boredom and indifference if wrestlers did not return to the orgy of evil which alone makes good wrestling.

“Extrapolated, fair wrestling could lead only to boxing or judo, whereas true wrestling derives its originality from all the excesses which make it a spectacle and not a sport. The ending of a boxing-match or a judo-contest is abrupt; the rhythm of wrestling is quite different, for its natural meaning is that of rhetorical amplification. Some fights are crowned by a final charivari, a sort of unrestrained fantasia where the rules are swept away by a triumphant disorder which overflows into the hall and carries off pell-mell wrestlers, seconds, referee and spectators.

“Such a finality demands that wrestling should be exactly what the public expects of it. In wrestling, nothing exists except in the absolute, there is no symbol, no allusion, everything is presented exhaustively. Leaving nothing in the shade, each action discards all parasitic meanings and ceremonially offers to the public a pure and full signification, rounded like Nature. This grandiloquence is nothing but the popular and age-old image of the perfect intelligibility of reality.

“No one can doubt that wrestling holds that power of transmutation which is common to the Spectacle and to Religious Worship. In the ring, wrestlers remain gods because they are, for a few short moments, the Key which opens Nature, the pure gesture which separates Good from Evil, and unveils a form of Justice which is at last intelligible.”

Sercer, John, Editor. Excerpts from “The World of Wrestling.” In Mythologies, by Roland Barthes. Translated by Annette Lavers. Farrar, Straus and Giroux (New York, 1995): 13-25.

This book has a double theoretical framework: on the one hand, an ideological critique bearing on the language of so-called mass-culture; on the other, a first attempt to analyze semiologically the mechanics of this language. I had just read Saussure and as a result acquired the conviction that by treating ‘collective representations’ as sign-systems, one might hope to go further by unmasking them and account in detail for the mystification which transforms petit-bourgeois culture into universal culture. --Roland Barthes, 1970 Preface to Mythologies.

I cannot countenance the traditional belief which postulates a natural dichotomy between the objectivity of the scientist and the subjectivity of the writer, as if the former were endowed with a ‘freedom’ and the latter with a ‘vocation’ equally suitable for spiriting away or sublimating the actual limitations of their situation. What I claim is to live to the full the contradiction of my time, which may well make sarcasm the condition of truth.” --Roland Barthes, 1957 Preface to Mythologies.

'The contradiction of our time might make sarcasm the condition of truth'?! Pedants, rejoice!

A Scene

2010-06-29T18:19:00.004-07:00

"It's been a frightful day, and I haven't had anything to eat. Dear Martha, would you make me a plain omelet?"

"Jimmy, do you mean to say I'm plain?"

"Nonsense, it's called a plain omelet."

"But you never call it that. I've heard 'omelet' and 'cheese omelet' from you. So I'll repeat myself, do you mean to say I'm plain?"

"If I meant to imply that, I would have done it more obviously."

"Well that's not how you imply, is it, Jim? It snuck up on you, didn't it, Jim? Jimmy, would you make me a greasy hamburger?"

"Now now, I've been working in the heat all day. Don't go jibing me."

"I'll jibe you all I want as long as you're jibing me."

"But I'm not. I was at a diner today and my buddy ordered a 'plain omelet.' That's how he said it, and it was just how you make them. So I thought I'd call it by its proper name for once."

"Who was this buddy? What was this diner?"

"It was Bill. And Ranieri's."

"Why on Earth, Jim, would they have a French omelet at Ranieri's? Jim, I've caught you in a lie."

"Martha, this is America--the melting pot."

"Well I'll melt you, Jimmy, along with your damn omelet for calling me plain."

"Well you are. What's a man to do with the truth?"

I'm a hopeless English major from UD

2010-06-29T10:42:00.006-07:00

This is “The Waking” by Theodore Roethke, and it’s my favorite poem.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree, but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up the winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady, I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

Toni Morrison says in Beloved of eating sweet corn, “There is no accounting for the way that simple joy can shake you.” Well, the same is true of experiencing a great poem. But, I’ll account anyway. G. K. Chesterton, in a lovely phrase, says, of a characters’ wife: she is “one of the five good faces of the earth.” I think that that line is justification enough for having five favorite lines in a poem.

“I learn by going where I have to go.” Either ‘I learn where I have to go (by going),’ or ‘By going where I have to go, I learn.’ Beautiful ambiguity of grammar. Does the verb ‘learn’ have an object? This line is enough to justify my spirit that traveling can be a wandering or gerrymeandering, not necessarily including a direct object. Too often, travelers are just sightseers, who go from place to place, with their schedule marked out for them and every hour of their trip planned out for them. From Tate: “The Bridge attempts to cover all American life, but it covers the ground with seven-league boots and, like a sightseer, sees nothing.” From Kundera, a question: “Where have they gone, the idlers of yesteryear?” His answer, from a Czech proverb: “They are gazing at God’s windows.” There is a slowness in this line that relates to the central question of this poem, which could be, ‘how do we reconcile ourselves to our inevitable death?’ By lingering, meandering, wandering, learning our fate by the process of learning itself. From Eudora Welty’s short story, “The Worn Path:” the object of that old lady’s journey is irrelevant; the journey itself is the point.

“I hear my being dance from ear to ear.” There is something real, being, that the poet feels between the ears, in the head, in the intellect. This suggests that there is something intelligible, thinkable, that can be grasped by feeling. Roethke has so many beautiful moments of dance in his poetry. I hear echoes of Milton’s profoundly sad and itself echoing line in Paradise Lost; “Senses return, but not to me return.” The echoing within Milton’s and Roethke’s lines reflects meaning, something that is intelligible, through the senses, and not just knowable: also enjoyable, in Roethke’s line: there is dancing in his head. Dancing kind of like that passage about shucking and eating sweet corn: “How loose the silk. How jailed down the juice…. How loose the silk. How quick the jailed-up flavor ran free…. How loose the silk. How fine and loose and free.”

“Light takes the Tree, but who can tell us how?” There is a receptiveness necessary to life; in order to learn, he must be taken by his senses, must allow unconsciousness to take him as the light takes the tree. A beautiful memory: abandoning Peter Bloch and Joe Amorella (not that that’s necessarily the beautiful part) sleeping under the walls of Saint Peter’s to go wandering at dawn, standing near the Tibur River opposite the Aventine Hill in Rome, the morning after staying up all White Night, actually seeing the light take the trees at the top and the tops of the many churches before it came down and took me, too.

“The lowly worm climbs up the winding stair.” This seems to be an odd line, but the poetic logic for it is already given: the image of light taking a tree thus imbuing it with meaning; the search for a grave. “I’m a worm, and not a man.” The knights of faith, as opposed to the knights of infinite resignation, are simple people, Kierkegaard says, who can “forget themselves and become something new.” They are like the butterfly, who “completely forgets that it was a caterpillar, and may in turn so completely forget that it was a butterfly that it may become a fish.” Faulkner: “My mother is a fish.” How does the light of thanatopsis take us? It takes us as like a worm climbs out of a mausoleum. Only by dying do we gain some kind of rebirth and resurrection to a new life; “life is but a dream, and that dream is bounded by a great sleep,” or words to that effect. But there is no immediate jump to the resurrection, no idea that life is something to be passed over as quickly as possible: “Great nature has another thing to do / To you and me, so take the lively air, and, lovely, learn by going where to go.” Words to that effect: “Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone, / and the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating / of dark habits, keeping their difficult balance.”

“This shaking keeps me steady, I should know.” This, too, is one of the five good faces on the earth. Downing a couple pots of coffee, along with many iced mochas, my third sleepless night in a row. Desperately trying to finish my Senior Novel paper and my Faulkner paper and my History and Theory of the Novel paper. Desperately trying to keep a difficult balance, knowing that my very shaking due to the amount of caffeine and nicotine I was absorbing was keeping me awake and able to finish three papers in a night. Again, that ambiguity of the line when considered not as two phrases, but as one. Does “know” have an object? This shaking, this quivering, this quickening, this life, keeps us steady. We cannot think without feeling. We cannot die without living. We can’t be steady without shaking. This poem doesn’t nail down some question and answer, isn’t dogmatic. There is the melos that doesn’t emphasize the helping “should,” what “ought” or “needs” or “has” to be done (ah, that beautifully subjective subjunctive), but rather the acting verb: “I should know.” Know what? The poem doesn’t force its thanatopsis, its knowledge of death and the revelation of the resurrection that death brings upon us. It just presentifies, to steal a term from Borella, and asks to stand by itself. The poem doesn’t need a dogma directing it in order for us to learn from it. “I should know.”

From my favorite Psalm: “The dead don’t praise thee, O Lord, nor do they who go down into the inferno; / But we who live, bless the Lord, from this time now, and unto ages to come.”

D. H. Lawrence, Jean Borella

2010-06-29T10:20:00.007-07:00

Recently I read with great relish Lawrence’s Studies In Classic American Literature. Here is another critic who, along with Henry James, and Milan Kundera, writes criticism as an exploration or digression that illuminates their own as well as other’s art. Unlike those who took (the tragically still Miss) Sue’s American Civilization classes, I had never realized just how good (by which I mean pedantic) Lawrence is, having only read a few novels and failed to be impressed.

One of the many attractive things about Lawrence the critic is his explorative style of writing. There is something about the repetitiveness in his writing that calls to mind one of the five good faces of the earth, Charles Peguy. Both repeats a few epigrammatic lines, over an over, with slight variations. Lawrence is expressly not dogmatic; he lives by that most undogmatic of Gods, the Holy Ghost.

Some thoughts on Benjamin Franklin:
“The wholeness of a man is his soul. Not merely that nice little comfortable bit which Benjamin marks out. Why, the soul of man is a vast forest, and all Benjamin intended was a neat back garden. The soul of man is a dark forest. The Hercynian Wood that scared the Romans so, and out of which came the white-skinned hordes if the next civilization. Who knows what will come out of the soul of man? The soul of man is a dark vast forest, with wild life in it. Think of Benjamin fencing it off! This is Benjamin’s barbed wire fence. He made himself a list of virtues, which he trotted inside like a grey nag in a paddock.”
“Here’s my creed, against Benjamin’s. This is what I believe: ‘That I am I.’ ‘That my soul is a dark forest.’ ‘That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest.’ ‘That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back.’ ‘That I must have the courage to let them come and go.’ ‘That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women.’”
“1. Temperance: Eat and carouse with Bacchus, or munch dry bread with Jesus, but don’t sit down without one of the gods. 3. Order: Know that you are responsible to the gods inside you and to the men in whom the gods are manifest. 9. Moderation: Beware of absolutes. There are many gods. 13. Humility: See all men and women according to the Holy Ghost that is within them.”
“He tries to take away my wholeness and my dark forest, my freedom. For how can any man be free, without an illimitable background? And Benjamin tries to shove me into a barbed wire paddock and make me grow potatoes or Chicagoes. And how can I be free, without gods that come and go?”

On Nathaniel Hawthorne:
“Man ate of the tree of knowledge, and became ashamed of himself. [Sex] didn’t become a “sin” till the knowledge-poison entered.”
“The sin was the self-watching, self-consciousness.”
“Nowadays, men do hate the idea of dualism. It’s no good, dual we are.* The cross.** If we accept the symbol, then, virtually, we accept the fact. We are divided against ourselves.”
“For instance, the blood hates being KNOWN by the mind. It feels itself destroyed when it is KNOWN. Hence the profound instinct of privacy.”
“Blood-consciousness overwhelms, obliterates, and annuls mind-consciousness.”
“Mind-consciousness extinguishes blood-consciousness, and consumes the blood.”
“We are all of us conscious in both ways. And the two ways are antagonistic in us.”
“They will always remain so. That is our cross.”
“There is a basic hostility in all of us between the physical and the mental, the blood and the spirit. "The mind is “ashamed” of the blood. And the blood is destroyed by the mind, actually. Hence pale-faces."
"Every time you “conquer” the body with the mind (you can say “heal” it if you like) you cause a deeper, more dangerous complex or tension somewhere else.”
“For a long time men believed that they could be perfected through the mind, through the spirit. They believed, passionately. They had their ecstasy in pure consciousness.”
“America soon plucked the bird of the spirit.”
“The Scarlet Letter gives the show away.”

I’ve been reading Lawrence and Jean Borella at the same time, and, a bit surprisingly, they have something to say to each other.

*Lawrence: the mind-body or soul-body distinction destroys something in man.
Borella: “When Scripture calls upon man to gather together all elements of his being in order to venture toward God, it generally articulates a tripartition of elements [Borella refers to the Old and New testament “law” of love: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart (“blood-consciousness,” Lawrence would call it), with all your soul (“mind-consciousness”), and with all your strength (“body”)”]. Conversely, when it calls upon man to divide himself, to renounce what--within himself--is not truly himself, it generally articulates a bipartition, and simply opposes the soul to the body. The first point of view has a more doctrinal value, while the second has, rather, a methodical or ascetic value. Man is, in fact, more truly himself when standing lovingly recollected before God, in the perfection of his nature, than when struggling sorrowfully in the world to conquer the imperfections of his sinful condition.”

**Lawrence: The Cross is the ultimate symbol of the destructive conflict between the soul (vertical plane) and body (horizontal plane).
Borella: The “Cross-Circle” is the ultimate symbol of the unity and restoration of Divine Nature in man. [Here’s where I get in over my head, but I’ll try anyway.] The broken circle is kind of like the Cross: it is the “symbolon” or the “vestigial,” concrete form of the pact of unity between God and man. The symbolon, however, is only completed and made to live through the “traditional significance” given to the symbol (through the authority of the Church, the body of Christ) and the “ritual activity” involving the symbol (the daily life of the members of the Church; that is, members of Christ’s body).

Perhaps, D. H. Lawrence is justified in seeing the Cross (if it is considered just as a symbolon) as the symbol of an incomplete relationship between God and man. Lawrence sees that there is something greater than that: his allegiance to the Holy Ghost (which Christ sent to look after his Church and its activities on earth). I think Borella’s consideration of the “tripartition of man” and its symbol of the “Cross-Circle” lends Lawrence’s precedence of “blood-knowledge” over Franklin moral “mind-knowledge” its true significance.

World Cup Path

2010-06-26T08:36:00.000-07:00

______Go USA!!!_______

______________________

Gerrymeandering

2010-06-23T11:54:00.013-07:00

It's difficult to keep Jerry away from me. I had my first real Scranton adventure of the summer last night.

I parked in the Scranton Mall parking lot yesterday. I read another essay by Borella, "Brooklyn Bridge" by Hart Crane (just as a side-note--in my opinion, the attempted epic, though pretty weak as a whole, is better than the actual thing), an essay by Tate, almost finished reading B16’s (at the time, Ratzinger’s) Principles of Catholic Theology, and sat around in Scranton drinking coffee until ten at night. Unfortunately, the mall parking garage closes at 9 PM, and the authorities that be are quick to tow any abandoned cars. I had several options. I could have--and this would have been the prudent decision--tried to get hold of someone at Saint Greg’s to pick me up, and resolved the car issue next morning. (Obviously, I’m not an exemplar of prudence: I did not take this road. Also, my cellular device died last night around midnight.) I could just run back, I thought; no need to bother the lads at this time. That would be an appropriately Jerryish decision, no? Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to happen, either. See, I was carrying a heavy backpack. And, that would be about a ten mile run. And, I didn't have appropriate shoes. And, most importantly, I was low on cigarette papers. Well, I worried that too much exercise without enough remedial carcinogens might lower my blood pressure too much, causing my instantaneous death. Luckily, I had another Jerryish option out there: find a bar, close it out, and spend the rest of the night trying to stay awake by reading a Milan Kundera novel (they’re so good!), some poetry (Roethke and Stevenson), and essays by Auerbach (I’m almost done with Mimesis), and then try to pick up my car the next morning.

Life in Scranton is pretty slow on Tuesday night. After about 2 AM, I gerrymeandered to a lovely area, scented with pine, outside of the Scranton University library. It was a freshman year sort of gerrymeander, too, accompanied by the familiar sounds of “step, swish, slap:” most of the fake leather of my fake penny loafers has already rubbed off, and last night my right sole began to come off as well. The only person I met on the streets was a tiny guy about fifty years old, a bum I will refer to as “Jerry,” whom I have run into many times before. He always has the same few questions for me ("Gerry"). Last night, our conversation went something like this.

Jerry (catching sight of Gerry): “Hey! Hey! Do you speak English?”
(Gerry pretends not to hear.)
Jerry (hurrying up to Gerry): “What are you doing tonight?”
Gerry (having failed to avoid an encounter): “Well, I’m planning on going to sleep pretty soon.” (Gerry is not, strictly speaking, truthful in this.)
Jerry (concerned): “You got a place to stay?”
Gerry (again exercising mental reservation): “Yes, I’ve got a place.”
Jerry (disappointed at this answer, but hopeful for a negative answer to the following): “You staying there with a girlfriend?”
Gerry (thinking, ‘uh oh; hard to reserve mentally for this one’): “No….”
Jerry (exuberant): “OK, so you want to come to my place then?” (Conspiratorially): “I’ve got a secret place!”
Gerry (uncomfortable): “Thanks very much, but ... I don’t think so.”
Jerry (pensive): “So … what do you want to do for fun?”
(Gerry says something about drinking heavily, because Jerry doesn’t dig on the booze at all.)
Jerry (glum): “When will I see you again?”
Gerry (having seen him wearing a Scranton Marathon Volunteer shirt): “Well, I plan on doing the marathon again next Fall.”
Jerry (bright again): “OK! So … what are you doing tonight?”
Gerry: “Cheesesticks?”
Jerry (as a last resort): “You got a cigarette?”
Gerry: “I can roll you one.”

His last question makes me wish that his other questions were less uncomfortable, because he’s harmless, and it seems that he would have some neat things to say, and because he could really be a type of Jerry. He is always so grateful to me for being willing to spend time talking with him (which consists in, mostly, answering variations of the above questions) over a cigarette. Plus (and this is a dead Jerry giveaway) he has even asked me for the time before.

His questioning and his manner suggests that he is some slightly eccentric man who is nevertheless harmless, and who spends his days sleeping and his nights/mornings wandering around the streets of Scranton. This is conjecture, but I would even bet that his “secret place” he claims to have is owned by his brother, who Jerry claims is the parish priest at Saint Peter’s Cathedral in Scranton. I think that he's telling the truth. He is always clean (for a bum), always dressed neatly (for a bum), his shoes are in better shape than mine, and I have walked into the cathedral for Confession before Mass of mornings and found him there chatting comfortably with the ushers and with those awesome old ladies who seem to be the backbone of every parish. Everybody knows him, and everybody seems to know of and be indulgent toward his eccentricity. (I wish I had paid attention to those conversations in the church. Does he ask those old ladies the same questions about girlfriends and his “secret place?” I really want to hear him try to bum a cigarette off of them, too.)

Yes, I made a Jerryish decision last night, and I’m kind of glad I did. Now, I’m sitting here in Scranton, drinking some more coffee (gotta keep that blood pressure up), trying to sober up, slightly tanked after starting drinking at ten AM so I could watch Landon Donovan score in the 91st minute to send USA, winners of group C, into the round of 16 (now, that game got my blood pressure up). Needless to say, I celebrated said score in true American fashion, by taking turns buying rounds with a group of recent university graduates. My Joshua Mahan-chosen “sexy jeans,” though quite blue, and my Dad-given purplish polo shirt (mixture of blue and pink [mixture of red and white]) did not even come close to competing with the outfits and paint that these guys were wearing. I'm not goning to lie; I like me some American Spirit.

Well, this Gerry is off to try to get his car back. I have an expired license and no registration, which might make things difficult. If I fail? Well, I know that I can always count on Jerry to provide.

A Neverthriving of Jugglers

2010-06-22T17:31:00.001-07:00

I found this website full of collective nouns, including "a neverthriving of jugglers".

"Really? You like rap?"

2010-06-22T08:51:00.020-07:00

About rap in general, I have this to say: it is easy to see why rap is so popular with athletes, because rapping is a sort of athleticism transformed into words. How does a point guard, or a running back, or an inside center beat his defender? Now, one way is to overpower the defender; another is simply to outrun the defender. I suggest that neither of those ways requires athleticism as I define it. It doesn’t take an athlete to run someone into the ground (apologies to Misko, but no one would accuse him of being athletic, even though he frequently trucks people into the ground), nor does it take an athlete to outrun someone--I mean straight-line speed here. This part of my judgment stems from my long-distance-runner bias that speed is a pure and simple God-given talent--not that sprinters don’t have to work at things as well, but you never say of a sprinter, “Wow, that was athletic!” (I make no claim, mind, that long-distance running requires athleticism, either.) No, the athletic way to defeat a defender is with some type of juke. It seems also that more athletic pleasure derives from “faking someone out of their shorts,” or “breaking someone’s ankles,” than from trucking someone or outrunning someone (though these perhaps give more aesthetic pleasure). Any running back or inside center or point guard worth his salt knows that the best juke consists of the principle movements of “fast, slow, fast.” Put even simpler, the juke consists simply in changing the speed at which your body is moving, while keeping your running motion fluid and under control.

Music, or at least the music that holds the most interest for me, works similarly. Gregorian chant does not move at a straight-line speed; it moves in a free-flowing line of two- and three-note neums that may be sped up or slowed down at the discretion of the choirmaster. The free-rhythmic character of the beat in chant within otherwise strict guidelines is one of chant’s distinctive characteristics. The masters of classical music are known for their mastery of counterpoint, which served to check or speed up the otherwise regular meter of their songs. To give just one more suggestion, I remember Eileen’s insistence that the great lyricists are those whose irregular substitutions both work against the beat and uphold it. In other words, the beat is upheld but kind of violated at the same time. By contrast, Kundera’s judgment of the primitivism of rock: “The heart’s beat is amplified so that man can never for a moment forget his march toward death.”

Two kinds of rap that are not athletic: I need only refer to the "dey-dey" or the "wee-wee" schools of rap. The speech of deys impresses in its onslaught of verbiage that is, quite simply, words without thought. This type of rap may correspond with those “athletes” who simply have a God-given talent for speed, who can blow by their defender by simple virtue of having more talent. The speech of the wees, on the other hand, impresses with a sort of dull, rhythmic mind-numbing, sort of like those running backs who just try to run over everything in their path. Much as I love Ludacris, it seems that Chris isn’t that good at mixing these two styles. For example, the verses in “Roll Out” have the invariable sequence of wee, dey, wee, dey. For another, Luda's memorable “Act the Fool” is written completely in the wee style. It’s sad, because I have great respect for Mr. Bridges’s beats and bass lines. An ideal rap world: Luda’s beats and Eminem’s words.

Give me, on the other hand, the speech of a true athlete, like those verbal athletes Slim and Dre in “Forgot about Dre,” who will rap without succumbing to a single speed, who will linger over the short “i”s and the long “a”s at the end of every line--(this technique reminds me of early French poets, who employed rich rhyme, trying to rhyme assonantally at the end of lines as much as possible--see the three assonances at the end of each line below: i.e., “Slim Shady,” “twin babies,” “mid-eighties;” Marshall doesn’t just stop with three, either; for example, earlier in the song, “So, what do you say to somebody you hate? / Or, anyone trying to bring trouble your way? / Wanna resolve things in a bloodier way? / Just study a tape of NWA!” I apologize for the esoteric 'junior poet terminolgy,' but nothing else can come close to explaining the genius of these lines. See, each 'line' in the 'stanza' concludes with four 'rich rhymes,' and the first and last lines kind of give the stanza a 'closed' feel, 'enveloping' the middle two lines with ‘double rich rhymes.’ Dre does this well, too. Check out his verses in “Forgot about Dre." First of all, it’s impressive that Dre is able to structure the entire first verse on just the assonance of long o plus long e (even though it gets a bit annoying, especially by the end of the verse); but, it’s even more athletic that Dre manages to include rich rhyme almost throughout the entire lines in the following section: “Hated on by most of these [people] / with no cheese, no deals, / and no gs, no wheels, / and no keys, no boats / no snowmobiles and no skis; / mad at me ‘cause I can finally afford / to provide my family with groceries….” Again [and it hurts me to do it; I love me Ludacris], compare Chris’s lyrical abilities negatively to really rich rhyme)--yet still pack words linked from line to line in a fast patter. The following is the bit that first enticed me to Mr. Mathers years ago (I first heard this at the Fort Scott swimming pool from the mouth of the instructor who was teaching swimming lessons with me):

Slim shady,
hotter than a set of twin babies,
in a Mercedes Benz with the windows up
when the temp goes up to the mid-eighties,
calling men ladies;
sorry doc, but I been crazy,
there’s no way that you can save me;
it’s OK, go with him, Hailey….

Let’s look, just briefly, at how Shady poetically grows his subjects. He might be praising himself, sure, but his diction and imagery seem well done, and his tone seems to me to develop away from simple egotism. Twin babies? Come on, you’ve got to admit that twins are pretty hot … and they’re in a Mercedes-Benz? Hot! With windows rolled up in eighty-degree weather? Now, that’s hot. Slim is working with “heat” on different levels here. Babies are “hot” in one sense; a nice car in another; and, of course, temperature involves a different type of heat than babies or cars. He is so hot, that he is going crazy, and must eventually lose his daughter (baby--note the repetition and development of Slim’s original image), and, even his impressive opinion of his own “hotness,” as reflected by the falling, resigned, almost tender tone of his voice as he concludes his verse. It is appropriate that Marshall resigns that blown-up image of himself at the end of the verse, because the chorus is a praise of Shady’s own mentor and the co-writer of “Forgot About Dre,” the good Doctor himself: “Nowadays everybody wanna talk / like they got something to say, but nothing comes out / when they move their lips, just a bunch of gibberish; / mother[lovers] act like they forgot about Dre.”

It’s not a question of verbal aesthetics, but of verbal athletics--and oh! but “Forgot About Dre” is a vintage draught of verbal athleticism!

Borella

2010-06-21T09:42:00.005-07:00

I guess I need some help from the theologians/philosophers. See, I am reading this stuff by Jean Borella, and loving it--a collection of essays by Borella, arranged by some guy named Champeaux into The Secret of the Christian Way after the pattern of Itinerarium Mentis In Deum. I guess my question is, who is this Borella guy? At Josh--how legit is he?

Anyway, his essay on the essence of symbol is excellent; Paul McCleary/Boomer directed me towards Borella as someone who has a good grasp of what they are trying to define as poetic inspiration. Borella points toward three aspects of the symbol. There is the “concrete form,” or “vestigial being” of the symbolon, which reveals itself as “the present part of the absent whole” (62). There is the “memorial symbol,” which is the “traditional significance” of the symbol, passed down orally by authority. A symbol doesn’t just have meaning in itself, it also has meaning “for someone else” (64-66). There is also a third aspect of the symbol: it “directs” us towards recognition of reality through “ritual activity” (66). It is this third aspect of the symbol that I think best captures the poetry or the making behind any work of art. I mean, anyone can give us symbols without doing anything special with them (just offhand, I think of A Separate Peace and The Great Gatsby), and the second characteristic has more to do with something received in the symbol itself, not really created by the poet.

Borella concludes that the rainbow (Iris, in Greek mythology), is the ultimate symbol of God’s covenant with man. The rainbow, or rather, the half-completed arch, or the broken circle, is “the revelatory sign of that primordial pact at the foundation of every religion[; it] is also the [symbolon] that signs and seals the restoration of the divine nature in creatures: the nimbus of the Roman gods and Buddhist wisdom, the halo of the Christian saints, the noble turban of Islam, and the radiant war-bonnet of the Native American. In truth the orb of the symbol encircles everything: it is the radiance of Divine Glory” (68-69).

Rain, rain, and sun! A rainbow in the sky;
A young man will be wiser by and by;
An old man’s wit may wander ere he die.

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky.

Summer Reading

2010-06-21T09:18:00.006-07:00

As I work on compiling my summer reading list, I will post my “short list” of books that you “have to read.” Below is a list of works from my favorite novelists; I’m just kind of browsing through my bookshelf. I’ve used kind of specific criteria to shorten the list.

1. They must be novels. This excludes all verse, drama, epic, collections of short stories; many religious or metaphysical or autobiographical discourses that are novel-like--i.e., The Confessions, Consolation of Philosophy, Plato’s Dialogues, Sartor Resartus, Lavengro and the Romany Rye, etc.; and generally, anything Bakhtin might label as a monologic, rather than a dialogic novel--The Napoleon of Nottingham Hill, Till We Have Faces, Tom Brown’s School Days, etc. (the first two are more pure allegory than monologue--whatever).

2. This kind of follows from number one. They must be “great” novels, or “canonical” in Bloom’s sense, by which I mean they add much to the genre of the novel. Much as I love, say, Greenes, Amises, Wodehouses, Chestertons, Smolletts, Kiplings, etc., I can’t say that their novels are seminal to the genre of novel. Some considerations: A. Are they included in core English studies at UD? B. Should they be? Rather subjective, I admit, and perhaps hard to back up with a few of the selections: The Satyricon, The Dangerous Liaisons, The Pickwick Papers, etc.; but, oh well.

3. They must be novels that I can pick up at just about any time, open to just about any point in the story, and read and enjoy. Thus, while I at least should love Beloved, The Return of the Native, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Emma, The Stranger, etc., I have reservations about the extent to which I love that stuff.

4. This kind of follows out of number three: I must know the novel itself well enough to enter discourse with it wherever I pick it up. Thus, though things like Anna Karenina, Jacques the Fatalist, On the Road, The Immoralist, Henderson the Rain King, Things Fall Apart, etc., probably should be on the list, I can’t say that I intimately know them.

5. I have listed only one novel per novelist--thus excluding many works that meet the four previous criteria. Most notably, this excludes novels of Garcia Marquez, Faulkner, Dostoevsky, Kundera, McCarthy, Fielding, James, and Kazantzakis (each of these novelists should have at least three novels that make the list).

Pre-Eighteenth Century: Don Quixote--Cervantes; The Satyricon--Petronius; Gargantua and Pantagruel--Rabelais. Eighteenth Century: Joseph Andrews--Henry Fielding; The Dangerous Liaisons--[Choderlos??!!] de Laclos; Tristram Shandy--Sterne. Nineteenth Century: The Pickwick Papers--Dickens; The Brothers Karamazov--Dostoevsky; Madame Bovary--Flaubert; Moby Dick--Melville. Twentieth Century: Light in August--Faulkner; One Hundred Years of Solitude--Garcia Marquez; The Ambassadors--James; Zorba the Greek--Kazantzakis; Mrs. Dalloway--Woolf. Contemporary: Slowness--Kundera; All the Pretty Horses--McCarthy; Gilead--Robinson.

Some works that I suspect I could add to the list after this summer: Remembrance of Things Past, Jacques the Fatalist (reread), Henderson the Rain King (reread), The Moviegoers, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (reread), A House for Mr. Biswas. Also, I hear that Dr. Whalen really digs him some Alice Thomas Ellis, who I remember annoying me (27th Kingdom), so I probably need to appreciate her novels too.

Hopefully, I haven’t been neglecting anything too important. Apologies to those senior novel(ist)s I’ve rejected. Suggestions? Objections? Disagreements over which novel from which novelist?

The Adventures of Mary and Abe

2010-06-18T09:36:00.006-07:00

Although I read this blog with the same hungry passion that I read such luminaries as “Hark a Vagrant” and “Hyperbole and a Half”, I have yet to really write anything for it. Granted, I did once post a humorous short film about Kant, the brilliance of which, I was sure, would radiate as a testament to my blogging genius even if I never posted anything again. But I feel the time has come to damage (possibly) my exalted status and post something that is not a video of five minutes of philosophical adumbration about Kant set to a catchy beat.

Let that suffice as an introduction.

Next year, having relinquished my post as Magistra Latinae, I will be teaching Ancient and Medieval History to middle schoolers and American History, Literature, and Philosophy to 9^th graders. I think this qualifies me as a 'History Teacher'. And I am excited. Near giddy, truth be told.

(The coolest people are history teachers.)

But I am also scared. As I've been preparing to make

the transition to history teacher, a sense of foreboding with a touch of panic has been growing with increasing poignancy. It's a panic I didn't feel with Latin. I knew that teaching the kiddos Latin was important. I knew it was an impressive responsibility, as the education of children in anything is. But I wasn't overwhelmed by it. Or frightened into a frozen, fetal-positioned ball of craven anxiety.

I'm not quite to that point yet, but the anxiety has been mounting. This is some really important stuff. Especially the American tradition. I mean, I'm teaching these newly high-schooled people about the Declaration of Independence, and the Federalist Papers, and the Constitution. Did you hear me—the CONSTITUTION!

What if I cannot convey to them just how badass the signers of the Declaration of Independence are? What if I cannot fully describe to them that the Founding Fathers had the strength and courage and perseverance of Lance Armstrong wielding Excalibur against a grizzly bear (at least)? What if I fail to demonstrate that Jay, Hamilton, and Madison (especially Madison) had the intelligence of Stephen Hawking plus Bobby Fischer? And the prudence of...well...I can't really think of any prudent people. Let's just say Madison's prudence is the acme to BP's nadir of prudence.

So these thoughts have been weighing on me lately and I've been freaking out a little (read: a lot) about them. That is, until Abraham Lincoln set me free.

I'm currently reading Harry V. Jaffa's “A New Birth of Freedom”, which was at first adding untold weight to my already Atlas-like pressure. He does a great job of giving the background to the Civil War by highlighting the completely unique and crazily difficult thing the founding of America was. Then, of course, with the Civil War the huge question is: Is this unique and difficult government sustainable? Or did our grand experiment just flop?

Lincoln believes with all his heart that the government founded in the Declaration of Independence and more perfectly established by the Constitution of 1787 is perpetual and should be perpetual. This government more than any other in all of history acknowledges, reveres, and protects the natural rights of all human beings. With an almost child-like faith, Lincoln never sways from his stance that this is the best government for America, this is the Union that must be protected for it protects the invaluable and inalienable rights of all men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Lincoln also never veers from his belief that slavery is a contradiction to the principle of natural rights.

As impressive as his indomitable faith is Lincoln's near-pristine prudence, by which he stitches together the theological virtue of his faith with the practical virtues required of a leader of men. To this end, after receiving the Republican Party presidential nomination in 1860, Lincoln went silent.

Before earning the nomination, Lincoln gave “four major speeches in which he developed and set forth the arguments in virtue of which he became the political leader of the anti-slavery cause and president of the United States” (240). In those speeches as well as other speeches and his debates with Stephen Douglas, Lincoln had fully given his position on all the disputed matters. To repeat and belabor his position and points would counter the efficacy of those positions. “For him to repeat now what he had said before the election, as if it needed justification, would only, he wrote,

make me appear as if I repented for the crime of having been elected, and was anxious to apologize and beg forgiveness. To so represent me, would be the principal use made of any letter I might now thrust upon the public. My old record cannot be so used; and that is precisely the reason that some new declaration is so much sought” (246).

I am thoroughly impressed by this public silence not only because I think more (all?) politicians should follow suit, but also because I think it will be quite a handy tactic for me this upcoming school year. I realize that I should imitate Lincoln when I start getting antsy about making sure my students know important this stuff is. I should imitate his simple, single faith that the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence and protected by the Constitution are good and worthy in and of themselves. I don't need to fancy them up with grizzly bears or hammer them into my students' skulls. They are true, good, and beautiful principles. To decorate them with over-wrought analogies (see above) would be to detract from their solid, unapologetic integrity. To dwell on, harp on, and over-and over-and-over-again emphasize the importance of these principles would be an imprudent presentation of the material. I would be thrusting them upon my students, thereby effecting a feeling similar to what Lincoln describes above.

Armed with this trust in the perpetual goodness of the principles of natural rights, and trying oh so hard to imitate Lincoln's ever-impressive prudence, I feel much more confident about my role as history teacher. I will try to present these principles, these documents, these men clearly and accurately, and then let my students poke, prod, examine, and judge as they will.

Not to say that I don't still occasionally get all quivery about this looming responsibility, but I feel much better now that I've got Abe in my corner. If only I could pull off that beard.

Summer Plans

2010-06-15T10:00:00.005-07:00

My only definite plan this summer is to post more regularly here, because I will be writing a lot this summer. See, when the doctor released me from the hospital in Scotland, he said (after giving me lots of drugs!) that he was worried about my blood pressure.

Doctor: "It's right on the edge of being dangerously low."

Me, filled with incredulity and mirth: "Don't worry, doctor, I'll take care of that back in the States."

To that end, I plan, this summer, to sit on my butt during the days, avoiding exercise and eating fatty foods (read: grease-fest), while drinking lots and lots of coffee, and smoking lots and lots of cigarettes--and read tons and tons and tons of stuff. Then I'll get to write about that stuff.

Just a warning.

Shutter Island

2010-06-15T09:36:00.010-07:00

Just to reassure you all, I don’t spend all my time thinking about the tragedy of Slipknot or the existential situation of being on a boat. One thing I’m thinking, more and more, is that Scorsese is a director worth examining more in a personal attempt to address in what way film relates to art. I am trying to avoid the problem Walter Benjamin articulates; namely, that “commentators had earlier expended much fruitless ingenuity on the question of whether photography was an art--without asking the more fundamental question of whether the invention of photography had not transformed the entire character of art--film theorists quickly adopted the same ill-considered standpoint” (28). I try to consider in what way film has transformed art. One approach I take is to compare films to their corresponding art--generally, the book from which they are derived. I watched “Shutter Island” (Scorsese) on the way to Ireland and read the book (Lehane) on the way back. That film is most interesting to me at least in part because it improves on the book (I haven’t found too many that do that--possibly some Steven Kings, possibly “The Silence of the Lambs,” to name others).

The literal story introduces themes common to both book and film. A quite literal theme: what is the proper way to treat diseases of the mind? Another, perhaps more aesthetic, theme common to book and film: the portrayal of insanity in light of Chesterton’s statement: ‘Insanity means losing everything except your reason.’ Another aesthetic theme, and here is where the movie goes beyond the book: the role of the actor and his humanity in the face of a dominating “apparatus” (Benjamin). [I have no qualms about spoiling the end of the movie for anyone, because I recognize that I'm pretty behind y'all on the movie front.] There is a pretty good possibility, at the end of the movie, that the main character is not actually insane, but rather is choosing to play a part, a role, that is not true, for the sake of preserving his personal integrity.

I am reminded of Benjamin’s statements about film-making as opposed to theatre. The actor in the theatre measures himself against nature; or, against the role he plays. The film actor, on the other hand, measures himself against “the apparatus” (30). To perform well before the demands of the apparatus is a “test performance of the highest order. To accomplish it is to preserve one’s humanity in the face of the apparatus. Interest in this performance is widespread. For the majority of city dwellers, throughout the workday in offices and factories, have to relinquish their humanity in the face of an apparatus. In the evening, these same masses fill the cinemas, to witness the film actor taking revenge on their behalf not only by asserting his humanity (or what appears to them as such) against the apparatus, but by placing that apparatus in service of his triumph” (31). In “Shutter Island,” the main character engages his humanity, the question of his own real identity, against what he perceives to be the false apparatus that is placed around him; he even uses that apparatus in service of his own heroism. The tragedy lies in that he chooses to hold onto his personal integrity , which turns out to be false (and thus "die" by undergoing a lobotomy), at the cost of the integrity of the apparatus, which turns out to be real (instead of living with the knowledge that he and his wife are "monsters"). (I won’t address the question here of how real that apparatus actually is--I mean, why would Scorsese end the film with a last shot of the lighthouse? It seems that Scorsese, by closing with that shot, invites at least some possibility that the character actually is sane.)

The last line from the main character in the movie does not occur in the book. It is solely the basis of that last line that I think the movie surpasses the book. The book concludes with the patient a confirmed criminally insane person, about to undergo out of necessity an operation that will destroy both his ability to harm others and destroy his ability to think rationally. The movie concludes similarly (just before the shot of the lighthouse), except with a person who I think consciously chooses to play the role of an insane person: “I’d rather die a good man than live a monster.” Brilliant. If the guy actually thinks he is sane, why would he say that?

Also, as a postscript, I have heard that there is massive controversy over the film “The Last Temptation of Christ,” another Scorsese film. I think that Kazantzakis’s book from which the film was derived was excellent, and I don’t think it was any more “heretical,” than, say, Paradise Lost (keeping in mind that 'the morality of art is different than the morality of the church'--drawn from comments by Louise, among others). Is the film worth seeing? Is “Mean Streets?” Other Scorsese recommendations?

Summer Update: IN DC; Funny Insightful Blog; Dr. Moran and Stibora; Painting

2010-06-12T14:17:00.000-07:00

Summer Update:

To my dearests:

I'm in D.C. now, after a long and broken up drive. It's good to be here where the things are green and swampy. It's funny to be back in the east where the service is bad and the people don't care. I rediscovered a few things: green plants, hills, mailboxes, and humidity. If you're in town, holla atchya boy.

_____________________________

My brother John showed me this little blog called Hyperbole and a Half.

It's got some pretty funny stuff, such as this:

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/05/sneaky-hate-spiral.html

____________________________

T'night I'll be heading into Old Town Alexandria to Murphy's Irish Pub to visit with other UDers and Dr. Moran and Dr. Stibora. They're in town for the night as they make their way to Italy. They're teaching on the Rome campus this summer as part of Baroque Rome for UD alumns and I think also Shakespeare in Italy Program. Can't wait!

______________________________

Starting this Monday I will be taking an intensive Master Artist Portrait Painting workshop with instructor Rick Weaver. I am very excited, and will now go give my canvass a light tone of burnt umber alkyd paint so that it's surely dried by class on Monday.

Ciao ciao,

2010-06-10T10:44:00.012-07:00

I'm back in the States, despite a brief stay in Belford Hospital in Port William. Having time on my hands in the hospital, I was able to learn a new favorite poem ("I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow"), and, of course, think through a quick defense of music such as that produced by Slipknot and Rage Against the Machine. I owe my inspiration for the following to many drugs and to Glenn Cannon(!) Arbery.

To use the words of Nietzsche, Slipknot participates in the Dionysian element of tragedy: "an assured premonition of highest pleasure through destruction and negation." [To clarify, Nietzsche says this about Dionysian music in general, not about Slipknot in particular.] To summarize elements in The Birth of Tragedy that call to mind heavy metal, the Dionysian and the Apollinian (I use Kaufman's spelling to reflect the debt I owe to his thought), "appear coupled with each other, and through this coupling ultimately generate an equally Dionysian and Apollinian form of art--Attic tragedy." For Nietzsche, the Apollinian functions through beautiful images. It has vanquished the primal order of the Titans that ruled before. It is not, however, just a "healing;" it is also a type of "illusion:" Apollinian art hides from the viewer the brutal, primal terrors and energies that are hidden under the phenomenal world.

Dionysian art, on the other hand, functions through music. "Through music," says Nietzsche, "the viewer participates in an assured premonition of highest pleasure through destruction and negation, so he feels as if the innermost abyss of things spoke to him perceptibly;" this innermost abyss has a "hidden substratum of suffering and knowledge, revealed by the Dionysian."

What kind of knowledge do we gain from seeing the Oresteia, or from watching King Lear, or from attending a Slipknot concert? We do, as Aristotle says, achieve some kind of catharsis, or purging, of unclean emotions; yes; but, I think Nietzsche advances our understanding of the knowledge of tragedy even further: "the metaphysical joy in the tragic is a translation of the instinctive unconscious Dionysian wisdom into the language of images;" those who enter the Dionysian become, for a moment, "primordial being itself, feeling its raging desire for existence and joy in existence.... We are pierced by the maddening stings of these pains just when we have become, as it were, one with the joy in primordial existence, and when we anticipate, in Dionysian ecstasy, the indestructability and eternity of this joy." That is, Nietzsche doesn't say that only when fear and pity have been purged do we gain some kind of knowledge; no, "in spite of fear and pity, we are the happy living beings, not as individuals, but as the one living being, with whose creative joy we are united." This rapturous joy is something of what Dmitri lives in The Brothers Karamazov: "I'm a Karamazov. For when I do leap into the pit, I go headlong with my heels up, and am pleased to be falling in that degraded attitude, and pride myself upon it. And in the very depths of that degradation I begin a hymn of praise." I can't help but draw parallels between the Dionysian abyss and the Psalmist: "De profundis clamavi ad te Domine;" or Job, scraping his back with a potsherd; in such tragic moments, "Man, jack, joke, poor potsherd, / Patch, matchwood, immortal diamond, / Is immortal diamond."

This is all well and good and true for tragedy, but I guess I should at least try to suggest some parallels between tragedy and that things I like to listen to (sometimes).

There seems to be little of the Apollinian in metal, but the Apollinian image need not be beautiful in the way that we think of it normally: it is not "pretty." As Socrates says, sometimes, you have to tell your eyes, irresistably drawn to scenes of carnage, "All right then, fine, look and have your fill!" "Feed apace then, greedy eyes," agrees Samuel Daniel. The eyes are drawn to these images of pain and suffering, beautiful in their scenery of desctuction and begation. There are plenty of movements toward Appolinian, image-driven beauty in the music itself, and in the lyrics, of most heavy metal. To take just one example, there is that great section in the Rage song about Danny and Lisa: "They take me away from / The strangest places, / Sweet Danny and Lisa." Something translates the "strange" forces of the Dionysian abyss into sweet and Apollinian imagery. The entire song seems to suggest a translation of the primal forces of rock considered as just music (aural and Dionysian) into those forces being conveyed in a visual medium (Apollinian) as well: "Hey man, look at me rocking out: / I'm the radio; / Hey man, look at me rocking out, / I'm on the video."

For another parallel between the old tragedy of yore and the new tragedy of metal, I think of Wagner's theory of gesamptkunstwerk. Wagner wanted to combine all different mediums of art into his opera with a view towards creating true tragedy. Slipknot definitely embraces the operatic gesamptkunstwerk, shown most clearly by their live shows. They combine music enhanced by huge loudspeakers (aural art), painting in their backdrops, crazy light shows, and special effects (visual art), lyrics of a sort (poetry), and, of course, masks, drummers running all over their set, band members leaping into the mosh pit to crowd-surf, long and stringy hair thrashed to the beat of the music in the "heavy" sections of music... (theatrical, dramatic art).

The song "Psychosocial" provides an excellent example of the tragic hero as presented by the lyrics of the song. I wish I knew the lyrics to the verses so I could back this up even better, but just check the chorus: "The rain will kill us all, / We throw ourselves against the wall; / And no one else can see / The preservation of the martyr in me." Glenn Cannon says, "The tragic hero of the Dionysian [such as the character in "Psychosocial," and the members of Slipknot] is actually Dionysius himself undergoing in disguise the agony of appearing at all, having to be and act in a circumscribed and limited mode of being." Just as Nietzsche says that only the actors behind their masks truly face the tragic abyss, Slipknot acknowledges that "no one else can see the preservation of the martyr" in the characters that they assume.

To conclude, heavy metal today is actively participating in the genre of tragedy. All right, my drugs are wearing off, and I need bed.

"I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. / I learn by going where I have to go."

John Prine Tribute Album Recently Unveiled - Feat. Old Crow Medicine Show and More!

2010-06-07T13:15:00.000-07:00

Recently I was G-Chatted by a good friend, JT Kennelly, who let me know about a new musical sensation: a John Prine Tribute album! titled Broken Hearts and Dirty Windows. This album is to feature a great group of bands and singers including The Avett Brothers, OCMS, My Morning Jacket, Conor Oberst, and many more. This is pretty exciting!

Short Bio from The Prine Shrine

Born in Maywood, IL on October 10, 1946, John Prine’s body of work has become the high-water mark of American songwriting and his songs have found a home in the repertoire of musical luminaries such as Bonnie Raitt, Johnny Cash and George Strait.

On March 9, 2005, at the request of Poet Laureate Ted Kooser, John Prine became the first singer/songwriter to read and perform at the Library of Congress.

Prine takes his own sweet time dancing with his muse -- and truly writes what's in his soul. So if it takes him a little longer to compose the songs that capture the moments that reveal the gently folded human truths that bind us all together, it's always worth the wait.

Listen to Prine on youtube or grooveshark, but you ought to at least hear some of his work, it's quite good, sometimes a little cheesy and sometimes old-timey.

Pre-Order and Sample some of the songs from the upcoming release here:

http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Hearts-Dirty-Windows-Songs/dp/B003JDQJLE/ref=pd_krex_fa_t_dp_img

Summer Plans! What are yours?

2010-06-06T16:48:00.001-07:00

To whom it may concern:

Thus it begins, a Summer Road-Trip of limited sorts.

I am going to be driving from Phoenix to D.C. starting this
Tuesday morning (6.08).

I will be in Dallas on Tuesday night and will leave Thursday (6.10).

I will be arriving in D.C. on Friday or Saturday at the latest (6.11/12).

I will be in D.C. taking an art class and visiting old haunts (Prospect Hill is top o' the list; and I want Sponge-Bob back. You know who you are).

I will be attending the wedding of one MP[3] Jones and Sam. I will be in Dallas for a week for that, and then back to D.C.

I will be in D.C. until around July 15th or so. This would be a good time to get everyone together as I will be free and not taking classes. Maybe some of your norther NY & PA folk can come down for something?

On my way back to Phoenix I was thinking of hitting up Raleigh, Atlanta, New Orleans, Dallas, Austin, Houston, and anything else in the way if you invite me.

Let me know if you are going to be around in these places and would like to grab lunch or hang out for a more extended time. I have a pretty loose schedule as much as things go.

Leave a comment on here with your summer plans so that we can figure something out!

Advice

2010-06-05T10:02:00.004-07:00

Salvete amici

Yesterday my boss, a mother of twelve, a grandmother of three or four hundred, and an energetic soul sixty years my senior who refers to Josh and I as "the boys," informed me that my duties next year will include a new elective class: journalism.

This is a new class for our school with no materials and no objectives except that we write and publish the school's newsletter twice a year. As I create this class during the summer, I would appreciate any suggestions that you all may have pertaining to materials or methods that I could employ.

"the pig"

Another musical offering.

2010-06-02T08:24:00.002-07:00

I've been meaning to post this here for a while.

Latest Creative Endeavor

2010-05-28T17:59:00.002-07:00

(Sorry boys by the way...)
So I recently made this jewelry pendant. I am pretty excited and feel I have a new obsession coming on... the clear glassy like finish is called "diamond glaze dimensional adhesive" which is code for awesome.
The flowered paper is from this stationary that Anne & Laura got for me from the National Art Museum in DC (is that what the art museum in DC is called?)
Anyway, I hope that everyone has a great Memorial Day and if you have an exceptionally exciting adventure, be sure to share. Actually. Let's be real, even if it's only moderately exciting, share.

Until the Pequod Stellas,
Cheltz-dog

Beautiful

2010-05-24T08:24:00.003-07:00

There is a fantastic song that I managed to imbed not here but on a blog I do as part of my work (a work which I will no longer be working at after this week--new job). ANYWAY, go to this link http://arringtonroofing.com/Roofer-Blog/job-photos/ and find the link that is entitled "Banjo Moon." It is a fantastic, fantastic song.

Southwest Update

2010-05-23T19:45:00.001-07:00

A small piece of the desert flew into my eye while driving today.

Then I sang Neutral Milk Hotel, which led me to the next stage of my journey: hitting up the BK Lounge. Josh Neu, Peter Kane, and Sercer mentioned one afternoon's return from Nashville the glory that is BKL, ever since that fateful afternoon I have been a believer.

In other news, some masses in Arizona are commonly called "guitar mass."

ONE MORE WEEK OF SCHOOL.

Yesterday I spat game with a pidgeon and a palm tree; they were both fairly coy. 48 hour mohawk.

Okay: Way to go Cheltz on being the best blogger. You and your posts are legit (even though you may not have recently posted up at the BK Lounge).

Summer Plans:

Going to be in DC June and maybe July
Going to Mary Pat and Sam's wedding (July 3rd)
Passing through Texas and other states on the way to and fro DC

Gift: Wisdom

2010-05-23T17:11:00.003-07:00

Dear Friends,

Happy Feast of Pentecost! I heard a priest comment last week that we should celebrate Pentecost with the same joy and splendor that we celebrate Christmas; because after all, where Christmas celebrates the second Person of the Trinity coming into the world, Pentecost celebrates the third.

I wanted to share this passage from Christ is Passing By by St. Josemaria:

Among the gifts of the Holy Spirit, I would say that there is one which we all need in a special way: the gift of wisdom. It makes us know God and rejoice in his presence, thereby placing us in a perspective from which we can judge accurately the situations and events of this life. If we were consistent with our faith when we looked around us and contemplated the world and its history, we would be unable to avoid feeling in our own hearts the same sentiments that filled the heart of our Lord: "Seeing the crowds, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were bewildered and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd."

Not that the Christian should neglect to see all that is good in humanity, appreciate its healthy joys or participate in its enthusiasm and ideals. On the contrary, a true Christian will vibrate in unison with all the good he finds in the world. And he will live in the midst of it with a special concern, since he knows, better than anyone, the depth and the richness of the human spirit.

Who knew Minnesota was so cool?

2010-05-17T19:01:00.004-07:00

Chesterton Academy! as in, G.K.

If I ever happen to be raising high school aged children in the fine northern state of Minnesota, I just might send them there. From the website:

"Chesterton Academy is a private, independent high school in the Twin Cities that nurtures the minds and souls of young men and women with a classics-based, college preparatory education taught through the lens of the teachings of the Catholic Church. Through the study of art, music, literature, language, history, mathematics, science, philosophy and theology, Chesterton Academy will prepare students to think both rationally and creatively, to defend their faith, to contribute positively to society, and to promote a culture of life.

Jude Dougherty, Dean Emeritus of Philosophy of the Catholic University of America, once commented: “Those who do not possess a classical education are prisoners of their own time. To know and be interested only in the ‘now’ means being incapable of evaluating or appreciating even that.” That is why a Chesterton Academy education is so essential. It is an opportunity to introduce students to the true, the good, and the beautiful. It is an opportunity to take the best of what has been thought, so as to provide a sturdy intellectual foundation for the future. Finally, it is an education that recognizes, as G.K. Chesterton said, “that there is a whole truth of things, and in knowing it and speaking it we are happy.”

also... note their major matching donation campaign right now if you feel so inspired and generous!

In a world fraught with angst, one man must have the answers...

2010-05-17T10:16:00.001-07:00

This made my Monday morning.

Mmm, Danish.

Super Chill Orangutan does Hollywood

2010-05-16T21:27:00.001-07:00

Vincent Van Gogh totally looks like Chuck Norris

2010-05-16T16:27:00.003-07:00

London Town

2010-05-16T15:13:00.000-07:00

Here's one of Kinch's songs that I've only heard live (I don't know if it's on any of their albums). Enjoy!

Congratulatione!

2010-05-16T14:14:00.001-07:00

____Congratulations to____
____The Class of 2010____

Welcome to the real world

My advice to you: If you haven't achieved

Ring by Spring,

Don't worry! There's still other things like

"Nuptial Mass before a Year can Pass"

Music recommendation

2010-05-16T11:27:00.001-07:00

Gorilla Manor, by Local Natives. 5/8 of a point for Kinch, no?

Parody of Megachurch Worship

2010-05-13T21:51:00.001-07:00

Parody of Megachurch Worship

Essay on the Liberal Arts in Universities...Pretty cool.

2010-05-12T10:04:00.002-07:00

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/science-and-the-decline-of-the-liberal-arts

Thoughts?

2010-05-10T20:52:00.009-07:00

Sometimes, I am embarrassed to admit that I indulge in certain types of media: for example, I love me some Slipknot, revel in Eminem, and even enjoy things like “I’m on a Boat!” I have to ask myself, “Self, are you just being base and falling for stuff that diverts your mind from reality for a bit?” And self says, “Yeah, I; but maybe, there’s something about all this that actually helps me understand reality, too!” In other words, I really enjoy stuff like Eminem; it makes me happy; it seems that there is something good that should follow from that happiness. So, … seeing as how I will be on a boat ferrying in between Scotland and Ireland with the SGA juniors this summer, and seeing as how we plan to visit a small, lonely island off the northern side of Scotland, the following is a brief attempt to justify my enjoyment of “I’m On A Boat!” in terms of what it can teach us about art and reality.

“I’m On A Boat!” is a post-modern expression of high existentialism. First of all, we need to get over the sterile, misunderstood formula for existentialism that is promoted to those who wish to have a shallow understanding of what is actually an important philosophy of life in the modern age. Thumbnail definition (which is false) of existentialism: “things exist, but they don’t mean anything.” This might apply more to what might be considered the absurdist imagination, such as presented in Camus’ masques, or Beckett’s tragedy; but let’s look at existentialism. Jean Paul Sartre is one of the theoreticians behind this school of thought; he promotes the “theatre of situations” as opposed to the “theatre of characters.” We have all wondered, I’m sure, What if I was alive when Christ was proclaiming the Good News? What if I went to TAC? What if I was born as Peter Kane’s twin? Well, the theatre of situations seems to attack one of mankind’s universal illusions: that our life situation is a contingent, interchangeable circumstance through which moves our unchanging self. Existentialism rather violently destroys any false dreams. I think that’s why my favorite lines in “I’m On A Boat!” include the following brilliant observations: “**** land, I’m on a boat, mother******! / ****trees, I climb buoys, mother******! / I’m on a boat with my boys, mother******! / This boat engine making noise, mother******!” See, existentialism is good in that it forces awareness of the reality of our situation in life. Only the unique, definite, particular experiences of our life allows us as selves to come to an awareness of our “me myself” (using Whitman’s term rather than Freud’s, the ego, to designate Whitman’s much more vital understanding of the self). This character, indeed all of the characters in the song and video, reject any alternate realities; they realize that it is only by grasping the situation of their being on a boat can they make any sense of their lives. They don’t reject other situations for other people (“You at Kinko’s straight flipping copies”), they just reject other possible situations for their selves. For example, some of my favorite lines are, “This ain’t Sea World, this is real as it gets, / I’m on a boat, mother******, don’t you e’er forget!” Or, "You can't stop me, mother******, 'cause I'm on a boat!" Or (and this is my favorite line), “This boat is real!”

Dante, in a letter to Can Grande alle Scale (this is the source for Dante’s understanding of the fourfold method of biblical exegesis, too, so you know the letter’s good), says that one thing by which a work may be judged as artistically correct or not is whether the title of a work is appropriate to the content of the work. (This is similar, too, to Maritain’s understanding of the poetics of the novel: the “harmonious or appropriate expansion” of a theme or idea.) Well, the artistic merit of an existentialist understanding of “I’m On A Boat!” is that every line in the poem serves to reveal and expand the subject mentioned in the title. Do we need to know about T-Pain’s love life to appreciate the situation he is placed in by virtue of being on a boat (“I ******a mermaid”)? Do we need to know T-Pain’s background (what he did before he was on a boat) to understand that the situation he is placed in on a boat is different than what he expected from himself (“I never though I’d be on a boat / … I never thought I’d see the day, / With a big boat coming my way”)? See, one of the brilliant things about “I’m On A Boat” is that no superfluous background material interferes with the unfolding of the situation given in the title of the song. One of the more annoying things in life would be a work of criticism that tracks down every little biographical detail about the characters of the song; or that chases down every reference to things that are not of the boat (much like the Road to Xanadu). Don’t such biographical footnotes distract from the work of art? To explain by digression a bit, I love the Albertine of Ivan Blatny’s poetry. Well, it kind of ticks me off that it turns out that Blatny actually is referencing some guy that Marcel Proust fell in love with, and that all of Blatny’s poetry is an expression of desire for another man! That footnote ticked me off. Heck with that, I say; who cares whether Albertine’s character is supposed to be male or female; she is a beautiful woman in the situation of Blatny’s poems and a beautiful woman she remains for me. Anyway, it seems that learning anything about the singers of “I’m On A Boat” (as a true “character analysis” would try to do) would reveal nothing about what the song is trying to say.

Ah well. I need to return to Dostoevsky's Mitya's three torments of the soul, so here’s a final remark about the possible importance of existentialism. We need to look at great events of humans in terms of how they apply to our situation in life. We can’t really come close to the faith that Abraham put in God; Abraham was absolutely absurd to believe that God would make him the father of the nations after He told him to sacrifice his only son! But, Abraham did; and He did; we cannot really have faith like that. We can only be rational, non-absurd beings. We cannot relate to the characters that do great events; we can only look at the situations we are faced with in everyday life.

That concluding remark looks like it could be said by one of Kierkegaard’s “knights of infinite resignation.” I hope I’m not one of those.

Anyway. Here’s why I like “I’m On A Boat:” it provides a forum for a meaningful discussion about art, literature, reality, life, etc. Hopefully, I will be able to justify my enjoyment of Slipknot and Eminem in a similar manner at some point in the future.

We're the Happiest University in the Country; How 'bout about that, Dallas

2010-05-09T16:04:00.009-07:00

Howdy y'all, I'm coming back to Dallas this Wednesday for a week and a half! Neal is getting hitched, so I wasn't about to miss that. 'Til then, I've written one last article for the "Claremont Independent;" tell me what you think.

"The 'Happiest Campus in the Country'? What Aristotle can tell us about true Happiness" by Christopher Wolfe

For those who have not heard, Claremont McKenna is officially the “Happiest College in the Country.” In a ranking from the Daily Beast website, the Claremont Colleges took four of the top six spots for happiness, with good old Pitzer even coming in at 22. To be called “happy” is serious praise for Claremont, and we should be proud. But before we get too proud, we should ask ourselves: “What does this happiness consist of?” To be honest, the standards that the Daily Beast used to measure our happiness were not what should measure happiness. I would argue that unfortunately, Claremont McKenna is not the happiest college in the country. I say this because of what happiness actually is.
Aristotle offers the best account of what happiness is. The Greek word Aristotle uses for happiness is eudaimonia, which literally means “blessed.” Certainly, this broadest sense of “happiness” could accurately be applied to Claremont. A very large number of the students here are happy with the university, they are satisfied with it. They feel “blessed” to be going to Claremont considering the alternatives. But we should question whether that satisfaction makes our lives truly happy. What Aristotle means when he talks about happiness is the best human life possible, a life “in accordance with the best and most complete activity.” Many have different opinions about what that best life is, but as the argument of Aristotle unfolds, all but one of these alternatives prove incomplete.
Some say that the best life is experiencing the most pleasurable states possible. If this is true, Claremont would have a pretty good claim at happiness. The Daily Beast gave the schools high ratings for quality of food, nightlife, and fair weather; these pleasant circumstances are what really earned Claremont the ranking of “Happiest.” In looking at the faces of people on campus, most do appear joyful, which is certainly an aspect of what it means to be happy. But a happy exterior isn’t everything. We may feel that we are happy, but on reflection, we know that we are not completely happy. As Aristotle says, pleasure is not a self-sufficient end; it is a feeling that accompanies activities that may be high or low. There are some pleasures that should not be pursued — the ones accompanying vicious actions. A happy life is not the one in accordance with the maximum base pleasure; the person who thinks this mistakes being well with doing well materially.
Happiness is life in accordance with the best activity, which Aristotle shows to be contemplation. Incoming students at the Claremont Colleges have exceedingly high test scores, and are smart and engaged in the classroom. Are Claremont students happy, then, because they think more than other students? If a person is “smart,” is this enough to make him happy? Absolutely not. The intellect is more than a simple on-and-off switch that when engaged makes us happy. A way of life, not just an activity, must be embraced. When illicit drug usage, sexually immorality, and “the Vagina Monologues” rule the day in Claremont, no amount of intellectual excellence will be able to overcome these moral failings. A complete life of virtue is required, in which contemplation is the sign or specific difference of happiness.
The best way of life for Aristotle is characterized by contemplation, but not limited to this virtue. The standard for the best life which Aristotle mentions in his Eudemian Ethics is the “noble” life, kalakagathia. The noble life consists of the “whole” of the virtues, the best of the practical and the best of the intellectual, accompanied by appropriate pleasures. Aristotle says that nobility is “whatever mode of choosing and of acquiring things good by nature — whether goods of body or wealth or friends or the other goods — will best promote the contemplation of God, that is the best mode; this is the standard of nobility.” Indeed, nobility is the fulfillment of those qualities of life which of which the Daily Beast’s “happiness” is only a pale and incomplete reflection.
There is one more requirement that Aristotle says is necessary to judge a life to be happy. The life must be “complete,” — that is, the person must be dead. As he says, “one day or a short time does not make a person blessed and happy.” You should now realize that the standard I have adopted from Aristotle concerning happiness makes it impossible to judge any college student to be happy. This is true, at least until that college student’s full life has been lived and can be appraised. However, the standard of nobility is something that a Claremont student can aim at in his choices and activities. Nobility is like a “snapshot” of a whole life, that if continued could be called “happy.” We should aim at nobility, and hopefully a happy life will result.
I would not encourage anyone to stop seeking happiness. If you have joy, do not give it up. At the same time, do not tolerate evil. We should speak the truth in charity, with smiles on our faces. Perhaps the Claremont Independent should publish the “100 Most Noble Colleges in America;” Claremont McKenna would still be on my list.

A Templeton Conversation: Does moral action depend on reasoning?

2010-05-09T15:26:00.001-07:00

A Templeton Conversation: Does moral action depend on reasoning?

Read Robert George's Response (found at the bottom).

Sometimes Obama Makes Me Happy

2010-05-09T09:12:00.002-07:00

HAMPTON, Virginia — US President Barack Obama lamented Sunday that in the iPad and Xbox era, information had become a diversion that was imposing new strains on democracy, in his latest critique of modern media.

Obama, who often chides journalists and cable news outlets for obsessing with political horse race coverage rather than serious issues, told a class of graduating university students that education was the key to progress.

"You're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank all that high on the truth meter," Obama said at Hampton University, Virginia.

"With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation," Obama said.

He bemoaned the fact that "some of the craziest claims can quickly claim traction," in the clamor of certain blogs and talk radio outlets.

"All of this is not only putting new pressures on you, it is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy."

Obama, who uses the handful of Commencement addresses that he delivers each year to meditate on societal developments broader than the minutiae of everyday politics, warned the world was at a moment of "breathtaking change."

"We can't stop these changes... but we can adapt to them," Obama said, adding that US workers were in a battle with well-educated foreign workers.

"Education... can fortify you, as it did earlier generations, to meet the tests of your own time," he said.

Hampton University is a historically black college, and Obama noted the huge disparity in educational achievement between African Americans and other racial groups in the United States and the world.

But he urged the graduates to take inspiration from the example of Dorothy Height, a civil and women's rights icon who died, aged 98, last month, who fought racial prejudice to secure a college education.

"A black woman, in 1929, refusing to be denied her dream of a college education," Obama said, reprising Height's life story.

"Refusing to be denied her rights, refusing to be denied her dignity, refusing to be denied... her piece of America's promise."

Obama argued that from the days of the pioneer politicians who founded the United States, until the modern day, education and knowledge had been the key to progress and US democracy.

He drew a line between Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, and today's challenges.

"What Jefferson recognized... that in the long run, their improbable experiment -- called America -- wouldn't work if its citizens were uninformed, if its citizens were apathetic, if its citizens checked out, and left democracy to those who didn't have the best interests of all the people at heart.

"It could only work if each of us stayed informed and engaged, if we held our government accountable, if we fulfilled the obligations of citizenship."

Poetry On The Range

2010-05-09T08:54:00.002-07:00

http://www.oriensjournal.com/6poety.html

The Oven Bird

2010-05-08T23:51:00.000-07:00

THE OVEN BIRD
by Robert Frost

There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.

No Salvation Outside of Poetry

2010-05-06T21:22:00.001-07:00

Here is a wonderful talk given by Bishop Conley; Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Denver.

The Title of the talk is "No Salvation Outside of Poetry."

Bishop Conley fondly recounts his experiences in the Integrated Humanities Program (IHP sometimes called Pearson Program) at Kansas University in the 70's.

http://www.archden.org/repository//TOT_03_12_10.mp3

"Poetry is the language of love"

Kid say dem crazy thangs

2010-05-04T18:19:00.003-07:00

My Kids today:

Kids: Mr. Bloch do you still get grounded?

Mr. Bloch: Yes.

Kids: For what?

Mr. Bloch: Not Cleaning my room.

--------------------------------------------

Susie (a female student wearing copious amounts of men's cologne):
Mr. Bloch can you help me with the shading on this object?

Mr. Bloch: I can't talk to you right now.
I can't handle the amount of cologne you're wearing.

----------------------------------------------

Jenny, who could be one of the "plastics" from Mean Girls, made some pop culture reference in class.

Mr. Bloch: Jenny, you're a nerd.

Jenny: No I'm not! (indignantly)

Mr. Bloch: Saaaaay it.

Jenny: I'm a nerd... (quietly)

Mr. Bloch: Loud and Proud

Jenny: I'M A NERD!!!

-----------------------------------------------------

Katie: Mr. Bloch, have you been letting your hair grow long?

Mr. Bloch: Eh what?

Katie: You're starting to look like Elvis.

----------------------------------------------

Chris: Mr. Bloch, did you used to have long hair?

Real Country

2010-05-02T18:54:00.002-07:00

Dear All,

The Country genre has been pretty badly maimed; it's been dominated by pop artists for far too long. Although not all country music is bad, I would say the majority of it is.

There have been a few bright stars: Jonny Cash, Steve Earle (played a song with the Pogues once!), Uncle Tupelo, and Chris Ledoux (to name a few of the few). Many bands that may be labeled as "Country" go for "alt country" or "American" or "Bluegrass." But I haven't yet seen a band label themselves as pure country and not sound like plastic shit - until I heard Ryan Bingham.

This guy is for real totally legit. He's had a tough life. He's got a deep whiskey cigarette voice that tells stories. He labels himself as Country music. His music is moving, energetic, charged by the Texas landscape from which he hails. I thoroughly enjoy listening to him.

Go to his website and play some of his music. Listen to this song from the Dave Letterman show. He wrote the theme to the movie Crazy Heart (staring Jeff Bridges).

New Charity Week Video from UDunderground

2010-05-02T10:30:00.001-07:00

2010-04-29T20:41:00.002-07:00

Eyjafjallajökull

2010-04-27T16:11:00.001-07:00

From:

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2283

Probably the Best Thing on the Internet

2010-04-25T21:39:00.002-07:00

You might want to turn off the sound when you play.

http://mostawesomestthingever.com/

Promo Short for Black Keys' New Album "Brothers"

2010-04-25T20:14:00.002-07:00

Promo for May 18 Release of "Brothers" by The Black Keys
Hear this!

New option for UD student e-mail - News

2010-04-24T10:44:00.001-07:00

New option for student e-mail - News

Really Cool Animation Short "GO"

2010-04-22T19:44:00.000-07:00

This was done by a friend of mine growing up. His name is Daniel B. Smith, and he's pretty talented at many different things.

Found these.

2010-04-22T18:27:00.000-07:00

Terrible Poetry Jokes.

BY PETER LaVELLE

- - - -

A man, a woman, and a blackbird walk into a bar. "Table for one, please," they say.

- - - -

Byron walks into a bar. He has sex with everyone in the bar.

- - - -

Milton, Homer and Borges walk into a bar. Milton says: "Who the fuck put this bar here?"

- - - -

Wordsworth and Coleridge are watching the Lakers game. They can't get service at the crowded bar. Coleridge smiles and says to Wordsworth: "Lager, lager everywhere, and I can't get a drink." Wordsworth says to Coleridge: "I have pleurisy."

- - - -

Rimbaud, Bukowski, and Dylan Thomas walk into a bar. They are promptly thrown out.

- - - -

A horse walks into a bar where Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound are drinking.

BARTENDER (to horse): Why the long face?

WHITMAN (to everyone): I, too, am a horse.

POUND (to Whitman): Shut the fuck up.

Left footed

2010-04-18T15:42:00.000-07:00

Epic Art Fail Hall of Fame

Not everyone gets an "A"

These are the drawings and quizzes that are on the fringe, as in, there's something else going on. Not immediately classifiable, these drawings are meant to be interesting and funny. Enjoy.

We were working on portrait drawings.

This is simply disturbing.

Favorite. It IS a drawing of the statue Augustus of Prima Porta

City in 2 and 3 point perspective.

I just don't know...

Coming Soon...

2010-04-12T20:49:00.000-07:00

I am in the midst of listening to some music that I think we all should hear, I will have more on that soon.

The latest issue of Pequod was fantastic and came, as it always seems to, at the perfect time. With kind and sincere regard to Mr. Neu's outrageous and inflammatory assertion that I judge people based on what they write in The Pequod....I do not deny it.

I baked cookies tonight.

I had a fever last night.

Also, look for in the near future an amazing new thing that I will explain how to use later.

Today in class one of my 9th grader students asked how Chaucer could be so dirty, given that it was written such a long time ago.

cheerily, PB

Texas Stadium Implosion

2010-04-11T08:58:00.002-07:00

I'm ridin' on a dolphin!

2010-04-09T06:33:00.000-07:00

KINCH - Ziptape (Free Download of an Entire Album)

2010-04-05T19:57:00.008-07:00

Photos from Ed and Adaire's Wedding; New Orleans 2010

2010-04-05T17:56:00.004-07:00

I don't know who this is, but it's def my fav

Quote from Fleet Foxes Frontman

2010-04-04T12:30:00.001-07:00

"We cannot wait to continue making records, to explore all there is to explore in this vast musical landscape and test ourselves in new ways through song."

- Robin Pecknold

Leisureading

2010-04-03T09:12:00.006-07:00

Trying to keep myself busy on Good Friday I decided that I should read some of the newsletters from St. Gregory's Academy. I ended up falling upon the All Souls Day edition from fall 2009, in which Andrew W. Smith, the resident artist and art instructor at SGA, published the Article "The Artist and the Human Vocation."

Mr. Smith's article is quite good, and I am fascinated by the curriculum he is implementing at SGA. I truly wish that I could have had an art instructor while I was there. I instead was given my own studio on the sun porch, and was free to pursue my own artistic devices at my own discretion (which mind you was not very discrete). Mr. Smith brought to my attention a quite valuable book that I had never known of: Vitruvius' Ten Books on Architecture. The author was a Roman architect and contemporary of Virgil. He prefaces his books to "Imperator Caesar," much like Bacon introduces his New Organum to the King. I find the preface to be quite clever, and the beginning of the book is full of aphorisms germane to Latin (be as one chasing the substance not the shadow, etc.) Vitruvius, Mr. Smith argues, "emphasize the importance of a liberal education and lay out the principles upon which good architecture rest."

Vetruvius' man, the original from which the namesake
Vetruvian Man was taken by Leonardo da Vinci

Vitruvius, Mr. Smith argues, "emphasize[s] the importance of a liberal education and lay[s] out the principles upon which good architecture rest."

As I began reading a bit of Vitruvius this morning as leisure reading. I am quite pleased with the book so far, and I believe that I will attempt to infiltrate this into my curriculum at some point next year.

I do hope, my dearest ones, that your Easter is full of joy (evangelium)!

Earlie in the morning,

Peter Bloch

Andrew Wilson Smith, Resident Artist, Art Instructor Mr. Smith, a graduate of St. Gregory’s, studied sculpture at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art and the Florence Academy of Art, as well as serving apprentices with various sculptors. He has completed a number of commissions, including a bronze fountain piece for the American School in

Switzerland

, a set of eight herm-portraits for California State University at Stanislaus, and recently a set of seven metopes for the St. Theresa Education Center in Sugar Land, Texas. In addition to his studio work, Mr. Smith has joined the faculty as the art and art history instructor at St. Gregory’s, after having taught art history at Wyoming Catholic College. To learn more about Andrew Wilson Smith and to view his work, please visit his website: www.andrewwilsonsmith.com.

2010-04-02T18:03:00.002-07:00

I just like this a lot

2010-03-31T17:22:00.002-07:00

2010-03-30T20:23:00.002-07:00

This is going to Bee bad...

2010-03-29T18:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.bd2664988112b33ebe7091069cfec28e.8b1&show_article=1

2010-03-24T19:29:00.003-07:00

2010-03-23T20:28:00.001-07:00

2010-03-22T17:30:00.001-07:00

To All SGA Alumni

2010-03-22T17:25:00.002-07:00

To all alumni of Saint Gregory's Academy and to friends of the Academy,

There has been a lot of talk recently, and I don't know if you've heard anything, but I recently got an e-mail from Sebastian Jansen reaching out to the alumni to keep them updated.

Here is the link to the SGA Alumni Website: http://sgaalumni.com/

SGA needs prayers, lads.

Yours,

Peter

The Essential Belloc: A Prophet for Our Times

2010-03-20T23:59:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen!

Here it is at last the book that my father wrote along with Fr. John McCloskey and Brian Robertson, and which I helped to edit and research for. Pre-order your copy today!

Cheers,

Peter Hilaire Bloch

Dear Friends of Belloc:

On behalf of my fellow editors, Fr. C. John McCloskey, Brian Robertson, and the Faith and Reason Institute under the leadership of Robert Royal – we would like to invite you to pre-order your copy of the collection of Hilaire Belloc’s best writings.

We thank you for considering purchasing it on preorder. Perhaps it would also be suitable for gifts for others, and to circulate this notice to friends and relatives and others who may be interested. The timing is good for a reordering of our minds to culture and Christian civilization. Belloc is the paladin of that effort, and a kindly guide through life’s measureless wonder and warfare.

Here is the link to Saint Benedict/Tan Press for pre-order of The Essential Belloc: a Prophet for Our Times.

http://www.saintbenedictpress.com/Catholic-Classics/The-Essential-Belloc.cfm?ID=15520

It’s also on Amazon.com - http://www.wholesalecatholicgoods.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=7996

Below is the book jacket copy. I will be doing a book signing at the Catholic Information Center on April 21, 2010 at 6:30 p.m. followed by wine and cheese reception. Fr. James Schall who wrote the Preface to this book, will be in attendance and will introduce a short talk.

Your scrivenous scribe,

Scott Bloch, Secretary of Belloc Society of Washington, DC

“More than any other man, Hilaire Belloc made the English-speaking Catholic world in which we all live”
-Frank Sheed

He was a poet, a polemicist, and a prose stylist without peer, but Hilaire Belloc (1870-1954) was first and above all a mighty champion of the Catholic faith. With his brave (and sometimes brash) defenses of Catholic civilization, he taught an entire generation of Catholics never to stand for being treated as second-class citizens in the predominantly Protestant Anglosphere.

Today, with the Faith once again suffering scorn and contempt from all sides, it is time to re-discover this Catholic champion.

The Essential Belloc draws upon the prolific writer's works (he authored more than 140 books, plus countless articles, pamphlets, and letters) to provide a comprehensive overview of his ideas, style, and personality. More than just a collection of quotes, these pages offer rich samplings from Belloc's writings, affording you a solid introduction to his thoughts on:

• The foundational link between European culture and the Catholic faith
• The anti-Catholic historical myths that the English-speaking world has come to accept as fact
• The limits—and dangers—of science that has abandoned faith in God
• The latent power and future menace of militant Islam
• The characteristic faults of political and economic systems that deviate from Catholic principles
• The particular charms of places throughout the world: their towns and roads, their churches and inns
• The love of good food, wine, and ale, and the songs of camaraderie that go with them

And more—plus delightful examples of Belloc's poetry and wit.

Belloc himself once remarked that “genius is the ability to think in a very large number of categories.” In The Essential Belloc you will marvel at how well he fits that very definition, and be edified by the breadth of his brilliance—and its continuing relevance for the modern world.

SOME BLURBS:

“Hilaire Belloc’s superb portrait of England’s ill-starred cardinal, Wolsey, would crown any normal writer’s career. But with Belloc, this is just the tip of an iceberg; his range and brilliance as a writer have been matched by very few moderns. Father McCloskey has done a marvelous service by collecting many of Belloc’s most insightful passages into one volume. The Essential Belloc is an invaluable resource and hugely enjoyable reading.”

+Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.

Archbishop of Denver

At a time when Catholicism is again vilified, Fr.C John McCloskey, Scott Bloch, and Brian Robertson have done a timely service to us all by bringing forth this affectoinate and appreciative study of Hilaire Belloc, that spendlid writer, modern prophet, and morally courageous defender of the Faith.
--- Pat Buchanan

“From graceful depths to bumptious joy, Belloc’s prose deserves an audience literate, allergic to cant, and wise. Nevertheless, it will have to make do with us.”

--David Whalen, Associate Provost, Hillsdale College

Hilaire Belloc should be essential reading for any serious Catholic wishing to get to grips with the modern world and the evils it promotes and fosters. And if Belloc is essential reading what better than a book that brings together the "essential Belloc" into one power-punching volume?

-- Joseph Pearce, author of Old Thunder: a Life of Hilaire Belloc

Belloc believed that party and the state are not all powerful, that the Church and Family have primacy of place. He married an American and was fond of saying that our Declaration of Independence was a master work of freedom in the world’s history. As such, we need him more than ever to reestablish our religious liberties, the rights of the family, of marriage, and the sacred right of property.

--Senator Rick Santorum, author of It Takes a Family

Economics and competition never happen in a moral-free zone. Hilaire Belloc offers us a roadmap for a healthy economy and a healthy culture. Read this book and you will see how Belloc was among the few in the last hundred years who advocated for better business principles that are not predatory but just, not given over to big government but ordered to free people in a free economy.

-- Dr. Andrew Abela, Chair of Department of Business and Economics, Catholic University of America

"They called Hilaire Belloc "Old Thunder." After Bellocian Thunder will come first the rain and then the fruit of truth for those able readers of The Essential Belloc who dare to wrestle with the master's muscular prose."

-- Robert K. Carlson, Academic Dean, Wyoming Catholic College

"In the pantheon of English literature the bust of Hilaire Belloc has been relegated to a dusty corner, frequented only by the convivial cognoscenti who gather to drink claret beneath its shade. The great man deserves to be better known, the conviviality should be spread, and I hope The Essential Belloc finds the wide readership it deserves."

-- H. W.Crocker III, author of Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church, A 2,000-Year History

There is no one like Hilaire Belloc, no one who could describe a battlefield or a heresy with such penetrating insight, no one who saw the future as clearly (eg, Islam’s rise; Calvinism’s vitality among the Protestants); no one who could conjure so invitingly and vividly the pleasures of hearth and home and friendship and walking and roaring. I thank Father Schall for pressing me to read him, and I thank Scott Bloch, Brian Robertson and Father McCloskey for taking the (no doubt bracing and wonderful) time to draw his insights and his splendid writing together for us and future generations to read, to savor, and to exhult in, and I hope it leads us all to give thanks to the good God who gave us Hilaire Belloc.

--William Saunders, Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel, Americans United for Life

From Dallas [Braniff Graduate Center]

2010-03-19T10:42:00.000-07:00

We played TGIT last night, I cannot speak today, and the show was off the hook.

Does anyone have video, pictures, etc. of the show? I amn't on facebook.

Also, Happy St. Joseph's feastday. I'll eat cookies and taco salad bowl: mmmmm.

Here comes a tour of prospies. Gotta shine.

Kill,

Peter

We Need Orthokardia

2010-03-14T15:29:00.000-07:00

I got this in an e-mail today from my father, and it really spoke to me.  The e-mail stresses the necessity of poetry; and more specifically how poetry is infused and intertwined in the books of the Bible.  I have been speaking to one of my colleagues at Glendale quite a bit about poetry.  He and I believe that poetry is so necessary, but that very few people read poetry.  Within the category of poetry readers only a handful, we think, actually read and drink up the poems--and probably merely peruse or glance at them.  Poetry makes us human, it is the highest expression of language--logos.  Philosophy sits in awe of the word, of Poetry.

-PB

Sydney Anglican Network
You need to read poetry
by Michael Jensen
December 29th, 2009

I would lay money on the fact that poetry is not one of your great
interests. For most people, reading poetry is about as fun as going to
the dentist.

Yet I have been thinking about some great words from my good friend
Justin Moffatt recently, in a blog post entitled ‘We Need the Poets’:

The Bible is not just facts, and it’s not just history. It’s not all
argument, and it’s not all logic. It’s not a manifesto, and it’s
certainly not a tract. It is full of wisdom, poetry and songs. If we
desire to be true to the Bible, then we need to re-find the poets, the
wisdom writers, and the prophets.

It is one thing to say: ‘Be faithful to your wife’. But it is another
to muse with the writer of Proverbs: ‘Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe.’

So we need a few things: We need wonder, not just exegesis. We need
awe of God, not just exposition. We need insight, not just
information. We need wisdom, not just your points. We need to wrestle
with the Psalmists, and not just proclaim their certainty. We don’t
just need to ‘think Christianly’, we need to feel it too. We need
Orthokardia.

Justin’s point is that poetry is trying to do something very similar
to what preachers are trying to do. Poetry overlaps hugely with
theology. Reading great poetry sensitizes us – and makes us better
readers of the Word of God, no doubt.

Two books I have been reading have reminded me of the power and the
blessing and the necessity of poetry – especially for people who would
be good readers of Scripture.

First, "The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker." It is a terrific novel about a mediocre poet and
collector of poems. As he narrates his own story, he also gives us a
terrific lesson in reading and appreciating poetry – and introduces us
to some amazing poets. I had never heard of Louise Bogan before, for
example.

Second, E.D. Hirsh’s book How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry might be just what you need to get going with poetry. It’s a
magnificent introduction to poetry, but it is so much more than a
‘dummie's guide’. He introduces the reader to the whole world of poetry
– perhaps you’ll start a life-long love affair with a poet’s work, at
Hirsch’s invitation?

http://www.sydneyanglicans.net/life/culture/you_need_to_read_poetry/

Climb that mountain no matter how high

2010-03-12T17:32:00.000-07:00

...and my blood approves
while spring is in the world
-ee cummings

Well, I'm returning to the Lone Star State. I'm going to embark on a 16-18 hour car ride tomorrow morning at 4:00am. I am going to try to take some of this great weather with me. Mary Tetzlaf and Joe Prever are coming with me.

If you haven't already heard, I will be playing the St. Patrick's Day TGIT on March 18th, and I hope that you can make it out.

This is amazing

2010-03-11T17:04:00.002-07:00

Words cannot express...

http://trololololololololololo.com/

Dr. Rosemann's on Wikipedia

2010-03-10T14:52:00.003-07:00

Don't trash Wikipedia as a pseudo-academic forum until you read Dr. Rosemann's delightful wikipedia article on a neighborhood not too far away from my office.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wynnewood_(Dallas,_Texas)

"Better go down on your marrow bones"

2010-03-06T17:19:00.000-07:00

I did some car repairs today.

I love to be connected to the machine that I drive. I have a 97 Toyota Camry, and it's got about 160K miles on it. His name is Benjy by the way. Benjy has been serving me pretty well out here in the desert. I gave him some real nice tinted windows last week. He likes it a lot. The tinted windows keep me nice and cool; on top of all that, everybody thinks that I'm some kind of tough guy and so they don't mess with me or Benjy. Today I went out and bought a drill gun. It was pretty sweet purchasing a tool and then using it. The job was to fix the passenger side speaker on the front door. It has been going in and out for a while now, and I finally had enough. The hardest part wasn't getting the door off, but putting it back on. There are some really tricky things on these Asian cars...
After all the repairs were done, I scrubbed Benjy down and got all the bugs off of the front. If Benjy had to have an epithet it would be Benjy Bug-Bane.
The final touch was restoring the wind-burnt headlights. With all the travelling that we've done together the headlights have become wind-burnt, which is where they appear yellow and scratched up. I bought a restoration kit, basically you just buff away the scratches and it shines like new!
I feel manly today. Benjy is damn proud of his new look. He still needs some flushes and a good vacuuming, but that will have to wait for a while.

I might get Benjy a spoiler for his birthday (it's in July I decided).

Now I'm off to a dinner with Mr. Jakubcyzick; it's Arizona Right To Life. Then a birthday party and hanging out with various UD people.

Enjoy your weekends dearest ones!

I am yours,

Lord Bloch

Peter Bloch.

2010-03-04T08:45:00.003-07:00

Seeing as how you are rather close to Surpise, Arizona, where the Ranger's spring training camp is located, and the first spring training game is today, you should go and bring me something cool. Please. Pretty please with a cherry on top.

How UD is UD?

2010-03-03T19:12:00.001-07:00

Glendale Preparatory Academy

2010-03-01T21:27:00.000-07:00

Dear All,

Glendale Preparatory Academy is Now Hiring for the 2010-2011 school year.

Please Download this informational flyer if you are interested in applying, or if you are interested in viewing our curriculum and reading list.

We are growing as a school and thus are hiring across the board. The positions that I know for a fact are open for next year are:

College Counselor
Modern Languages Teacher (Spanish)
History Teacher
Math Teacher
Science Teacher
Philosophy/Literature/History Teacher

I remain truly yours,

Peter Bloch

Website Dedicated to Mahna-Mahna

2010-02-28T15:18:00.002-07:00

Brought to you by Amos Hunt, a website showcasing a collection of mahna mahnas. The website is aptly named Mahnamahnology.

My favorite is the Mah na mah na Techno.

This website makes you want to tap a pencil on a desk while patting your head and making high pitched noises...oh wait maybe that's just me.

"We Can't Wish Away Climate Change" by Al Gore

2010-02-28T09:49:00.001-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28gore.html?pagewanted=1

Op-Ed in The New York Times contributed by former VP Al Gore.

It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.

...

But what a burden would be lifted! We would no longer have to worry that our grandchildren would one day look back on us as a criminal generation that had selfishly and blithely ignored clear warnings that their fate was in our hands. We could instead celebrate the naysayers who had doggedly persisted in proving that every major National Academy of Sciences report on climate change had simply made a huge mistake.

...

The heavy snowfalls this month have been used as fodder for ridicule by those who argue that global warming is a myth, yet scientists have long pointed out that warmer global temperatures have been increasing the rate of evaporation from the oceans, putting significantly more moisture into the atmosphere — thus causing heavier downfalls of both rain and snow in particular regions, including the Northeastern United States. Just as it’s important not to miss the forest for the trees, neither should we miss the climate for the snowstorm.

...

From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption.

2010-02-24T20:52:00.002-07:00

Excuses by The Morning Benders

2010-02-22T19:28:00.000-07:00

Yours Truly Presents: The Morning Benders "Excuses" from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

A Pillbox and a Jack of Spades

2010-02-22T18:29:00.002-07:00

The kids had been imitating him for a while now. Sometimes he saw them in the hallways waving their arms in feigned excitement and gasping in high-pitched voices, "Perspective!" Another time as he walked around the lunchroom, he thought he heard one of them say "cheese sticks," but decided that that must have been his imagination. Some days it's better than others. The other day he was teaching and saw one of his units reaching for an eraser to make that highlight look just right in the still life, and looking up at him, he stared at him for a second. He stared back, and for a moment their eyes met, as if they were two reasonable and dignified gentlemen meeting for the first time. The student broke the moment; lifting his arms up, clenching his fists, and then with a sort of coy look he squeaked, "Perspective," as he briefly waved his arms. He couldn't help but laugh. It had been what he had always wanted.

Bonnaroo 2010 Lineup

2010-02-16T18:42:00.000-07:00

Got this Crazy Lineup list from Stereogum

Bonnaroo Music Fest in TN

Jay-Z
Kings Of Leon
Stevie Wonder
Weezer
The Flaming Lips Do Dark Side Of The Moon
Phoenix
The National
Dead Weather
She & Him
The Black Keys
LCD Soundsystem
Dan Deacon
Tori Amos
Japandroids
Regina Spektor
Daryl Hall & Chromeo
Dr. Dog
The Dodos
Miike Snow
Neon Indian
Kid Cudi
The xx
Here We Go Magic
Blitzen Trapper
Calexico
Baroness
The Melvins
Damian Marley & Nas
Mayer Hawthorne & The County
The Postelles
Gaslight Anthem
Against Me!
OK Go
Wale
Gwar
Lucero
Isis
Les Claypool
Rise Against
Norah Jones
They Might Be Giants
Medeski, Martin & Wood
Tinariwen
Miranda Lambert
Hot Rize
Kris Kristofferson
Steve Martin & The Steep Canyon Rangers
The Avett Brothers
Thievery Corporation
Manchester Orchestra
Dropkick Murphys
John Fogerty
Zac Brown Band
Tenacious D
Deadmau5
Julia Nunes
Dave Rawlings Machine
The Entrance Band
Martin Sexton
Michael Franti & Spearhead
Blues Traveler
John Prine
Lotus
The Temper Trap
Local Natives
Cross Canadian Ragweed
Ingrid Michaelson
Baaba Maal
Punch Brothers
NeedtoBreathe
B.O.B.
Bassnectar
Monte Montgomery
Carolina Chocolate Drops
Rebelution
The Disco Biscuits
Diane Birch
Brandi Carlile
Jamey Johnson
Mumford & Sons
Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue
Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros

More as they come. Bonnaroo's scheduled for 6/10-6/13.

Anyone thinking of going?

Most excited about seeing (if I actually go):

Phoenix
The Black Keys
Dr. Dog
Rise Against
Norah Jones
Avett Brothers
Tenacious D
Dave Rawlings Machine!!
Blues Traveler
Brandi Carlisle

Grafton Street Band to Play St. Patty's Day TGIT in March

2010-02-15T12:11:00.000-07:00

McInerny Revisited

2010-02-10T21:37:00.001-07:00

A couple weeks ago a giant went ungently into that good night. I am sad to say that I gave him only a passing mention, because I was so busy, but I would like to revisit and mark again the importance of Professor Ralph McInerny of the University of Notre Dame. He was a giant, a Catholic, a man of wit and humor, a fierce friend, and an intellectual powerhouse. He was an unabashed lover of puns and witicisms (like Chesterton and Belloc); he authored books such as On This Rockne, Irish Gilt, Law and Ardor, Rest in Pieces, The Book of Kills, Aquinas and Analogy (no pun, but a very important Philosophical text), and (my favorite) A First Glance at Thomas Aquinas: A Handbook for Peeping Thomists.

Chris Wester wrote a superb obituary for McInerny in the University News this week. Wester's review highlights McInerny's influence and dedication to Liberal Education and the restoration of Catholic Culture. Wester's review was the best thing I've read in the University News since Josh Mahan's Sports section interviews where he interviewed himself pretending to be another Rugby player.

Western civilization has lost one of the most celebrated Thomists in recent memory. On the morning of January 29, Professor Ralph M. McInerny, surrounded by his friends, succumbed to esophageal cancer. Despite McInerny's longtime association with the University of Notre Dame, it bears reminding that his influence on academia was not limited to one university. Rather, McInerny dedicated his life to redeeming the soul of the culture in which he lived, one university at a time. Between 1978 and 2004, McInerny gave over 380 separate lectures at institutions ranging from large and famous universities to small liberal arts colleges. Indeed, it was not long before McInerny found his way to the University of Dallas, an institution that McInerny came to admire and support with efforts that cannot go unsung.

Many of you reading this article may be wondering to yourself, who was Ralph McInerny anyway? This reaction would certainly make sense as many of us were not conscious of a Western intellectual tradition, much less Thomism, before coming to college. And given that McInerny's primary academic work was completed by the time many of us entered high school, it may be difficult to discern this man's importance to the tradition of liberal learning that we find at UD. Therefore, it would behoove us all to examine briefly the life and influence of McInerny and, in doing so, come to a better understanding of what one faithful man can do with the gifts God has given him.

Ralph McInerny was born in Minnesota on Feb. 24, 1929. After attending high school in St. Paul, McInerny spent a year in the U.S. Marine Corps. Following his undergraduate education at St. Paul Seminary, McInerny completed, with incredible speed, an intense series of postgraduate degrees in philosophy: a master's from the University of Minnesota in 1952, and a Ph.L. and Ph.D. from Université Laval, Quebec, in 1953 and 1954 respectively. After teaching briefly at Creighton University, McInerny was hired at the institution that was to become his home for the remainder of his life, the University of Notre Dame. After rising through the professorial cursus honorum, McInerny was named, in 1978, the Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies at Notre Dame. One year later, McInerny was named the director of the Jacques Maritain Center.

McInerny's area of expertise was in the work of Thomas Aquinas, Soren Kierkegaard and Jacques Maritain. He authored no less than 46 books on philosophy, the Catholic Church and other academic topics. Some choice titles of his lectures and articles include "Maritain on Liberal Education," "Liberty in the Catholic Tradition" and "Memento Mortimer," this last one written just after the death of Mortimer J. Adler, McInerny's good friend and the architect of what is now considered to be the Western canon of literature. Through his Thomistic studies, McInerny came to be an ardent defender of liberal education in the Great Books. But, more importantly, McInerny saw the importance of Catholic identity to that liberal education. Never was this more clear than in 2009, the year he retired, when the ardently pro-choice Barack Obama was invited to be the commencement speaker at Notre Dame. McInery called the act "an unequivocal abandonment of any pretense at being a Catholic university" and added that the invitation was "in sad continuity with decades of waffling that have led with seeming inevitability to it."

Despite the sour note upon which McInerny ended his career at Notre Dame, he had plenty of reasons to be hopeful. His interest in promoting liberal learning in America had led him to a number of small liberal arts colleges around the nation, including a peculiar institution on a small hill in Irving, Texas. In 1990, McInerny came to UD as the keynote speaker at the celebrated Aquinas Lecture, put on annually by the philosophy department. His lecture at the event was titled "The Voice of Conscience." In 1991, McInerny was named to the steering committee for UD's Center for Christianity and the Common Good. McInerny returned again in 1997 as Notre Dame's official representative at the installment ceremonies of Rev. Milam Joseph. In 1999, McInerny delivered two more lectures at UD, the first titled "Fides et Ratio and Implicit Philosophy," the second "What is Literature?" McInerny's visits to Irving nurtured a growing friendship between faculty members at Notre Dame and UD. Indeed, many UD alumni have chosen Notre Dame as their first choice graduate school.

But other than lectures and visits, McInerny did not do anything to change our university. But this is precisely why he matters so much. McInerny's support of UD and other colleges was a simple confirmation that this school was worth supporting because it had the right mission. Like so many other intellectual giants of the late 20th century (Mortimer Alder, Jacques Barzun and Malcolm Muggeridge, to name a few), McInerny, in life, found UD to be a home base of like-minded friends and, in death, friends we indeed remain.

Friendship is something that marked McInerny's life, particularly in the academic sphere. He sought to transform his culture, but not without allies. And this could ultimately be McInerny's greatest lesson for our generation: that the transformation of culture need not be a solitary enterprise. With the encouragement of certain gifted leaders, men like McInerny, a general mobilization of minds can take place, at which point only the grace of God is needed to achieve a sure and lasting victory. Ralph M. McInerny, "requiescat in pace."

A Couple New Sounds for "Y'all-Guys"

2010-02-08T20:00:00.002-07:00

If you like Raising Sand with Robert Plant and Allison Kraus, Regina Spektor, and Rilo Kiley, you may enjoy this album by Jenny Lewis, the lead singer to Rilo Kiley.

It's her debut album, titled Rabbit Fur Coat by Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins

There are a few songs that I think are excellent, but to be fair, there are some that are less than impressive.

I highly recommend Jenny Lewis to Chelsea Davis

To those who enjoy Fleet Foxes and folky mellow tunes I recommend Great Lake Swimmers
album: Ongiara

Perty

2010-02-08T19:33:00.000-07:00

check this out
click on it to make it bigger

Report from the homefront

2010-02-07T13:27:00.002-07:00

Two things of note are happening in the bubble:

First, a group of us are putting together a new publication called The University Shield. The idea began in light of all the presidential buzz last semester. Campus debate over the three candidates often included very fuzzy or sometimes incorrect appeals to the "ideals" of the university, if they even included them at all. The faculty did what they could last semester by hosting a panel on the Legacy of Willmoore Kendall. De Alvarez, Alvis, and Lady Louise each said a few words. Now a few of us students are trying to do our part by putting some of the major UD ideas into the public forum through an archival, journalistic medium. So pretty much we are digging through the archives, finding lots of cool old stuff -- stories, speeches, etc. -- and writing about them in attempt to bring light to and explore the genuine character of the university. The name itself, the UD Shield, is actually the name of the first campus publication from the nascent years. It's an odd little project, but I think it will do some good. So look for that soon. We should have an online version eventually. Or if you have any thoughts or ideas, I'd like to hear them.

But more importantly, a hardwood floor just went into the barroom. It's classy. Y'all should come visit and check it out. (Nick says hi.) (and so does Sam Harvey.)

Petter

2010-02-06T09:28:00.002-07:00

Any of you read this yet?

I feel a little squeamish after seeing the cover design, but "literary frolic"? I think it might be able to outweigh the horrendous cover and the terrible typesetting inside portended by said cover.

Destroy TV

2010-02-03T09:06:00.002-07:00

http://www.whitedot.org/campaigns/ruineddiner.asp

This is from a website for a group that is dedicated to eliminate TV. This one goes out to all you who are finding less to do during the evenings.

More Evidence of Eugene's Brilliance

2010-02-02T21:37:00.008-07:00

For more evidence of Eugene Curtsinger's brilliance, read his novel Strychnine and Ceremony in light of a recent short essay by David James Duncan, "Cherish This Ecstasy" (published in The Sun, July 2008 issue, and among what Mary Oliver calls The Best American Essays 2009).

The essay begins:

The peregrine falcon was brought back from the brink of extinction by a ban on DDT, but also by a peregrine falcon mating hat invented by an ornithologist at Cornell University. If you cannot buy this, Google it. Female falcons had grown dangerously scarce. A few wistful males nevertheless maintained a sort of sexual loitering ground. The hat was imagined, constructed, and then forthrightly worn by the ornithologist as he patrolled this loitering ground, singing, Chee-up! Chee-up! and bowing like an overpolite Japanese Buddhist. For reasons neither scientists nor fashion designers entirely understand, this inspired the occasional male falcon to dive onto the ornithologist’s head, [have sex with] the hat, and fire endangered sperm into the hat’s hidden rubber receptacle. The last few females were then artificially inseminated so that their chicks could be raised in DDT-free captivity. The young produced in this way saved the peregrine from extinction – a success story from the annals of human meddling, one as rare as debacles like DDT are common.

And so on. David James Duncan reminds me that when reading anything Eugene wrote, but especially Strychnine and Ceremony, it's important to remember what Curtsinger's imagination could do with a phrase from his beloved Meister Eckhart: "The greater the nudity, the greater the union."

For us, as for Duncan, may any void in our life be filled with beings

like the lone female loon who mistook a wet, moonlit interstate for water and crash-landed on the truck-grooved pavement of the fast lane; loon to whom I sprinted, as a convoy of eighteen-wheelers roared toward her, throwing my coat over her head so she wouldn't stab me, pulling her to my chest as I leapt from the concrete; loon who, when she felt this blind liftoff, let out

a full, far-northern tremolo that pierced, without stabbing,

my coat, ribs, heart, day, life. All is an Ocean, she

and Father Zossima and the avian choir keep

singing as into black holes in trees, truck

routes, river ice, frigid hearts, ecstatic

birds keep dropping. Till even alone

and in darkness, with no special

hat, clothes, or wings to help

me fly up and feel it, I find

myself caught in the

endless act

of being

loved.

Quick Thought In Poetic Form

2010-02-02T19:12:00.000-07:00

On Interpreting dreams

I have heard that location is important in dreams.

Do you have a simple rubric for interpreting dreams;

I feel like it is more of an intuitive and non-

rational insight-based mode

of thinking;

Dreams are like picture frames that your mind

puts together; that dreams are real

important and necessary.

The Sounds of Peter Bloch

2010-02-02T19:02:00.002-07:00

http://www.lala.com/#album/4900197869800801084/Dokaka/Human_Interface

from my roommate.

2010-02-02T07:54:00.003-07:00

I don't have anything brilliant or insightful to share with you early this Tuesday morning. Rather, I just wanted to say hello and give thanks to you all. As I sit here, watching my 5th period honors students look up vocabulary words, I have been glancing through everyone's recent posts and I just feel grateful. Grateful to have such wise, caring, cynical friends, who are willing to share their 2 cents about life, bringing a bit of joy into what is sure to be a heck of a week. I consistently come to Peter's blog, looking for a bit of refreshment and rejuvenation, which I almost always find. So, thank you, for being you, for sharing your view of the world (or just who you think is the hottest literary figure), and for letting us silent viewers *until now* keep a slightly stalkerish tab on your life and the adventures it brings.

Hottest Literary Giant is in our Midst

2010-01-31T17:12:00.004-07:00

contest: who can write the best caption?

"Hello world! I'm marrying Sam Brennan!"