Borella

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

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

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

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

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

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,

PB

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!

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?

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

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.

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

Latest Creative Endeavor

(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

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

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

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.