Defending the 12th century since the 14th; blogging since the 21st.

Catholicism, Conservatism, the Middle Ages, Opera, and Historical and Literary Objets d'Art blogged by a suburban dad who teaches law and writes stuff.


"Very fun." -- J. Bottum, Editor, FIRST THINGS

"Too modest" -- Elinor Dashwood

"Perhaps the wisest man on the Web" -- Henry Dieterich

"Hat tip: me (but really Cacciaguida)" -- Diana Feygin, Editor, THE YALE FREE PRESS

"You are my sire. You give me confidence to speak. You raise my heart so high that I am no more I." -- Dante

"Fabulous!"-- Warlock D.J. Prod of Didsbury

Who was Cacciaguida? See Dante's PARADISO, Cantos XV, XVI, & XVII.


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Remains of Village Found Near Stonehenge. Yes, they all went down to London to see Daniel Radcliffe in Equus.

The San Francisco Chronicle is following the latter story closely. Meanwhile, legions of dads are amazed that their formerly slacker daughters now say they want to "go to Radcliffe."

Look, the tee-hee coverage, wand jokes, and double-entendres are probably inevitable, but let's straighten one thing out. Many journos are repeating mindlessly the meme that the play features a "sex scene" between Alan (Daniel's character) and Jill. Actually it's a not-quite-sex scene -- which is the reason Alan blinds the horses.

Oh I'm sorry, was that a spoiler? Look, the play premiered 34 years ago. Can I tell you how Hamlet ends, or are you waiting for the next movie?

This Penguin Reading Guide to Equus says it "explores the dilemmas of late-twentieth-century existence in England and, by extension, in the entire industrialized world." Or, as Eric Idle as the Sociologist Who Falls Into the Manhole would put it, "The nude organist represents the essential nakedness of modern man in contemporary society."
posted by Cacciaguida at 8:04 PM

 
Michael Barone notes how humanity's natural royalism has returned to America.
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:54 AM

 
Poetry Corner. Or: Wills Watch (NR used to have a semi-regular column by this title following the antics of the celebrated Jesuit apostate):

In the February issue of Poetry magazine, Wills gives a positive review to the new Fagles translation of The Aeneid (which may be very good anyway, for all I know). In the course of it, this most literate of AmChurch's prophets announces:

Virgil stresses the costs of empire without undermining its worth (which we cannot now accept -- any more than we accept Dante's theology of hell while reading him).

Tf we don't! (Both.) What joy to live in a world so much bigger than Mr. Wills'.

Oh, and btw Garry, it's "Hell," not "hell." It's a place, you know, like Scarsdale. (Hat-tip for that line: early NR writer Ralph de Toledano.)

Wills also bitterly dismisses the classic Homer translations by Richmond Lattimore. Well of course: they're literal, right down to the replication of classical hexameter. If you want "What Homer (or Virgil) Should Have Written," the beautiful work of Robert Fitzgerald (platonic friend of Flannery O'Connor) has not been beaten out by Fagles.
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:16 PM

 
Portuguese pro-lifers march, while support drops (but perhaps not enough) for Feb. 11 referendum legalizing abortion in first ten weeks
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:13 PM

 
Recent searches:

"It's so cold" "how cold was it" It was so cold, Obama threw has hat into the ring, then put it right back on. It was so cold, the flashers were describing themselves.

where the lustful go in Dante's Inferno, you meant to say. Certainly: Second Circle. Fifth canto. Second door on your left, can't miss it.

new goblet of fire Old one labeled defective, I shouldn't wonder.

eliot as a tradionalist Ay-yup.

herod's court No appeal.

nell rankin Someone in the UK has good taste in mezzo-sopranos.
posted by Cacciaguida at 3:00 PM

 
"Roe v. Wade week at Yale". Also: Connecticut gives Yale $7.8 million for embryonic stem cell research.

I post this stuff not to give up, but to fight, like one Edward Dunar '08 in the first of those linked stories.
posted by Cacciaguida at 2:11 PM

 
Brownback is in. I'm for him.
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:25 PM

 
Real-life "Wally" loses job and unemployment benefits when her work-avoidance journal is disovered.
posted by Cacciaguida at 5:25 PM

 
Crossing my desk:

1. Latest issue of The Bencher, magazine of the American Inns of Court, a worthwhile nationwide organization whose local chapters bring together attorneys, law students, judges, and profs for dinner and discussion. This issue admirably presents different points of view on whether politicians' criticisms of the judges threaten our independent judiciary. The correct view -- that this complaint is silly whining by an extremely safe and powerful elite -- is adequately represented by Judge William Pryor.

I noticed, though, that one article featured two incendiary quotes, expressing anger at liberal judges in terms that could, to a hyper-sensitive mind, be construed as threats of violence. Others would see them as mere political effluvia. But here's the thing: no, I'm not one of the two people quoted -- but both of them are friends of mine. There have been some "queer fish" through my place, to be sure.

2. An abstract for a new article hailing Justice Stevens as a "human rights justice." Of particular interest:

The article reveals that as a codebreaker Stevens played a role in the downing of the Japanese general responsible for attacking Pearl Harbor, and that this sowed seeds of concern about another targeted state killing, capital punishment.

Yep, Admiral Yamamoto, great human rights violation victim, right up there (as 'twere) with Saddam Hussein. Evidently, in this author's circles, there's no further debate over just war or capital punishment: it's all just "targeted state killing," unless it's delegated to abortionists, in which case it's a fundamental right.
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:22 PM

 
Daily Telegraph: France offered to "merge" with UK in 1950s

And it appears it wasn't just a pickup line:

Britain and France discussed a "union" in the 1950s and even talked about France joining the British Commonwealth, it emerged today.

Previously secret documents uncovered in the National Archives reveal how, on Sept 10, 1956, the French prime minister Guy Mollet came to London to discuss the possibility of a merger between the two countries with Sir Anthony Eden, then British prime minister.>

Now, English Kings Heny II and Henry V -- they didn't just discuss it, they did something about it!
posted by Cacciaguida at 2:24 PM

 
"How cold was it?" -- A great vaudeville trope: One of the great traditions of American stand-up comedy is -- well, stand-up comedy itself: didn't we invent it? Anyway, I'm referring specifically to one-liners of the "It's so x," variety, as in "It's so cold,...", "It's so hot,...", "My town was so small,..."

Real comedy aficionados hear it coming and, like groupies singing a refrain along with the band, they fall into character:

PERFORMER: Man, today it was so cold --
AUDIENCE IN UNISON: How cold was it?
PERFORMER: It was so cold, [jokes follow here].

Here are some examples involving small towns:

* My town was so small, it was a one-horse town -- and then the horse left.

* My town was so small, the Episcopalians handled snakes.

The existing stock of perennials can be supplemented by topical references. So, apparently, after a warm fall and early winter, it suddenly got cold in New York the other day. How cold was it? Letterman's got a million of 'em:

It was so cold, I went into the Hello Deli just for the heartburn.

It was so cold, I took Viagra just for the warm flush.

It was so cold, Barry Bonds tested positive for soup.

It was so cold, Britney Spears is wearing underpants.

It was so cold, Donald Trump fired off a scathing letter to Al Roker.

It was so cold, Mark McGwire was rejected by the Curling Hall of Fame.

posted by Cacciaguida at 1:13 PM

 
Mongolia: Found a photo-essay by a jazz musician who spent some time there. Sounds like the Ulaanbaatar I know, especially:

There's only about 1,000 miles of paved road and even those are congested and full of potholes due to an explosion in vehicle traffic, which increased 450 percent between 1990 and 2000. In Ulaanbaatar, it's often a bumper-to-bumper melee.

“Many of the current microbuses, which already endanger public safety, often carrying 20- plus passengers on bald tires, look like they’re on fire as they roar down crowded streets,” an editorial in the English-language UB Post notes. Traffic lights seem to be optional and the accident fatality rate of 28 people per 10,000 vehicles is higher than nearly all other central Asian countries, with one-third alcohol related. Collisions with pedestrians, the newspaper adds, are even more alarming.

“Darting between cars like a game of Frogger,” the Post states. “Drivers often stop for the elderly, but even that common courtesy is becoming rare.”

posted by Cacciaguida at 4:57 PM

 
Officials trace mystery smell to NJ. As an old New Yorker, might I be permitted to ask -- just what is mysterious about that?
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:06 PM

 
I don't have any original thoughts on the Saddam execution. He certainly deserved it, unless he deserved something much worse than a quick broken-neck hanging with no lingering. Perhaps he should have been fed into the human-size shredder that he used on many of his victims. "And this was just" (or "it served him right," in Musa's version), as Dante said in regard to the inventor of a particularly horrendous death-by-torture machine who eventually died in it: Inferno XXVII 7-12.

But deserving it is only a necessary, not a sufficient, justification for an execution. It could be that the execution will do so little to solve Iraq's problems that it does not fit into those "practically nonexistent" categories in which Evangelium Vitae would admit the death penalty, and therefore should have been avoided. It could be that, as the work of a Shiite government (with Shiite militiamen mysteriously invited in for the occasion), it will make Saddam a Sunni martyr.

Be that as it may, certain Vatican officials, including Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican's Council for Justice and Peace, and formerly the Holy See's ambassador to the United Nations, seem to be coming unhinged on this issue. Jimmy Akin explains.

From Christopher Blosser, more intelligent commentary than I have time to read through, as usual.

And from Letterman: Top Ten Things Overheard Outside Saddam's Execution. As you can see, I'm dreadfully cut up about the whole thing.
posted by Cacciaguida at 8:47 PM

 
"Polish Archbishop quits over revelations of communist ties." I always say: stick to reppe stripes, restrained patterns such as pindots or the kind you find on foulards or ancient-madders; maybe an occasional solid.

"Vatican 'didn't know bishop spied.'" Well he wouldn't have been much of a spy if it did, now would he? (The entry for "profession" on his internal passport probably said, "Not spy, that's for darn sure.")
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:12 AM

 
"It will take 200 years for women to wield as much power in politics as men, and in all areas of working life," according to some goddam commission or other.

Actually, based on present trends in college and law school enrollment and graduation, women will dominate politics and most areas of working life within about 20 years, with no further intentional public-policy intervention but merely a continuation of present trends.

It will happen soonest in the black community (Howard Law School's recent classes have been 60 to 70 percent female, and my school too has a large female majority among our Afr-Am students), but it will happen in all sectors in the U.S. Unless of course the Islamists take over first, which is not the solution I would recommend -- assuming, without deciding, that female dominance is even a problem (though it clearly is one, if you think there's any value in men providing for their families, and not just by sending in child-support checks).

It may take longer in Europe, because of the culture of permanent grad school that affects both sexes there.
posted by Cacciaguida at 7:45 PM

 
"Honey, there's an asteroid in the john."
posted by Cacciaguida at 5:10 PM

 
Today is the Feast of Epiphany. Many of your parishes will celebrate it tomorrow (the nearest Sunday), but in real life it's today.

Happy Epiphany!
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:29 AM

 
"I know that he shall rise again, in the resurrection at the last day" -- but this is just silly.
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:26 AM

 
Jonathan Lee is a student at Christendom College, starting Jan. 13!!
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:07 PM

 
Obit for one who was important without being an opera singer: Elizabeth Fox-Genovese.



"Betsy" Fox-Genovese:
feminism was not the story of her life
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:00 PM

 


Happy birthday, Nell Rankin, 1926-2005
b. Montgomery, AL, Jan. 3, 1926; d. New York City, Jan 13, 2005.
MET: Début: Nov. 22, 1951, as Amneris in AIDA; 158 perfs., 17 roles; incl. Laura in LA GIOCONDA, Ortrud in LOHENGRIN, title role in CARMEN, Azucena in IL TROVATORE, Eboli in DON CARLO, Ulrica in UN BALLO IN MASCHERA, Santuzza in CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA, Herodias in SALOME, Gutrune and Third Norn in GOTTERDAMMERUNG.
My obituary post here.

posted by Cacciaguida at 12:42 PM