Prologue / Chapter I / Chapter II / Chapter IIIA
Ella Hansen writes,
~ * ~
At the far end of the dining room, an ancient clock loudly ticked off the seconds. Across the table, an arm’s length away, Dr Overman dipped a piece of prata into the curry and tore off a bite with his teeth. ‘Aren’t you hungry, Mica?’
‘I’m thinking,’ Marie-Claire said slowly. ‘I was wondering—’ Her heart was hammering heat into her throat, and she paused to sip her icy water.
Victoria Blake writes,
I been standing here a while, now, jus’ looking at the water and thinking, pretty much. I meant to do it all along, an’ I still mean to. I’m jus’ thinking. I can hear them, little voices, saying something like Lookit what I found. An’ I wonder what it’ll be when they find it. Whoever these thems are.
I been thinking about how I first noticed that nobody looks direckly at me, maybe a little off to the left side a bit, even my own family sometimes, mostly Mae. View Full Post
Laura Russell writes,
Dedicated to all those kind and loving individuals who have made numerous suggestions concerning the location of my soul.
*
I found part of my soul –
I’m not quite sure why –
In the freezer nestled among
The pints of icecream –
freezing, frozen, wedged tight
just a tiny little icecube – and so cold
that I dared to touch and dropped it
Quickly – it shattered
on the floor.
I can’t come anywhere close to covering all the points in favor of social dance, or refuting the many arguments against it– but I’ve given a shot at some of them today. I know most of our readers and most of the editors share my opinions on this (as I have danced with many of them) but I’d like to hear what you think of how I come to my conclusions.
In 1848, in his book ‘A Fable for Critics’: the poet James Russell Lowell published these sarcastic words:
He who esteems the Virginia reel
A bait to draw saints from their spiritual weal,
And regards the quadrille as a far greater knavery
Than crushing His African children with slavery,
Since all who take part in a waltz or cotillon
Are mounted for hell on the devil’s own pillion,
Who, as every true orthodox Christian well knows,
Approaches the heart through the door of the toes.
Pontification Ad Nauseam is now accepting applications through the end of October for one to two openings. We’d like as many applications as we can get, so, if you’re interested, please see the application form here and send it in to applications@pontificationadnauseam.com where Ella Marie Hansen and Laura Russell will prepare your application for the judges and answer any administrative questions you have. This same information can be found on the Contact page.
The three judges will be John Ahern, Philip Hilton, and Hannah Roorda. We expect not a few applications to come in, so please consider both that the competition is already strong and that it may take the judges a while to come to a decision. Also be aware that we may chose to fill both, one, or neither of the positions depending on the quality of the applications and the direction the Executive and Associate Editors would like to see Pontification Ad Nauseam go.
I am writing this on the assumption that, if I asked the archetypal conservative Christian which he was more primarily, conservative or Christian, he would without hesitation answer that is he primarily a Christian. That means he’s informed by his Bible (and, if he’s a Catholic or a rare species of Protestant, his Church) before he’s informed by his party. My anathema is a reduction ad absurdum. With this religious primacy as my premise, I want to show that this is exactly what a conservative Christian is not doing – putting his Bible first – and that, in fact, “conservative” and “Christian” are irreconcilable.
A Love Lost and Regained: Installment V
At this point, we (John and Mark) came upon a manuscript in a different hand on a different type of stationary. It was, oddly, laminated. The paper inside was crinkled slightly, as if a tiny bit of water had dripped on it. It read as follows.
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The mind is a fascinating thing. As some of you know, I am interested in psychology. That is partly my mind’s fault. I have a tendency to analyze things – moods I am in, things I do, why I do certain things, why people do what they do, and stuff like that. It keeps me from doing stupid things on the spur of the moment (for the most part, at least), because I always think of what will happen afterwards, all the consequences. Very often, it can be extremely annoying. When I am in a sad mood, I analyze my actions, and I like to examine my facial expressions (I’m not exactly sure if that relates at all to psychology, unless it’s in the ‘telling-secrets-from-small-differences-in-facial-expressions’ department). My mind is a very evil mind. View Full Post
Si potuit manis accersere coniugis Orpheus
Threicia fretus cithara fidibusque canoris…
~
If Orpheus was able to summon the soul of his wife,
relying on his Thracian lyre and tuneful strings…
(Aeneid, Vergil; Bk. VI ln.s 119-120)
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A clean religion free of grime
Knows naught of true redemption,
And sorrow’s dirt that soils our feet
Gave Jesus no exemption.
But mortal pain was not enough–
The smitten hand and robe–
The bloodless guru profits none
The fool’s a hemophobe.
