Hi, y’all! Eh? (That was just to indicate my current half-American, half-Canadian status.) I suppose you’ve all been desperately wondering what happened to Carson Spratt. Or not. I’m sorry about the long delay for posting. But anyway, in case you were all wondering…I fell off the face of the earth. Now, some people use that phrase to mean that they lost contact for a while, but it really happened to me. There I was, having graduated on May 29 (Yippee!) and I decided to go for a walk. I meditated in quiet introspection, hither and yon, when I carelessly tripped over a rock, and plunged into the abyss. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to grab the lip of rock I had been standing on, and clung to it like a possessive limpet. Unfortunately, I neglected to eat my breakfast that morning (it’s the most important meal or the day, you know) and I lost my strength. Down I went. Fortunately, I landed on a ledge on the way down, rather like Alice in the rabbit-hole, and found myself in a small town called Meritt. Unfortunately, I found myself pressed into service as a drywaller, mudder and taper, and painter. I only just managed to escape today, having formed rock-climbing equipment out of tent-spikes, several spoons, eight thousand braided Kleenexes, and a mudding trowel. I hauled myself back up the Cliff (which strongly resembled the Cliffs of Insanity [I passed the man in black on the way up]), with two weeks growth of a beard and a working knowledge of how to peg a tent into a vertical rock face. Anyways, I’m going to fall off the face of the earth again in a couple of days, so you won’t hear from me (there’s no internet over the side of the earth, you know.) Anyways, keep up the good work, and always remember to slap those mosquitoes. (Incidentally, the Meritt variety of mosquitoes have supersonic speed and the voracity of R.O.U.S’s.) If I’m not back in at least three weeks, call the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They’ll penetrate anywhere there’s a house.
P.S. In case anyone was wondering what happens to mosquitoes after the Final Judgement, Nate Wilson says “A Heaven for mosquitoes and a Hell for people could be very conveniently combined.
Two of our contributors (Regina and Gabriel Bertilson) and their family were involved in a very serious car accident today. By the grace of God, they’re all alive, but there are several fairly serious injuries, and their vehicle was totaled. Please keep them all in your prayers.
For Blue
For me, these nights will always be pulsing:
shivers in the moonlight on the water,
the moans from the hills, locusts in the trees,
beamy stars; a harmony of rhythms
pauses for a moment, recommences.
And once more, words raise and bury themselves,
signifying only for a moment,
then soothed by subtle murmurs in the wind.
Once I thought of you, and closing my eyes
imagined you, your moving lips, your voice,
and wondered; but not so deeply before
another lingering dream came moving
through the darkness, a phantom reverie,
and I was much too weary to refuse.
A Drafted Closet Drama
(To be interpreted as symbolically as possible)
-
The scene, a large room, luxuriously decorated. The rug is elaborate and persian; the furniture is bright cherry wood; the bed is elegant and antique. The sunset glows dimly through grand red curtains on a large oak bookshelf. On the adjoining wall is a small liquor cabinet undrneath the portrait of a woman. It all looks terribly magnificent. The other man — I mean the one not in the bed — is younger and sits in one of the chairs next to the bed. He wears a dark suit and his hair is immaculately groomed.
“Henry, would you refer me to a glass of the Chianti?” said the man in bed.
“Why, of course,” said Henry, with characteristic good humor.
“What an inhuman world.” He sighed deeply and affectedly.
“Ah, very true, just as you say.”
“What should we do? I don’t know what to do. I’m stuck in this damn bed. What should we do, Henry?” The man sat up and began to cough.
Henry looked at him inquisitively. “Just what we are doing, I think.”
“Yes, I’m terribly sorry. You’re right, of course. Thank you, Henry”
“Nothing to worry about,” said Henry.
“There’s nothing I would like more than a glass of Champagne, I think, just now, Henry.”
“Why, of course,” said Henry.
“She was beautiful, was she not?”
“Mmm,” said Henry.
“I wanted her, you know. I wanted a lot of things, but, well, when it comes down to it…when it all comes out in the wash… well, you know what I mean, don’t you, Henry?
“Yes, when it all pans out.”
“Yes, Henry, exactly.”
“We were brilliant, Henry, weren’t we? We were everything at once; we devoured the world.”
“Of course,” said Henry impassively.
“Sometimes I wonder… you know, whether it was at all…”
“What’s that?”
“Well , whether it was worth it.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t get caught in that.”
“But, well… do you believe in God, Henry?”
“God?” said Henry.
“Oh, well, in my condition, these things, well, they don’t seem like I guess they used to seem.”
“I’m sure you’ll improve.”
“Henry, what about a glass of the old Bordeaux?”
“Why, of course” said Henry.
There was a short pause. The man in bed sighed. “Ah, Henry, you are a fool.”
“Why is that?”
“You don’t see,” said the man in bed.
“What don’t I see?” said Henry”
“What we both are. You know, there never was… Henry, when I die, I will die alone. Do you have…”
Henry waited to see if the man in bed would finish his thought. Then he drew a small revolver and shot him in the head, and shot him again. Then he opened up the old Bordeux.
The End
I remember there was post on PAN around Reformation Day, asking whether such a divisional event should be celebrated. I’d like to explore this a bit, with the help of my good friend Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy.
To begin with, I think we have to ask what a holiday is? Is it essentially just a big celebration or party? If so, then maybe Reformation Day as a holiday should be carefully considered before we make it an institution. A day to say “Yay us!” and “Crush the RCs!” and whatnot might be counter-productive if you take the long view. (although it might be a lot of fun) The same argument could be made about lots of holidays, though. Take US Independence day. We’re celebrating a war with the British, who have been our allies ever since, essentially. Hm. What are we trying to do?
Well, the thing about Independence day is that we commemorate an event that happened “once for all time” as ERH might put it. That is, before that the US did not exist, but on account of that war it came into existence and exists to this day. It is what makes us Americans, and therefore must exist for us in the form of a holiday in order that we may enter into the event too, so that it becomes part of our lives and experience.
Such things are lost if not commemorated. If we don’t celebrate the holiday, we say the thing is unimportant to us, that it may as well have not happened. It doesn’t touch our lives. That was then, this is now. And we may even be lesser men because of this attitude.
Nature cycles endlessly. Spring-Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring. Over and over and over. One day or month or year may be different from another but it won’t really be remembered. Perhaps you have a hurricane or earthquake, but doesn’t lastingly change anything; it happens and is forgotten. But we men don’t have to be merely natural, we have a surprising chance to be supernatural by making landmarks in time. If something happens that changes us, we make a holiday and in this way the thing is passed on to our children and becomes a part of their lives too.
So back to Reformation Day. The question should be whether something was gained or recovered then that is worth keeping. If so, it is not only okay, but fitting and right for it to be commemorated with a holiday so that what was hard fought for does not become an event belonging to nature, to be forgotten in the past. Of course, it can be argued about what should be passed on, but when deciding whether a thing should be commemorated by a holiday the biggest question should be whether this event belongs to your age or to the ages. And if it is the second, then you’d better do something about it.
Disclaimer: I only referenced Reformation Day because the post that inspired me was on that subject and because it offers a good excuse to think about the nature of holidays. This post is not about the Protestant Reformation, so please discuss only the topic at hand.
“[S]wearing is avoided by them, and they esteem it worse than perjury, for they say that he who cannot be believed without God is already condemned.” Josephus, Jewish War 2.134 [of the Essenes] (trans. William Whiston)
“But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God’s throne: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.” (Matthew 5:34-35, KJV)
These sentiments are nearly identical. We might hypothesize a few historical explanations.
1. Coincidence: they each acquired the sentiment from different sources, or came up with it themselves.
2. Jesus and the Essenes both acquired the sentiment from a third source
3. Jesus acquired the sentiment from the Essenes
4. The Essenes acquired the sentiment from Jesus
(I also note that the early Christians lived communally, and spread throughout many towns, much as the Essenes had. Again, the basic possibilities above apply, except that the Essenes are chronologically prohibited from having acquired communal living from the Christians.)
What do you think?
Every year, thousands of college-bound students embark on a rigorous test schedule in order to satisfy admission requirements. Each year, these students wreck their health, waste thousands of hours, and suffer severe psychological trauma as a result of these requirements. Because of these deleterious harms, we stand resolved that the United States college system should significantly reform its admissions process. View Full Post
Stephen Hawking, the Cambridge theoretical physicist, renowned for his popular image as neuromuscular-dytrophic genius, has for years suffered from a decline in popularity amongst fellow physicists. His continued work in black hole and multiverse theory is seen as irrelevant by some of the academic community, and he has produced little significant original research since 1994.
But an upcoming presentation in London might change that. Hawking will propose a potentially groundbreaking new theory, which asserts the existence of a dimension called the Grand Ontological Dimension. He has suggested that his theory might elucidate questions about the nature and existence of Dark Energy, as well as the physical events leading up to the Big Bang, two of the most significant problems facing theoretical physics and cosmology today.
Taking questions about his upcoming presentation last week in a conference in Holland, Stephen Hawking (in his signature robotic Texan accent) said about his proposed dimension, “It’s not really what you’d call a dimension, strictly speaking. We named it analogically, because we live and move in it, as in the familiar dimensions. But it is really the structure in which we actually have our being.”
When asked about the theory’s relevance to specific problems of cosmology, such as Dark Energy, he declined to comment, but said that he anticipated that his presentation in London would be “very exciting” and would help unify some of the major concepts of modern physics.
What does it mean to say that God is outside of nature?
John Ahern, looking for trouble, writes,
I have been long confused by this idea of patriotism. There seem to be three reasons to be patriotic, which I have summarized here.
a) Be patriotic because your country is a country to be proud of. (Michelle Obama, you unpatriotic person.)
b) Be patriotic because your country’s heritage is a heritage to be proud of.
c) Be patriotic because you owe it to your country. Look at what it has given you. Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
Point out any more. I can think of three very good reasons to reject all three of these.
a) My country aborts unborn babies. You cannot be proud of a country that legalizes what you must, if you are consistent, believe to be murder.
b) My heritage, assuming it is one to be proud of, would inform me that patriotism is not a productive emotion to feel or doctrine to hold in a federalism. (e.g. A. V. Dicey, British theorist—one should feel a greater allegiance to one’s state than to one’s country in federalism.)
c) There is no doubt that I should honor the civil authorities and respect them, so long as they are my civil authorities. I am grateful for the protection they have given me. But my allegiance to the republic for which the flag stands I can not pledge in good conscience, because that republic is unjust. How can you give your allegiance to something that actively pursues injustice?
Is there some other reason I forgot to be patriotic?
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
