Monthly Archives: June 2007

Fishing, Octaves and Chesterton

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An Afternoon Fishing, 1917
Nikolai Bogdanoff-Bjelski
Art Renewal Center

Ah, the joys of boyhood!  I had been thinking of donning a docent’s cap and explaining some stuff I’ve learned about late medieval art; but when I saw this print it shouted “Summer!” “June!” “Boys!” and medieval art faded away.

☼     ☼     ☼

Words are simply delicious.  Yesterday I was reviewing intervals with one of my piano students.  When we came to eighths I said, “You rarely hear the term eighths; normally we say octaves.”  She sucked in her breath, eyes as big as stop signs, and repeated, “Eighths – octaves!  Like octagon!  I. never. knew. that. before.”   Cha-ching!!

☼     ☼     ☼

More from Thomas Cahill, a hat tip to GK Chesterton: 

The introduction of Chesterton’s Ballad of the White Horse
will no doubt strike some readers as irrelevant, since it is
an early twentieth-century, not a medieval work;
and the incident Chesterton gives us–
Alfred’s vision of the Virgin–
has no historical basis.
But for me, as in my earlier recommendation
of Kristin Lavransdatter,
there is here a genuine evocation of the feeling and fabric
of the High Middle Ages that is worthy of our attention.

☼     ☼     ☼

Off to clean my house today.  Those gooky corners of my windows.  The dusty bookshelves.   The scuzzy underneaths.  Nothing says “I love you” louder to my husband than walking into a fresh, clean house; that is, walking into his own house and finding it fresh and clean. 

O Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart.
Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling
and scatter there Thy cheerful beams.

~   Augustine

Unload

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   God will not guide us
   into an intolerable scramble
   of panting feverishness.

   ~    Thomas Kelly

   Some people can’t say no.
   They enroll in too many courses,
   volunteer for too many tasks,
   make too many appointments,
   serve on too many committees,
   have too many friends.
   They are trying to be all things
   to all people all at once
   all by themselves.

   ~   Dr. J. Grant Howard

   as quoted in Overload
   by Richard A. Swenson

Somebody Loves Me

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Two somebodies went together and replenished my favorite tea.
Thank you JAB and KGB!!
Did you see how many bags?  240! 
You know what that means, don’t you?
I’m prepared to offer you a proper spot of tea. 
My teapot and cozy are on standby status.
Party, anyone?

~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~  

The kitchen project is humming, about 1/3 done. 
If I had known I would get such a lift from clean cupboards,
I would have started finished them earlier.

~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~

Adeste Fideles (O Come All Ye Faithful) is a favorite carol.  It was the first carol we learned in Latin.  A few years later I discovered Athanasius, who fought valiantly for the deity of Christ.  Every time we sing “Ver—–ry God, Begotten, not created” I get choked up and say a prayer of thanks for Athanasius, God’s gift to the early church. 
 

In addition to Athanasius, I will think of translations when we sing that verse.  This, from Mysteries of the Middle Ages by Thomas Cahill:

This early exaltation of Mother and Child already demonstrates
the innovative Christian sense of grace, no longer something
reserved for the fortunate few–the emperors and their
retinues–but broadcast everywhere, bestowed on everyone,
“heaped up, pressed down, and overflowing,” even on
one as lowly and negligible as a nursing mother.
In the words of a famous Latin hymn,

“God…is born from the guts of a girl.”

The hymn is “Adeste Fideles,” composed in the eighteenth
centry (in a very medieval spirit) by John F. Wade.
The full text of the cited quotation is
“Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine
Gestant puellae viscera”
The second line was unfortunately translated
in the nineteenth century by Frederick Oakley as
“Lo! he abhors not the Virgin’s womb.”
p. 103

A Thousand Splendid Suns

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Literature tells over and over again
the story of fallenness and brokenness,
as well as of a longing for the Eden we lost.

~  Kathleen Nielson

Hosseini has done it again: he’s written a story that will shred your heart into a thousand splendid pieces.  There is no logical reason why these books should be bestsellers.  They are set in a foreign country, full of foreign words, unfamiliar names and an unfathomable culture utterly unlike ours. 

But.  When Hosseini writes about everyday life in Afghanistan the reader can imagine being in that life.  His themes apply universally to us all.  While we cannot relate to the abuse and the restrictions of life under a totalitarian regime, we can relate to this:

The truth was, Laila loved eating meals at Tariq’s house as much as she disliked eating them at hers. At Tariq’s, there was no eating alone; they always ate as a family. Laila liked the violet plastic drinking glasses they used and the quarter lemon that always floated in the water pitcher.  She liked how they started each meal with a bowl of fresh yogurt, how they squeezed sour oranges on everything, even the yogurt, and how they made small, harmless jokes at each other’s expense.  Over meals, conversations always flowed. […]
 
Her time with Tariq’s family always felt natural to Laila, effortless, uncomplicated by differences in tribe or language, or by the personal spites and grudges that infected the air at her own home. pp 116-17


While we haven’t had to live with the whistle of incoming rockets, who hasn’t been in this kind of situation?

At this, Tariq burst out cackling.  And, soon, they both were in the grips of a hopeless attack of laughter.  Just when one became fatigued, the other would snort, and off they would go on another round.  p.141

Like The Kiterunner, I was propelled through this book by the astonishing, achingly beautiful prose.

Let me tell you something.
A man’s heart is a wretched, wretched thing, Miriam.
It isn’t like a mother’s womb.
It won’t bleed, it won’t stretch to make room for you. p.26


One character marvels “at how every Afghan story is marked by death and loss and unimaginable grief.”  The story overflows with violence, abuse, and the daily, wretched acts of oppression and wickedness.  The outrageous rules of life under the Taliban (my favorite rule: women will wear no charming clothes) reflect their tired, dreary philosophy. This may not be a book for the tender of heart. Yet, restoration of hope and simple gratitude do make their appearances. 

The final sentence was superb.  It captured the essence of the book and unleashed more tears.  It undid me.

Fathers and Sons

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I keep a good supply of blank cards in the house.  My husband eschews sentimental Hallmark cards; he prefers to write his own sentiments.  And one of his fortés is note writing.  I’ve started to photocopy some of them before they are sealed and given to the recipient.  We celebrated Father’s Day yesterday; I secured Curt’s permission to share snippets of the cards he wrote to his father and to our son who is a father.  You would never find these expressions of masculinity in Hallmark.  He had a Boromir moment when he wrote his 70 year old father:

If I had to go to war, I would make you my captain.
If I had to survey the enemy, I’d make you the lead scout.
If we had to shed some blood, I’d give you first shot.
Whatever the challenge,
whatever the odds,
I would be optimistic with you
as either rear guard or leading the charge.
You have served me well already, fighting for me.
It would be my pleasure to fight next to you and for you.
Thank you for being a good soldier.
Continue to fight the good fight.
Your son always…

To our son he was Polonious, with several brief exhortations.  Stay the course. Pray often. Sweat hard. Live life heartily.  These nuggets of fatherly wisdom were sandwiched between these words:

From a father to his son who is now a father:
You are doing well.

Run your race well,
and you can be assured Gavin will run his race well.
Go before him.
I will always be behind you, cheering.
Always, Your Dad

[Addendum:  We gave our son, the father of Gavin the Great, this book.  The back cover says “Recapture Sunday afternoons and long summer days.  The perfect book for every boy from eight to eighty.” Check the video out at Amazon.]

  . 
Speaking of Gavin, he was my helper Saturday while I continued my kitchen project.  As I was organizing a drawer, here’s what he was doing:


 

    

100 Top Movies

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Just for fun over the weekend.  The American Film Institute reissued their top 100 films ten years after the original list.  If you’d like, copy the list on your blog and mark ones you’ve seen, ones you liked, disliked, would like to see, using any coding system you’d like. 

We must still have some medieval blood in us: the medieval people loved lists.  I have to admit that I do too.  The colored ones are ones I’ve seen.  I’m certain any one reading this will have seen more. 

Movies were taboo in my childhood and I won’t even tell you what my childish mind imagined took place in “evil theaters”.  I once remarked to my brother that “Mom and Dad must have gone to a lot of movies to have seven children.”

I’d love to know which ones from this list that you think we really need to watch.

AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies--10th Anniv. Edition:

1    Citizen Kane (1941)
2    The Godfather (1972)
3    Casablanca (1942)
4    Raging Bull (1980)
5    Singin' in the Rain (1952)
6    Gone With the Wind (1939)
7    Lawrence of Arabia (1962)  
	slowest movie I've ever seen
8    Schindler's List (1993) Q
9    Vertigo (1958)
10   The Wizard of Oz (1939) I saw this *after* 
	I humiliated my son
11   City Lights (1931)
12   The Searchers (1956)
13   Star Wars (1977)
14   Psycho (1960)
15   2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
16   Sunset Blvd. (1950)
17   The Graduate (1967)
18   The General (1927)
19   On the Waterfront (1954)
20   It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
21   Chinatown (1974)
22   Some Like It Hot (1959)
23   The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
24   E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
25   To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
26   Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
27   High Noon (1952)
28   All About Eve (1950)
29   Double Indemnity (1944)
30   Apocalypse Now (1979)
31   The Maltese Falcon (1941)
32   The Godfather Part II (1974)
33   One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) 
	this one disturbed me
34   Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
35   Annie Hall (1977)
36   The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)Q
37   The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
38   The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
39   Dr. Strangelove (1964)
40   The Sound of Music (1965)
41   King Kong (1933)
42   Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
43   Midnight Cowboy (1969)
44   The Philadelphia Story (1940)
45   Shane (1953)
46   It Happened One Night (1934)
47   A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
48   Rear Window (1954)
49   Intolerance (1916)
50   The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship 
	of the Ring (2001) five stars, we loved this
51   West Side Story (1961)
52   Taxi Driver (1976)
53   The Deer Hunter (1978)  
	I cried for days after seeing this
54   M*A*S*H (1970)
55   North by Northwest (1959)
56   Jaws (1975)
57   Rocky (1976)
58   The Gold Rush(1925)
59   Nashville (1975)
60   Duck Soup (1933)
61   Sullivan's Travels (1941)
62   American Graffiti (1973)
63   Cabaret (1972)
64   Network (1976)
65   The African Queen (1951) 
	you gotta love Katherine Hepburn
66   The Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
67   Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
68   Unforgiven (1992)
69   Tootsie (1982) We laughed so hard when 
	this came out. We started it again ten 
	years later with our boys and abruptly 
	turned it off; standards had changed.
70   A Clockwork Orange (1971)
71   Saving Private Ryan (1998) 
72   The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
73   Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
74   The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
75   In the Heat of the Night (1967)
76   Forrest Gump (1994)
77   All the President's Men (1976)
78   Modern Times (1936)
79   The Wild Bunch (1969)
80   The Apartment (1960)
81   Spartacus (1970)
82   Sunrise (1927)
83   Titanic (1997)
84   Easy Rider (1969)
85   A Night at the Opera (1935)
86   Platoon (1986)
87   12 Angry Men (1957)
88   Bringing Up Baby (1938)
89   The Sixth Sense (1999)
90   Swing Time (1936)
91   Sophie's Choice (1982)
92   Goodfellas (1990)
93   The French Connection (1971)
94   Pulp Fiction (1994)
95   The Last Picture Show (1971)
96   Do the Right Thing (1989)
97   Blade Runner (1982)
98   Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
99   Toy Story (1995)
100  Ben-Hur (1959)

Delectable Connections

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It has been a week of delectable connections.  I read one book and see a reference to another that I’ve just read.  Or several authors (and Teaching Company professors) treat the same subject with interesting little twists.  It’s a worn out metaphor, but I’m looking at jewels turned by degrees.

My SIL and brother called last night from their cell phone after hearing the greatly esteemed David McCullough read.  Their was excitement throbbing in Kathie’s voice.  She had him autographed a John Adams addressed to me, an early birthday present. 

Forgetting for a moment that it was a reading, not a lecture, I asked, “And what did he talk about?”  He spoke about the thinking that is involved in the writing process, the same ideas I transcribed from a McCullough speech here. He laughed about college students asking him, “I know you’ve interviewed John Adams and Truman.  Are there any other presidents you’ve interviewed?”  His response was that he was old, but not quite that old!

Jim and Kathie both mentioned that he liked the beginnings of books and talked about beginning John Adams.  Last night was a girl’s night (except for my little grandson) and we picked up  Miss Potter (you need to watch this), and heard these opening lines from Beatrix Potter:

There’s something delicious about writing
those first few words of a story.
You can never quite tell where they will take you.
Mine took me here….where I belong.

What Summer Is Here For

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Exquisite Afternoon   Sally Rosenbaum


Summer afternoon – summer afternoon; to me those have always been the
two most beautiful words in the English language.     ~Henry James


A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.     ~Chinese Proverb


Books – the best antidote against the marsh-gas of boredom and vacuity.  ~George Steiner


No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books.    ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning



My brother and SIL are going to an event in Maine tonight – they will hear David McCullough and his daughter Dorie McCullough Lawson speak.  In my mind, this ranks right up there with hearing Yo-Yo Ma play the cello in person.  I get many vicarious thrills through my siblings. 

What event have you been thrilled about attending?  Or which would you love to go to?

Lavransdatter and Learning

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Buried in the end notes of Thomas Cahill’s Mysteries of the Middle Ages:

There is no single work that gives one a more intense and extensive understanding of the Middle Ages than Sigrid Undset’s astonishing three-volume novel Kristin Lavransdatter, set in Norway in the first half of the fourteenth century and covering the life of one woman from birth to death.  It has recently been republished (1997-2000) by Penguin in a much improved translation by Tiina Nunnally.  If an interested reader were to undertake but one more study of things medieval, Undset is your woman.  Her other medieval novels, The Master of Hestviken, a tetralogy and Gunnar’s Daughter, are almost as masterful.

This is the kind of thing which delights me on several levels.  When anyone enthuses about a book I love, I am ready to curl up into a ball and start purring.  When other books are mentioned in the same breath, I mark them on my ever expanding list of books to read.  But it is a particularly sharp jab of joy to learn something and soon after see a reference to it and recognize it. “Hey! We’ve just met!”  I’ve written about this synthesis here and here.

The process of learning can be compared to Velcro strips.  The loops of new information need little hooks to connect with.  This is a great reason to read a broad scope of material.  Every thing you learn is a new growth of little Velcro hooks that will snag some idea floating around.  In the absence of hooks, of connections, whatever you are learning won’t stick to you. 

I had the most hilarious Velcro moment while reading this sentence in Huizinga’s The Autumn of the Middle Ages, originally written in Dutch in 1919.  

“Beneath the medieval-satirical dress here is fully formed the mood of a Watteau and of the Pierrot cult, only without moonlight.” 

A month ago I would have read that sentence, shook my head and shrugged in ignorance.  Pierrot cult, without moonlight?  However, I’ve been listening to Professor Robert Greenberg’s How to Listen To and Understand Great Music, where he explained and played several portions of Arnold Schönberg’s 1912 composition Pierrot Lunaire [Moonstruck Pierrot].  Pierrot, a clown figure from French Pantomime, shows up in the music, poetry and art of the early twentieth century.  Europeans understand the connotations of Pierrot in the same way that we know what Uncle Sam or John Doe means.  Who knew there’d be a connection between such disparate studies?

  
Pablo Picasso’s Pierrot

Dress It Yourself, Part Two

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I’ve been making salad dressings to have ready in the fridge when the dinner rush arrives.  Last week’s dressings are being consumed with gustatory enthusiasm.

This Ginger Sesame Dressing  from my friend Christi is a little more complicated and has some unusual ingredients.  But  this dressing is the most light, delicate, exquisite addition to a green salad.  The hotter the temperature outside, the more refreshing you will find this dressing.  Oh, my friend, you must try this one at least once!

Ginger Sesame Dressing
2 inches fresh ginger root (2 T minced)
2 T fresh-squeezed orange juice        
3 T fresh-squeezed lemon juice          
2 T dark sesame oil                           
1 T soy sauce                                    
1 T rice vinegar                                 
1 T honey                                        
3 T sesame seeds, toasted                
1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions      
      

Do you see in the first photo how the ginger has “fingers”?
I just broke one off and peeled it.
What do you do with the rest of the ginger, you ask.
Store it in the freezer (otherwise it gets moldy) and add it to your chai.

Mince ginger.
Combine all ingredients except sesame seed and green onion in blender.
Process until mixture is well blended and ginger is nearly pureéd.
The dressing will be very thin, very fluid.

If you are making it ahead, stop here.
Otherwise, toast the sesame seeds.

Just before serving salad add the sesame seeds and sliced green onions.
I doubled this recipe, using one orange and two lemons.

Two more quick recipes:

Deyette’s Basil Dressing

2 large cloves garlic
2 tsp sugar
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup basil

I added 1/4 oregano because I had it

Sharon’s Lemon Poppy Seed Dressing

1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp finely chopped onion
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 tsp Dijon mustard
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1 T poppy seed

Place all ingredients except oil and poppy seed in blender.
With blender running, slowly add oil in a steady stream until thick and smooth.
Then add poppy seeds and process a few more seconds.


From the left: Glorious Green Dressing, Healthy Vinaigrette,
Basil Dressing, Ginger Sesame, and Lemon Poppy Seed.

I’d like to find a nice peanut dressing
similar to the house dressing of a local restaurant.
If you have any dressings that you’d like to share, please do!