What I oughtn't to blog, but I blog anyway
Otto Clemson Hiss
Otto Clemson Hiss
31 July 2004
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst takes a brief look at the literary stammer in the Telegraph.
He omits Robert Graves's Claudius:
Athenodorus never beat me and used the greatest patience. He used to encourage me by saying that my lameness should be a spur to my intelligence. Vulcan, the God of all clever craftsmen, was lame too. As for my stammer, Demosthenes the noblest orator of all time had been born with a stammer, but had corrected it by patience and concentration. Demosthenes had used the very method that he was now teaching me. For Athenodorus made me declaim with my mouth full of pebbles: in trying to overcome the obstruction of the pebbles I forgot about the stammer and then the pebbles were removed one at a time until none remained, and I found to my surprise that I could speak as well as anyone. But only in declamations. In ordinary conversation I still stammered badly. He made it a pleasant secret between himself and me that I could declaim so well. "One day, Cercopithecion ["little marmoset"], we shall surprise Augustus," he would say. "But wait a little longer."The stammer is one of the afflictions that Isaiah prophesies will disappear when Justice prevails: "The mind of the rash will have good judgment, and the tongue of the stammerers will speak readily and distinctly." Presumably stuttering is a sign of wickedness in society. So Waugh had some sound biblical reasoning behind end-d-dowing the decadent Anthony Blanche with his memorable stammer. Waugh's device is perhaps even more "old-fashioned" than Mr. Douglas-Fairhurst supposes.
29 July 2004
High on superlatives
The Washington Post notes that DNC Chairiman Terry McAuliffe "can get a tad carried away":
"Bill Richardson is the greatest governor in the country today, maybe in the history of America," McAuliffe says to the governor of New Mexico. McAuliffe, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is bounding between state delegation breakfasts at the Marriott Long Wharf hotel. In McAuliffe's daily romp, this is a routine greeting.
He conveys it again four minutes later when he runs into Janet Napolitano, the governor of Arizona and "certainly the best governor serving in the United States," McAuliffe says.
"Bar none."
Except Richardson, and the 20 other Democratic governors currently serving, which includes the man who is standing about 30 feet from Napolitano.
"Tom Vilsack!" McAuliffe says to the governor of Iowa. "Have you met Tom Vilsack? He is easily, easily, the best governor we have today."
"Aww shucks, Terry," Vilsack says. "I'll bet you say that to all the Democratic governors."
28 July 2004
"Coming to Boston, with the Kennedys, like going to Rome and seeing the Pope. That's about as good as it gets, this is sacred ground for democrats."
--Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT), a Catholic who admires the pope only when he safely contained in a simile.
Children should be seen and not heard. And perhaps not even seen.
12-year-old Ilana Wexler addressed the Democratic delegates last night. I suppose if any venue is perfect for shrill little girls, it's the Democratic National Convention.
27 July 2004
I wonder whether my readers are familiar with Andrew Cusack; if not, I hope they will become so. One can never know too many young fogeys--a term which, to his credit, I have no doubt that Mr. Cusack will take as a high compliment.
I came, I saw, I cringed
I have returned from abroad in one piece (despite the menacing disposition of some Austrian relatives) with a reinforced belief that nothing inspires patriotism in an American more than foreign travel. I admit that my loathing of travel may have colored my already jaundiced vision, but only slightly. A few of my relatives told me that President Bush is just short of a Nazi; and some of them lived through the Anschluss. Only the courtesy due one's hosts prevented me from lobbing a bottle of Gumpoldskirchner at the head of one aged relation.
Home is a welcome sight. And so, by the way, is the image of John Kerry impersonating Mike Teevee. (Now I can retire this image; Senator Kerry has certainly topped it.)
12 July 2004
A Passage to Ruritania
I will be traveling until 26 July.
In the meantime, why not stop by the the Instituto Cervantes (211-215 E. 49th St., Manhattan), which is hosting an interesting exhibit marking the 500th anniversary of Queen Isabella's death: "Isabella the Catholic, Queen of Two Worlds." On display are about two score items, including letters, paintings, coins, and other personal effects. Some day these may be relics.
Or watch this cartoon.
Either way, pray for my safety, as I will be traveling mostly by rickshaw.
08 July 2004
"As a Clementine, he possessed nothing, and the cassock he wore about the Novitiate was pocketless--St. Clement of Blois, the Holy Founder of the Order, having regarded pockets rather than money as the root of evil...."
--J.F. Powers, Morte D'Urban
Confessions of an online backgammon addict
Just as people will unbosom themselves to a bartender or hairdresser or a priest tucked behind a confessional screen, they will also share their deepest secrets and beliefs with an online backgammon buddy, a sympathetic phantom who remains anonymous yet also comfortably identifiable and usually lives far, far away.Confession without consequences. Contraceptive, isn't it?
--NYT, 8 July 2004
07 July 2004
More on GIRM Warfare
LITTLE-KNOWN LITURGICAL RULE--Karl Keating's E-Letter, 6 July 2004
Someone asked, seriously, whether it is permissible to sing "Somewhere
Over the Rainbow" immediately before a funeral Mass. I think I have
found the definitive answer in the newly revised General Instruction on
the Roman Missal (GIRM), par. 24503:
"It is permissible to sing 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' before a
funeral Mass, but only if Judy Garland does the singing live."
Clear-cut rules like that would be a welcome change.
At long last
The Senate confirmed the nomination of J. Leon Holmes, anti-choice extremist, to the a district court seat in Arkansas. Ralph Neas, a Catholic, is distraught.
Senator Arlen Specter, after quietly campaigning against Holmes, voted to confirm him--no doubt one of the benefits of Senator Santorum's campaigning for the wayward fellow. I only hope Santorum can continue to call in favors for the next six years.
06 July 2004
Kerry Loves Moloch. ("This Just In," I almost labeled that, sarcastically.)
Via Jeff Miller, whose work was the inspiration for the picture below some months ago.
Senator Kerry with (we thought at the time) a potential running mate.
I have just returned from a stay at our weekend house, which, but for the guests and the swordplay amid the topiaries, might have been pleasant.
More soon, after I've tended to my wounds.
01 July 2004
Brushing off the white bucks
How on earth did I forget about last Wednesday's Senate Seersucker Day celebration?
Though it may raise seersucker awareness (a worthy cause), I am nonetheless wary of a holiday that implies that not every day of summer is a seersucker day.
[Senator Trent] Lott, who favors white bucks with his seersucker suits, coordinated the celebration. It was originally scheduled for last Thursday, he said, but some of his female colleagues asked for a delay. More tailoring time was needed, he surmised.
"We've done this a couple of times before," Lott said. "Those of us from the Deep South have always worn seersucker suits in summer. But senators from other parts of the country like them, too."
Seersucker suits are favorites of veterans like Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) and newcomers like Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), ("perhaps the best dressed man in the Senate," opined Lott, who is no fashion slouch himself).
In past decades, Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy and the late Rep. Claude Pepper (D-Fla.) were among the capital's seersucker enthusiasts.
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