The Fall of Saigon
Monday, April 30, 2018
The Apocalypse, It Comes
Abba to release first new material in 35 years
[An embarrassing admission: I always found "Waterloo" to be catchy and I sometimes hum it to myself.]
[An embarrassing admission: I always found "Waterloo" to be catchy and I sometimes hum it to myself.]
For Some, "Celebrating Diversity" is Merely a Pretty Expression That One Uses to Signal Virtue
Mostly white parents don't want "low-income" children in their Upper West Side school.
The most liberal new priest I knew [in The Episcopal Church, that's going some] was being assigned to an urban parish with which I was familiar. I told him he would enjoy it, as the congregation was mostly West Indian and that's a devout and faithful demographic in our tradition.
What was the response from this champion of the oppressed? A surprised and somewhat panicked, "What's a West Indian?"
The most liberal new priest I knew [in The Episcopal Church, that's going some] was being assigned to an urban parish with which I was familiar. I told him he would enjoy it, as the congregation was mostly West Indian and that's a devout and faithful demographic in our tradition.
What was the response from this champion of the oppressed? A surprised and somewhat panicked, "What's a West Indian?"
Sunday, April 29, 2018
Another Misplaced Warning
A leader in The Episcopal Church told us of this "hate crime" the other day, offering it as an example of the Trump-encouraged anti-Semitism that is rampant, RAMPANT in our society.
Yeah, about that:
Is our society more coarse? If so, in part it's because clergy are quick to blame, in service to a secular political ideology, rather than offer words that heal societal division.
Yeah, about that:
Police said Harris confessed in a recorded interview that he knocked over around 130 gravestones at Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery. The estimated damage was over $30,000. The incident came at a time when bomb threats were being phoned into Jewish community centers across the country.
According to our news partners at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a friend dropped Harris off near the cemetery after an argument that evening. He told authorities that he took his anger out on the monuments at Chesed Shel Emeth and was under the influence of drugs.
Is our society more coarse? If so, in part it's because clergy are quick to blame, in service to a secular political ideology, rather than offer words that heal societal division.
Saturday, April 28, 2018
Needlehooks: Alfie
This Is The Real Reason Britain Won’t Release Alfie Evans To Italy
This whole story is heartbreaking, infuriating, and puzzling. I'm glad my wild tribal forebears drove the 18th century British off their land and that my British grandfather had the sense to become an American.
We're not perfect, far from it, but we're still better than even the best of British bureaucrats.
This whole story is heartbreaking, infuriating, and puzzling. I'm glad my wild tribal forebears drove the 18th century British off their land and that my British grandfather had the sense to become an American.
We're not perfect, far from it, but we're still better than even the best of British bureaucrats.
More from the Institutional Bughouse
Emotional support animals proliferate at Yale
Combined with this story from the other day, I'm beginning to question the health of the admissions staff.
This was also the place where the product of Fairfield County privilege had a profane, public temper tantrum a few years back.
Seriously, what was done to this generation? Are we seeing the "benefits" of the post-Christian, neo-Marxist age where outrage is a narcotic and everyone must bear the label of either oppressor or oppressed? Are we now lost in an age unhinged from classic wisdom because the authors of such bear the wrong label; an age where historical faith is rejected as outdated and strange?
If being able to attend a university that costs $260,000 to earn a simple bachelor's degree, to be taught by some of the most accomplished in their fields, to make contacts that ensure a lifetime of gainful employment, and to become a credentialed member of America's elite class makes one mentally and emotionally disturbed, then there can never be an effective treatment.
Related: The Therapeutic Is Our Ultimate Terrorist’
Combined with this story from the other day, I'm beginning to question the health of the admissions staff.
This was also the place where the product of Fairfield County privilege had a profane, public temper tantrum a few years back.
Seriously, what was done to this generation? Are we seeing the "benefits" of the post-Christian, neo-Marxist age where outrage is a narcotic and everyone must bear the label of either oppressor or oppressed? Are we now lost in an age unhinged from classic wisdom because the authors of such bear the wrong label; an age where historical faith is rejected as outdated and strange?
If being able to attend a university that costs $260,000 to earn a simple bachelor's degree, to be taught by some of the most accomplished in their fields, to make contacts that ensure a lifetime of gainful employment, and to become a credentialed member of America's elite class makes one mentally and emotionally disturbed, then there can never be an effective treatment.
Related: The Therapeutic Is Our Ultimate Terrorist’
An Example of Creeping Neo-Puritanism?
Or a city in California in desperate need of revenue from ANY source?
Encinitas restaurant fined for allowing customers to dance
"Allowing customers to dance" = "swaying to the music". If against the law when I was performing in those small bars and clubs of my youth, the resulting revenue would have paved the streets of Cleveland in literal gold.
Also, I need a term that represents the reality of a state that is rapidly decaying due to bad policy and puzzle-witted leadership. How about "Malloyed"? Or, "Danneled"? Either way, go Yard Goats!
Encinitas restaurant fined for allowing customers to dance
"Allowing customers to dance" = "swaying to the music". If against the law when I was performing in those small bars and clubs of my youth, the resulting revenue would have paved the streets of Cleveland in literal gold.
Also, I need a term that represents the reality of a state that is rapidly decaying due to bad policy and puzzle-witted leadership. How about "Malloyed"? Or, "Danneled"? Either way, go Yard Goats!
Friday, April 27, 2018
Richard Halliburton
“No, there's going to be no even tenor with me. The more uneven it
is the happier I shall be. And when my time comes to die, I'll be able
to die happy, for I will have done and seen and heard and experienced
all the joy, pain, thrills — every emotion that any human ever had — and
I'll be especially happy if I am spared a stupid, common death in bed.”
Well, he would get his wish.
The late 19th and early-to-mid 20th centuries were the age of what could be called the "niche adventurer". Growing exploration, increased affluence, improvements in the means of travel, and the fascinating exuberance that seizes a culture when a brief period of peace settles on the world all contributed to this phenomenon.
We have examined some of these lives before in our appreciation of Bob Manry, Wilfred Thesiger, Joshua Slocum, Bernard Moitessier, Francis Chichester, Gertrude Bell, Patrick Leigh Fermor, and others. While their backgrounds may differ, they are united in a polite disdain for the commonplace and could never fit into the regulated world in which we abide in the early 21st century. This is far too flat, narrow, safe, stale, and incurious an era for people such as this, although their spirit and verve would certainly be welcome, even if it did mean that they would be labeled and scolded by the moral and mental dwarfs of social media. I can't imagine that it would matter to them, as they knew the same style of scolding, if through different media, and they were never deterred.
Richard Halliburton was certainly a member of this group of inspired misfits. Born to a gracious and comfortable Southern family in 1900, educated at Lawrenceville Academy and Princeton University, Halliburton was just another member of the elite class marked for his good-looks and a talent for writing that enabled him to serve as the editor of The Daily Princetonian. His penchant for visceral experience began to develop at this time as he took a leave of absence from Princeton and served as a merchant seaman for a season.
While in Europe at the end of that voyage, Halliburton traveled the continent on a self-designed tour, using only classical literature as his guide. So exhilarating was this period that he realized he would rather be free to do this for the remainder of his days and reject common employment, marriage and family, and the other trappings of the conventional to become a vagabond for the 20th century. In order to fund this uncommon manner of life, Halliburton decided to write of his travels and adventures, thus creating a new genre of literature.
From his graduation from Princeton in 1921 to the publication of his first travel and adventure book in 1925, Halliburton filled four years with a tour of Paris, Kashmir, and Cairo; climbed both the Matterhorn and Mount Fuji, and sailed a portion of the Nile River. These adventures and his musings about life in general were captured in The Royal Road to Romance, a volume that was immediately popular.
This was followed two years later by The Glorious Adventure, Halliburton's re-tracing of the travels of Ulysses in Homer's Odyssey. This volume, too, was popular and well-received, as was his next book, New Worlds to Conquer [1929], which recounted his adventures swimming the Panama Canal [even though he was not aided by any sort of hulled vessel, the Canal authority still charged him a total of 39 cents for his use of the locks], and following Cortez's trail through Mexico.
A lifetime of adventures, three best-selling books, the creation of the adventure travel industry, and he was not yet 30-years-old. In between his adventures and his writing, Halliburton also created the "book tour", moving from city to city, bookstore to library, to speak about his tales and encourage sales of his books. He was regarded as an engaging and popular lecturer.
In 1930, while looking for new and uncommon adventures, Halliburton retained the services of Moye Wicks Stephens, and early pilot and eventual founder of Northrop Aviation. Using Stephens Stearman aircraft, he and Halliburton spent a year and a half flying in stages around the world. Thus they left from Los Angeles and flew, in fits and starts, to New York harbor, shipping the plane and disembarking in Southampton, England, then flying from Great Britain through India to Borneo and then to the Philippines, where they set sail for San Francisco and the final leg of their journey.
The eventual chronicle of that trip, entitled The Flying Carpet [1932] after the name of their plane, is a personal favorite of mine from among Halliburton's works, mainly as it captures what was still a largely unknown world before the rise of fascism, national division, and the Second World War; a world of remote tribesmen, white rajahs, and gifts of shrunken heads.
[An aside: I would note that Halliburton's prose could sometimes be excessive, and some of his adventures bear the whiff of exaggeration, if not plain invention, but that, too, is part and parcel of adventure travel. After all, what's even a simple cruise to the Bahamas without a little bit of narrative ballyhoo to share with the folks back home?]
While the round-the-world trip was remarkably expensive [approximately the equivalent of 1 million in 2018 dollars], Halliburton earned twice as much from the royalties and speaking engagements the adventure engendered. Enough, in fact, that he was able to build a remarkable and very modern house in Laguna Beach, California. Known as either the Halliburton House, or more often as Hangover House, it is currently being restored in hopes of opening it to the public in the near future.
The late 19th and early-to-mid 20th centuries were the age of what could be called the "niche adventurer". Growing exploration, increased affluence, improvements in the means of travel, and the fascinating exuberance that seizes a culture when a brief period of peace settles on the world all contributed to this phenomenon.
We have examined some of these lives before in our appreciation of Bob Manry, Wilfred Thesiger, Joshua Slocum, Bernard Moitessier, Francis Chichester, Gertrude Bell, Patrick Leigh Fermor, and others. While their backgrounds may differ, they are united in a polite disdain for the commonplace and could never fit into the regulated world in which we abide in the early 21st century. This is far too flat, narrow, safe, stale, and incurious an era for people such as this, although their spirit and verve would certainly be welcome, even if it did mean that they would be labeled and scolded by the moral and mental dwarfs of social media. I can't imagine that it would matter to them, as they knew the same style of scolding, if through different media, and they were never deterred.
Richard Halliburton was certainly a member of this group of inspired misfits. Born to a gracious and comfortable Southern family in 1900, educated at Lawrenceville Academy and Princeton University, Halliburton was just another member of the elite class marked for his good-looks and a talent for writing that enabled him to serve as the editor of The Daily Princetonian. His penchant for visceral experience began to develop at this time as he took a leave of absence from Princeton and served as a merchant seaman for a season.
While in Europe at the end of that voyage, Halliburton traveled the continent on a self-designed tour, using only classical literature as his guide. So exhilarating was this period that he realized he would rather be free to do this for the remainder of his days and reject common employment, marriage and family, and the other trappings of the conventional to become a vagabond for the 20th century. In order to fund this uncommon manner of life, Halliburton decided to write of his travels and adventures, thus creating a new genre of literature.
From his graduation from Princeton in 1921 to the publication of his first travel and adventure book in 1925, Halliburton filled four years with a tour of Paris, Kashmir, and Cairo; climbed both the Matterhorn and Mount Fuji, and sailed a portion of the Nile River. These adventures and his musings about life in general were captured in The Royal Road to Romance, a volume that was immediately popular.
This was followed two years later by The Glorious Adventure, Halliburton's re-tracing of the travels of Ulysses in Homer's Odyssey. This volume, too, was popular and well-received, as was his next book, New Worlds to Conquer [1929], which recounted his adventures swimming the Panama Canal [even though he was not aided by any sort of hulled vessel, the Canal authority still charged him a total of 39 cents for his use of the locks], and following Cortez's trail through Mexico.
A lifetime of adventures, three best-selling books, the creation of the adventure travel industry, and he was not yet 30-years-old. In between his adventures and his writing, Halliburton also created the "book tour", moving from city to city, bookstore to library, to speak about his tales and encourage sales of his books. He was regarded as an engaging and popular lecturer.
In 1930, while looking for new and uncommon adventures, Halliburton retained the services of Moye Wicks Stephens, and early pilot and eventual founder of Northrop Aviation. Using Stephens Stearman aircraft, he and Halliburton spent a year and a half flying in stages around the world. Thus they left from Los Angeles and flew, in fits and starts, to New York harbor, shipping the plane and disembarking in Southampton, England, then flying from Great Britain through India to Borneo and then to the Philippines, where they set sail for San Francisco and the final leg of their journey.
 |
| A Stearman of the type used; looks a little chilly, doesn't it? |
The eventual chronicle of that trip, entitled The Flying Carpet [1932] after the name of their plane, is a personal favorite of mine from among Halliburton's works, mainly as it captures what was still a largely unknown world before the rise of fascism, national division, and the Second World War; a world of remote tribesmen, white rajahs, and gifts of shrunken heads.
[An aside: I would note that Halliburton's prose could sometimes be excessive, and some of his adventures bear the whiff of exaggeration, if not plain invention, but that, too, is part and parcel of adventure travel. After all, what's even a simple cruise to the Bahamas without a little bit of narrative ballyhoo to share with the folks back home?]
While the round-the-world trip was remarkably expensive [approximately the equivalent of 1 million in 2018 dollars], Halliburton earned twice as much from the royalties and speaking engagements the adventure engendered. Enough, in fact, that he was able to build a remarkable and very modern house in Laguna Beach, California. Known as either the Halliburton House, or more often as Hangover House, it is currently being restored in hopes of opening it to the public in the near future.
 |
| Hangover House is center left; the one hanging over the rock face; hence its name. Well, that and Halliburton and his friends were frequently hungover while there. |
Halliburton now outlined his next adventure, this one to be seaborne. Working from his own plans, he hired a shipyard in Kowloon, outside of Hong Kong, to build a magnificent Chinese junk named The Sea Dragon. It was marked by construction issues, cost overruns, and design flaws; enough that Halliburton confessed to friends that the whole project was driving him mad.
 |
| The Sea Dragon enjoying a harrowing list to port. |
Finally, in 1939, with a crew of seven, The Sea Dragon set out from Hong Kong with San Francisco as its destination. Three weeks after its departure, Halliburton and his companions were caught in a typhoon. They were last sighted 1000 nautical miles west of Midway Island. During the height of the storm a passing ship received a message from The Sea Dragon: "Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here instead of me." Neither the junk nor its crew were ever seen again.
Six years later, with World War II coming to a close, and the newspapers filled with stories about the final stages of battle, a small article appeared in the Berkeley [California] Daily Gazette:
Believe San Diego Shipwreck May Be Halliburton Boat
The hulk of some ruined craft, bearing a resemblance to a Chinese junk, and of the same rough dimensions as The Sea Dragon, had been discovered washed ashore on Pacific Beach. While there was nothing specific that identified the craft, Halliburton's fans believed that he had finally reached his journey's end. Not that it mattered, of course, as Richard Halliburton had been officially declared dead a few months after his disappearance; yet another mystery consumed by that massive ocean much like Amelia Earhart just a year and a half before.
Halliburton was all but forgotten for many decades, but seems to be enjoying a renaissance of sorts. As noted, most of his books, and certainly the best ones, are still in print and enjoying new editions. There was a recent retrospective of his adventures hosted by the Smithsonian, and the Explorers Club of New York [of which The Coracle's editor is an associate member] will make reference to some of Halliburton's observations in their presentations. He is also perhaps the only of the niche adventurers of his era to be listed in the Internet Movie Database for his direction and narration of a 1933 documentary, "India Speaks".
I can't help but note, whenever some turtlenecked man in tweed or sunburned woman under a Tilley stands behind the lectern in a wood-paneled room and begins to tell the audience about aboriginal art or exotic island practices or the natural effects of
Thursday, April 26, 2018
Now Do the Koran
GQ magazine puts Bible on list of classic books not worth reading
It's interesting to me that they offer alternative reading selections for each of the "unnecessary" books. Why not simply read both?
It's interesting to me that they offer alternative reading selections for each of the "unnecessary" books. Why not simply read both?
Needlehooks: America Needs a Lot More of This
I occasionally come across quotations that snag my attention like a
needle-hook to yarn. I may or may not agree with the writer's
perspective, I may find them derivative or vulgar, but they represent
something that stirs my curiosity and, sometimes, thinking.
From time to time I'll share them and their source, but caveat emptor.
From time to time I'll share them and their source, but caveat emptor.
Because let’s talk about what liberals are really doing with all of this. They are defining the basic formula for achieving the American dream, for staying off welfare, for not having 6 kids with 4 different men, for not getting shot by the police or ending up in jail, for the best way of getting what you want out of life -- they are defining all this as “White Hetero-Patriarchal Respectability.” In other words, if you pay your bills, take care of your family, aren’t a junky, obey the law, and treat people around you decently, liberals think you’re “acting white.”
An Industry in Need of Disruption
Great news for the dead: the funeral industry is being disrupted
Changing social norms, competition and technology are shaking up a stodgy and exploitative business
You Can Stop Blinking
Yes, we changed the format. The former one, which was eight years old, would no longer support some of the new features designed for mobile phone viewing that we hope to integrate in the near future. Sprightly, isn't it?
It's Like Saying "Goodbye" to An Old Friend
The company that supplied the live traffic feed gadget on the side panel has decided they don't want to do it anymore. So, it's gone. That's a pity, as I liked to see all of the places from which our readers came.
I'll look for another, but as blogging isn't as popular as it once was, it may be difficult. Phooey.
I'll look for another, but as blogging isn't as popular as it once was, it may be difficult. Phooey.
Sunday, April 22, 2018
Cloistered
I'm on a silent retreat this week at a sacred space where there is weak cell phone connectivity and no internet. In other words, a millennial's version of Hell.
For an old monk such as myself, I'm enjoying the thought of no weblog, telephone, social media, or random screamers for a few days. Living deliberately through prayer, quiet, and the daily office can be wonderfully balancing and restorative.
We will return on Friday with a new profile.
In the meantime, here are some quotations from Thomas Merton about the spirituality of silence.
Worth Reading
The Ugly Coded Critique of Chick-Fil-A's Christianity
The fast-food chain's "infiltration" of New York City ignores the truth about religion in America. It also reveals an ugly narrow-mindedness.
Saturday, April 21, 2018
Privilege = Mental Disturbance
Yale to expand mental health services to meet rising student need
I'm rather glad to be a hillbilly pauper as my status protects my sanity.
I'm rather glad to be a hillbilly pauper as my status protects my sanity.
Today's Crime Against Nature: Salad Served in Waffle Cones
It is really too much to expect the food to be served on a plate?
A Pungent Observation
I'm a little surprised by this, but I realized this morning that I actually miss the 1980's.
It appears I'm not the only one: Why Are You An Eighties Fan?
Most of this nostalgia is by those whose childhood was in that decade, but I was in my twenties and thirties, unmarried save for the final year, and lived either in the bohemian section of Cleveland or NYC. I played in New Wave bands, even at CBGB, edited a poetry quarterly, had my summers off, enjoyed a rich variety of acquaintances, had three careers, earned two graduate degrees, and knew the sheer, simple joy of being a young man during the Pax Americana.
I'm going to stop now as I'm getting depressed.
It appears I'm not the only one: Why Are You An Eighties Fan?
Most of this nostalgia is by those whose childhood was in that decade, but I was in my twenties and thirties, unmarried save for the final year, and lived either in the bohemian section of Cleveland or NYC. I played in New Wave bands, even at CBGB, edited a poetry quarterly, had my summers off, enjoyed a rich variety of acquaintances, had three careers, earned two graduate degrees, and knew the sheer, simple joy of being a young man during the Pax Americana.
I'm going to stop now as I'm getting depressed.
Some Comments Are Best Left in the Faculty Lounge
Professor Has College Scrambling to Keep Donors
As I hear more and more often these days, "Get woke, go broke."
As I hear more and more often these days, "Get woke, go broke."
"Male Victims Left Behind By #MeToo Parade"
Pop campaigns, especially those endorsed by grasping politicians looking for a hook for their next solicitation letter and enabled by a social media hashtag, always bear closer examination.
As has been quoted before in The Coracle, Eric Hoffer noted, "'Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business and eventually degenerates into a racket'.”
For some male victims of sexual assault and abuse, #MeToo can feel more like #WhatAboutMe?If you thought the #MeToo movement was about removing a grubby power dynamic from the workplace, nah. It appears to be simply another exercise, familiar to anyone who has been on a university campus in the last decade or so, of "smashing the patriarchy", that fond chimera that keeps a privileged class convinced that they own the highest role in our neo-Marxist society: The Victim.
They admire the women speaking out about traumatic experiences as assault and harassment victims, while wondering whether men with similar scars will ever receive a comparable level of public empathy and understanding.
As has been quoted before in The Coracle, Eric Hoffer noted, "'Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business and eventually degenerates into a racket'.”
Friday, April 20, 2018
William Francis Gibbs and Sylvia Beach
I had occasion before the snow gathered this winter to take a casual, meditative walk through Princeton Cemetery in New Jersey. [Do I question your hobbies?] It is ancient, as one would expect for a resting place in a town that is old enough to be named for Prince William of Orange, was the site of an important battle of the American Revolution, and hosts one of the oldest universities in the United States. On display are the worn headstones of Americans both prominent and obscure.
While one may certainly find those well-known in American history, such as Aaron Burr and his family, the noted American Puritan, Jonathan Edwards, and President Grover Cleveland, there are also those whose names resonate quietly in our cultural memory; a name once heard in a forgotten context that seems to carry with it some positive regard, but with an elusive specificity. Their graves are not well-visited, the families scattered, and their gravestones of interest mostly to lichens. On my stroll that day there were two such names, rendered on stones chiseled in the mid-20th century, of people who shaped portions of our world from what we read to how we voyage.
"Now, let's make her fast."
William Francis Gibbs was blessed with two qualities. First, as his father had been a glorified con-man, Gibbs had learned the art of persuasion and, second, he was bloody-minded. In the first instance, he was able to overcome his hasty and abrupt manner with people in order to find projects for himself, and in the second he remained focused on what had been his goal since childhood. His is a classic story of the American Century.
Gibbs was born in Philadelphia in 1886 to a family that, despite the outward trappings of wealth and foundation, were kept financially afloat through his father's gift for questionable investments and speculations, generally with other people's money. Still, Gibbs was intelligent and accomplished enough to be accepted into Harvard College and later Columbia where he studied law. Although he practiced law for a couple of years, his real calling was in hydro-design.
Usually, novices begin new ventures simply and modestly, gradually learning their trade and incrementally working towards larger and more complicated projects. Gibbs and his brother, being their father's sons, began their new business with bluster, braggadocio, and expansive promises. The year before the United States' entry into World War I, the brothers managed to convince both J.P. Morgan and the U.S. Navy to support their plan to build 1000 foot ocean liners. While the war interrupted those plans, it did enable Gibbs to fall under the tutelage of Admiral David W. Taylor, the era's leading naval designer.
Over the next two decades, aided immeasurably by endearing himself to the Roosevelt family and, though marriage, the New York establishment, Gibbs improved his designs, displaying a knack for innovation and original thinking. When war once again entangled the United States in multiple obligations to national defense and allied supply, Gibbs designed the ships that would answer the various demands of America's involvement.
The landing craft used with such effectiveness on D-Day and other amphibious landings were designed by Gibbs, as were the Liberty Ships that supplied the Allies in all three theaters of war. In particular, his design for a destroyer, utilizing the latest in engine technology, granted the United States victory in the Battle of the Atlantic and sea supremacy in the rest of the world. Over two-thirds of the ships deployed by the United States in World War II were designed by Gibbs' company.
One might think all of that would be a rather satisfying achievement, but Gibbs had always held, since the days of his childhood when he would post pictures of ships in his bedroom, the desire to build the best ocean liner ever conceived. Now, with a solid reputation and substantial wherewithal, he began that quest.
Ocean travel, as the world gradually rebuilt and reformed itself when peace descended, was changing dramatically as the war had boosted the utility of air travel. While one could, at some expense, travel across the Atlantic quickly in a plane, trans-oceanic travel remained popular as one could expect some luxury and grace in the voyage. It was just slow.
For the contemporary equivalent of $750 million, the S.S United States, the keel of which was laid in 1951, was the largest, fastest ship known at that time. It was designed to be virtually fire-proof, unsinkable, and capable of carrying nearly 2000 passengers. No wood was used in its construction, as even the deck and bar furniture was made primarily from the new, light-weight metal, aluminum.
 |
| The United States on her maiden voyage |
In her very first voyage, the United States broke the speed record for an eastbound crossing from New York to Southampton; a few days later she broke the record for the westbound crossing. Whereas most liners of the era required five days to travel, Gibbs' ship took only 3 and 1/2, boosting the number of trips possible and earning the company that owned her a lucrative, and loyal, passenger base.
Save for a few times when inconvenienced by ill-health, on the days when the United States pulled into harbor [as nimbly as a Chris Craft, according to one of her pilots], Gibbs could be found sitting dockside in the back of his chauffeur-driven Cadillac, watching his creation pull into port, like a fond lover returning from a European tour.
Save for a few times when inconvenienced by ill-health, on the days when the United States pulled into harbor [as nimbly as a Chris Craft, according to one of her pilots], Gibbs could be found sitting dockside in the back of his chauffeur-driven Cadillac, watching his creation pull into port, like a fond lover returning from a European tour.
 |
| Gibbs waiting for her return |
Gibbs would die at the age of 81 in 1967. His crowning achievement would continue to serve passengers into the 1990's, even into the age of larger, faster, less luxurious craft. She, too, would come to her end, however. Today, the S.S. United States sits rotting away in the Philadelphia shipyard. While various charities and other organizations have attempted to restore her, all of the plans have come to naught. The latest plan is to sink her to create an artificial reef. While a pity, it is apt as she was, and is, a product of her age and, without Gibbs to serve as her champion, it seems rather natural that her time will also come to an end.
_________________________________________________________________________________
[Another aside: Although done symbolically, in a gloriously quixotic moment, and while ostensibly working as a journalist embedded with an American battalion, Ernest Hemingway cajoled a collection of American soldiers to help him "liberate" Shakespeare and Company from the Germans. He did so out his respect for Beach and her early support, and so that he could write her a florid letter detailing the adventure and assuring her that the Nazis had been driven out of that hallowed location. He also thought there might still be a particularly good bottle of brandy hidden among the shelves.]
 |
| The end of something that was once grand |
"Fitting people with books is about as difficult as fitting them with shoes"
It is both enviable and awkward to serve as a clergyman to the affluent. Enviable, in that one generally has a comfortable sinecure and access to some of the finer experiences enjoyed by that stratum of our society, and awkward as, no matter how accepting they may be, one is still not a true member of their company. That, you see, takes money, and money is something that clergy rarely have.
It was a world that Sylvia Beach knew well, born as she was in 1887 to a Presbyterian minister who served churches in the tony section of Baltimore, Paris, and eventually the wealthiest church in his denomination in the United States, First Presbyterian Church in Princeton, New Jersey. In each, Beach met the capitalists and artists who created the foundation of what would become The American Century. This interaction made her aware of the tastes, language, preferences, and pursuits of the elites and the educated, but without anything more than the cursory membership granted to a pastor's daughter.
Her experiences while living in Paris were broader than those of Princeton, as Paris meant freedom and experimentation, both personal and artistic, and it was to Paris that Beach would return once she could, at first as a Red Cross worker during the waning days of World War I, and later as a student of French literature. Gradually, she would be drawn into the exciting and enervating world of the literary salon and meet she who would be her life-long companion, Adrienne Monnier, the owner of a used book store.
As continental writers would gather at Monnier's shop and read from their works, entertain the patrons, and lift a few francs from the register as a "loan", Beach was introduced to the sublime writers, such as the prolific Andre Gide, and the mildly ridiculous, such as Rene Daumal, the author of A Night of Serious Drinking. Inspired by the free-flow of ideas and perspectives, and recognizing that the burgeoning American, Canadian, and British population in Paris carried a remarkable amount of discretionary income, Beach used her mother's small savings to begin an annex to Monnier's shop, a place where books written in English would be found. Thus was born the virtual lighthouse of The Lost Generation: Shakespeare and Company.
Beach's business plan was to provide a store that was both a book shop and a lending library; it was deceptively simple and immediately successful. Virtually all of the English-speaking writers in Paris in the 1920's were patrons of Shakespeare and Company, with many becoming supporters and confidants of Beach. It was her custom to offer generous lending privileges to struggling artists, along with an occasional meal or monetary assistance.
With the largess made possible through the shop's success, Beach extended her support in an extraordinary manner when she offered to publish a novel so modern and controversial that its author could not find any conventional outlet. In 1922, Shakespeare and Company published James Joyce's Ulysses, often recognized as one of the great literary works of the 20th century. While the publication made the small shop world-famous, it also nearly broke Beach as Joyce signed with a more conventional publisher just when the novel was about to make enough money for her to recoup her considerable investment.
[An aside: It was grubby, selfish, and un-kind of Joyce. It is to Beach's credit, and her Christian up-bringing, that she did not pitch Joyce's collected works into the Paris gutter and threaten his only good eye.]
Beach's loyal customers kept her financially viable, however, both after the Ulysses debacle and during the next decade's economic depression. Nothing, though, could protect Shakespeare and Company from the Nazi occupation during World War II. Not only was the shop closed in perpetuity, but Beach was sent to an internment camp for several months until her release was negotiated by an American art dealer in exchange for several paintings given as gifts to Hermann Goering.It was a world that Sylvia Beach knew well, born as she was in 1887 to a Presbyterian minister who served churches in the tony section of Baltimore, Paris, and eventually the wealthiest church in his denomination in the United States, First Presbyterian Church in Princeton, New Jersey. In each, Beach met the capitalists and artists who created the foundation of what would become The American Century. This interaction made her aware of the tastes, language, preferences, and pursuits of the elites and the educated, but without anything more than the cursory membership granted to a pastor's daughter.
Her experiences while living in Paris were broader than those of Princeton, as Paris meant freedom and experimentation, both personal and artistic, and it was to Paris that Beach would return once she could, at first as a Red Cross worker during the waning days of World War I, and later as a student of French literature. Gradually, she would be drawn into the exciting and enervating world of the literary salon and meet she who would be her life-long companion, Adrienne Monnier, the owner of a used book store.
As continental writers would gather at Monnier's shop and read from their works, entertain the patrons, and lift a few francs from the register as a "loan", Beach was introduced to the sublime writers, such as the prolific Andre Gide, and the mildly ridiculous, such as Rene Daumal, the author of A Night of Serious Drinking. Inspired by the free-flow of ideas and perspectives, and recognizing that the burgeoning American, Canadian, and British population in Paris carried a remarkable amount of discretionary income, Beach used her mother's small savings to begin an annex to Monnier's shop, a place where books written in English would be found. Thus was born the virtual lighthouse of The Lost Generation: Shakespeare and Company.
Beach's business plan was to provide a store that was both a book shop and a lending library; it was deceptively simple and immediately successful. Virtually all of the English-speaking writers in Paris in the 1920's were patrons of Shakespeare and Company, with many becoming supporters and confidants of Beach. It was her custom to offer generous lending privileges to struggling artists, along with an occasional meal or monetary assistance.
With the largess made possible through the shop's success, Beach extended her support in an extraordinary manner when she offered to publish a novel so modern and controversial that its author could not find any conventional outlet. In 1922, Shakespeare and Company published James Joyce's Ulysses, often recognized as one of the great literary works of the 20th century. While the publication made the small shop world-famous, it also nearly broke Beach as Joyce signed with a more conventional publisher just when the novel was about to make enough money for her to recoup her considerable investment.
[An aside: It was grubby, selfish, and un-kind of Joyce. It is to Beach's credit, and her Christian up-bringing, that she did not pitch Joyce's collected works into the Paris gutter and threaten his only good eye.]
 | |||||||
| Beach with the great |
[Another aside: Although done symbolically, in a gloriously quixotic moment, and while ostensibly working as a journalist embedded with an American battalion, Ernest Hemingway cajoled a collection of American soldiers to help him "liberate" Shakespeare and Company from the Germans. He did so out his respect for Beach and her early support, and so that he could write her a florid letter detailing the adventure and assuring her that the Nazis had been driven out of that hallowed location. He also thought there might still be a particularly good bottle of brandy hidden among the shelves.]
 | ||
| Beach and Hemingway in happier days in front of the store |
Beach remained in Paris for the remainder of her life, although Shakespeare and Company would never again open. However, the writers whom she supported would become fixtures in high school and university curricula during the rest of the century and the next, and they would win literary awards as heady as the Nobel Prize. Unlike the ungracious and common Joyce, they always recognized that they would have achieved little without Beach and made sure that she was financially supported and appropriately celebrated.
After the better part of a lifetime together, the ill and troubled Monnier would commit suicide in 1955. While Beach would take over Monnier's bookstore, in a nice twist of fate, it would be her brave publication of Ulysses that would seal her status in Western literature and grant her a reputation of greater worth than any of its potential profits. Her memoir of those days, Shakespeare and Company [1959], is still in print, and a fine biography and history, Sylvia Beach and The Lost Generation [1985], is an appropriate appreciation of her selfless role in one of literature's most fertile periods.
Beach would die in Paris in 1962 and be buried in that New Jersey cemetery, the burial plot the final perquisite of her father's tenure at First Presbyterian. Her letters and other papers were bequeathed to the library at Princeton University.
Contemporary visitors to Paris can find a bookstore named Shakespeare and Company on the Rue de la Bucherie managed by Sylvia Beach Whitman. While not a blood relation to her namesake, in her recreation of the ambiance of the original she is certainly spiritual kin to Beach and all of those writers and readers who would study those dusty cramped shelves in the Rue de l'Odean, looking for just the right book that would help them reinvent English prose.
After the better part of a lifetime together, the ill and troubled Monnier would commit suicide in 1955. While Beach would take over Monnier's bookstore, in a nice twist of fate, it would be her brave publication of Ulysses that would seal her status in Western literature and grant her a reputation of greater worth than any of its potential profits. Her memoir of those days, Shakespeare and Company [1959], is still in print, and a fine biography and history, Sylvia Beach and The Lost Generation [1985], is an appropriate appreciation of her selfless role in one of literature's most fertile periods.
Beach would die in Paris in 1962 and be buried in that New Jersey cemetery, the burial plot the final perquisite of her father's tenure at First Presbyterian. Her letters and other papers were bequeathed to the library at Princeton University.
Contemporary visitors to Paris can find a bookstore named Shakespeare and Company on the Rue de la Bucherie managed by Sylvia Beach Whitman. While not a blood relation to her namesake, in her recreation of the ambiance of the original she is certainly spiritual kin to Beach and all of those writers and readers who would study those dusty cramped shelves in the Rue de l'Odean, looking for just the right book that would help them reinvent English prose.
Thursday, April 19, 2018
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
Real Bad
How Bad Is the Government’s Science?
Policy makers often cite research to justify their rules, but many of those studies wouldn’t replicate.
Policy makers often cite research to justify their rules, but many of those studies wouldn’t replicate.
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
Today's Unfortunate Anniversary
Battle of Culloden, 1746
Charles Stuart, better known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, probably would have been a more inspiring figure if English, rather than French, had been his primary language. Also, my old infantry instructor would have described the deployment pictured above as "Non-operational; in other words, fouchez".
Time to Reconsider That Trip to London
In London yesterday:
Woman stabbed to death in Brixton.
Man stabbed to death in Colindale.
18-year-old stabbed in Haringey, in critical condition.
Man found with stab wounds in Southgate.
So, an anti-knife campaign on social media that featured British celebrities and politicians giving a "thumbs down to knives" didn't quite do it, eh?
Maybe Cancun, instead?
IS CANCUN SAFE? 14 KILLED IN BRUTAL CRIME SPREE AT MEXICAN RESORT TOWN
Woman stabbed to death in Brixton.
Man stabbed to death in Colindale.
18-year-old stabbed in Haringey, in critical condition.
Man found with stab wounds in Southgate.
So, an anti-knife campaign on social media that featured British celebrities and politicians giving a "thumbs down to knives" didn't quite do it, eh?
Maybe Cancun, instead?
IS CANCUN SAFE? 14 KILLED IN BRUTAL CRIME SPREE AT MEXICAN RESORT TOWN
Yeah, nah.
Monday, April 16, 2018
Mark Twain on Jane Austen
"I haven’t any right to criticize books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone."
Produce Tedium, Have the Government Force People to Pay You for It = Writer's Heaven
I'm puzzled as to why she doesn't stay there.I’m sad to leave Iceland, where poets and writers can get salaries from the state, where the prime minister has a literature degree, where writers at the @IcelandWriters meet the President at a private reception...— Lauren Groff (@legroff) April 15, 2018
Also, there's this, which indicates that everything isn't aquavit and kippers:
In Icelandic politics, it seems corruption has become the norm, and the people are becoming numb to it all. Those in charge just keep on hiring their family members and friends for important positions, allowing the corruption to continue and giving the nation an endless array of things to complain about.Hey, but the prime minister has a literature degree!
Marxism taught that if the government can control the writers and artists, usually with handouts and flattery, they can control public opinion and regard. This is a lesson not lost on even non-Marxist rulers.
And Now, Our Sports Report
A wickedly fast fastball isn’t the anomaly it once was. A decade ago, Major League pitchers threw a grand total of just 196 triple-digit fastballs in a single season. Last year, 40 pitchers collectively threw 1,017.
But while baseball’s hallmark pitch has increased in popularity, it hasn’t increased in velocity.
But while baseball’s hallmark pitch has increased in popularity, it hasn’t increased in velocity.
Looks Like CBS' Editors Took the Weekend Off
Usually, it's just the so-called "cub reporters" on duty and, if they don't bother to look up from their phones, this is what happens.
Saturday, April 14, 2018
An Obituary of Note: Art Bell
Radio host Art Bell dies at 72
When I have the time and the energy [I have more of the former but less of the latter as I get older], I will peel off towards either the Jersey Shore or Rhode Island to shred some waves. Since I abhor traffic and want to find a free place to park near the beach, I often leave home at 3 in the morning.
I've been making these drives for twenty-one years and always look forward to sharing the ride with the host and guests of America Coast to Coast, which is syndicated all over the country on AM radio, and always in the middle of the night.
If you haven't listened to the broadcast, it is the proclamation of "America Go Crazy" in its most wonderful form. Every night either Art Bell or his successors host a variety of marvelous loons who have either been abducted by aliens, observed Bigfoot in his natural habitat, or have a new theory about the Philadelphia Experiment. They present their findings or experiences and take phone calls from like-minded or curious individuals from across the country. The thing that makes this show so great is that one winds up loving this collection of nuts. They are always sincere; they are always welcomed.
I've learned from Bell and his crew about the Montauk Men, the real Men in Black, and the UFO crash in Texas in the 19th century. One foggy night, in a full moon, while driving through the Pine Barrens, I listened to Bell interview a convincing expert on the Jersey Devil. It gave me the willies.
Anyway, I'm glad the show is still on and I'm really glad that radio is still a forum for crazy energy in a world that is increasingly homogenized. Hail and farewell, Art.
When I have the time and the energy [I have more of the former but less of the latter as I get older], I will peel off towards either the Jersey Shore or Rhode Island to shred some waves. Since I abhor traffic and want to find a free place to park near the beach, I often leave home at 3 in the morning.
I've been making these drives for twenty-one years and always look forward to sharing the ride with the host and guests of America Coast to Coast, which is syndicated all over the country on AM radio, and always in the middle of the night.
If you haven't listened to the broadcast, it is the proclamation of "America Go Crazy" in its most wonderful form. Every night either Art Bell or his successors host a variety of marvelous loons who have either been abducted by aliens, observed Bigfoot in his natural habitat, or have a new theory about the Philadelphia Experiment. They present their findings or experiences and take phone calls from like-minded or curious individuals from across the country. The thing that makes this show so great is that one winds up loving this collection of nuts. They are always sincere; they are always welcomed.
I've learned from Bell and his crew about the Montauk Men, the real Men in Black, and the UFO crash in Texas in the 19th century. One foggy night, in a full moon, while driving through the Pine Barrens, I listened to Bell interview a convincing expert on the Jersey Devil. It gave me the willies.
Anyway, I'm glad the show is still on and I'm really glad that radio is still a forum for crazy energy in a world that is increasingly homogenized. Hail and farewell, Art.
Christians Have "Infiltrated" Manhattan!
The New Yorker: Chick-fil-A’s Creepy Infiltration of New York City
The brand’s arrival here feels like an infiltration, in no small part because of its pervasive Christian traditionalism.Jeez, it's chicken sandwiches and waffle fries, you silly nellie. The writer, whom I will always think of as Nervous Dan, may want to avoid this interesting fact:
Christians comprise about 70% of the population [of New York City]; 40% of whom are Catholic and 30% Protestant. They attend approximately 2000 churches and 4000 informal places of worship such as community halls and homes, thus a total of some 6000 churches. New York City also boasts the world’s largest cathedral, the Episcopal Church of St John the Divine.People such as Nervous Dan, and, apparently, the editorial staff of The New Yorker, are all for diversity, unless that means accepting people who are different from the staff of The New Yorker. I wonder, does he consider Jewish delis or Hindu curry shops or Muslim bakeries to be "infiltrating" his safe, homogenized bubble? Or, is he merely another tedious sufferer of Christo-phobia?
Thursday, April 12, 2018
Wednesday, April 11, 2018
Rules are for Lesser Colleges
Amherst, Wellesley, other colleges, under investigation for early admissions violations
Several New England colleges are being investigated by the Justice Department for possible antitrust violations in their early-decision admissions practices, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Amherst College, Middlebury College, Wellesley College, Wesleyan University, and Williams College are among at least seven colleges and universities that have received letters from the Justice Department about the federal investigation, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
Tuesday, April 10, 2018
Monday, April 9, 2018
I Thought This Was a Spoof; It's Not and Some Handyman is Having a Bad Day
These items were found during a #weaponSweep near #MackworthHouse #AugustasSt during #OpSceptre . Safely disposed and taken off the streets pic.twitter.com/53HdeqMKu1— Regents Park Police (@MPSRegentsPark) March 16, 2018
Does everyone in London feel safer, now? Yeah, nah.
No Kidding
Hot-air dryers suck in nasty bathroom bacteria and shoot them at your hands
The only people who don't know this are the manufacturers and purchasers of these infernal, useless machines. The "green" people, who are mostly white, want them everywhere, of course.
The only people who don't know this are the manufacturers and purchasers of these infernal, useless machines. The "green" people, who are mostly white, want them everywhere, of course.
Saturday, April 7, 2018
"Harvard Declares War on Orthodox Christianity"
Drive down Massachusetts Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares in the tony, hyper-educated city of Cambridge, and you will spot two handsome Episcopal churches located a few blocks apart. Both houses of worship are usually festooned with rainbow flags, Black Lives Matter banners, statements on transgender rights and so on. The churches epitomize what might be called “Harvard Christianity”—a Christianity that is fully conformed to modern liberalism and the opinions of the meritocrats who teach and study at the elite university nearby.
But other strands of Christianity—those that conform themselves to the faith’s timeless moral teaching and uphold its sexual anthropology—are not so welcome at the university. Indeed, Harvard is now determined to ostracize, censor, and ultimately root out orthodox Christianity from a university that was founded to train ministers in the Puritan tradition. That is the inevitable conclusion to be drawn from the school’s little-noticed decision this year to suspend and defund the largest evangelical fellowship on campus.I have a feeling that the transient, nebulous line between "acceptable" Christianity and wrongthink will eventually include all forms of Gospel proclamation, including those palatable Episcopal parishes. That is the historical dynamic, anyway.
Friday, April 6, 2018
A Pungent Observation
For clergy, you never feel like you're off-duty. When you are, you feel as if you shouldn't be.
Secular Publishing is as Narrow and Safe as is Religious Publishing, I See
You’d think publishers would learn. How much money have they lost over the years by buying books — fiction and non-fiction — from stars and social media iconoclasts? Those were bad but this goes beyond bad. This goes beyond, “Maybe I can read it if I drink enough”. It even goes beyond “I’ll buy it to show how woke I am.” It is just plain bad — as the professional reviews and Amazon reviews show.This author reflects the frustration of new voices in all media, but also the possibility of what publishing can become in this century as it de-centralizes.
Try and write something innovative for a church publishing house. As most of their budgets are claimed by church leaders and a select cadre of safe, innocuous clergy and laity for whom they have created a safe, innocuous market, there isn't much left over for new voices. Rejections of those who are not members of the "in-crowd" are routine.
Out of curiosity, I recently tallied up the names of those whom I know who are commonly published by the in-house companies. Granted, I'm limited in that I only know about 2/3 of them, but they tend to be my age, far whiter than am I, and either bishops/moderators or blessed with a wherewithal that permits them not to be bound to traditional church work.
In other words, they are the last people from whom I want to hear as they don't represent the common experience of mainstream Protestants. I don't mean this petulantly, it's just that their perspective tends toward the uniform and bland. If I want that I can simply read press statements from the Protestant churches.
We are far beyond the cowboy days of Protestantism, unfortunately, so the likelihood of some maverick publisher seeking out alternative voices is rather low. There is no Lawrence Ferlinghetti in contemporary Protestantism; there probably never will be.
As the stigma of self-publishing lessens, it may be interesting to see what will be produced in the near future.
This is Worth Reading
If Adults Won’t Grow Up, Nobody Will
As of this week, it is six months since the reckoning that began with the New York Times exposé of Harvey Weinstein. One by one they fell, men in media, often journalism, and their stories bear at least in part a general theme. They were mostly great successes, middle-aged, and so natural leaders of the young. But they treated the young as prey. They didn’t respect them, in part because they didn’t respect themselves. They didn’t see their true size, their role, or they ignored it.There is much more to savor in the opinion piece.
James Harold Flye
It was one of those notices left on the bulletin board in the old lobby of the General Theological Seminary. A lot of notices tended to get left there; most of them would be ignored even though they invited people to such scintillating events as the Anglo-Catholic Reading Society's cracker and apple cider social, the Gay Hispanic Womyn's self-defense class, or the latest menu from the Cuban-Chinese diner across the street.
It said simply "Retired Priest Needs Help: The Rev. James Harold Flye, retired priest-associate of St. Luke's, Hudson St., would like someone to read the Office of Evening Prayer with him three nights a week." Father Flye was not someone known to the General Seminary population, not even the faculty, probably because he had graduated nearly seventy years before. He had been retired, I learned from the Episcopal Clergy Directory [it used to be called "the stud book"] officially since 1954. As that was twenty-nine years before the notice was posted, he had become just another retiree in the vast sea of Episcopal clergy in Manhattan in those still relatively-affordable years.
But I knew his name, mainly because I was a student of American literature, although Flye's connection to it was through a writer who had been all but forgotten, too. I took the notice, called the number, spoke with Father Flye's nurse [he was, after all, 99-years-old], and made arrangements to meet with him.
Although I haven't been to that section of Hudson St. in over twenty years, there used to be, and may still be, three rather handsome townhouses that were owned by the parish of St. Luke's. Flye's residence was in one of them. He was, as I came to discover, mostly blind and partially deaf; could no longer walk, but was always nattily dressed in a black suit and clergy collar, very much the representation of the men of his time in the Episcopal Church.
We would read the evening office together with me serving as officiant and lector and Fr. Flye joining in on the responses. He no longer needed to consult a prayer book, knew what the scripture readings were to be, and had all 150 of the psalms memorized. As flawed as was his body, his mind was sharper, without question, than mine could ever hope to be.
One evening, as we would begin around 5:30pm and conclude no later than 6, he had me stay a little longer to talk about parish ministry and how it had changed. He told hilarious stories of life as a curate and, later, rector of some parishes in the South, including St. Stephen's in Milledgeville, Georgia, which was notorious as having served as a stable for General Sherman's horses during the Civil War. Union soldiers had even gone so far as to pour molasses into the organ pipes.
"Some people in this world," said Flye, "are just plain cussed." [Yankees should understand that's a two syllable word, as in "cuss-sed".]
I put off my major question about his past, though, for some weeks, as I didn't want to seem like another lit major asking prosaic questions about, well, another portion of Flye's life. One evening in winter, after walking from Chelsea Square down Ninth Avenue to Jimmy Walker Park in the West Village in 15 degree weather, Flye and his nurse invited me to stay after Evening Prayer for some hot chocolate. It seemed like the right time to ask.
"Father, I was once a high school teacher and hope to work in one of the Episcopal schools one day. I know you served at St. Andrew's School in Tennessee and wondered if you had any helpful memories of students or...."
"Ah, you want to talk about Jimmy." He turned to the nurse and smiled. "He wants to know about Jimmy." She smiled back at him and then at me and then Fr. Flye told me about Jimmy, the brightest ten-year-old he ever met, and one of St. Andrew's most famous students.
I'd never heard him called Jimmy; he has always been James Agee, the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Death in the Family and the father of film criticism in the United States, whose reviews and essays about films graced Time-Life magazines in the late 1940's and early 1950's. He was also, with John Huston, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of "The African Queen". Encouraged by his alcoholism, he had died of a heart attack at the age of 45, in the back of a Manhattan cab in 1955.
"As you know from his novel, he lost his father when he was a child," said Flye. "So, he found two surrogates. I was the one with whom he talked of educated matters and faith; John Huston was the one with whom he spoke of films and...the drinking." He spoke for another hour about their friendship until he started to get fatigued, certainly a little wistful, and the nurse signaled to me that it was time to go. He was asleep before I got my coat on. I never asked about Agee again.
We continued to read Evening Prayer together for the remainder of the term. That summer, Flye moved back to the South to spend his final months. He died in 1984, just a few months shy of his 101st birthday.
His papers were left to Vanderbilt University, which offers this biography. He is also the editor of a book of correspondence, titled Letters Of James Agee To Father Flye, and a great collection of photographs from his days as an educator.
James Agee's A Death in the Family is still in print and is now a Penguin Classic, although his collected essays about film are also very interesting; so much so that I even got a sermon out of them once upon a time. Another novel, The Morning Watch, about a boarding school boy keeping the vigil during Holy Week, is out of print, I think, but well worth picking up for a used book price.
Sometimes, when it's the dark of winter with wisps of snow, in the comfort of a warm house, my memory slips back nearly thirty years and I think of Flye, his student, and those whom I have served as a teacher. I hope I served them with at least one-tenth the intention and faith as he served his. Especially the one who broke his heart.
Thursday, April 5, 2018
It's About Time
A preoccupation with safety has stripped childhood of independence, risk taking, and discovery—without making it safer. A new kind of playground points to a better solution.
I'm glad I lived in either a neighborhood undergoing urban renewal, where there were railroad tracks on which to balance and abandoned houses to invade when we played "army", or at my grandparents' farm in the big woods where there were animals to stalk and fish to catch. I would spend whole summers with scrapes, minor cuts, and bruises. It was great.
I credit my rude health in later life to those wild days. I hope some of that may be re-introduced to our culture.
I'm glad I lived in either a neighborhood undergoing urban renewal, where there were railroad tracks on which to balance and abandoned houses to invade when we played "army", or at my grandparents' farm in the big woods where there were animals to stalk and fish to catch. I would spend whole summers with scrapes, minor cuts, and bruises. It was great.
I credit my rude health in later life to those wild days. I hope some of that may be re-introduced to our culture.
I Know How It Is, Sister
What It’s Like to Go Through Life As a Really Beautiful Woman
This is why narcissism was a sin even before the birth of Jesus.
This is why narcissism was a sin even before the birth of Jesus.
Och, No, Ya Daftie*
Have Christian nationalists staged a “soft coup,” with Trump as their figurehead?
* A familiar expression of my Scots grandfather. In American English it means, "Of course not, moron". It seems a little more polite in Scots dialect.
Non-theists, including an ex-bishop of mine, have an inordinate fear of Mike Pence. Those not having any experience with Mid-Western Christianity, such as my ex-bishop and the staff of Salon, have to rely on their bigoted perspective towards those different from them, thus they fill those holes in their knowledge with fearful imagery.
Speaking for Mid-Western Christians, we're here, don't fear; get used to it.
* A familiar expression of my Scots grandfather. In American English it means, "Of course not, moron". It seems a little more polite in Scots dialect.
Non-theists, including an ex-bishop of mine, have an inordinate fear of Mike Pence. Those not having any experience with Mid-Western Christianity, such as my ex-bishop and the staff of Salon, have to rely on their bigoted perspective towards those different from them, thus they fill those holes in their knowledge with fearful imagery.
Speaking for Mid-Western Christians, we're here, don't fear; get used to it.
Wednesday, April 4, 2018
Before I Forget and the Day Ends....
I knew three men who knew Martin Luther King, Jr. One lived across the hall from him in Boston when King was earning his doctorate, the other slept on King's floor in a sleeping bag during a civil right's march in Alabama, the third wrote an historically literate remembrance of him sixteen years ago.
Like King, all three of those men are now dead. [Sigh.] All three held King, his faith, his gift, and his humanity in high regard. Below may be found a link to the third's remembrance:
Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr.
King is remembered in the Episcopal Church's calendar today as we tend to remember those martyred on the dates of their martyrdom. His collect reads:
Almighty God, by the hand of Moses your servant you led your people out of slavery, and made them free at last: Grant that your Church, following the example of your prophet Martin Luther King, may resist oppression in the name of your love, and may secure for all your children the blessed liberty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Like King, all three of those men are now dead. [Sigh.] All three held King, his faith, his gift, and his humanity in high regard. Below may be found a link to the third's remembrance:
Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr.
King is remembered in the Episcopal Church's calendar today as we tend to remember those martyred on the dates of their martyrdom. His collect reads:
Almighty God, by the hand of Moses your servant you led your people out of slavery, and made them free at last: Grant that your Church, following the example of your prophet Martin Luther King, may resist oppression in the name of your love, and may secure for all your children the blessed liberty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Time for Some Hillbilly Lore
"Zombie-like" raccoons: Ohio Police probe calls about raccoons acting strangely in daytime
Yes, it may be distemper, but it could also be frozen/fermented berries. They like to get swacked on that stuff. Deer, too. I mean totally gassed, man. They're fun to watch.
That's your lore for today from an over-educated hillbilly.
Yes, it may be distemper, but it could also be frozen/fermented berries. They like to get swacked on that stuff. Deer, too. I mean totally gassed, man. They're fun to watch.
That's your lore for today from an over-educated hillbilly.
The Listserv Strikes Again
Some readers may recall that a listserv [just a list of e-mail addresses, really] to which I belonged about eighteen years ago, originally used for the discussion of Existentialism and Theology, that had been dormant for over a decade, suddenly came to life again last year.
However, instead of musty discussions of Kierkegaard, the new incarnation, which emanates from an unnamed and unknown source, seeks to give me sermon "talking points" designed to further progressive ideals or, at the very least, represent a leftist ideology in the pulpit.
What's been interesting about these mysterious communications is that some of the phrasing I am urged to use in sermons will be used within a twenty-four hour window by politicians and media members. Oh, and the usual collection of Hollywood high school grads. This would suggest that the very messages I receive are also disseminated throughout the political, information, entertainment, and religious spheres of influence.
I'm actually a little flattered, as I didn't think mainstream Protestant clergy were socially valued for their opinions any longer. [In the words of an editor about quoting from clergy: "'Liberal priest says something liberal about liberal cause' is not a compelling headline".]
So, in the latest communique, it was suggested that I be prepared to, in effect, round up the usual suspects for criticism in my Sunday sermon. You know, the "conservative", "Caucasian", "male", "NRA member", "right-wing Christian", who shot people at the YouTube facility in California using an "assault rifle".
I haven't heard anything from the listserv since, even though it's been revealed that the shooter was:
Female, not male.
Not Christian.
A member of PETA, not the NRA.
Persian, not American Caucasian.
Liberal, almost radical, but not conservative.
She used a handgun, not an Armalite or similar rifle.
The new and accurate information doesn't aid the established narrative about mass shootings, so I suspect that it's been abandoned in this instance. There is less and less about it in the media, too.
I hope this doesn't discourage the mysterious source of these e-mails as I rather like being able to know what words, phrases, and thoughts will be shared with the public by the network and cable news anchors the next day.
However, instead of musty discussions of Kierkegaard, the new incarnation, which emanates from an unnamed and unknown source, seeks to give me sermon "talking points" designed to further progressive ideals or, at the very least, represent a leftist ideology in the pulpit.
What's been interesting about these mysterious communications is that some of the phrasing I am urged to use in sermons will be used within a twenty-four hour window by politicians and media members. Oh, and the usual collection of Hollywood high school grads. This would suggest that the very messages I receive are also disseminated throughout the political, information, entertainment, and religious spheres of influence.
I'm actually a little flattered, as I didn't think mainstream Protestant clergy were socially valued for their opinions any longer. [In the words of an editor about quoting from clergy: "'Liberal priest says something liberal about liberal cause' is not a compelling headline".]
So, in the latest communique, it was suggested that I be prepared to, in effect, round up the usual suspects for criticism in my Sunday sermon. You know, the "conservative", "Caucasian", "male", "NRA member", "right-wing Christian", who shot people at the YouTube facility in California using an "assault rifle".
I haven't heard anything from the listserv since, even though it's been revealed that the shooter was:
Female, not male.
Not Christian.
A member of PETA, not the NRA.
Persian, not American Caucasian.
Liberal, almost radical, but not conservative.
She used a handgun, not an Armalite or similar rifle.
The new and accurate information doesn't aid the established narrative about mass shootings, so I suspect that it's been abandoned in this instance. There is less and less about it in the media, too.
I hope this doesn't discourage the mysterious source of these e-mails as I rather like being able to know what words, phrases, and thoughts will be shared with the public by the network and cable news anchors the next day.
My Existence is Often Problematic
Throughout the years I've been looked upon as "problematic" for my half-breed race, or for my "whiteness" by those who don't know any better, for my hillbilly background, my foreign-born mother, my NRA membership, my Princeton education, my heterosexuality, my "privilege", etc.
Now, I'm old and in the way, according to the hideous children of the new totalitarian era. I believe this is called ageism:
It isn’t only Ingraham that the Parkland zealots have rounded on. They aren’t much fond of old people in general. The old are on ‘the wrong side of the history textbooks that we [will] write’, Hogg recently decreed. That is, you will soon be erased from the historical record. ‘We can and we will outlive our opponents because they’re old and they are stuck in their old ways’, he said. Oof. That’s unpleasant. But it is only to be expected. Having imbued the Parkland kids with an extraordinary amount of moral authority, having hung on their every word and rounded upon their every detractor, the liberal elite in the US have helped to make them insufferable. The key problem here is not really the kids themselves; it’s the sanctification of them by a media and political set that hopes these energetic youths will achieve political goals they have never managed to.An ironic observation, given that some of his schoolmates didn't, in fact, outlive we old people, which is why we're having this entire conversation.