The hidden woman behind the dictionary man

I knew nothing about Dr Johnson before hearing this podcast, and it is fascinating

But what interested me more than this intellectual is his relationship with Mrs Thrale, the wife of Mr Thrale who took in Johnson as a houseguest.

But what caught my eye is Mrs Thrale: an arranged marriage, an unfaithful husband, and constantly pregnant, and losing many of her children, including her beloved sons.

But once she and her husband had invited the chronically ill Dr. Johnson to supper, he became friends with both of them, and when he had a nervous breakdown, they invited him into their home, where he loved the food, the suppers with his literary friends the care by Mrs Thrale, the friendship of her husband, and the fact her kids would play with him.

But what was interesting: After the husband died, she closed up his business and the house, essentially leaving Johnson on nis own, and he died soon afterward, so maybe she is to blame, but then why should she spend her time and money on a house guest that she essentially cared for in the same way she cared for her children, as a nanny not a lover, making sure he was comortable and fed and entertained.

He did have other friends and he was the one who broke the friendship.

A more serious charge is that she also left her children behind, although the older girls  who were teenagers  in school also condemned her marriage (but one book notes she took the youngest one with her to live).

  after she turned him down for a year, she was into a deep depression and the doctor told her oldest bossy daughter she would die if this continued, so the daughter gave her permission. So she married an Italian musician (who was condemned as marrying her for her money, but actually he was from a good family and independently wealthy).

 

So a woman who for 20 years obeyed her husband and spent her time running his home and having guests and having children, once free, she married for love, and happy.

and Johnson? Died of dropsy without her loving care for him. Would her care have lengthened his life? Maybe not (a rich diet similar to what he ate at her house would have made his dropsy worse at an earlier date)

There are lots of books about Johnson on line, and ironically her books are also on line for example Thraliana, a book of anecdotes. The Book Dr Johnson and Mrs Thrale is on line, and gives the back story of the dictionary man and the woman whose hospitality kept him comfortable for nearly 20 years. LINK

longer version here.

Jane Austin at Breakfast

 

and if you want recipes, Atlas Obscura has an article that includes recipes that were written down by her friend, and later housekeeper, Martha Lloyd.

 

In 1806, following the death of both Mr. Austen and Mr. Lloyd,...( Martha Lloyd joined Jane, her mother and her sister)...at Chawton Cottage in Hampshire, a medium-sized cottage on the grounds of brother Edward Austen’s large manor.

Now home to the Jane Austen museum, Chawton Cottage is where Jane either wrote or revised all six of her published novels.

It’s also where, for decades, Jane’s beloved friend and relative Martha Lloyd created her household book, a record of the family’s favorite recipes gleaned from published cookbooks and friends.

the article is long and includes some of her recipes.

 

here is a video of Chawton Cottage that includes showing the kitchen.

update: Dining with Jane Austen website. has many articles and recipes.

-------------------

Don't mess with the Alligators (unless you are a Cajun)

the joke about alligators in the sewers of NYCity refers to an urban legend.

This urban legend claims that alligators have been living underneath the bustling streets, having been flushed down toilets as unwanted pets and growing to monstrous sizes in the damp labyrinth below. Despite its persistence in popular culture, thorough investigations and urban research have consistently disproved the existence of sewer alligators. The New York City sewer system, while vast and complex, has not provided any concrete evidence of an alligator population within its confines.

there is even a statue to commemorate this urban legend in Union Square Park there.

here local news discusses:

-------------------

this urban legend is found in various short stories and novels, but the saddest reference to the alligator in the sewer myth is Harlan Ellison's story Croataon:

which is about our throw away culture, regrets, and maybe hope at the end: where pet alligators and unwanted fetuses are thrown away carelessly but found later by the antagonist:

And the light came nearer, and the light was many lights. Torches, held aloft by the children who rode the alligators.

audio link but donot say I didn't warn you

Happy happy happy (non PC) Song for you

 Depressed? 

Turn up speakers and sing:

---

- I always thought that the mixture of cartoon characters and live action started in Mary Poppins, but apparently it was in this film, back in 1947.

the film is almost banned due to the racist stereotypes, but you can find it here.

Ironically, the tales told by Uncle Remus were based on African folk tales.

Brer Rabbit was a "trickster" character, an archetype found in many folk tales in West Africa

Some scholars suggest that the tales were popular because it shows how a powerless person can get back on the ones who harmed him, or as Wikipedia notes:

Some scholars have suggested that in his American incarnation, Br'er Rabbit represented the enslaved Africans who used their wits to overcome adversity and to exact revenge on their adversaries,

Tricksters can be evil, but most are a mixture of good and evil.

The reason the god Loki is in some ways more popular than Thor (who had trickster elements in Norse mythology but became a good guy in the comics) is that Loki is an evil lying SOB but sometimes he is the only one who can save the earth.

DiviantArt webpage discusses the modern tricksters....quoting contributor WaConnor as saying that in the past, tricksters sowed chaos to help society advance, but nowadays, they are the ones who rebel against society to regain individual freedom. 

Tricksters are often heroes who use their wit to win: as in Ulysses and the Trojan horse, or in today's pop culture, Captain Kirk, who resemble Ulysses in his romances and wit and ability to get out of hopeless situations by original thinking:

..

In the past, children were taught folk tales, including tales in the Bible or the myths of Greek literature. Are they still taught in school? Percy Jackson has introcduced many kids to Greek and Roman mythology, but so far no one outside of staid Christian publishing has bothered to romanticize the stories of Sampson or David vs Goliath, or retold some of the stories that Jesus told to the delight of his listeners. (Render to Caesar is not just good political advice, but it was also an example of using wit to not be trapped by a question where yes and no would have gotten him into trouble).

Such stories seem to be fantasy, but often carry lessons to remind people of reality.

 For example, am I the only one to think that the story of tar baby is a warning to politicians who want to get countries involved in war, thinking it will be an easy win? 

and of course, the modern day equivalet of the trickster is Trumpie boy, who has been attacked by all and sundry plots, yet his enemies find he is tarbaby and only get themselves in trouble as their lies and plans finally are being noticed.

 the next plan is for the J6 committee to force Trumpieboy to testify: and he will, but only if it is televised. 

 Hmmm... a guy who starred in a reality TV show for a couple years testifying before dull self-righteous politicians. What could go wrong?

Uhhh oh...

Before Cassanova and James Bond, there was the Genji

 I am working my way thru the Tale of Genji, the 11th century novel of Japan written by a court lady.

Years ago I tried to read it but got bored with the guy who mainly went around seducing ladies while neglecting his wife; but now I am listening to it on Librivox while reading a download of the novel to try to absorb the details... and am pleased to find his promiscuous ways got him into trouble, and after being in exile (and seducing the daughter of the local Buddhist priest who helped him during a flood), he didn't quite stop seducing ladies, but at least he did try to help the women he had seduced, including letting a few of them stay in his house and arranging for the seduced daughter's child to marry the emperor...

Ironically, at the end, his second son by the Third princess turned out to be actually the son of a relative who forcibly seduced her. She is so traumatized she becomes a Buddhist nun after giving birth (one way to avoid sex in those days) and her seducer essentially kills himself out of regret.  But this second son is the hero of the last part of the novel which I haven't read yet.

One feminist blog called Genji a serial rapist.

Sounds about right. The noble women essentially have no power over their lives, and are often married to distant uncaring husbands. So theoretically they are willing to be seduced. Others are single, and/or middle class so have no power to say no. 

Not quite rape, but when women are not expected to say no to men, and have few outlets for their boredom, as a modern woman I have little sympathy for the guy.

did I mention he also seduced his stepmother and made her pregnant?

One might add, unlike James Bond or Cassanova, after his exile, Genji does try to make amends to some of the women and brings several of them into his house as minor wives... something of course that his concubine Lady Murasaki (the same name as the author) has to pretend to go along with.

Sigh.

The author, Murasaki, was a court lady and apparently the chapters were very popular: think of them as the romance novels that women read today, which also tend to have ladies swooning all the time...

There are several films based on the book, but I haven't gotten through any of them so far because I am still getting the characters confused.

The best guide to the book (although with a condensced plot) is the manga found here. which includes a lot of background information.

here is a sample page on what was worn back then:

Part of this is my interest in women who are usually in the background of ancient literature. 

Even though the author is a woman, the Tale of Genji is about a man, not his long suffering wife with the same name as the author.

But it makes one happy that I live in today's world, where a woman can have alternatives to the limited choices of noble women back then.

One thing missing in the book: Ordinary folks. The only place they are mentioned in some detail is when the floods happen in Akashi during Genji's exile.

.......................

Folktales for Black History month

John McWhorter had an essay last summer on Zora Neal Hurston and her place in Black history on City Journal.

 Most people have heard of Zora Neal Hurston because of the movie made from her novel Their Eyes were Watching God.

but I was more familiar with her as an anthropologist who related the stories of her town and the folk tales of Southern Blacks, collected during the depression.

.....

more at the Smithsonian.

Known mostly as a novelist, Hurston also had a career as an anthropologist. She studied under the well-known Franz Boas,...

Under Boas’ guidance, Hurston was part of a school of anthropological thought that was “concerned with debunking scientific racism that many anthropologists had been involved in constructing in late-19th century and in the early years of the 20th century,” explains Deborah Thomas, a professor at University of Pennsylvania and one of the keynote speakers at a 2016 conference on Hurston’s work.

“What made anthropology attractive to her was that it was a science through which she could investigate the norms of her own community and put them in relation to broader norms.”

 

Italics mine.

one of my objections to the "racial theory" etc. nonsense is that it is marxism: i.e. it posits a "them vs us" mindset that separates people.

But as one who has lived and worked with people in several cultures (mostly non European, but also ethnic American), anthropology lets one see the differences in the context of what people have in common with each other: i.e. family life, community, personal relationships.

Folk tales help to explain how people see the world so help one understand this in a non threatening way.

One barrier to cross cultural understanding is that people in different cultures actually see the world differently and think differently, but by putting these things into stories it helps others to understand these differences not as alien but as similar, sort of like the tale of the blind men and the elephant).

an example of her collection of folk tales can be read on line here:

Mules and Men.

some of her books can be found on Project Gutenburg.

Librivox has a list of older stories and essays (out of copyright) about the black experience LINK including one by Ms Hurston: Lawing and jawing.

Internet archives has a lot of her books for borrowing, and it also has an audio collection from when she collected stories and interviews while working under the WPA during the depression.

including this interview with the last slave deported to America.

....

This story was finally published in recent years, because stories of the Black experience were not popular at the time it was recorded, let alone stories of slavery, but  to make things "worse" she was criticized because she wrote in dialect rather than proper English... 

UKGuardian story.

Poetry matters

Garrison Keillor's Writer's almanac podcast used to be on PBS but then it disappeared. But I recently found he has it here on Spreaker, and also on his YouTube channel.

a nice place to start your day.

Right now I am listening to his book where he recites poems (on Scribd). The main problem? His voice is so soothing that it puts me to sleep.

And here is one of his lectures at the Library of Congress.

 

 and some of the Prairie Home companion shows are also found on Youtube. Yes, I enjoy them, but I'm not a big fan. You see, I come from working class city ethnic background and so I don't identify with that bland Northern European "Minnesota nice" culture or even have any experience working in that culture. And although I lived in Minnesota,  I lived on "the Res",  and it was a completely different culture, and the populations didn't mix much

Oscar Wilde: Controversial chap

while checking out upandcoming movies, I see there is a new film about Oscar Wilde.


-----
a controversial chap who is either a hero or a villian, depending on one's politics.

I wonder how they played it in the movie?

But it could be said there is a complex psychological story behind his time in jail: which he seemed to go out of his way to dare the establishment to notice his behavior.

no, I haven't seen it (and won't, at least until it come to HBO Asia, probably next year).

The title comes from this fairy tale that he wrote:

-------------

And Joseph Pearce has an alternative look at his life.

Haiku

     I intended
Never to grow old, --
     But the temple bell sounds!

Jokun (translated by R. H. Blyth)




headsup FirstKnownWhenLost.

English as she is spoke

Why don't we speak the same language?

includes this factoid:

The biggest boost, perhaps not surprisingly, went to those learning English. There are still plenty of places where English won’t do you much good. But at something like 1.5 billion speakers, it has certainly become what John McWhorter calls a “big, fat language” — which is even more striking when you consider that only about 400 million of them are native speakers.

Another factoid not in the article: if you visit Baguio, you run into lots of Korean students who go there to learn English, and a lot of English Language teachers in Korea are Filipinas.

Even in English, there are dialects, which are slowly fading as TV takes over.

One of those in the podcast is John McWhorter, a linguest who argued that some inner city black students needed to be taught in their dialect until they mastered English. I thought he was a radical, since I had not run into the problem in our neighborhood when I was growing up, but in more isolated neighborhoods with mostly kids from the south, this is apparently not true

when I worked in Liberia I needed a translator for the first three months because I didn't understand the dialect.

Kids pick up the language easily, however... Spanglish anyone? it works both ways.

one of the problems of English being everywhere is that English words replace the local word... here it is called "Taglish"...

Most educated folks here speak some English... and you can also find classes for Mandarin and Korean for those seeking jobs.

replacing English with the local language is discussed in the podcast, and how it can lead to tribalism in languages that didn't get chosen. we are Tagalog but two dialects and one separate language are spoken a short distance away, and this doesn't include those living here from the Visayas or Muslims from Mindanao...

One thing pushing English is that textbooks are easy to find in English, in the same way Latin was used in the past as the educated language.

Chinese? well, kids have to learn standard Mandarin in China, and when even Chinese have trouble learning  at least 3000 symbols to read the language, you can see the problem. This might be okay for kids in school in China, but learning it as an adult has problems (not to mention the tonal aspect, which is hard for outsiders to "hear" if their native language is not tonal).

Pinyin anyone?
Ah, but Pinyin means first you have to learn the official dialect... more HERE.

-----------------
English as she is spoke is a famous book about how to speak English

  Wikipedia article on the book.

Mark Twain said of English As She Is Spoke that "Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect."^[4]

Before there was Wonder Woman: the Amazon myth

Duh. Agatha Christie books unknown to NYTimes reporter?

A semi long (for them) post  at Instapundit about a tweet by a NYTimes reporter, tweeting about the upcoming film "Murder on the Orient Express" who complains she saw no Asians in the cast.

proving not only that the NYTimes hires reporters who would fail in "Trivial pursuit", but that they hire reporters who don't know how to google.

Wikipedia article

trailer for the latest film version:



and the older BBC TV version is here:



as you can see in the beginning of the program, the "orient" here refers to Istanbul, not China.

they also have the older film versions and the audiobook at youtube...

Google is your friend.

Fantasy, superheroes, vs chick flick death porn

See previous rant.

The "death porn chic" is PC, but there is an alternative: Hope.

Which is why I am a Tolkien geek. When he was criticized for writing escapist literature, he pointed out that there is a difference between the escape of a prisoner and the desertion of a coward.

one of the problems of depression is that the depressed person only sees one part of the story, and thinks it is reality. When you treat them with cognitive therapy, you teach them to reframe the story: To know there are different ways to see the experience, to know others went through such things, and of course, to reframe your life story.

You know, when I was a teen ager, I was supposed to read all these teenaged girl angst stuff, but I rarely did. Heck, I was a math/science smart girl, and hated by the Buffy types. Ah, but I had a brother and lots of male friends, so as a geek saw the world differently, so that having a new dress or being "popular" didn't mean as much to me as getting a good grade so I could get a scholarship to college.

so no, I didn't read stuff about poor me being bullied for being a geek.

Instead I read biographies, usually of successful women, or sci fi (this was before fantasy got popular).

Elizabeth Blackwell didn't have vapors when they guys objected to her. Florence Nightingale didn't go in the corner and cry when she was yelled out. And a lot of lady saints had guts.

but I also was able to read the sci fi books my brother brought home from the library.

Heinlein's later fiction gets a bit strange, but his juvenile novels did have strong women characters.

Heinlein's Podkayne didn't kill herself from teenaged angst; Peewee could fly a spaceship, and Mother Thing showed one could be a hard assed interplanetary investigator and still be sympathetic to "cubs".

Luckily, there are a lot of such stories out there nowadays to give hope to teengers.

I mean, you think you had it bad? What about Katnis?

My brother's daughter is a Harry Potter geek.

My boys were into StarWars. Luke was the farmboy turned hero... and used his fighting skills to save the universe.

For boys, there was always the Marvel Universe. and now, unlike 50 yaers ago, one can find strong feminine female heroes outside of Heinlein.

I introduced my granddaughter to Percy Jackson. Rick Riordan wrote the story because his kid was an awkward ADHD type, and he wanted a story where the hero was ADHD and always getting into trouble in the film.

My granddaughter loves Annabeth; me, I sort of prefer Hazel who has a lot of family problems, but tries to do the right thing, (or Leo, the tinkerer who always finds a way to fix things... sort of like what we docs do). And of course, there is the very strange intovert Nico who  actually saves the earth at the end of series one, and then realizes he is gay in series two.

I have been downloading TV series for my granddaughter: a lot of the Korean Dramas have supernatural elements (for example, Strong women is super strong but loves a guy and thinks she has to be weak to be loved) And then there is LemonySnicket and similar books made into mini series.

one hint: The new Anne of Green gables is ugly... photographically ugly I mean, at least so far, (I only saw part one). The characters are less sympathetic than the classic miniseries and in several places changed from the book so it would be more pc (anne says she can work as well as a boy? In 1890 farming? Reality check please).  Stick to the older miniseries.

my adopted sons loved the older mini series because it is about adoption. (they also like Pinocchio).

why? because it mirrored their struggles.

Anne was a partial fantasy character, being wonderful and happy to find she is loved despite her faults, and who spreads love all over. One suspects it was the author rewriting the story of her difficult childhood, being brought up by a dour grandmother.

one is reminded of the wonderful film Saving Mr Banks, where Walt Disney tells Mrs. Travers what they are actually doing in their books:

Walt Disney: George Banks and all he stands for will be saved. Maybe not in life, but in imagination. Because that's what we storytellers do. We restore order with imagination. We instill hope again and again and again.

Beowulf!

tom Shippey's 3 lecture series on Beowulf (with a mention of Tolkien) is on line.

leture one here

Here is lecture two, posted today:





a lot of it is more for geeks of language and culture than fantasy. I mean, there is no modern equivalence of  someone trying to stop a man/beast invading a party and killing people is there?

oh wait....

Factoid of the day

Via Father Z: A discussion on #TalkLikeShakespeare

includes a discussion of this game, best played after a few drinks and with a fire extinguisher around:

 “flap-dragon” was a game played in Shakespeare’s day. If you want to play at home, you’ll also need a fire extinguisher, ice, and ointments. Put heated brandy in a bowl with raisins and set the liquid on fire. Turn off the lights. Take turns plucking the raisins from the flaming booze! Fun for all.

and don't tell Father that in modern slang it has another modern meaning...

stuff below the fold

The Goldfish that ate Australia

(Source: Murdoch University Freshwater Fish Group and Fish Health Unit, Department of Fisheries)

YUM! Koi! Yes, you can eat them (which we do when we have an acute fish die off in the hot season...and from the koi's behavior, alas, it looks like we might have another one soon). They are a form of carp, and some don't like their taste...

and if you catch one, be versatile: Koi tacos anyone?

--------------------------

quick ladies: Team Poldark or Team Demelza?

------------------------

No, I did not ignore Good Friday: just that routine "religious" stuff on the US blogosphere seems so out of touch with reality. Here in the Philippines, the identification of Christ's suffering with ours is strong because people know about suffering.

and no, I didn't attend church (even in the USA, I tend to faint in crowded churches). But I did visit Lolo's grave and light a candle.

-----------------------


Writer Brian Sibley posts the Dream of the Rood, a translation of an 8th century anglo saxon poem about the crucifixion.

and here is King's College Choir (Cambridge) singing a Bach anthem.



-------------------------------

another day another typhoon.

we are signal one alert (mostly rain) since it is supposed to hit south of here tomorrow.

I don't know if it will affect Robin's flight home on Tuesday.

Stuff below the fold

Watership Down, the lectures at Mythgard continues.

no, I didn't bring my copy with me to the Philippines, and only vaguely remember the story, but found the audiobook on Youtube. And like the other Mythgard series, they discuss the book, not the movies, which sometimes are different.

----------------------------------

PopehatBlog gets poetic on modern femifascist censorship:

Then out spake prim Horatius,The Censor of the Gate:"To every persyn upon this earthBut*hurt cometh soon or late.And how can we do betterWhen facing fearful speech,Than shut down all discussion,And stop the crimethink's reach?

The problem is that I doubt any students know the story of Horatio's stand, or the famous "Lays of Rome", because their themes are patriotism and honor, and of course, they are "bad poetry".

FYI: A snip from the original poem, 

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the gate:
“To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods

nah, can't have such things taught in our schools.

But the ideas are found in modern juvi lit: Percy Jackson, anyone? And then there is Katnis, Harry, and Bilbo, all of whom hold the honorable idea to sacrifice self for their friends...even the wimpy Bella sacrifices herself for her child...

--------------------------------

Improbable research suggests this leisurely book for your reading pleasure:

you can find a cope at internet Archives.

---------------------

Science article of the day is also from Improbable research:

“A randomised crossover trial of the acute effects of a deep-fried Mars bar or porridge on the cerebral vasculature,” William G. Dunn, and Matthew R. Walters, Scottish Medical Journal, epub 2014..... 

Conclusion Ingestion of a bolus of sugar and fat caused no overall difference in cerebrovascular reactivity, but there was a modest decrease in males. Impaired cerebrovascular reactivity is associated with increased stroke risk, and therefore deep-fried Mars bar ingestion may acutely contribute to cerebral hypoperfusion in men.

---------------------------

science news you can use:

Kissing transfers 80 million bacteria.

but not all kissing: French kissing for ten seconds was the criteria used.

------------------------

Instapundit plugs his relatives' site for Nollywood movies.

Yes. And there are a lot of them on Youtube too...

--------------------------------

and the headline of the day:

UK's first 'poo bus' goes into service between Bristol and Bath

The 40-seat "Bio-Bus" runs on biomethane gas generated through the treatment of sewage and food waste

Brush up your Shakespeare

Random Shakespearean Insulter webpage:

why post ordinary F words to curse people in the comments?
Copy an insult from the master himself!

examples:


Thou odiferous fly-bitten foot-licker!

Thou misbegotten toad-spotted clack-dish!


I scorn you, scurvy companion. What, you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen mate! Away, you moldy rogue, away!



Thou currish malmsey-nosed fustilarian!
 

Longer links with musings from around the web

buStrategy Page has an article on gun and other forms of violence.
it has more to do with culture (tribal culture) than guns per se.

They also have an article about the link between Islam and violence...

Moreover, the majority of Moslems has not been willing, or able, to confront and suppress the Islamic radicals that not only spread death and destruction, but also besmirch all Moslems. This reveals a fundamental problem in the Islamic world, the belief that combining righteousness with murderous tactics is often the road to power and spiritual salvation. 

most Muslims see Islam as a way to follow God, but alas the history shows some use it to justify violence. The biggest question of today's world is if they can eliminate this tendency from religion, similar to how modern Christians ignore the  bloodier parts of the Old Testament as no longer relavent since Christ showed us a better way.

And don't counter that by saying the crusades were religious aggression, since they could be seen as pushing back Arab (Muslim) aggression against Christians in the Middle East and in Eastern Europe . A lot of history depends on who is writing it.

------------------------------------------
Another article on leaded gasoline causing inner city violence (via BoingBoing) is from MomJones and points to the problem of low grade lead poisoning from gasoline causing brain damage and impulsiveness. (and maybe crime).
more at Wired.

actually, I heard this 25 years ago at a conference by the intrepid Wolf Wolfensberger,

 
Dr. Wolfensberger is the originator of Citizen Advocacy and Social Role Valorization, and he was the foremost propagator of normalization in North America. In 1999, Wolf Wolfensberger was selected by representatives of seven major mental retardation organizations as one of 35 parties that had been the most impactful on mental retardation worldwide in the 20th century.

I didn't realize he died a year ago. Sigh.

--------------------------------------------------------

Cat headline of the day via Dave Barry:

A cat trained by prisoners to deliver cell phones and tools to dig tunnels was caught at a jail in northeastern Brazil after sneaking in with forbidden items strapped to its body.

Read more here: http://blogs.herald.com/dave_barrys_blog/2013/01/rest-assured-it-is-also-cheating-on-its-taxes.html#storylink=cpy

--------------------------------------------------
Factoid of the day: More civilians were killed at Pearl Harbor by anti aircraft shells falling back to earth than by the Japanese.


-------------------------------------------------

Poetry corner:
Martinez at MiddleEarth news has an article on Tolkien's poem Errantry which was long passed from person to person often without them knowing who wrote it.... here is the beginning of the poem:

There was a merry passenger,
a messenger a mariner:
he built a gilded gondola
to wander in and had in her
a load of yellow oranges
and porridge for his provender;
he perfumed her with marjoram,
and cardamom and lavender.

Wikipedia points out;

Tolkien invented the meter, which consists of trisyllabic assonances, three in each set of four lines. The second and fourth line in every quartet rhyme, as do the end of the first line and beginning of the second line in every pair. This was so difficult that he never wrote another poem again in this style,

Yes. But alas, most "modern" poetry has neither rhyme nor reason nor assonances, instead they seem to be merely prose. Compare and contrast with today's poetry corner (or nearly any day's poem) on Garrison Kiellor's otherwise excellent NPR podcast.

Poetry is older than prose, because in ancient days poets used rhyme, rhythm or other tricks to make their long stories easier to memorize in the days before there were a lot of books.

as for Sigaldry, a word mentioned in Tolkien's poem, that is another concept that is being kept alive in the gaming world...


Ah, but we still have a few poets or quote phrases from songs, books, or movies: the Anchoress, quoting Vonnegut, shows that even today our writers can express what we feel better than we can ourselves.

Shippey's book on Tolkien, the Author of the century, points out that the most influential books/writers of the 20th century were war veterans who wrote fantasy, not the ones touted by academia.(e.g. THWhite, Vonnegut, Heller, CSLewis)..

Which says more about academia than it does the reading public.
---------------------------------------

Speaking of public popular trends that are not being looked at by academia:..I'm not a vampire fan myself, but I wonder what the spate of films/movies/TV shows about disaster and the undead say about American culture? And who is trying to fight them from taking over?

--------------------------------

 What links wimenpriests and gay marriage? No, not the intolerance of the pope.
the answer is: biology. Both issues see men and women as identical and interchangable in ALL things, and insist gender doesn't matter.


Since 50 thousand plus years of male female pair bonding to protect children probably has an evolutionary advantage, in this one I'm betting the Pope wins...in the long run. In the short run, I predict persecution, but then I tend to be paranoid.
-------------------------------------------

 Related item:

 Via Instapundit:

Scientific discussion of the day: Is it real, or is it Silicon?

the essay shows a simple "float check" experiment photo that Lolo enjoyed but I won't post because this is a family blog.

------------------------------------------------

History below the fold

my podcast feeds are full of great stuff this morning.

HistoryOfEngland podcast discusses the wool trade in the UK, and links to this paper.

why is it important? Because it shows the result of the Cistercians who introduced it (the Cistercians were a "reform" monastery who rejected the wealth of the Benedictines so tended to move to marginal land...but sheep thrived on marginal land so they got rich, as did many middle class people who copied their lead. This was one of the subplots in Follet's novel/miniseries The Pillars of Earth).

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I also get the daily prayer as a podcast: Today is the day of Gregory the Great, a educated Roman who fled to a monastery in the troubles of the late 500's and ended up as Pope instead.
If you think you have problems, consider how he sees his job.

I am forced to consider the affairs of the Church and of the monasteries. I must weigh the lives and acts of individuals. I am responsible for the concerns of our citizens. I must worry about the invasions of roving bands of barbarians, and beware of the wolves who lie in wait for my flock. I must become an administrator lest the religious go in want. I must put up with certain robbers without losing patience and at times I must deal with them in all charity.

Heh...sounds like the Philippines, where the big shots that our bishops have to "put up with" are robbers, I mean honest men who just want ten percent of the contract as a gift.

So the next time you think the modern world has problems, consider all the trouble Gregory had to put up with, from the Plague of Justinian (540) to the invasion of the Lombards...and had to take care of the refugees and poor. (From wikipedia:)

In 590, Gregory could wait for Constantinople no longer. He organized the resources of the church into an administration for general relief. In doing so he evidenced a talent for and intuitive understanding of the principles of accounting, which was not to be invented for centuries...Gregory began by aggressively requiring his churchmen to seek out and relieve needy persons and reprimanded them if they did not....The church now owned between 1,300 and 1,800 square miles (3,400 and 4,700 km²) of revenue-generating farmland divided into large sections called patrimonia. It produced goods of all kinds, which were sold, but Gregory intervened and had the goods shipped to Rome for distribution...Distributions to qualified persons were monthly. However, a certain proportion of the population lived in the streets or were too ill or infirm to pick up their monthly food supply. To them Gregory sent out a small army of charitable persons, mainly monks, every morning with prepared food.

the bad news is that he did the job so well that the locals no longer looked to Constantinople for help or civil leaders so the Popes ended up running civil affairs during the "Dark ages", which eventually led to wealth and the Borgia popes (and the reformation).
If you never heard about Gregory, it is because the Borgias were a better story for our jaded world.

On the other hand, blame Gregory for the fact that most Catholics in the US and Europe support the organized "welfare state" rather than mere almsgiving to beggers (which often misses the very poor who don't or can't beg)...

oh yes: And Gregory send Augustine of Canterbury to try to convert the warlike AngloSaxons who had taken over a distant Island of Brittania...

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Librivox has "short non fiction" essays for your listening pleasure:
the selection today includes:

From Travels In Alaska by John Muir – 00:17:52
Source: E-text
[mp3@64kbps - 8.5MB]

Why I Believe in Poverty by Edward Bok – 00:11:09
Source: E-text
[mp3@64kbps - 5.3MB]

Slang; from Historic China and Other Sketches by Herbert A. Giles (1845-1935) – 00:10:54
Source: E-text
[mp3@64kbps - 5.2MB]

Thrilling Story by Titanic's Surviving Wireless Man by Harold Bride – 00:18:27
Source: E-text
[mp3@64kbps - 8.8MB]

Life and Adventures of Calamity Jane by Calamity Jane (Martha Jane Cannary-Burke) – 00:12:53
Source: E-text
[mp3@64kbps - 6.1MB]

The Humour of Homer by Samuel Butler – 01:06:07

Source: E-text

[mp3@64kbps - 31.7MB]

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and Librivox also has the poem "Address to certain goldfishes" by Coleridge

I presume he is talking about medium sized gold fish in a garden pond, not the giant koi we have in our fountain:

Address to Certain Golfishes

RESTLESS forms of living light

Quivering on your lucid wings,

Cheating still the curious sight

With a thousand shadowings;

Various as the tints of even,

Gorgeous as the hues of heaven,

Reflected on you native streams

In flitting, flashing, billowy gleams!

Harmless warriors, clad in mail

Of silver breastplate, golden scale; --

Mail of Nature's own bestowing,

With peaceful radiance, mildly glowing --

Fleet are ye as fleetest galley

Or pirate rover sent from Sallee;

Keener than the Tartar's arrow,

Sport ye in your sea so narrow. 

 

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Coleridge obviously needed to get a life...
he was so ditzy that even his wife left him quickly, and he turned to his friend Wordsworth and opium for companionship, therefore writing poems like "The ancient mariner" that have plagued schoolchilden for the next 200 years.