Quick Hitters

I.
I finished reading Evelyn Waugh's Officers and Gentlemen a few weeks ago, and didn't know quite how to put my thoughts together about the sad, darkly funny ending. The title character (Guy Crouchback) ends up joining the Royal Halbediers at the outbreak of WWII out of a sense of honor (or honour, properly) and ends up discovering there is no longer such a thing in the modern world. The novel ends with the surrender of Crete and a dark conversation about how 100 years ago duels were a necessary part of the honorable life, but now there is no longer any honor tied up in the practice. Yet somewhere between then and now was the awkward moment at which all the honor was ebbing out of the institution. Crouchback looks at warfare (or at least soldiering as it was conceived and attempted in Britain) and finds it somewhere between an honorable and a ridiculous activity, moving fatally towards the ridiculous.
I asked J whether there were any such activities in the modern world, to which honor (or honour) is such a binding pressure. We couldn't come up with any, and I couldn't even think of a way to properly describe what honor is. I still don't have a good working definition, but I think I had a bit of a revelation than honor is NOT something that ends up being tied into an ideology. For a principle to be honorable, it has to run deeper than that. Ideologies (this all comes from having read Oakeshott recently) appear a posteriori to the real world, and a principle thus deeply ingrained has to either have been inherited earlier or been made native by some means other than intellectual abstraction. Thus, it's impossible to have any sense of honor about the sexes when one's conception of the sexes is primarily ideological, and the same thing goes for politics and warfare.
If everyone could write up a quick five page paper on the topic of honor in the modern world and email it to me, that'd be great. I look forward to your submissions.

II.
That Oakeshott essay was great. I'm doing my darndest to read the best of the historical conservatives this summer. Also on the list are William F. Buckley, Richard Neuhaus, de Tocqueville, and Edmund Burke. I'm thinking now about the past as an inheritance, avoiding knowledge as a reduction to technique, and wondering what exactly the American political tradition (worth keeping) exactly is. One thing that Oakeshott doesn't talk about (at least in Rationalism in Politics) is the importance of how you tell the story of history in order to spell out what exactly you ARE inheriting from the tradition that goes before you.

III.
I've read two sad books in the last two days, first Of Mice of Men almost all in one sitting yesterday, and now Cry, the Beloved Country. I'd forgotten how much I love Cry, the Beloved Country. I don't particularly resonate with African literature, but everything in that novel touches me as a Christian. It is absolutely the best novel I've ever read in dealing with race, injustice, grief, and somehow prayer in the midst of it all. As dark and hopeless as Of Mice and Men is, Cry, the Beloved Country brims over with a real hope in the midst of its tragedy. They were good books to read back-to-back.

--He is a stranger, he said, I cannot touch him, I cannot reach him. I see no shame in him, no pity for those he has hurt. Tears come out of his eyes, but it seems that he weeps only for himself, not for his wickedness, but for his danger.
The man cried out, can a person lose all sense of evil? A boy, brought up as he was brought up? I see only his pity for himself, he who has made two children fatherless.

It's about such things that our own tribe most needs authentic Christian hope.

Things Literary

I.
It's time for some translations of the Patristics into modern English. Calvus, do you have any recommendations for recent translators? Currently reading some Gregory Thaumaturgus and the translator (pace to any of his descendants) is so stuck in the conventions of the 19th century that he makes the Greek almost unreadable. (I don't have an actual copy of the Greek text, I'm just looking at through the excessive footnotes.)

II.
As difficult as it is to read the Patristics in high 19th century literary scholarly English, George MacDonald can make the same sort of language interesting and perfectly accessible. There are still just as many thous, thereafters, and therebys, but they are all strung together with a natural cadence suited to reading aloud and perfectly intelligible. In fact, I'm enjoying listening to Phantastes much more than I enjoyed reading it as an undergraduate.

III.
I ordered Evelyn Waugh's Scoop on Amazon and am almost finished with Officers and Gentlemen, the second book of the Sword of Honour series. I think it was Orwell that made a derogatory remark about "great writers who converted to Roman Catholicism and then could talk about nothing else." Just like Chesterton, Waugh doesn't seem to be able to write anything without including a tortured commentary on the joys and difficulties of being a Catholic, somehow separated from the rest of the world, within the story.

IV.
Speaking of early 20th cenutry English Catholics, I've been listening to Hillaire Belloc's History of the French Revolution, which is one of those many subjects which are immensely important in the history of the world and which I know next to nothing about. So far the book has been pleasant listening, and the most interesting nugget I've taken away is the idea that the Revolution (and the ensuing struggle with the other powers of Europe) was the first major international conflict fought over abstract ideals. (Although I think Belloc would be quick to admit that it was fought for other supplemental reasons as well.)

V.
Hektor venturing out to meet Achilleus, then turning to run beside the two heads of the Scamander. After years and years of reading, I just have a few hundred verses left in the Iliad.

VI.
Perseus turning the wedding guests to stone with the head of Medusa after rescuing Andromeda.

Recently Reading

The Well and the Shallows
One of Chesterton's last books, this collection of essays is 80% vintage Chesterton and 20% old and slightly overripe Chesterton growing cranky in his final years. The best essays are An Apology for Buffoons (about humor in writing) and a few notes about the British press. The least appealing are about Birth Control, Spain, and Luther.

Slaughterhouse Five
I read this in college over ten years ago and wasn't particularly interested. This time around I found the humor humorous (and tragic, of course) and appreciated it much better. I might be due to read Catch-22 again soon, and perhaps try to find a copy of Cat's Cradle? This was the first book I excavated from the two boxes of Old Crow plunder we came back with after Christmas

Music in Medieval Europe
Disappointingly bad historical, religious, and Latin scholarship, but a good musical treatment of the fascinating and variegated corpus of musical manuscripts and traditions from Gregorian chant through the birth of polyphony, none of which is as interesting as Bach or Beethoven.

Pensees
It is certain that if a Christian reads Pascal, some questions will be evident. Will he stay alert enough to remember what Pascal was rambling about between readings? Will he ever finish the book?

Emma
The least heroic of Austen's heroines, and probably my favorite of her novels after Pride and Prejudice.

Hot September Day

I.
We sure are thankful for our air conditioning. We don't have a great unit--it's mounted in the wall and doesn't really cool anything down except for the living room, but it is SO nice to have a cool room when you're up on the second floor on a 90 degree day. We never had air conditioning on Washington Street except in James' room.

This morning we've been camped out directly beneath the unit except for our hour of errand running, at which point we were all very thankful to have two cars with functional air conditioning. We had to go sign more papers at the mortgage broker's, and James met a 15 month old bulldog named Albert who was deeply curious of George. James and George still both smell like Albert. We dropped off books at the library, visited the bank, and then were back home in front of the a/c again before too long. It's a good day to read Go Dog Go and build train tracks while sipping fruit smoothies. (Or beer.)

II.
Currently reading The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise. (Susan is an editor for Books and Culture) It's always encouraging to find a book at the library, thumb to the bibliography, and see a list of books and articles that match exactly your opinion of the best sources of a subject. This book is a guide to homeschooling using a classical education curriculum. The book so far has passed the litmus tests of technology (no) and the purpose of Latin instruction (the grammar, not spoken fluency) with flying colors and is laying out a useful structure for the trivium. I think we'll probably end up buying our own copy of this book. (Not to mention lots of the resources listed inside...yikes, that could be expensive.)

Also working on Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money. I'm trying to stitch together some coherent narrative in the history of finance while keeping a dictionary of terms laid open on the end table. Currently reading about the Rothschild family. (I've only ever known the name as the butt of obscure jokes.)

III.
The Christ-hymn in Philippians 2 is on the lectionary for the end of the month, and I can't find any good choral anthems on the text. (Recommendations, anyone?) I think what I'm going to do is steal the 1st verse of the hymn May the Mind of Christ My Savior and then paraphrase the rest of the text into four verses. Here's what I have so far

1. May the mind of Christ my Savior
Live in me from day to day
By his love and power controlling
All I do and say

2. He in form divine considered
Pow'r not seizing, but obeyed,
And a servant, self he emptied
And was humble made

3. God him now has high exalted
Name above all names is giv'n
Every knee will bow before him
in God's world and heav'n

4. All the Lord will then confess him
To the father glory give
May we share Christ's mind together
As we serve and live

UPDATE
Apparently reading a pessimistic account of international finance which assumes your already too small personal worth is probably in serious danger while simultaneously reading about an imminent thirteen year-long project for which you've made no preparations which will likely take up massive amounts of your time and money causes you to walk around all day grinding your teeth and looking gloomy. Apologies to all parties involved. Probably some of it is the heat.

Advice

Should we buy a house?

Achilleus: Nay, spend not silver or other guerdon to make purchase of yonder house, but let us take it by force as once I sacked seven-gated Thebes and plundered it. The strength of the house shall not prevail against us, but we shall pull down its walls and despoil all the cattle of their fields, and their wives will be our concubines.
Odysseus: Even better, listen to my much-crafty counsel. We shall build to them a great gift of wood and feign our departure, as though we had conceded defeat and abandoned the high-walled house. Then in the midst of their reveling will the noble first-fighters climb down from our deceitful gift and slaughter them all in their drunkenness, and we will take the house by the cleverness of our wits.
Me: Any chance we could do this without putting anyone to the sword?
Achilleus: We came all this way, I think we need to use the swords.

Jesus: No man can serve two masters. Either he will love the one and hate the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon.
Me: I was kind of hoping that your bit would be about the foundation of sand vs. the foundation of rock. Because I was just in the basement and it looks pretty good down there, aside from the smell.
Jesus: Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy.
Me: Dangit

Ovid: Men say that long ago in this country there was a certain nymph who very beautiful and lovely in form, and seeing her one of the river gods was struck with a violent passion. He gave her chase, but she was devout unto Diana and would not surrender her chastity. Yet the young river god was more swift of foot than she, and as he was about to overtake her and do her violence she prayed unto Father Zeus that she be saved from the injury he meant to do her. Then even as she collapsed upon the ground she felt her knees begin to grow solid and turn into concrete, and her arms were turning into aluminum siding, and when she touched her hair it had become as asphalt shingles.
Me: This really isn't helpful
Ovid: I'm not finished yet. The river god was turned into a cat, which is what you smell when you go down into the basement. He's still trying to get into her crawlspace. <giggles>
Me: No wonder they kicked you out of Rome.

Saul: Well, I was going to wait for Samuel to get here to sign the mortgage, but I say we just do it ourselves.
Me: I think we should wait for Samuel. And perhaps the Realtor and the lawyers as well.
Saul: Nah, we've waited long enough. Let's just sign it ourselves, go beat back the Philistines, and call it a day.
Me: You aren't qualified to sign the mortgage. I mean, you're a great warrior and all, but Samuel said specifically to wait for him.
Saul: Too late. <signs "Saul, son of Kish, King of Israel, esquire> Now it's done. Boom.

Recently Reading

The Witch of Blackbird Pond
I never read this as a child, and I don't really know why. I remember seeing it on the Accelerated Reader list, I remember loving Sign of the Beaver, and I remember continually passing on it in the library. Probably because there was a girl on the cover and I figured it was going to be all about girl stuff. It was fine. Between Hawthorne and Arthur Miller, I feel like the American Puritans are already over-represented in American literature and not too historically. Might have to read some American history at some point if I want another side of the story.

The Old Arcadia
A huge, sprawling book. Impossible for me to appreciate before about five years ago, because so much of it assumes a working knowledge of Greek poetry, history and style. (I'm sure a lot of it still went over my head.) A wonderful tale though, and incredible craftsmanship in the eclogues and the structure. Put me in the mood for a Shakespeare or two after a longish winter off. The story centers around two princes who try to get to two secluded princesses by dressing as a woman and a common shepherd, with all sorts of confusion following each.

Hatchet
I read this book over and over as a child, and I remembered lots about the hatchet and the fires and the airplane, but almost nothing about the divorce and the personal metamorphosis of Brian. A wonderful book, just as good as I remembered on re-reading.

How to Eat Fried Worms
An accurate description of little boys in every possible way.

The End of Poverty
Jeff Sachs' book on the Millennium Goals, global economics, and American indifference. Tightly structured, engaging, and compelling. It was written in 2002, and I'd like to find some information about how his projects have progressed since then. Mostly I just haven't mustered the energy to do a google search. (Yes, he is right on about American indifference.) The problem with being incredibly ignorant about a subject (like economics) is that when you read someone who writes well about a contentious issue, you run the risk of becoming a blind disciple without ever hearing the other side of the story. I think I might be about ready to be a blind disciple of Jeff Sachs.

The Bacchae
A wild, nearly terrifying play about the arrival of Bacchus in Thebes and the death of the unbelieving King Pentheus. Very interesting to read about the ideas of reverence due to the gods, the penalties of unbelief, the nature of mortal hubris, and the demands of justice in a purely pagan context.

ei d'estin hostis daimonon huperphronei,
es toud athresas thanaton egeistho theous

If there is anyone which despises the gods,
looking unto this man's death let him reckon the divine.

Lost in Translation

Today is a Buffalo double, which means that I have about 6 hours to kill between the end of the morning rehearsal and the start of the evening concert. I'm at a Coffee Culture on Elmwood Ave with a big stack of books, a laptop, and a lunchbox that used to be full of pizza. It takes 1 hour and 19 minutes to drive from our apartment to Kleinhans, a drive that I am not keen to do four times in one day. (I'll have to on Saturday...church staff party demands I come home between.)

This Coffee Culture isn't a bad place to spend the afternoon, though. I did my taxes here in March, I've read lots of books, studied scores for upcoming concerts, and planned needlessly elaborate games and projects for James and Julie. I've just spent the last hour and a half translating.

I try to keep four translation projects open at once, which has been the problem with learning Hebrew. Keeping a running fifth project open with Calvus is possible during some parts of the year, but most of the time I don't have enough hours in the day to get to everything. Currently in my backpack are the Vulgate Bible, a volume of Sedulius, a collection of plays by Euripides, and the last half of the Iliad.

I've been reading through all of the major prophets in the Vulgate, which is St. Jerome's translation of the Bible into Latin. (And in my opinion, one of the most beautiful, if not the most accurate, translations ever made.) Here's what I did today, 10 verses about return from exile and judgment using pastoral language.

Ezekiel XXXIV:11-20 
The Lord God says this: Behold I will seek my sheep again and will visit them. Just as a shepherd visits his flock in the day when he will be in the midst of his scattered sheep, thus I will visit my sheep and will free them from all places where they were scattered in the day of cloud and darkness. And I will lead them out from the peoples and gather them from the lands and will bring them into their land and will pasture them in the mountains of Israel, in the rivers and in all the seats of the land. In the most fertile pastures I will pasture them and on the high mountains of Israel their pastures shall be. There they will rest in green grass and in rich pastures they will be pastured upon the mountains of Israel. I will pasture my sheep and I will make them to lie down, says the Lord God. What was lost I will seek back and what was cast away I will lead back and what had been broken I will bind up and what was weak I will strengthen and what was fat and strong I will keep and will pasture them in judgment. But you, O my flocks, the Lord God says this: Behold I judge between flock and clock, of rams and he-goats. Was it not enough to you to feed on the good pasture, and even the rest of your pastures you trampled with your feet and when you drank the purest water you troubled the rest with your feet. And my sheep on that which had been trampled by your feet were fed, and what your feet had troubled they drank. Therefore the Lord God says this: Behold I myself will judge between the fat and the lean of the flock.

Calvus gave me an SBL edition of Sedulius for my birthday (I think) last year, and I got around to starting it a few months ago. It's a dense five-volume hexameter poem deliberately copying Virgil that adapts the gospel story and sets it in the "jewelled" style. I'm glad I was already familiar with the story...I had to look up lots of words, and unravel lots of grammar from the parallel translation. I knew I was getting close to the end, but I didn't realize that I was going to finish the book today! Once I found myself at the end of the poem I signed and dated the bottom, which I try to do with any major translations I make. The section today picks up right as the ascension is about to take place.

Sedulii Paschale Carmen V.416-fin
Then teaching the following he said Peace, have you all. Take my peace, carry quiet (calm) peace, peace spread you through the peoples by my holy commands and cleanse the world from ills, to call nations from the ends of the earth as wide as the world is stretched, I command in my biddings to wash all in the fount. When this was said the Lord brought his kind address to an end, and soon he sought the fields of Bethany, and in the presence of the blessed men which merited so great a triumph to look upon, carried off into the skies he departed into the high regions/shores. (oras) And he himself sits at the right of the father and governs all by his authority which holding all things whether high or low after he entered Tartarus from heaven, he entered heaven after Tartarus. But they with joyful faces discerning the lord to go over the high clouds and to tread the shimmering expanses with his own feet worshiped him reverently and repeated with eager heart his starry path, which they would teach all, for they were faithful witnesses by the rule of the divine power, which seeing much wrote down a few of the innumerable good deeds. For if they had wished to hand down in holy pages all things done by their redeemer, neither would the whole world suffice to contain (gird) so many thick books.

I've been taking a break from my regular schedule of New Testament readings to work on Euripides' Bacchae, and I have just a few hundred verses left. It's hard, slow going. I know I'm not picking up on a lot of the subtle dynamics within the text, but I think I've been making an okay job of it with the help of a parallel translation. I picked up today directly after the verse where the death of Pentheus is announced.

Bacchae 1031
Chorus: King Bromius [thus] are you revealed a great god!
2nd Messenger: How do you say this? What is this you speak? O women, do you rejoice on my words of the events falling ill to my master? (no idea about this verse, actually)
Chorus: We shout hurrah in barbarian language, it pleases us as foreigners, for no longer are we frightened by the terror of prison.
2nd Messenger: And do you think Thebes to be without men, O women, with our king now being dead? This will bring you unto grief.
Chorus: It is Dionysus the child of Zeus, not the Thebans holding my rule.
2nd Messenger: It is pardonable to you, but on others' ills it is not good to rejoice, O women.
Chorus: Tell me, speak, by what fate did he die, the unjust and injustice-contriving man?
Messenger: Then attending leaving this Theban ground we crossed the rushing Asopus, we struck out into the rocky Cithaeron, Pentheus and I, for I followed my master, and the stranger who was escort to the festival/viewing.

I almost always save Homer for last. Where I am in the story Achilleus has just learned of Patroklus' death and held conference with his mother, who brings him new armor from Hephaestus as he prepares to retrieve the body.

Iliad XVIII.207-218
And as when smoke going from the city of a far island would reach the aether, its enemies battling around it, and those which all day were judged by hateful Ares, from their city. And together with the setting sun the numerous beacon-fires blaze and the glow comes darting on high to be seen by the neighbors, which there with ships might come as defenders. Thus from the head of Achilleus went radiance to the sky. And he going from the wall stood upon the trench, nor did he mingle with the Achaians, for he regarded the command of his mother. There standing he bellowed and Pallas Athena called aloud from afar. Yet he roused inexpressible confusion among the Trojans.

It isn't ever much, and it isn't ever much good, but with an afternoon to spare there isn't a much better way to pass it than sipping a cup of hot coffee and taking what nibbles I can of the ancient Mediterranean.

Trading Fives

5 things I love about my wife
1) She doesn't ever keep score. We've been married for almost six years now, and in that time I've done and said plenty of stupid things. If she were the sort of person who held on to old hurts, she could make me feel pretty miserable. If she were the sort of person who needed a fair distribution of work and responsibilities for the house to function, I'd be in her constant debt. In fact, if J kept score at all, I think that our marriage would have started to look like that sad caricature of the couple who can't even enjoy being around each other because they have to keep up their leverage for the next fight. J forgives, never demands whats owed her, and pours herself out freely. There's a word for that, and it's grace.
2) She is really really talented. You get used to a person when you live for them long enough, so I'm not always conscious of the fact that J is the same girl who came into college playing jaw-dropping Brahms and Ginastera on the piano, and not only that, but was instantly the best flute player in school. It's easy to forget that she was a 4.0 student who wrote the best history papers in her class, edited everyone else's homework, and was also the captain of the all-star softball team. And tested out of theory and aural skills. And could sight sing anything put in front of her and recognize any harmonic progression immediately. And now she's my wife, and I'd almost forget all those things, except that she keeps on being talented and being offered jobs at Hochstein and revitalizing the church where she works.
3) She is a big picture person. She went for four years without any sort of clothing line in the budget. She loves new clothes. But she is incredibly patient, and she is much better about constantly minding the budget than I am. She knows when we need rules for the house, and when it's okay to splash in the mud puddles, even though that's against the rules. (More for James than me.)
4) She takes really good care of us. The most thrown together end-of-the-month leftovers we eat are so much better than anything I ever ate in grad school. She does laundry, she washes dishes, she packs meals, she remembers what I forget, and she stays awake when I come home late. All that would be amazing by itself, but it's even more special because she loves taking care of her men, and it's really obvious.
5) She is really, really, really good-looking. You just can't quite ever get used to it, either. You'd think that after living together for almost six years that it wouldn't be a big deal for your wife to walk inside the door, but when J comes inside it still feels like an event.

5 things I love about my son
1) He loves Steven Bear SO much. It warms my heart just to think about how much he cares for that grubby little bear. Whenever I put him to bed at night he holds him close to his face, and when I get him up in the morning he's usually sitting in his crib and snuggling him. He talks to him (they laugh a lot) takes him everywhere, and is the first thing he reaches for when he's scared or upset. When he eats, Steven has to sit next to him in the booster seat and have food on his tray. (J told me that today James wouldn't even open his mouth for food unless Steven "ate" it first.) The other night J said to me "I worry about that bear...I worry that he won't last as long as James is going to need him." I laid in bed and thought about how heartbroken James would be if (may it never happen) we lost Steven. It made me happy to see him nodding at Steven as they "chatted" when I got him up the next day.
2) Sometimes when I come home J will take James over to the window, and he'll watch me walk up the driveway and the front walk. He grins the whole way, and starts to bounce as I get closer. When I get to the door he'll start laughing and smush his nose up against the glass. It's really nice to know that someone is that happy to see you.
3) He climbs everything now. He isn't very good at it, but he's figured out that he can get on top of stuff if he gets his leg up. It's hysterical to watch him pit-patting over to the rubbermaid blockade in front of the stairs (he needs a running start) and then to lift his left leg up as high as it can go, trying so hard to get it up onto some sort of foothold. He can't get up more often than not, but when he does manage to get up on the blockade or the sofa, he'll just perch there for a few seconds with the most smug and pleased 15-month old grin you can imagine.
4) He loves bath time again. I don't know that he's quite as excited to be in the water as he used to be, or to play with his bath toys, but he loves to KICK. As soon as we lay him down he gets a big grin and looks at us, and then he flails his legs until he has so much water in his eyes that he has to stop. He loves it when we react with "indignation" and he's taken to shrieking as he goes. Occasionally he'll work up to a big "double-barreled" kick where he raises both legs up as high as they can go and then slams them down with a yell. Our bathroom floor is very wet in the evenings.
5) He is still little enough to hold comfortably, and he loves being held. Every once in a while when he comes running up with his arms lifted high, I'll think to myself "Again? James..." and then I think about how little time is left when he'll want to be held by his Daddy. And he's not that heavy yet. He is just the right size for holding.

5 things I love about playing the trumpet
1) I used to get genuinely scared of playing a part other than first trumpet. Did it mean that I wasn't good enough? That I wasn't the best trumpet player in the room? Now I love section playing. I love section playing of all kinds. It is deeply satisfying to play the low note of an octave with another trumpet player and to strike the note precisely in tune with just the right articulation and color. It's satisfying to zap the offbeats with a three or four man section at a pops concert, and it's satisfying to do a slow crescendo in a soft brass chorale that builds and builds until the power of the section is shaking the stage.
2) The stereotype of the average meathead trumpet player is that he only wants to play one color: bright-high-loud. But there are so many colors in the sound of the trumpet, and it really is a joy to practice well-written music and explore them all. There's a loneliness in Quiet City that's hard to capture, and some of the sweetest trumpet moments are in the big Strauss pieces. It's great to play loud and brassy, of course, but there's also a fascinating palette of low sounds for the Carmen prelude and Shostakovitch 5. Practicing for an hour or two really is like putting colors on canvas.
3) It's really nice to have new etudes to practice. I got a new etude book in the mail last week, and it's been a blast to work through it. Even the smell of the manuscript paper is exciting. And not only is it good to have new material to practice, it makes all the old etudes fresh again when you come back to them with new ideas.
4) The trumpet is not too big. Can you imagine having to lug a cello or a harp everywhere? To have to drag that thing out to your car every day, let alone traveling by airplane? Every door would be an ordeal, and forget about going up and down stairs. On the other hand, oboes and clarinets are too small. If I played the oboe I'd lose my instrument once a week. Plus, they're to delicate. If you accidentally drop a trumpet, you might have to get a dent removed. If you accidentally drop an oboe, you're out $7000. I'd much rather play the trumpet
5) You can never have it all figured out. It's always a challenge to play high, loud, soft, low, fast, beautiful, and whatever else is difficult to do on the trumpet. And, contrary to what anyone will tell you, not even the truly great ones have it all figured out. There is always a note that isn't quite secure or an interval that's a little difficult. And that's what makes it so satisfying to play the trumpet well.

5 things I love about living in Western New York
1) There's coffee everywhere. As someone who has personally lived in the South, I can attest to the fact that you have to go to a mall to find any sort of coffee shop, and even then it's usually a Starbucks. (I think there was one Dunkin Donuts about 6 miles away from where I worked.) Here, there's a Tim Horton's in every little hamlet, not to mention all of the local coffee shops. If you need coffee, you can find it. And living here, we need coffee.
2) Yes, the snow is no fun to drive in. But I do love the snow. When you're home for the day and it's snowing outside, it's hard to imagine anything more beautiful. And as much as snow can be ugly when it's all browned and salted, it's beautiful when it's laying all white in the backyard and nested in the trees. I might be an old man in Florida some winter, but for now I love the winters here.
3) The Buffalo Bills. Chris Kelsay retired yesterday, which anywhere else in the league would have been a two sentence blurb at the bottom of the paper. Who cares about a backup defensive end? But in Buffalo, if you've lived with the team and suffered with the team and really get what the city is about, you'll always be a hero. It's a very unique fraternity of suffering up here...but the team means more here than any glitzy big city with multiple championships in storage.
4) My family lives here. I have five siblings, and they are absolutely my favorite people and my best friends. Not one of them lives more than a half-hour away. I'm trying very hard not to take this season for granted.
5) The RPO is here. I loved living in Chicago and going downtown to watch the CSO. I love listening to the New York Phil on the radio and hearing the great orchestras play live. There will never be an orchestra for me like the RPO, though. I still can't believe that I get to sit under the great chandelier at Eastman and play with them sometimes. It's a privilege like nothing else I do.

5 things I'm loving reading
1) Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It's absurdly long. Gibbon made a lot of mistakes, and he brings some pretty ridiculous assumptions to the story from 17th century England. But it's an amazing book for anyone who's even remotely interested in Rome or Christianity, and I actually find myself wishing it was longer sometimes. I accidentally left it on the bench in the foyer at school today, so I'm hoping I still have my copy when I go in tomorrow!
2) 1 Peter. Just when you think you have the Koine vocabulary pretty well figured out you read 1 Peter and find yourself in the lexicon twice a sentence. It's unlike anything else in the New Testament stylistically and theologically. I need some recommendations for Petrine criticism, if anyone has any, and I'm sure that I'm only scratching the surface with my current notes.
3) Iliad book 14. The battle beside the ships is at fever pitch, and just when you think it has to be settled one way or another the troops regroup and it starts again. It would collapse into boring repetition if it was anything else, but the clanging of bronze and the speeches of heroes are like an old fine wine.
4) Metamorphoses Book II, which I was reading from an old school primer that stopped after Phaethon's fall. I started reading it on my trip out to San Francisco, and once I got back I stayed up late several nights to scribble out a translation in my notebook. I may need to buy a real copy of this sometime soon.
5) Dickens. I finished Pickwick Papers a few days ago, and am in Dickens withdrawal. The world just isn't quite as rosy when you aren't looking through the windowpanes of Dingley Dell every evening. Plus, Dickens' endings are never quite right. I suspect this is because the stories ought to go on forever.

What I Read on Summer Vacation

Very good historical analysis of media, but most of the neurophysiology went right over my head. I don't know what to make of most brain science claims. Someone who knows the data needs to sit down and make some careful distinctions about what's correlation and what's causation.

The chapters on suffering and asceticism were the best. I'm not sure I understood what he was saying about prayer and meditation. I found Seven-Storey Mountain and Dark Night of the Soul much easier the second time around, and will probably try this one again.

A good quick read, and very sad. The symbolism is a bit overplayed, and the characters are hard to believe by the end.

Wonderful, gripping book. The best American novel I've read in a long time.

Lots of rubbish. He's a great story-teller, but it isn't real history. (Every social ill of the past 500 years is reduced to a greedy cartel of evil white capitalist men.) There are some real injustices in this book that ought to be discussed and addressed, but the whole book is so strident that you hardly know what to take seriously.

I forgot how great this book is. It was a delight to re-read it.

I still love the Hornblower books, but finally discovered why everyone talks about Capt. Aubrey. This was brilliant.

This is what all spy novels should be like. I hadn't read it since college.

I liked the country scenes at the beginning of this one especially. I also started to really get the humor.

The best of the three so far, I thought. (Or maybe I'm just getting more of the naval jargon three books in) It will be hard to decide how many more to read when things get busy in the Fall.

I'd highly recommend this and Mr. Romney's book before the election. They are especially useful for understanding how each candidate interprets the story of the past 20-30 years of political history. I have some narrative context now for statements that I'd otherwise misunderstand. (Or, perhaps, misunderstand even worse)

The first of the Smiley novels. Very good, very original.

Terribly, terribly sad book. I don't know if any of the film adaptations are any good, but I'm sure they couldn't capture the deep religious substory. (Greene might have thought of the religious story as the main course, and the affair as the side dish!)

Not as interesting as Call for the Dead (none of the international concerns) but a good mystery.

Convalescence

I've recently recovered from a rather severe bout of Mahleria with the BPO. (The 3rd symphony, playing assistant.) Mahleria, of course, is a pretty severe ailment. Once you've contracted a strain it takes over your life quickly, and is known for being so protracted and lingering that sometimes there isn't even time for an intermission.





 

Most music students have an episode of it sometime or another. It's quite contagious, and mostly spread by tiny, annoying, high pitched insects with vindictive swarming personalities making a horrible whiny sound. I mean violins, of course.

 

So anyway, a week of Mahleria takes over your life. You feel listless, and then really excited, and then triumphant, and then despairing again, pretty much in random sequence every couple of minutes. I was going to take some medication, but when I got it out I found all the instructions were in German.

 

Okay, that's enough with the Mahler jokes. It was a great week with BPO, and the gig ended with my favorite words: "Hey, what are you doing next week?" Fortunately, this week being a program of absurdly difficult contemporary music, I don't really need to practice, and can devote a little bit of time to reading, writing, and playing with my bouncing baby boy.

James is very bouncy recently. He starts kicking his feet as soon as he wakes up in the morning, then kick-kick-kicks the wipes at the end of his changing table, and leans for the mirror on his dresser when he has a new diaper. Once he gets in front of the mirror he bounces with his reflection for a few minutes, and then goes downstairs. (Bouncing, preferably.) From there he bounds/trots from one end of the house to another with a set of hands under his armpits, from kitchen to living room to kitchen again, then up the stairs, down the stairs, and another circuit. Eventually he tires both parents out, and we put him in his bouncer, where he will happily kick himself up and down, up and down, until he needs a nap. I'm reminded, taking care of him, that the most wonderful thing about Jameses is he's the only one.

Currently reading C.S. Lewis' big 16th century literature book, which I may have to abandon. The first section I kept up with, with some help from the internet looking up names of poets and poems, but the second section is so full of Middle English that I'm missing most of what he's saying. I'm also still working through the Confessiones, Aeschylus' Prometheus, the Iliad, and the Zondervan Hebrew grammar. J and I listened to an N.T. Wright lecture last night on his new book, How God Became King...very good talk and much to talk about afterwards, but we were so tired by the end of it (see Mahleria and the bouncing baby boy) that we went straight to bed!

Dad at Work

Today begins a new season in the Smith house, when Dad (that, all of a sudden, is me) goes to work, and J stays home with the baby. There won't be as much time for writing anymore. Our bedtime has moved from 10:30 to 8, and there is a little boy to play with once I'm home. Here, however, are some of the literary/musical highlights from the past weeks.

Reading Iliad 8, Bede, and Aquinas, Euripides, Luke, Juvenal finished re-reading some Virgil; in English, read the Jane Eyre, the CS Lewis Letters Vol. 3, Tender is the Night, A Passage to India, and The Book Thief and currently reading The Help.

Played Roberto Sierra's Sinfonia No. 4 on an RPO program with Bolero, and also lucked into playing the attached Symphony 101. I believe it's been so long since I've blogged that I would need to include the Mahler 2 program on that list (top 3 performances I've ever been a part of) as well as an unsuccessful trip down to Charlotte.

Currently thinking and arguing about: The meaning of Romans as it pertains to a completed or continuing Jewish hope, Hebrew construct chains, Christian education, the diminution of Advent in the liturgical calendar, and how one goes about raising a child.

My best find on the internet in quite some time:
http://ephemeris.alcuinus.net/index.php
http://yle.fi/radio1/tiede/nuntii_latini/

I have the following list of literary projects, and wonder which should come first. Thoughts?
-A written account of the final days of J's pregnancy, through James' birth and first few days
-A typed prospectus for a popular book on Authority to send to Christian publishers
-A typed prospectus of a translation of the 3rd Harry Potter book into Latin to send to Bloomsbury
-A humorous pseudo-academic work on Paliurnus, the first trumpeter killed by the gods
-A conspiracy theory alleging that William McKinley's assassination at the Pan-American exposition was the beginning of an effort to keep the seat of federal power from relocation to Buffalo, culminating in the sabotage of Buffalo sports teams
-A beginning guide to poetic meter and pronunciation
-The Pile of Dirt (a children's book)

The Business of Soaking

Musicians don't really get days off. They work, by default, during the evenings and weekends. This means that when you attempt to work during the day and be a musician, you don't really ever have "time off." You work during the morning and afternoon, then you teach and perform in the evening. On weekends, you perform some more. On Sundays, you perform in church. And then it's Monday again! Fortunately, this Monday is a holiday, and I don't ever recall being so happy for one. Though I do still have to teach some lessons tonight--and thereby miss Canadian Thanksgiving at home--I've had a perfect day off.

The sad business about working so much is that it really leaves you very little time to get any work done. I've wanted to clean our nursery for some time now, and finally started the project today. I practiced for an upcoming audition, and caught up with some clerical household business. But fear not--I did "relax" as well. I spent a good hour sitting under the tree in our yard reading Cymbeline, as well as reading the Aeneid aloud. There's even a bottle of wine waiting for the end of lessons tonight.

Highlights from the weekend include moving Calvus and Beka into another apartment (to their mild frustration) and chatting with S about college plans. The lowlight was the first marching band parade of the year, which was a disaster. Our marching band

Didn't quite measure up to the others

Not to mention how much I loathe marching band music/culture in general...

Calvus and I read Merchant of Venice recently, and I've also been reading a Lewis Mumford book, a biography of Lorenzo di Medici, Faerie Queene, and Luke, Virgil, Homer, Aquinas, Bede, and Euripides.

Education Reading

Having taken a position at Lima Christian School for the coming year (yay! health insurance) I am doing my due diligence reading books about education philosophy. Doing this lets me 1) ponder my purposes as a teacher 2) avoid my due diligence reading on the childbirth process, which makes me squeamish whenever I think about it. I've checked out a couple of Neil Postman books about education and will probably re-read Abolition of Man. Any recommendations on the subject (of education, not childbirth) are welcome in the comments section.

I'm also currently reading Les Miserables, Livy, Iliad 6, I Corinthians, the Summa Contra, Bede, and the Apologia. I've been working on a blog about the parketos clause in Matthew 5 for over a week, and am officially stalled out. My trumpet practicing is also feeling a bit stalled out. Any recommendations are welcome in the comments section.

We enjoyed a visit with J's parents over the weekend. They, with her grandparents, bought us a crib. It is now assembled in the nursery, next to some children's books I picked up yesterday with M. We found Curious George, some Richard Scarry books, Hop on Pop, and the Velveteen Rabbit. There are many more to go! J and I came up with these others which we would like to find:

The Poky Little Puppy, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, The Mitten, Frog and Toad, Oliver Pig, Morris the Moose, The Story of Ping, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, The Little Red Hen, Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Freight Train, Are You My Mother, Go Dogs Go, Harold and the Purple Crayon, Blueberries for Sal, the rest of the Seuss works, Where the Wild Things Are, Pierre and the other Sendak books...

Any necessary additions (pre reading age) please list in the comments!

7/22 to 8/1

J and I are back at our home in S—port after spending the past two weeks at H—n College. (Forgive me for using abbreviations throughout; I would hate to endanger our friendly relations with H—n College by making public remarks about how there is absolutely nothing to do there. We have also had a recent scare with internet privacy…more on that below.) I practiced and attempted to stay cool while J taught flute students and nearly got herself removed from the camp faculty for performing this piece. I traveled back to R—ster several times to premiere a new trumpet quintet by Wes N. with various section members, and then to play it again at the E—man Brass Symposium. (pictured below)

I also played twice with the BPO, with J and my parents and grandparents coming the second time. Both were outdoor concerts in parks, and the conditions couldn’t have been more beautiful. We played Raiders and also some boring numbers in which the strings had the melody (just kidding) and entertained the little children on their picnic blankets. With RPO done for the season, I probably have just one orchestral concert (over in S—cuse) left before next season.

J’s best friend Jessica returned from overseas this week, and we had a joyous reunion with her. She flew in from a trip through southern Europe with her sister after leaving her African school, and within two days of returning she had already been offered a position in C—lotte. (With an upcoming audition there, it’s not impossible that we might join her.) Unfortunately she’s returned with baggage from her travels. A man she’d only met in passing has contacted J two different ways by googling information on Jessica. We have been thrilled to say that she is already spoken for.

It has been a busy few weeks looking for work; I was called up last Tuesday for an interview at Catholic school, and as soon as I finished was asked to come down to an interview in L—a for a Christian school there. The Catholic school wouldn’t add much beyond what I’m already doing, but the L—a school would be a full-time job with benefits and the freedom to preserve my gigging empire. I had also been prepping for two military band auditions this week, but it looks as if (perhaps fortunately, as I wasn’t feeling particularly well-prepared for or excited about the prospect of either) they might not happen.

In the midst of all of this job uncertainty J and I had a great conversation…one that probably deserves its own blog entry. I’ve long bit my tongue while Christians around me referred to perceived “special providences” as visible acts of God. It is fitting for me to preface any commentary on the subject by declaring faith in a personal God who acts decisively and recognizably in human history. With that said, I strongly doubt that this God resembles a tribal totem, and ought to be held as the personal and immediate cause for every minute good and ill. As J and I have looked for jobs and health insurance, we’ve come to wonder whether 1) direct and immediate divine governance is the sole and immediate cause of my being employed or not being employed, or 2) being a creature with free will among other creatures with free will, the immediate causes of my employment or unemployment are largely effected by myself and those around me. To put it another way, am I unemployed because God isn’t involved, or because he is involved and wishes it so? The truly frightening possibility is 3) that God is personally and immediately involved in working purposes which have little to do with our material comfort and prosperity…purposes of sanctification, discipline, and kingdom-service which must be learned through lowliness and want. Perhaps we shouldn’t be wholly surprised at being told by our Lord, when we ask to be blessed, that he says Blessed are the poor. (I know this is removed from its context…)

I had been preparing for several military band auditions this week, but (as I’ll explain momentarily) it looks as if they won’t be happening. Monday morning I got up early to drive our Neon in for an oil change before taking it south for the first audition. J came into the kitchen as I was getting my coffee ready with the news that our Buick wasn’t starting. I did get the oil changed in the Neon, and learned of several other infirmities. The Buick is currently undergoing a fuel-pump replacement in the shop, and I am still in New York. Blessed are the poor. (I know this is removed from its context…)

Though I was disappointed not to see my in-laws, it was pleasant surprise to see J throughout the day and to spend my birthday (26!) evening with my family. At turning 26, I’m inclined to remark on how old I’m getting (it seems particularly surprising that I’m five years removed from 21) but I’ve promised myself not to start this until much later. I’m in the bloom of youth and will not complain. I was blanketed with good wishes on facebook, and reminded again of my wealth of friends. If you are a friend who reads this sentence and I haven’t spoken with you in awhile, please be patient. I probably have your name written down on a list of people I want to call or email once I’m done practicing. The best greeting of the day was from the Haydenbaby, who has apparently learned to how to pronounce my name and now says it into the phone. Our own baby is growing bigger and kicking harder…every time I see my niece she puts a grin on my face.

Unfortunately my birthday ended up with a rather unpleasant (details omitted) of sickness all night. I am convalescing today by blogging twice and reading Mark, Livy, Plato, Homer, Aquinas, and Wright. I’m not sure whether last night came from my weak stomach (probably the fault of my NU diet) or whether my body never adjusted to not having an audition the following morning. Either way, I am happy to be healthy again. And I am thankful: for restored health, for friends, for my son, for J, and for blessings over-brimming.

Scott and Grisham

I've finally finished N.T. Wright's Resurrection of the Son of God, and I think it's time for a respite from theology in my personal reading. My last novels were Scott's Antiquary and a Grisham novel (The Brethren), about which I jotted some notes. J has mentioned several times how easily and eagerly she reads Grisham, and in frustration is put to sleep or indifference by the style of the 19th century English novel. (With some notable exceptions, including most Jane Austen.) I see, by the way, no reason to have chosen these two particular authors as contrasts aside from their being the two most recent I've read. As far as I know, the point could be better illustrated by contrasting Dickens and Chrichton, or Thackeray and Cussler. The point is, there is a very obvious common style in the 21st century novel that always looks something like this:

The smiles were rare for Benny these days. He was certain Patrick had told what he knew, and it wasn't enough. Patrick knew he would someday get caught; that's why he shrewdly placed the money with the girl, who then hid it from everyone, including Patrick. Brilliant. Nothing short of it.
"What will it take to find her?" he asked Stephano, as the two lunched on soup sent up by room service. The question had been asked many times already. "What, or how much?" "How much, I guess."

And the 19th century novel invariably contains a passage like this:
"Front-de-Boeuf," replied John, "is a man more willing to swallow three manors such as Ivanhoe than to disgorge one of them. For the rest, sirs, I hope none here will deny my right to confer the crown upon the faithful followers who are around me, and ready to perform the usual military service, in the room of those who have wandered to foreign countries, and can neither render homage nor service when called upon." The audience were too much interested in the question not to pronounce the Prince's assumed right altogether indubitable. "A generous Prince! a most noble Lord, who thus takes upon himself the task of rewarding his faithful followers."


The principal differences are not, as is often imagined, related to a more sophisticated vocabulary in the latter, or a lack of literary skill in the former. The main difference is how imageable the the first passage is, and even when read aloud, how hidden from the inner eye the second. Without knowing anything of the story, of the characters, or the tone of voice, I could imagine the Grisham passage taking place on a television screen. The passage from Ivanhoe (chosen, like the Grisham, completely at random) is, after some analysis, able to be understood, but only able to be translated onto a television screen with some effort. Scott is talking principally about ideas in his passage, specifically ideas of vassalage and sovereignty. These ideas do not translate to a television screen particularly well.

The point is that the modern author does not start with a blank literary slate. Even if a child were kept completely away from television (and let us add computers for good measure), he would still encounter screen culture on billboards, in magazines, on the radio, through the conversation of screen-cultured people, and of course, through books written in a screen culture age. This is not by any means a purely bad thing. When I read a Grisham novel I'm amazed at how quickly my mind fills in the details of an atmosphere so dimly lit; judging by his sales numbers, many others have the same experience. Despite page after page of nothing but the starkest dialogue, I always end the book with a clear picture of "how it would have looked." The television mind is nothing if not creative visually.

It takes effort and discipline, however, to be able to read Walter Scott and to make sense of prose that deals primarily with ideas; prose which uses atmosphere in an non-participatory manner, and in which its imageability is a secondary concern if considered at all. I believe, just as we ought to finish our plate to be kind to our guests, we ought to read everything the author wrote (in as close a meaning to his as we can make) out of common courtesy; but if it can't be done, it's probably fine to allow some skimming while one works up the endurance, so long as it's to enjoy the story. If you find yourself reading novels without any concern for the story, though, stop right away. You're in danger of being turned into an ass.

Finally!

We are public; J and I are expecting a baby in November! I've been anxious to write about it for nearly a month, and now I finally can. Unfortunately, I need to supervise math tests at Pax's charter school for the next five hours. This is a stern warning for me of what a dangerous business childrearing is; sometimes, even often, they turn into teenagers. In the meantime, reading Josha 3, Ps 8, Il 4, Matt 14, and N.T. Wright. I started (but had to return) an excellent book yesterday evening called C.S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table...

Also, many congratulations to Lux and M on a wonderful Smee and Michael in Peter Pan.

3/24-4/2

I've not been silent so long for want of thoughts, events, and musings; I've rather been deluged by them. J and I are back from Pennsylvania, my concerts are completed, and I finally have a cup of coffee at my desk and a free morning to write. Here are some highlights from the past week and a half:

-I played a recital at RWC, shared with the trumpet ensemble, of light classical music. Ryan E. accompanied me, and I was genuinely touched when several loyal supporters from CPC showed up in the front row. The program included a Bach duet with Magister, a lyrical cornet solo (Endearing Young Charms), the Hubeau Sonata, and Bugler's Holiday with Magister and Opifera. It was, as J pointed out, my most serious solo effort since my graduate recital, and (with the assistance of a beta blocker) I thoroughly enjoyed it. Almost thou persuadest me to play solo music, Paul!

-J and I traveled to Hanover, PA, where she performed the Borne Carment Fantasie and the Chaminade with the HSO as a special guest alumna. We visited with the music director (a former trumpet player, and Northwestern/Chicago enthusiast, as we found out) to discuss tempi and transitions on Friday night, rehearsed with the orchestra Saturday morning, and played Sunday afternoon. She sounded marvelous. She looked resplendent. Orchestra and audience were gracious; it was, I hope, a most welcome break from the drudge of her day job. I played along as well, hopping into the orchestra to cover a cornet part on the Suite Algerienne.

-We spent considerable quality time with J's family, including several long and delicious conversations with her parents. It is saddening how little we've seen them in the past year, but every time we have seen them there has been immediate comfort and a genuine thirst for honest talk that can be addressed right up front, without wading through a period of niceties and polite small-talk. We also saw her brother Dan and his fiancee Emily, with whom J went out to buy yet more formalwear. Tim brought home a ladyfriend for us to meet, but spent most of the weekend preparing for his most recent musical project. We also saw all of her grandparents and a small selection of aunts and cousins at the orchestra concert.

-I attended, for the first time since September, a Sunday service outside of CPC. It was wonderful. I will go back to CPC (for Chant Sunday) gladly this week having been refreshed in Hanover. The message addressed dispensational views of the endtimes, a significant piece of JMHEFCOP's identity. Knowing very little of the history of dispensationalism, I had an excellent chat with J's father afterward, and am resolved (especially in the light of my N.T. Wright volume) to explore the subject further.

-No mention at any point was made of preterist considerations, which convinces me all the more that American Christianity is still more unaware of it as a theological position than opposed to it. I am also convinced I ought to blog about it sometime in the near future, though of course I'm hesitant to misrepresent something I understand so poorly and hold so loosely.

-Having traveled back on Monday evening, J and I both played in the RWCCO rehearsal of American in Paris. She is playing the concert, and I was covering the third trumpet part for an absentee student. Steven. S. sounds fantastic on the solos in the part.

-We took my parents out to O'Lacy's in Batavia, where we celebrated their sale of the studio property. After twenty years of business there, they are back to a single mortgage. It has been heartbreaking to watch them scrap the property and the business model, but a relief to see my Dad move away from self-employment. As enjoyable as it was to share IPAs and Reubens with them, we share in their season of grief.

-After sending out several pointed and potentially bossy emails (my younger brothers tell me I can be that way) about rehearsal attendance, I had confirmed all parties of RBQ for a Tuesday evening practice. I arrived at 8:30 (for an 8:40 rehearsal), looked in the backseat, and realized that I'd left everyone's music at home in N. Chili. Incredibly, wonderfully, and mercifully, J left a recital early to drive it into us. It would have been an additional hour for me to drive both ways, and she saved my severely chastened hindquarters for that particular evening.

-I played the RPO Around the Town "March" concerts, getting cornet doubling, and switching back and forth between the 2nd and 3rd books. The concerts were free, and all held at different local churches. In the middle of the Thursday evening show, the conductor was introducing works by Grieg and Halvorsen, then mentioned "and speaking of Norwegians, our new music director Arild Remmereit is in attendance tonight." The orchestra sat visibly straighter. The highlight for me was playing 2nd on Aida, which was enough for a solo bow. I love RPO.

-My college-aged student, Ryan H., will attend Houghton College next year. I am proud of how well he is playing, and saddened that he'll be leaving. I did, however, pick up another student, an adult living in N. Chili, that starts this week.

-The RBQ played three assemblies at the Naples Elementary School on Thursday morning, all of a patriotic disposition. (Including one piece which was hastily renamed "American" Fire Dance, so as to fit the program bill.) The kids were respectful and responsive, though I don't think I'll ever instruct them to march in place again while playing anywhere other than a highly elevated stage. We came perilously close to having a horde of 2nd graders march into our bells while we played Stars and Stripes. I saw an RWC alumna who I overlapped with while at the school, and thoroughly enjoyed walking the halls as a distinguished guest instead of as a substitute teacher.

-I returned to substitute teaching in the form of high school Algebra II (read: Study Hall) on Friday morning, and was able to catch up on some neglected reading. I recently have read Tartuffe, some of the collected letters of C.S. Lewis, N.T. Wright's People of God, Matthew 8-11 (v. interesting stuff) up through Is. 62, some of the early Psalms, more letters of Cicero, and Iliad book 4.

-J and I spent quality time with Pax & K. J likened this video to Pax and I discussing the Bills draft needs. Pax is playing a gig this weekend for which he will travel by private jet and limousine. We also got together with Calvus & Beka last night (and a visit from Baby H!), and Calvus and I read Matt. 4-5 aloud in Greek over coffee and onions.

Needless to say, it has been a full week in the Smith house.

On Running After One's Hat

I think it is a sufficiently blustery day to post this GKC article. Reading Il 3, Cicero, Is 51, Matt 4, and Wives and Daughters.

I feel an almost savage envy on hearing that London has been flooded in my absence, while I am in the mere country. My own Battersea has been, I understand, particularly favoured as a meeting of the waters. Battersea was already, as I need hardly say, the most beautiful of human localities. Now that it has the additional splendour of great sheets of water, there must be something quite incomparable in the landscape (or waterscape) of my own romantic town. Battersea must be a vision of Venice. The boat that brought the meat from the butcher's must have shot along those lanes of rippling silver with the strange smoothness of the gondola. The greengrocer who brought cabbages to the corner of the Latchmere Road must have leant upon the oar with the unearthly grace of the gondolier. There is nothing so perfectly poetical as an island; and when a district is flooded it becomes an archipelago.

Some consider such romantic views of flood or fire slightly lacking in reality. But really this romantic view of such inconveniences is quite as practical as the other. The true optimist who sees in such things an opportunity for enjoyment is quite as logical and much more sensible than the ordinary "Indignant Ratepayer" who sees in them an opportunity for grumbling. Real pain, as in the case of being burnt at Smithfield or having a toothache, is a positive thing; it can be supported, but scarcely enjoyed. But, after all, our toothaches are the exception, and as for being burnt at Smithfield, it only happens to us at the very longest intervals. And most of the inconveniences that make men swear or women cry are really sentimental or imaginative inconveniences - things altogether of the mind. For instance, we often hear grown-up people complaining of having to hang about a railway station and wait for a train. Did you ever hear a small boy complain of having to hang about a railway station and wait for a train? No; for to him to be inside a railway station is to be inside a cavern of wonder and a palace of poetical pleasures. Because to him the red light and the green light on the signal are like a new sun and a new moon. Because to him when the wooden arm of the signal falls down suddenly, it is as if a great king had thrown down his staff as a signal and started a shrieking tournament of trains. I myself am of little boys' habit in this matter. They also serve who only stand and wait for the two fifteen. Their meditations may be full of rich and fruitful things. Many of the most purple hours of my life have been passed at Clapham Junction, which is now, I suppose, under water. I have been there in many moods so fixed and mystical that the water might well have come up to my waist before I noticed it particularly. But in the case of all such annoyances, as I have said, everything depends upon the emotional point of view. You can safely apply the test to almost every one of the things that are currently talked of as the typical nuisance of daily life.

For instance, there is a current impression that it is unpleasant to have to run after one's hat. Why should it be unpleasant to the well-ordered and pious mind? Not merely because it is running, and running exhausts one. The same people run much faster in games and sports. The same people run much more eagerly after an uninteresting; little leather ball than they will after a nice silk hat. There is an idea that it is humiliating to run after one's hat; and when people say it is humiliating they mean that it is comic. It certainly is comic; but man is a very comic creature, and most of the things he does are comic - eating, for instance. And the most comic things of all are exactly the things that are most worth doing - such as making love. A man running after a hat is not half so ridiculous as a man running after a wife.

Now a man could, if he felt rightly in the matter, run after his hat with the manliest ardour and the most sacred joy. He might regard himself as a jolly huntsman pursuing a wild animal, for certainly no animal could be wilder. In fact, I am inclined to believe that hat-hunting on windy days will be the sport of the upper classes in the future. There will be a meet of ladies and gentlemen on some high ground on a gusty morning. They will be told that the professional attendants have started a hat in such-and-such a thicket, or whatever be the technical term. Notice that this employment will in the fullest degree combine sport with humanitarianism. The hunters would feel that they were not inflicting pain. Nay, they would feel that they were inflicting pleasure, rich, almost riotous pleasure, upon the people who were looking on. When last I saw an old gentleman running after his hat in Hyde Park, I told him that a heart so benevolent as his ought to be filled with peace and thanks at the thought of how much unaffected pleasure his every gesture and bodily attitude were at that moment giving to the crowd.

The same principle can be applied to every other typical domestic worry. A gentleman trying to get a fly out of the milk or a piece of cork out of his glass of wine often imagines himself to be irritated. Let him think for a moment of the patience of anglers sitting by dark pools, and let his soul be immediately irradiated with gratification and repose. Again, I have known some people of very modern views driven by their distress to the use of theological terms to which they attached no doctrinal significance, merely because a drawer was jammed tight and they could not pull it out. A friend of mine was particularly afflicted in this way. Every day his drawer was jammed, and every day in consequence it was something else that rhymes to it. But I pointed out to him that this sense of wrong was really subjective and relative; it rested entirely upon the assumption that the drawer could, should, and would come out easily. "But if," I said, "you picture to yourself that you are pulling against some powerful and oppressive enemy, the struggle will become merely exciting and not exasperating. Imagine that you are tugging up a lifeboat out of the sea. Imagine that you are roping up a fellow-creature out of an Alpine crevass. Imagine even that you are a boy again and engaged in a tug-of-war between French and English." Shortly after saying this I left him; but I have no doubt at all that my words bore the best possible fruit. I have no doubt that every day of his life he hangs on to the handle of that drawer with a flushed face and eyes bright with battle, uttering encouraging shouts to himself, and seeming to hear all round him the roar of an applauding ring.

So I do not think that it is altogether fanciful or incredible to suppose that even the floods in London may be accepted and enjoyed poetically. Nothing beyond inconvenience seems really to have been caused by them; and inconvenience, as I have said, is only one aspect, and that the most unimaginative and accidental aspect of a really romantic situation. An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. The water that girdled the houses and shops of London must, if anything, have only increased their previous witchery and wonder. For as the Roman Catholic priest in the story said: "Wine is good with everything except water," and on a similar principle, water is good with everything except wine.

Animal Farm

I spent Monday and today reading Animal Farm to sleepy looking 9^th graders at the local high school, and attempting to explain the parallels in Soviet history. I worked with another teacher, and she handed out the following journal topic:

Mr. Jones uses violence to goad the animals, and the animals use violence in revolt; are the animals justified in using violence? Is violence ever justifiable in for a good cause?

She then laid out her instructions and asked them to write whether they believed “an eye for an eye” was ever right, which seems to me to be an entirely separate discussion. The old principle of an eye for an eye (which German scholars now tell us the Hebrew people borrowed from Hammurabi) was a legal, and not a moral verse. Neither Moses nor Hammurabi ever stated that boundaries ought to be defended and kings succeeded by poking out eyes. (German scholars now tell us that the Hebrews borrowed the concept of “eyes,” and possibly other organs, from the ancient epic of Gilgamesh) They only stated that if someone did lose an eye, the law demanded that the responsible party suffer the same penalty. Confusing these two dilemmas (which are both interesting discussions) is like asking “Under what circumstances is Imperialism a just practice? Does this mean that Imperialist nations must pay their fines by cashier’s check?”

As regards the general justice of violence, I’m inclined to ask for more specific terms. Physical violence is the type being asked about, but the entrenched pacifist needs to consider verbal and psychological violence as well. This blog, for example, uses the English language forcibly. Whether or not anyone reads it, I do enjoy saying strong words for the same reason I enjoy drinking strong drinks: it is invigorating. This blog is the literary equivalent of throwing rocks at glass bottles back in the woods. It helps my aim, but I mostly like the noise. All of us know I’m sure, the perpetrators of psychological violence. They ask uncomfortable questions and use their body language to confound, trip, and flabbergast us without ever raising a fist or saying a word. The skilled dialectician may never work physical harm upon a living soul, but between his verbal and psychological force he crumbles those around him. This world is, despite our best efforts, still a wilderness in many respects. But is it ever permissible to practice violence upon another creature bearing the imago Dei? If so, I think it must be done by the rules of the West. As abominable as war might be, it can be and has been conducted with honor. The Judeo-Christian world is worth preserving from whatever would assail it on the outside, and the Judeo-Christian ethic of war is the means to that end; to spare woman and child, to prefer conservation to waste and plunder, and to practice chivalry to enemy and ally. To prefer mercy, to practice the art of arms, and to respect the duces and the patria; these qualities exemplify the man who might justly defend himself with physical violence.

Reading today some Byron, Il 3, Cicero, Pliny, Is 50, Matt 2, and Wives and Daughters. Here is Gaskell on the Gibson’s cook: “The cook did not like the trouble of late dinners; and being a Methodist, she objected on religious grounds to trying any of Mrs. Gibson’s new recipes for French dishes.

Identity and Quiddity

From The Thing: Unless Sir Arthur Keith is very badly misreported, he specifically stated that spiritual existence ceases with the physical functions; and that no medical man could conscientiously say anything else. However grave be the injury called death (which indeed is often fatal), this strikes me as a case in which it is quite unnecessary to call in a medical man at all.


Reading today The Thing, Aeneid 6, Il 3, Rev 18 and Is 44.

One of the more interesting words I hear tossed around nowadays is "identity." The word comes to us from the Latin idem, which comes from the neuter masc. of is, and is roughly translated as the same or sameness. The difference between identity, which is a subject of much interest to the modern person, and quiddity, which comes from the pronouns quis/quid, and is unlikely to be heard from except on Jeopardy, is enormously important. The difference between id and quid, as a matter of fact, is like unto homoousios and homoiousios.
Identity is sameness or equivalency. This can be predicated of that. I, for example, am a musician. I am, in many obvious respects, the same as other musicians. About my brother Pax you might predicate "musical." You may also predicate "man," and "two-legged." Over the course of his life some aspects of his identity were predetermined. For example, he shares a last name with his father and brothers. This gives them all the identifying marker of "Smith." But Pax has chosen to grow a beard. Pax is bearded. He is the same as bearded men, and this is most likely how a stranger would describe him if he was attempting to distinguish him to a police officer. ("He is a tall bearded man with glasses in a gray pea-coat.") A closer friend of Pax's might be able to give them a closer look at his identity. ("He is music teacher, and he loves children. He is a lifelong Buffalo Bills fan, and has a great sense of humor.") Clearly the second description says more about what sort of person Pax is, but it does so by using sameness; he is the same as a person who teaches music, or who cheers for the Buffalo Bills. It is understood what this characteristic is, so the description makes sense. Pax would be much better known by this description, and not merely recognized. (Incidentally, I have know idea what it was that got him into trouble with the police officer.)
The Medieval theologians talked at great length about the quiddity and the accidents of a think. Two legs are accidental to Pax. He has two legs, but if he lost one of them, he would be no less essentially (from esse, to be) Pax than he was before. The word essence usually conjures fragrances to the modern mind; but the old technical usage of the word was to describe the absolute characteristic of a thing which made it what it was. Its quiddity, if you will. Consider Aquinas on whether there are accidents in God:
From all we have said, it is clear there can be no accident in God. First, because a subject is compared to its accidents as potentiality to actuality; for a subject is in some sense made actual by its accidents. But there can be no potentiality in God, as was shown. Secondly, because God is His own existence; and as Boethius says (Hebdom.), although every essence may have something superadded to it, this cannot apply to absolute being: thus a heated substance can have something extraneous to heat added to it, as whiteness, nevertheless absolute heat can have nothing else than heat. Thirdly, because what is essential is prior to what is accidental. Whence as God is absolute primal being, there can be in Him nothing accidental. Neither can He have any essential accidents (as the capability of laughing is an essential accident of man), because such accidents are caused by the constituent principles of the subject. Now there can be nothing caused in God, since He is the first cause. Hence it follows that there is no accident in God.
Or in Latin
Respondeo dicendum quod, secundum praemissa, manifeste apparet quod in Deo accidens esse non potest. Primo quidem, quia subiectum comparatur ad accidens, sicut potentia ad actum, subiectum enim secundum accidens est aliquo modo in actu. Esse autem in potentia, omnino removetur a Deo, ut ex praedictis patet. Secundo, quia Deus est suum esse, et, ut Boetius dicit in Lib. de Hebdomad., licet id quod est, aliquid aliud possit habere adiunctum, tamen ipsum esse nihil aliud adiunctum habere potest, sicut quod est calidum, potest habere aliquid extraneum quam calidum, ut albedinem; sed ipse calor nihil habet praeter calorem. Tertio, quia omne quod est per se, prius est eo quod est per accidens. Unde, cum Deus sit simpliciter primum ens, in eo non potest esse aliquid per accidens. Sed nec accidentia per se in eo esse possunt, sicut risibile est per se accidens hominis. Quia huiusmodi accidentia causantur ex principiis subiecti, in Deo autem nihil potest esse causatum, cum sit causa prima. Unde relinquitur quod in Deo nullum sit accidens.

Consider for one wild moment what a different world it would be if angry teenagers shut themselves up in their rooms looking for quiddity instead of identity; if political interest was put forward based on the arguments of a person's essential nature rather than an invisible and subjective identity. I think it would at least revolutionize the high school guidance office.