Brideshead Revisited Revisited: I

As if a young infatuation
crush
an explosive seduction into the aesthetic
that nexus of senses and truth
can legitimately be used to cast the free-agent into an identity
an identity of inversion.

That is a time to find heroes
a time to find understanding.
Then we make our transition
and leave the pool where we loitered gazing at our reflection.

Six Six Sixties

I am one of the injured
A tear blurs flesh
Dissolving like an injured dog
Like wasted limbs get smaller
Pain is the stimulus of pain
But then of course nothing is cured
This is the world now
Move a fin and the world turns
Sit in a chair and pictures change
Try to eat us
Get trapped
Or injured
Just

—TG

*Font of Inspiration for the Muses near Mount Olympus

A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pyrean Spring*:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.

— Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism

The Third Man

Screenplay by Graham Greene

This is Film Noir most certain...in terms of cinematography: chiaroscuro, long shadows, angular framing...and in terms of setting: opening and closing in a cemetery, underground locations, bombed out locations...and also in terms of plot: chasing after a dead man. But there is something not so noir about this film, and ironically, it’s a bit unsettling. Is it the score? Is it the flippant characters? Is it that irony itself? The thing is, while The Third Man is absolutely intriguing and throroughly enjoyable, there is little that is sufficiently gripping about it...let alone menacing.

Fast forward 42 years to Lars von Trier’s Zentropa. Zentropa is gripping; it is menacing, and in many ways similar to The Third Man. In both the protagonist is an American who’s just arrived to the bombed out rubblescapes of post WW II Europe. Both have a phantasmagoric quest; Holly Martins is trying to find his friend Harry Lime who’s supposed to be dead, but keeps appearing all over the place; Leopold Kessler is trying to find something a little more elusive...his purpose...indeed his life. Both men also find themselves involved with femme fatals...it really wouldn’t be Noir without them.

Overall, I find Zentropa preferable. The storyline is much more opaque, but it is also much more layered and critical. I also was rather impressed with the cinematography, which has already been best summed up here:

...Lars von Trier's bag of cinematic tricks...include old-fashioned film techniques mixed with modern high tech. Some of the dialogue and interaction are arch and distant, resembling an old 40s B movie, while some is devastatingly personal. Occasionally, the film shifts from grainy, newsreel black-and-white to spurts of color – most frequent during the scenes of violence. There is even extended use of the old rear-projection format, complete with spinning, disorienting camera work.

This reviewer criticizes the film for having a story that is secondary to the cinematic tricks, but I absolutely disagree. Others are even less charitable and charge von Trier with so much cinematographic masturbation. Nonsense. The techniques used have several outstanding effects: one is that the layering of the narrative is given visual form; another is the impression of speaking through symbols, which I think universalizes what is being portrayed; and finally the viewer is rendered less passive and is actually drawn into the movement within the narrative even to the point that you can come to believe that...you are on a train in Germany...

shroud:

n: something that covers, screens, or guards. v: to veil under another appearance.

Ah, the Shroud of Turin, one of those parts of pious legend that I neither really accept nor deny. I’m open to its mystery, but also cautious of all the efforts to both prove or disprove its authenticity. Four thoughts:

I find it most incredulous that the shroud should have been held under wraps until 1357, a time, furthermore, rife with forgeries of relics. Still, that in itself is conclusive of nothing.

That Leonardo da Vinci was such a genius and trickster. Maybe so, but he was a genius who was born in 1452.

The 1988 C-14 testing of the shroud’s fiber was supposed to be scientific proof that the shroud was a forgery. In fact, it was more proof that careless scientists produce junk science. The sample tested was from a medieval reweave, and so naturally it produced a medieval date. More than this though, the cloth may with all likelihood be completely undatable using the C-14 method. The 1532 fire that the shroud survived would have saturated the cloth with micro-fine carbon particles that would radically skew any test results.

Now the latest discovery is all very bright and skeptical (in the most Scewtapian sense). So it has been demonstrated that a natural manufacturing process using the sun’s radiation can produce an image on cloth. Once again, all hail science, but how does this disprove that the radiation from a resurrecting god-man didn’t produce an image on cloth? The supernatural would still have all of the laws of nature at His disposal...laws that He would understand infinitely better than us.

Update March 16, 2005. Elsewhere, Xon writes:

Yes, mcmlxix, but Wilson himself is quick to point out that he hasn't "proved" the Shroud to be a fake. But, he does say that his experiment might very well take away one of the major elements of the Shroud apologia, the claim that "nobody knows how this could have been faked." Wilson appears to show (though more tests are needed) exactly how it could have been faked by a medieval. Does that mean it was faked? Not necessarily. It just means that Shroud believers can't continue to say that it couldn't have been.

And Wilson is hardly a "all hail science" kind of guy. He would stand with you against modern scientism.

This is a good point of clarification, but I don’t think that my contention was with Wilson or his hypothesis. I realize that he acknowledges that he hasn’t proven anything. My reaction had to do more with how others will read and understand his conclusions. Given my experience, I’m more concerned with the amount of cynicism (of that self-satisfied Screwtapian sort), as well as that ready and uncritical acceptance of whatever is in print or on The Discovery Channel. Innuendo of what one wants to believe is usually more convincing than facts of what one doesn’t.

Third Eye Blind

Lisa: Can I ask you about that dot?
Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilon: What would you like to know?
Lisa: What's the deal with that dot?
Bart: Can you see out of it? Does it turn color when you’re ticked off?
Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilon: You tell me.
Bart: Nothing yet...

In Vedic thought आज (ājñā) is the nexus of intuition...the third eye, once awaked, can come to look upon the divine...

...exit stage west...

...unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe. But the Word...reveals Itself only to he who loves It...it is revealed only for a moment and only to Its lover. The eye opens...the eye closes.

The problem with tolerance

Imagine hearing from a parent, child, spouse, or just about anyone really, "I tolerate you." What the hell...

Tolerance has become the preeminent virtue of our age, but the problem with tolerance is that it’s not even a virtue at all. It’s really a just clever bastardization of that genuine virtue brotherly love. Of course to grow in any virtue, we really need to also overcome its corresponding vice...in this case envy. Ironically, the paradigm that has imposed the dogma of tolerance on our culture has as its source the Gramscian politics of identity and division, which in turn has at its very core envy. What’s even more ironic, the high priests of tolerance won’t hesitate to excommunicate dissenters under mortal pain.

How terribly sad to be merely tolerated really...no, we want to hear that we’re loved...or at the very least, admired or liked. More than this, the word once spoken needs to take concrete shape, and there is much that genuine love simply can never tolerate...this includes behaviors and attitudes that are injurious to self or others. To begin in understanding the sources of injury we need to look at the vices...the seeds that produce bitter fruit. How much better to cultivate virtues...even as we may be deeply aware of the messiness of the human condition...they are the sign posts.

Foucault's Pendulum

Umberto Eco

I didn't really know what to expect with Eco. While I find the topic of esoterica and secret societies fascinating, often the result is puerile pulp...as this novel itself acknowledges. Also, my concern was with Eco's notoriety as a preeminent postmodern novelist...what with postmodernism being a bugaboo of mine. What I learned from reading this novel however, is that like it or not, to some extent, we're all postmodernists now.

This is the long (the setup to the story is the first 500 pages) story of three men who work at a Milan publishing house who conspire to weave together all of western esoterica and secret societies into one total narrative...really as a hoax to be gobbled up by those with itching ears...and proclivities. What our three protagonists learn at the conclusion is that life imitating art is a metaphysically profound understatement. As far as I'm concerned, the mere 5 pages of chapter 110 hold a powerful key to the entire narrative as well as much understanding..."so we attempted to do what was not allowed us, what we were not prepared for. Manipulating the words of the Book, we attempted to construct a golem," but it wouldn't make the sense that it does out of the context of the 640 some odd pages, so jump in if you want, but also know that the dénouement has all of the dreariness of a resigned existentialism.

Tsunamis That Strike Our Existence

A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation."
— Stephen Crane

The existentialist attitude can never comprehend meaning and so lapses into nihilism, but a personalist response that expects meaningfulness begins with the proposition: EX NIHILO...

The meaning of things—for us, who have not created them, nor who have made ourselves—cannot be demonstrated in an impossible, cold, logical concatenation of everything, but in the warmth of a relationship that supports us for the time necessary for its unveiling, which—in any case—at least in this life, will never be total.

A destiny that is simply fate does not take away tragedy: it sharpens it, because it makes the pain not only necessary, but also irredeemable. This is what the Gospel verse refers to, "Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did." That is, you will die without meaning.
— Giancarlo Cesana

Kill. Faster! Faster!

the girl... Yeah, she saved Kirk by hopping in the jeep and motoring over Varla. Varla tried to muster one last karate chop but fell over and heaved her last.

but that girl... Did you notice her epiphany? She was all like, "I saved your life." Pause. "I saved my life too." Up until that time, she hadn't been much more than a clinging or sobbing bimbo, but she finally realized that she could take care of herself. The irony was that she learned this when her limited choice involved killing another.

Cutting up Frost

And miles to here To watch
if there is easy wind and
see me stopping But I have
lake The darkest harness bells a
promises to keep, I know. His
My little horse Whose woods these
go before I sleep, must think it
his woods fill shake To ask
dark, and deep, only other sound's
And miles to are I think
He will not go before I sleep.
woods are lovely, evening of the year.
up with snow. the sweep Of
near Between the He gives his
house is in some mistake. The
without a farmhouse queer To stop
the village, though; downy flake. The
woods and frozen

One Day in One Hundred Years

The pain
And the creeping feeling
A little black haired girl
Waiting for Saturday
The death of her father pushing her
Pushing her white face into the mirror
Aching inside me
And turn me round

— The Cure

The Animals are Waiting

I was in a dream orchestrated by the Legendary Pink Dots. Edward Ka-Spel chanter was there, as well as Niels van Hoornblower making his solitary, melancholy noise. The leer, urban streets were strewn with trash. Rib bone and bottle cap. All the while, the ghosts of retarded street children sang through their chanter...wan and eerie out of memory. The animals are waiting. Chant reiterated by the equivalent horn tones. This wasn’t a dream at all, but a parallel image, awake, outside my chamber door.

Echo I

Damn, and it’s cold here too on this altiplano — and beyond — where the jagged earth rises up to meet my sore feet. How close to the equator, but how much closer to the moon. Swift, agile, barrel-chested youths race by and by, up and down tracks with cords of knots.

It’s too numb cold right now, and the air doesn’t satisfy me either — like trying to bathe in just one drop of water; I have to get back. But I’m not even sure how I got here...or where back is for that matter. Back in time, deeper into my mind, some other land...still yet, further out of my mind, or back to the future. I focus again. Why are all of these people here — with their eyes full of stories and their mouths full of secrets.

Searching for the lost gold — isn’t that why everyone comes here — fumbling Pizarro dropped those buttery bricks. Goldbricks, the shape of butter sticks. Isn’t that why I’m here...to get a taste of that buttery gold. How many sticks would I have to eat to get my blood just the right shade. Do the alchemists know. That intense bright, bright red...the red of gold based hemoglobin...not that dull rusty red of the iron based, or the blue of the silver based, or green of the copper based that you find in deep trenches under the sea or on orbs beyond the moon. We’re so much closer to the moon.

This is a valley of ashes...

...a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of ash-grey men, who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

A Christmas Story

It’s certainly true that throughout the world, and in its many cultures, people believe and practice many things, but what happens when a people begin to forget some of the history or symbols of what they believe or practice? What happens when some people being to forget to practice what they believe? What happens when some practices evolve into something incoherent and obscure the story? What happens when an effort emerges to deliberately erase the meaning of the story if not the word Christmas itself in favor of the more generic...holiday. Culturally, such times are Dark Ages. As an anthropologist I have an interest in these forgettings, and as a believer I have a vested interest. I cannot begin to offer the entire story or its symbolism, but some highlights show that for everything there is a season.

Advent is a liturgical season that is also the beginning of the liturgical year. It starts four Sundays prior to Christmas and ends Christmas Eve. One of the most important questions we should ask ourselves during Advent is not whether we’re ready for Christmas (shopping, decorating, mailing, baking, etc.) but whether we’re ready for Christ. Advent is actually a penitential time and one of the sparity (even fasting) needed to clear the clutter and enter ultimately into reflection. This is a special time to spiritually prepare for Jesus’ coming...his coming in his Incarnation over 2000 years ago; his coming into our lives daily; and his coming back at the end of time. As St John the Baptist teaches us, we must decrease so that Jesus might increase.

However, within Advent there are some days that elicit merriment. December 6th is the memorial of St Nicholas who was the Bishop of Myra, Lycia in modern Turkey. He was known to be generous to the poor; a special protector of the innocent and wronged; and venerated as a wonderworker. He died in about 346. According to legend, upon hearing that a local man had fallen on such hard times that he was planning to sell his daughters into prostitution, Nicholas went by night to the house and threw three bags of gold in through the window which landed in their shoes, saving the girls from an evil life. As a special patron of children among others and associated with gift giving, his story evolved in northern Europe where he flies from rooftop to rooftop on a white horse on St Nicholas Eve dropping chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil, as well as other such treats and trinkets, into the shoes placed out by children. This legend and practice then devolved into Santa Claus in North America.

Also of note is the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception on December 8th, which is one of a handful of major holy days within the year. Essentially it has nothing directly to do with the Advent-Christmas seasons and so really needn’t be discussed in this context except as a point of disambiguation. The reason why it’s not relevant to Advent-Christmas directly is because it commemorates the conception of St Mary by Sts Anne and Joachim not the conception of Jesus by St Mary, which is the commonly held belief. Another point of confusion is probably due to the many themes of Jesus’ conception at this time, but that is because, scripturally, Advent deals with events from Jesus conception to his birth as well as the many prophetic texts surrounding the advent of the messiah.

Now, the actual date of Jesus’ birth is unknown, and some place it in the spring to coincide with the likely time of the Roman census and the reason Sts Mary and Joseph had to travel to Bethlehem. It is also unknown for certain whether its placement by the early Church in the beginning of winter to coincide with (and co-opt) the pagan Saturnalia was deliberate or not. None of this ultimately matters. The birth happened, and the exact date isn’t all that important. What matters to me is unfortunately how cheapened Christmas has become...how lacking in Christ...culturally.

The evening vigil and Christmas Day are a time to reflect deeply on one of the greatest mysteries of history and of faith...the Incarnation. The eternal, infinite, unknowable, all-powerful...the great I AM took it upon Himself to enter time and space. St John Chrysostom wrote:

It is proper and right to sing to You, bless You, praise You, thank You and worship You in all places of Your dominion; for You are God ineffable, beyond comprehension, invisible, beyond understanding, existing forever and always the same...[and]...are surrounded by thousands of Archangels and tens of thousands of Angels, by the Cherubim and Seraphim, six-winged, many-eyed, soaring with their wings.

All of this and more have been poured into a vulnerable little baby. God entered into a human family...He entered into the whole human family so that He might bring us back home with Him.

Stop.
Wisdom. Let us be attentive.
Meditate.

So, this isn’t really the best of times to focus our activities on crass materialism, gluttony, and boozing it up. It's just not right. Anyway, Christmas begins the liturgical season of Christmas, which lasts until Epiphany. This season is the Twelve Days of Christmas recorded in song, and this is the time for rejoicing and merriment.

Now there isn’t a day that goes by on the liturgical calendar that isn’t a feast or memorial of something or other...indeed some days contain up to a dozen possibilities, but this is a Christmas Story so I shan’t bother with the many between the beginning of Advent through Epiphany, but between Christmas Day and Epiphany there are a few that are relevant. December 26th celebrates the Holy Family, and the feast of the Holy Innocents on December 28th remembers the male children who were murdered by order of King Herod the Great in his attempt to eliminate the rival king...the king as fortold in scripture and mentioned by the Magi on their way to Bethlehem...which was the reason for the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt. Of course chronologically, this is putting the cart before the horse, but no matter. January 1st commemorated the circumcision of the Lord one week after his birth in accords with the very Law He came to fulfill. This day is of course New Year’s Day now, and it is also the solemnity of Mary Mother of God.

The season of Christmas ends with the Epiphany of the Lord on January 6th and liturgically, ordinary time beings. In most Christian cultures this has been the time to exchange gifts (or alternately on New Year’s Day) not Christmas Day, and this practice is symbolically and historically more consistent as the Epiphany is the commemoration of the arrival of the Magi in Bethlehem bearing gifts. The meanings of the gifts themselves presented are important as well. Gold is for He who is a king, frankincense is for He who is a priest, and myrrh is for He who is to die.

Culture gives us seasons. It gives us the memories and the symbols, but when a culture is in large part based on a faith...a faith that is revealed directly by the ineffable, the infinite, the A-Ω...how much of that are we allowed to change on our own to suit our own whim, and what is our responsibility not to forget?

The first thing that must strike...

...a non-Christian about a Christian's faith is that it is all too daring. It is too beautiful to be true: The mystery of being, unveiled as absolute love, coming down to wash the feet and the souls of its creatures; a love that assumes the whole burden of our guilt and hate, that accepts the accusations that shower down...all the scorn and contempt that nails down his incomprehensible movement of self-abasement...all this absolute love accepts in order to excuse his creature before himself.....

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

Why are you wearing that stupid bunny suit?

Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?
That's a trick question.
Silly rabbit, Gnostic tricks are for kids.

Parallels...what does it mean exactly...

Lord Krishna is the 8th incarnation of Vishnu – one of three persons of the Sri Trimuthi – the supreme Godhead.

Lord Christ is the incarnation of the Son of God – one of three persons of the Holy Trinity – the supreme Godhead.

Preface      East Meets West: I >>

Paradise

It has its price.
We're forced to crawl through needle's eyes.
Our price.
Our choice.
We rarely make the right one.

— lpd