All that matters is that the time is late
Reluctantly I abandon the idea of a political catch-up post, because last week while I was at NecronomiCon and this week in between doctor's appointments a lot of things happened and a great many of them sucked on toast. In brief: I can't be proud because I wasn't part of it, but I am glad beyond words of Boston's response to last Saturday's "Free Speech Rally," both the eloquent evidence that counter-protesters outnumbered organizers at least eight hundred to one and the demonstrable fact that the turnout, without requiring violence on the part of the counter-protest, made Nazis afraid again. I am heartened by the statement of the March for Racial Justice on the Elaine Massacre, Black-Jewish solidarity, and Yom Kippur; see also these related thoughts. 45 signed his trans military ban into law and I hope there are lawyers on it already, but I would also accept lightning or a space rock. Even as a pure matter of expediency rather than ethics, he wants a surge in Afghanistan but he doesn't want soldiers? As for ethics, I have begun to feel that I would be more comforted about current politics if I believed in hell. The RNC has denounced white supremacy, but they made themselves the party of neo-Nazis, the party of neo-Confederates, the party of white fear and hatred when they endorsed 45: I want to see them back up those quite minimally reasonable words with some action that isn't wringing of hands. Here are some very disparate things off the internet.
1.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
selkie linked me an eclipse.
2. The Onion achieves American folklore. "These days, a lot fewer people are being drawn into an abandoned rail yard by the beguiling whisper of their lost loves only to find themselves emerging into a flickering phantasm of Grand Central Station in the 1940s."
3. I took an online quiz which purported to tell me my Homeric epithet. I was not expecting it, but I am not going to kick this result out of bed for eating crackers:
You are [Sovay], great teller of tales. The Greek hero Odysseus had many epithets ascribed to him (others included "much-enduring," "cunning," and "man of twists and turns"), and this was one of them, so you're in good company.
4. Have an interview about spies and fiction with John le Carré and Ben McIntyre.
5. I just discovered that there exists a televised staging of Gian Carlo Menotti's The Consul (1950), filmed in 1960 with Patricia Neway who originated the starring role of Magda Sorel. I always think her second-act aria is called "Papers! Papers!" but in fact it's "To this we've come." Like much of the opera with its thickening nightmare of bureaucracy and totalitarianism, it has been feeling relevant lately.
To this we've come:
that men withhold the world from men.
No ship nor shore for him who drowns at sea.
No home nor grave for him who dies on land.
To this we've come:
that man be born a stranger upon God's earth,
that he be chosen without a chance for choice,
that he be hunted without the hope of refuge.
To this we've come:
and you, you, too, shall weep.
If to them, not to God, we now must pray,
tell me, Secretary, tell me,
who are these men?
If to them, not to God, we must pray,
tell me, Secretary, tell me!
Who are these dark archangels?
Will they be conquered? Will they be doomed?
Is there one—anyone behind those doors
to whom the heart can still be explained?
Is there one—anyone who still may care?
Tell me, Secretary, tell me!
Have you ever seen the Consul?
1.
selkie linked me an eclipse.2. The Onion achieves American folklore. "These days, a lot fewer people are being drawn into an abandoned rail yard by the beguiling whisper of their lost loves only to find themselves emerging into a flickering phantasm of Grand Central Station in the 1940s."
3. I took an online quiz which purported to tell me my Homeric epithet. I was not expecting it, but I am not going to kick this result out of bed for eating crackers:
You are [Sovay], great teller of tales. The Greek hero Odysseus had many epithets ascribed to him (others included "much-enduring," "cunning," and "man of twists and turns"), and this was one of them, so you're in good company.
4. Have an interview about spies and fiction with John le Carré and Ben McIntyre.
5. I just discovered that there exists a televised staging of Gian Carlo Menotti's The Consul (1950), filmed in 1960 with Patricia Neway who originated the starring role of Magda Sorel. I always think her second-act aria is called "Papers! Papers!" but in fact it's "To this we've come." Like much of the opera with its thickening nightmare of bureaucracy and totalitarianism, it has been feeling relevant lately.
To this we've come:
that men withhold the world from men.
No ship nor shore for him who drowns at sea.
No home nor grave for him who dies on land.
To this we've come:
that man be born a stranger upon God's earth,
that he be chosen without a chance for choice,
that he be hunted without the hope of refuge.
To this we've come:
and you, you, too, shall weep.
If to them, not to God, we now must pray,
tell me, Secretary, tell me,
who are these men?
If to them, not to God, we must pray,
tell me, Secretary, tell me!
Who are these dark archangels?
Will they be conquered? Will they be doomed?
Is there one—anyone behind those doors
to whom the heart can still be explained?
Is there one—anyone who still may care?
Tell me, Secretary, tell me!
Have you ever seen the Consul?
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It's clear that the orange wonder boy does not.............
But then a look at the record shows how he avoided service not once, but four times so quelle surprise!
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It is quite an impressive example of its type.
(What's your field as a historian?)
But then a look at the record shows how he avoided service not once, but four times so quelle surprise!
Hey, those bone spurs uniquely qualified him to send better people out to die!
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All times really do exist simultaneously, because if not, how could words meant for today be written in 1950?
.... I loved the Onion story and shared it w/the tall one, and the eclipse made me smile, too.
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Gian Carlo Menotti is one of my favorite composers of the twentieth century. The Consul and The Medium are the major reasons.
All times really do exist simultaneously, because if not, how could words meant for today be written in 1950?
Per Eliot:
"Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable."
I like that reading better than the feeling I keep having that time is collapsing in on itself.
.... I loved the Onion story and shared it w/the tall one, and the eclipse made me smile, too.
My other favorite simulated eclipse came from Facebook and was a (live-action) black kitten passing in front of an orange kitten.
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And no one was murdered. Violence on many sides, my foot.
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Yes. Some arrests, but no cars, no torches, no militia. That is a good point and I have edited accordingly.
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He's one of my favorites. On top of the way he exploded the spy genre, I just really like his prose.
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Heh.
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Not bad!
Athena was the patron of Odysseus and helped him out of some tough spots, except for those times she just didn’t feel like it for some reason or another.
Well, she wouldn't get much of a chance to see him lie if she took care of everything . . .
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You're welcome. It did not feel quite so imminent when I saw it staged twelve years ago by Opera Boston.
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I'd never heard this phrase before!
Did you invent it, or is it a US/New York phrase?
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I don't think I invented it, although I can't remember any specific occasion where I heard or read it. I think it must have evolved from the older and well-attested "stinks on ice." It's also possible that I came up with it in parallel with other people, the English language being what it is. I know I thought of "rocket surgery" on my own, but it's the obvious fusion of "It's not rocket science"/"It's not brain surgery," and therefore I am not surprised that the internet just now told me that been in general usage since 1994. It's even a TV Trope.
For what it's worth, I have New York in the family, but I live in (and was born in, and grew up in) the greater Boston area.
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Huh!
I keep seeing you write about New York on Dreamwidth, and I think I'd formed the idea that you were originally from New York (either grew up there and/or went to university there), and that was why you kept going back there for visits so often...
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I went to university in New Haven, so there were a number of years when I spent a lot of time in New York, especially since my partner at the time was living there. I have a lot of ancestral attachment to the city—both of my grandparents were native New Yorkers, as is my father, and my mother spent significant periods of her life there—and it has always treated me well. I have friends there and reasons to visit ranging from theater to bookstores to film. But I have actually spent the majority of my life in the greater Boston area, though I did not intend to, and any apparent innate New York-ness on my part is either family culture or the effects of frequent exposure to pre-Code cinema.
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That's excellent! I second adding it to your sig line.
τερπικέραυνος was actually the first epithet of Zeus I ever learned.
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There is an original cast recording and it is available on CD.
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