Mark Hollis, 1955-2019

Paul Webb, Talk Talk's bassist, posts on instagram:

I am very shocked and saddened to hear the news of the passing of Mark Hollis. Musically he was a genius and it was a honour and a privilege to have been in a band with him. I have not seen Mark for many years, but like many musicians of our generation I have been profoundly influenced by his trailblazing musical ideas. He knew how to create depth of feeling with sound and space like no other. He was one of the greats, if not the greatest.

Guardian has something longer. Excerpt:

The success of The Colour of Spring meant that Talk Talk had a bigger budget to play with on the follow-up, Spirit of Eden (1988), but Hollis’s musical thinking was now geared towards Debussy, Erik Satie and Ornette Coleman rather than other pop or rock acts. Spirit of Eden, with its startling musical textures, sudden changes of pace and interludes of silence, was as much a modern classical album as a pop record. Though many critics hailed it as a masterpiece and it reached the UK Top 20, EMI were frustrated at its lack of commercial selling points. After months of legal wrangling, band and label parted company.

With the band now reduced to Hollis and Harris, with Friese-Greene producing and playing keyboards, Talk Talk’s final album Laughing Stock (1991) was released by Polydor’s Verve label, and pushed the musical envelope a little further (it began with 18 seconds of silence). Though sombre and uncompromising, it reached 26 in the UK, a reflection perhaps of the strange, lingering allure of pieces such as Taphead and Ascension Day.

In short, everyone hated Talk Talk's post-Colour of Spring direction except for the longhairs. I was in a band when Spirit of Eden came out. We were nowhere near the genius of Hollis et alia; we listened to Spirit several times a week. The lyrics for I Believe in You were sort of a Jesus-prayer like mantra. ("Spirit... How long... Spirit... How long...")



Rest in peace, sir.

"Rage on omnipotent"

New York Times starts crying

Oh, the agony! Such a deep, deep sadness has come over Jay Sullivan and David Schanzer that they are compelled to write this article: CANCEL THE MIDTERMS. Here's the key paragraph, in my opinion:

The realities of the modern election cycle are that we spend almost two years selecting a president with a well-developed agenda, but then, less than two years after the inauguration, the midterm election cripples that same president’s ability to advance that agenda.

How absurd. Could it be that the crippling of the agenda is possibly the fault of selected president? If the star receiver is selected to catch the ball on the final play and he drops it, should we cancel the football game? I'm pretty sure there was no similar article written for the Times in 2006.

Republican wonks like to talk about political capital, but I think the concept of the Divine Right is operative among liberals and democrats. The way most of us see it is that Obama has burnt all his capital, squandered his good will and used most of his trump cards. If you are one of the leftists at the New York Times you shout "Not fair! He gets a do over!" If you're a conservative you simply say "Well, time to punt, big guy."

What does Tom Waits mean by the Marley Bone Coach?

I was driving in to work today and this song popped into my head. Probably due to the drab fall weather.



What does he mean when he states "So I will take the Marley Bone Coach"? There is a bit of speculation from a major Waits fan here. But I think the best explanation comes from Michael Quinn on this page. Quinn's stuff is fascinating to me.

To go by Marylebone stage meant to go on foot. It appears in a novel by Mary Elizabeth Braddon called Charlotte’s Inheritance of 1868: “‘The cabmen are trying it on, anyhow, just now,’ thought Mr Sheldon; ‘but I don’t think they’ll try it on with me. And if they do, there’s the Marylebone stage. I’m not afraid of a five-mile walk.’” There was indeed a stagecoach which ran (staggered would be a better term — a contemporary writer said it “dragged tediously”) the four miles from Marylebone to the City of London, taking two and a half hours to get there and three hours to come back, this duration being partly accounted for by the extremely bad roads of the period but mainly by an unnecessarily long stop at an inn along the way. The earliest reference I can find to it is in a court case at the Old Bailey in 1822, in which a young man was found guilty of stealing two handkerchiefs from a passenger.

It was quicker to walk. This may have been part of the allusion, since Marylebone stage was either a joke based on, or perhaps a corruption of, marrowbone stage, known from the 1820s. John Black tells me that two centuries earlier Marylebone was often written as Marrowbone by Samuel Pepys among others; Pepys wrote in his Diary on 31 July 1667: “Then we abroad to Marrowbone, and there walked in the garden, the first time I ever was there, and a pretty place it is.” This makes the connection even easier to understand.

Marrowbone was a figurative term meaning the shinbones, hence the legs. So marrowbone stage has the same meaning as Shanks’s pony or Shanks’s mare. (There was also the obvious going by Walkers’ bus, which Dr Cobham Brewer mentions in early editions of his Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.) The first two expressions are equated in a book by George Augustus Sala with the title Twice Around the Clock, dated 1859: “The humbler conveyances known as ‘Shanks’s mare’, and the ‘Marrowbone stage’ — in more refined language, walking.”

Seems like maybe he's talking about both walking and dying, like he's slowly walking off to his own grave all alone. The song is very sad and beautiful at once, and it always reminds me of my friends who have never gotten married.

On a less somber note, check out Quinn's write-up on the word banana. It always cheers me up.

He's not the only one who's unhappy

Speaking of "sad face"...

Gallup reports that voter opposition to Obama is at 16-year high.

Eternal Vigilance

After reading this horrible, but unfortunately accurate, description of one of the books on the required summer reading list for Saint Ignatius High School, I sent the following email to both the President (Father William Murphy) and the Principal (Daniel Bradesca). The private Catholic grade school which my children attend currently has a 100% acceptance rate for its Eighth Grade boys who apply to Ignatius.

Dear Father Murphy,

I have always considered that St. Ignatius High School would be a great place to send some or all of my sons – I have six of them – assuming any or all could get accepted there. That was before I read this article in Catholic World Report, which literally sent chills up my spine. I question the judgment of a Catholic educator who would assign a book like this over the summer, a time during which a young person may not have a chance to discuss the moral implications of the many problematic passages with a responsible adult.

I also question the choice of the book altogether, seeing that there are many books to choose from which do not contain such infantile blasphemy, praise for the act of self-abuse and tolerance for the deviancy of homosexuality. This assignment of Alexie’s book is an example of why many people whom I know and trust conclude that certain faculty members at St. Ignatius are actually intentionally leading young people toward a modernistic view of religion and morality.

I realize that many of the classics contain adultery, fornication, prostitution, sacrilege, murder, bad language, prejudice, etc. – I’m neither a prude nor a naïf. Most of these same books show the consequences of such sins. When you read critically the quote page for Alexie’s book, you realize that this man has a relativist and cavalier attitude toward morality which epitomizes the hellish maxim, “If it feels good, do it.” I realize that the book won an award, but that is meaningless to anyone who believes in the possibility of gaining the world and losing one’s soul.

Please consider dropping this book from your list and replacing it with something more worthy for a young Christian man to read. Also please consider having someone trustworthy verify the choices made by the person or committee which assigns books like The Privileges and The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. The Pope—who is also a Jesuit—recently attacked a tendency he said was rampant in our world which he called “adolescent progressivism”. These books seem to be illustrative of this tendency and assigning them to high-school kids over the summer can certainly endanger their souls. And those assigning them should not be teaching in a Catholic school.

I remember talking to a respected Catholic theologian who said to me "There is only one institution which is guaranteed by Christ to stand, and that's the Papacy—and it will barely stand." Then he quoted Luke 22:32, "... when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers." Saint Ignatius High School is an institution which appears to have a lot of good things going for it, but it needs to be pruned to be healthy. If you check out the English faculty page, you can pick out the professor who teaches the obligatory "multicultural" course. My sources say that he is one of the culprits behind material like The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie being assigned at St. Ignatius.

I advise anyone with concern for St. Ignatius to write an email to the President and the Principal of the school. See, I'm making it easy for you by linking their emails. And, of course, pray that the malevolent forces would be pruned out of our institutions. To protect what is good, beautiful and true in the world requires eternal vigilance.

Nuns in the tank

I get emails from Progress Ohio, a far left PAC who somehow has my email address. It's good to read these emails both for the inadvertent humor content and also to see what the enemies of truth, justice and sensibility are up to.

The other day they sent me an email promoting a very silly group called Nuns on the Bus which is currently touring Ohio. They put up a blog post about it too. They are condemning "immoral budgets" and promoting a "faithful budget" which, when translated, means more government spending of taxpayer money on everything.

I think that Luke 11:46 might apply here. "...you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers."

Here's the picture and text from the email.

Join Catholic Sisters in calling on our leaders to protect people who are struggling and calling on all Ohioans to vote our values.

Sisters from across Ohio are traveling 1,000 miles to lift up people who would be harmed by immoral budget cuts and the need for a faithful budget that affirms the life of all God's children.

As they hold up the core values of solidarity, justice and the common good, they will remind us "We are in this together - in Ohio."

Here is a short summary of why this is so pathetic. A non-smiling elderly nun dressed in a habit can cut an imposing figure if she speaks calmly and with authority. But senior citizen nuns wearing street clothes and angrily spitting out liberal, big government talking points has engaged in the kind of self-diminishment that has got to but a smile on the devil's face.

If you mention the fact that abortion is legal in our country to these sisters they will immediately show signs of anger. Not anger that abortion entails the ripping apart of an innocent baby, but anger that you brought the subject up and reminded them that they are in the tank for the political party which has a vested interest in keeping abortion legal. They are far more offended by the "Ryan budget"—a proposal to cut wasteful government spending—than they are by abortion, and I can only conclude from this that they care more about money than human beings.

Contractors: Please Call Me Back

Here's a note to contractors: PLEASE CALL ME BACK. You can call me back in a day, or 2, or in a week if you're on vacation. But I think you could at least take the time to send me a message like the following:

Dear Pauli,
I got your message, and I'm responding to let you know that I do not want to do any work for you. Please call a competitor of mine.

If you must know why I don't want your job, there are multiple reasons. For starters, I hate you. I hate your wife and brat kids also. I hate your cars and your house and the color you picked for the living room. I would hate your dog if you had one, and I hate everybody in your family.

Sincerely,
Loser Contractor

This would be so refreshing that I'd probably send you flowers and thank you for the timely response. I would also recommend your services to my friends, at least the ones who aren't allergic to intense hatred, and just remind them to not mention who referred you to them.

But you haven't responded to over four calls. Maybe you're on a bender, or have the standard combination of lethargy and apathy common to tradesmen. But you've been putting up Tweets on your inane Twitter page this whole time to your 32 followers, so I don't know why you can't briefly call me to officially decline my work.

Oh, yeah, I was meaning to ask you—did you find it as amusing as I did when I called you using *67 and you accidentally picked up? I heard the irritation in your voice when you realized it was me and hastily said "I'll call you back." I'll bet you could fool a lie detector easily; you lie effortlessly. But you learned your lesson and have once again realized the indispensability of Caller ID. How did slackers survive before that wondrous technology? Oh, yeah, secretaries. I forgot.

At this point I have no other choice but to give you a bad grade on Angie's List. My guess is that you don't care about that, but I suppose I'll never know since you won't call me.

We Are Endangered. Please Give Us Money.

This is how Endangered Catholics has decided to protest church closings in the Cleveland Diocese. Full text:

ENDANGERED CATHOLICS

Cleveland, Ohio

www.endangeredcatholics.org

How You Can Stop Church Closings
Church closings are coming faster now (1). Weekly we are losing vibrant, solvent parishes -- bulwarks of neighborhoods, spiritual homes to thousands.

Many are disgusted by this abuse of power by Bishop Richard G. Lennon and need a path for protest.

We Catholics have the power to stop these closings. The solution? A diocesan-wide boycott of the Sunday collections, starting immediately.

This would give all the faithful a voice. It would tie all parishes together as one diocese, one “body.” (2)

The boycott should continue until Bishop Lennon agrees to mediation with each parish protesting its closing. Until then, our weekly offerings can be deposited in escrow, contributed to local charities, or, by canon law, your contribution can be designated for maintenance of your parish only (utilities, payroll, etc.) which is not subject to being assessed by the Diocese of Cleveland.

We Catholics have the opportunity and the responsibility as stewards of our Catholic faith to act and to act NOW. Many of our brothers and sisters are praying for our help.

Let us not abuse our power by failing to exercise it. (3)

Please contribute to our cause – See website above (4)
--------------------------------------------------------------
Tear off and deposit in offertory collection basket.

Dear Pastor,

I object to the arbitrary closing of many vibrant, solvent parishes in the Diocese of Cleveland. Therefore, I will withhold any further financial contributions to any Roman Catholic Church until Bishop Richard Lennon agrees to mediation with each parish protesting its closing.

Here are my thoughts on the constituent parts of this flier which I've numbered for your convenience:

(1) What does this mean, "coming faster"? Is this just a Jedi mind trick to increase the sense of urgency? Everybody has known for months on end which churches were going to be closing. Three churches were even left open from the original list: St. Colman, St. Stephen and another one I forgot.

(2) Uhhh, we are all tied together as one diocese. Well, except for the breakaway St. Peter parish which is being supported by the same people. So forgive me if I view this presentation of the ideal of unity as somewhat disingenuous.

(3) So you see if you don't withhold funding of a Catholic diocese you are abusing your power? Where's that in Canon Law?

(4) Yeah, was wondering what to do with all this extra cash.

Let me axe these people who feel endangered a question: Was the threat of being defunded by the parishioners of St. Stephen or St. Colman church what changed the Diocese's mind about closing them? This is all so silly and I'd laugh if I believed that former priest Bob Kloos and the others behind this effort seriously thought that this effort would work. This is agitation and messaging pure and simple.

I read this and weep

Marjorie Campbell's article "The New Sexual Predator" rings all too true to me. I have five boys and I almost despair when I see girls just 5 or 6 years older than my oldest who is 8. I never had to deal with this shit. Sluts used to be marginalized; now they are getting to be mainstream. Excerpt:

I first noticed this alarming social dynamic in our parochial middle school here in San Francisco. Our son, encouraged by a romantic interest in one of his classmates, secretly placed a white, long-stemmed rose in the young girl's desk. When the object of his affection opened her desk, she coughed loudly to get the class's full attention, stared at my son, and ripped the flower to shreds, slowly dropping the destroyed petals to the floor.

"Well, yes," I was later told by a teacher. "Girls can be a bit mean at this age. They are experimenting and testing boundaries that, for them, tend to be social. They experiment with attracting and rejecting boys' attention."

"Experiment?" I wondered at the time, marveling at this vacuous defense. My son's school, like every Catholic middle and high school, has firm, well-enforced boundaries to control boys' bullying each other and in any way harassing girls. No boy would dare similarly humiliate a girl -- much less touch, push, or harass a female peer -- without fully anticipating swift, certain, and painful consequences, including expulsion. Nevertheless, I have watched girls throw themselves against boys, shove and trip them, rumple their hair and tug their clothing, whisper derogatory, stinging insults -- all with no consequence, no correction. Experiment? How about "bullying without compassion or correction"?

Yeah, guys get hardons a lot, but we also have hearts. Also:

Second, in California, the radical feminist agenda has pushed for a host of laws that allow girls to obtain confidential "reproductive health" care. Internet sites like www.teensource.org and Planned Parenthood's "Teen Talk," aimed at teenage girls, explicitly and enthusiastically encourage girls to engage in aggressive sexual activity by "taking control" and viewing sex as yet another hobby, not an emotionally defining interaction between feeling persons. This is but one consequence of the Pill, now celebrating its 50th anniversary.

I'm telling you, this stuff is scary.

"This feels real good"

Emphasis mine. It's from a guy named Bob Kloos from Cleveland Heights mentioned in this article about a new micro-schismatic group in the Cleveland Diocese, and the line pretty much sums up the justification for defying an order from Bishop Lennon. Excerpt:

Defying the authority of their bishop, parishioners and their priest from the closed St. Peter Catholic Church in downtown Cleveland celebrated Mass Sunday in leased commercial space they transformed into a church independent of the Cleveland Catholic Diocese.

The move by the new Community of St. Peter puts members in danger of excommunication because they had been warned by Bishop Richard Lennon, who shuttered St. Peter's in April, not to hold worship services in places without his approval.

Still, about 350 people, joined by their spiritual leader, the Rev. Robert Marrone, gathered for their first Mass and communion in their new home ― a newly renovated, century-old building on Euclid Avenue and East 71st Street.

"This feels real good," said parishioner Bob Kloos of Cleveland Heights. "This is the handiwork of hundreds of people over many, many months."

Uh, huh. The article gets even goofier. These people are called traditional Catholics several times, which makes these two paragraphs fairly laughable:

At the opening hymn, the standing-room only crowd, joined by a choir and classical musicians, sang "Christ be our light. Shine in your church gathered today. . ."

Following the closing hymn, the crowd burst into an extended applause as the faithful hugged each other and cried tears of joy.

I must be losing my memory. In my many years attending a traditional Latin Mass I don't recall group hugs afterward nor ever once singing "Christ Be Our Light." The photo further down in the article of a smiling lady "pass[ing] out communion" was also a sight I missed in my old Trad circles.

Also, check out this related morsel from a sidebar about schismatic groups on the same page by the same author:

The irony is most who splinter off are actually more Catholic in their beliefs than main-stream Catholics.

Well, yeah, this is what I've had preached to me over and over again ever since running into my first schismatic acquaintance years ago. He also informed me that everything the Church has taught for the last 60 years is untrustworthy and the Pope is probably a phony. Plus I heard from another that the authority of the bishops doesn't exist and that all Novus Ordo Masses were invalid. And from a third I learned that anyone not folding their hands properly at Mass is going to hell. We used to call this "more Catholic than the Pope"; I'm guessing he qualifies as "mainstream".

Then we get some more "feelings" from Ms. Joseph of Shaker Heights:

"I feel wonderful at this moment," said parishioner Suzanne Joseph of Shaker Heights. "It's a little scary. We're kind of going into a new way of being within the Catholic church, but I'm very happy we're on this journey."

It's called a honeymoon, sweetie. Wait until the arguments begin about what to do next. Then everyone will really be feeling the love.

The St. Peter rebellion is unique because unlike in Boston, where five congregations, in defiance of the archdiocese, have been illegally occupying closed churches for up to five years, the Cleveland group has created its own worship space complete with a new altar, baptismal fount and sacred icons.

Like the coining of "St. Peter rebellion". Kind of Star Wars-y. Note the absence of the word "protest" in the article. Advice: call these people "protestants" at your own peril. My friend did this once; I don't think the guy ever talked to him again. It's funny―they don't know anything more about what Protestants believe than what the Catholic Church teaches about it's own authority. What they do know is that they are most definitely not Protestant―that is NOT cool, whatever it means.

The new space, unlike the classic cathedral structure of the closed St. Peter's, is a huge, brick-walled room painted white and lighted with rows of overhead spot lights and glass sky lights above exposed steel rafters.

It is very sad to note that the writer of this piece, Michael O'Malley, is the Plain Dealer religion writer. Seriously, does he know that the word "cathedral" does not designate a type of architecture? Must have gone to school with Nancy Pelosi.

I don't suppose there will be any weddings at the newly formed St. Peter More-Catholic-Than-You church. Brides favor that "classic cathedral" look over the "steel rafters".

If you read the rest of the article it gets more and more depressing. This thing has been done so many times before. Of course it's schismatic. Of course it will be short-lived. And, of course, it is an example of blatant ignorance and naivete on just about everyone's part except for the priest. Father Marrone likely knows better; hopefully he will repent of this action.

Update: What do you know? Huffington Post reports that Bob Kloos gave $325 to Barack Obama's Presidential campaign in 2008 and $765 to Dennis Kucinich's 2004 campaign. Thanks for the clarification, Arianna.

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