I told the monks a bit of my story, about how I became Orthodox. There was no sense of judgment or hardness toward me for having left the Catholic Church.
The primi piatti was spaghetti with mushrooms and black truffles, and the secondi was a mixed grill that included, yes, wild boar. I wish I had a boar piglet sleeping at the foot of my bed tonight. And I wish Nonna would come by and bring me warm milk and tell me a bedtime story.
I spent an hour today praying my prayer rule in front of the altar of the crypt church, underneath the church you see above.
Casella and I find ourselves lodging here tonight. We came to make a pilgrimage to the church and monastery built over the birthplace of the saint and his twin sister, St. Scholastica. A happy, happy benefit of coming here is that Norcia (Nursia, to Americans) is known for cured meats, wild boar, and truffles.
When Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura produced bright blue light beams from their semi-conductors in the early 1990s, they triggered a funda-mental transformation of lighting technology. Red and green diodes had been around for a long time but without blue light, white lamps could not be created. Despite considerable efforts, both in the scientific community and in industry, the blue LED had remained a challenge for three decades.
They succeeded where everyone else had failed. Akasaki worked together with Amano at the University of Nagoya, while Nakamura was employed at Nichia Chemicals, a small company in Tokushima. Their inventions were revolutionary. Incandescent light bulbs lit the 20th century; the 21st century will be lit by LED lamps.
A short film I saw at the Dante Museum next to his tomb speculated on how the mosaics the poet saw in Ravenna, where he lived the final years of his life and where he wrote Paradiso, may have given him visual ideas. It’s a lovely thought, and there might be something to it. They certainly give me thoughts — Dantean ones about God’s glory, and how everything in this world is a reflection of the world beyond it. And how all things can be made to work in harmony for God’s glory.
Casella says I’m still culturally Catholic, and he’s right to a significant extent, but this trip has made me realize how deeply Orthodox the Divine Liturgy has made me over these last eight years. I felt at home in S. Vitale in a way that I did not in any of the Catholic churches we entered, except for the Baptistery in Florence — but its ceiling is covered with dazzling mosaics. The way we pray really is the way we believe. Anyway, Casella and I pray for the reunion of our churches.
The best way, I suppose, to describe the appearance of a gargoyle would be to say, as a first approximation, that it is like a monstrous blend of monkey, lizard, toad, and octopus. Now gargoyles stand upright, usually, and are bipedal, mostly, and have binocular vision, if you don't take into account their auxiliary receptors. Gargoyles have very strong prehensile tails, which can be used as an extra leg. Their hands and feet are more reptilian-like with long, razor sharp nails and claws, which are retractable like in cats. The arms and legs are long and slender but surprising for their strength and agility. As for their skin, it appears more toad-like than anything, and it is covered with many protuberances, or bumps, the overall coloration ranging between a dark greyish green to a deep bluish purple. Gargoyles are odorless. Their large primary eyes are a deep red in color, with pupils resembling what you see in cats. Their heads sport multiple horns, sprouting at least six or more, which curve to sharp points. Their noses are bulbous, with a keen sense of smell, and the large mouths contain long fangs. The ears are large, and floppy, and acutely sensitive over a wide frequency range. A Gargoyle's tongues is split at the end, the tips being capable of moving independently. A gargoyle's voice is clear, well articulated and gentle sounding. If ever you have heard a very mellow, late night FM radio disk jockey, that is close to what a gargoyle sounds like when it talks.
I mentioned "auxiliary receptors". What I mean each of the protuberances on the skin houses a tentacle which can be extended or retracted, and these tentacles have visual receptors as well. And by extending its tentacles, a gargoyle has the ability to view its surroundings in many different directions simultaneously. Besides being able to see, the tentacles are also very strong and can grasp hold of objects. Now some species of octopi are famous for their ability to instantly mimic or blend into their surroundings. Gargoyles have the same ability, only carried to a much higher degree. This is how gargoyles can make themselves virtually invisible. You could have a gargoyle clinging up on the ceiling just a few feet above you, watching you, but you would never be able to see it. That is how well they can blend into their surroundings.
During a 1978 tour, psychobilly punk band The Cramps created one of the strangest moments in the history of both rock n’ roll and psychiatry when they played a gig inside Napa State Mental Hospital.
It’s hard to believe it actually happened. The story sounds more like an exaggerated rock legend than an account of a real concert, but no suspension of disbelief is needed. Someone filmed the gig.
We can only guess how the band got permission to play inside one of California’s biggest mental institutions, but play they did, to a few supporters and a fired-up crowd of psychiatric inpatients.
The American Conservative and the dispositions and remarks of its editor, Daniel McCarthy, are the purest source of all that renders the 'alt-right' project problematic. The ongoing conceit is that they represent something true and authentic and sublime in contrast to the vulgarities of 'movement conservatives'. Really?
There's nothing that's published in Chronicles by anyone not named Fleming, Rockwell, or Francis that might not find a home in some other publication. (As for the stuff published by these men, do you really want recycled copy from the Radovan Karadzic press agency or the White Citizens' Council?). The v Mises Institute is a collecting pool for purveyors of fringe (read crank) social theory and research ("Austrian" economics and neo-confederate historiography). The Rockford Institute is a remnant, just a corporate shell for Chronicles, the "National Humanities Institute" has two salaried employees (Claes Ryn and one other) and issues an absolutely soporific annual. The Unz Review is issued by amateurs whose big idea is that social research is reducible to psychology and anthropology which is reducible in turn to biology and that Science demonstrates this but ideologically driven social researches are dedicated to Not Noticing things. They collect as their acolytes a mess of disagreeable people who are obsessed with blacks and Jews and despise both. (Who also seem to enjoy Steve Sailer's gig as volunteer press secretary for Vladimir Putin and his minions). Their idea of a popular movement is Ron Paul - a conceited goof who trades in historical fabulism (and goldbuggery).
And Daniel McCarthy is a fine example of a type that Samuel Francis and Stephen Tonsor took to task, the 'career conservative'. Except, in his case, he presides over a publication that's always been a cesspool of idiosyncracies: Philip Giraldi's hatred of Jews, Andrew Bacevich's resentments of his former employer and military officers more accomplished than he (Petraeus in particular), Steve Sailer's obsession with a tests-and-measurements psychology that he never studied in an academic setting, Conor Friedersdorf's Miss Manners campaign, and Scott McConnell's sundry aperçus (and contempt for Jews). The whole thing was a train wreck from the get go, and yet they persist in this illusion that they are the 'legitimate' heirs to Robert Taft (who manifested a dispensation in the Republican Party that was non-existent from 1959 to 1990 and has only Russell Kirk as a thin filament of genealogy between then and now).
This will not be a long post, because I can’t gather my thoughts now.
We crossed the bridge over the Arno and bought gelato for dessert, and walked back to our place, glowing. We spoke of how much we loved our wives and our children, and how blessed we are to have families. As much as I have loved Florence, I really can’t wait to go back home to Julie and the children — and I am so very, very grateful to be able to rest in them, and in their love. This kind of inner peace is what I’ve been searching for all my life, and God has given it to me in them, and in my faith.
The hotel is close to Dante’s tomb, so that’s where we went. How strange it was to approach it for the first time! Casella knew what the moment meant to me, and let me go in alone. I kissed Dante’s tomb and went to my knees, touching my forehead to the cold marble floor in a gesture of honor. I stood and prayed to him, thanking him for what he has done for me, and asking his blessing on my writing.
Example: Ferguson issues fines for traffic violations; 20 percent of its municipal budget comes from such receipts. If people with outstanding fines or summons don’t appear in court, a warrant for their arrest is issued. Conclusion: this is a racist system. The city is deliberately financing its operations on the backs of the black poor. The only reason that blacks are subject to fines and warrants, according to the media, is that they are being hounded by a racist police force. “A mostly white police force has targeted blacks for a disproportionate number of stops and searches,” declared Time on September 1. What is the evidence for such “targeting?” Time provides none. Might blacks be getting traffic fines for the same reason that whites get traffic fines—because they broke the law? The possibility is never contemplated. The most frequently summonsed traffic offense is driving without insurance, according to the New York Times’s “exposé” of Ferguson’s traffic-fine system. Perhaps the Times’s editors would be blasé about being hit by an uninsured driver, but most drivers would be grateful that the insurance requirement is being enforced. Might poor blacks have a higher rate of driving without insurance than other drivers? Not relevant to know, apparently.
The next highest categories of driving infraction are blasting loud music out your car and driving with tinted windows. Attend police-community meetings in poor areas and you will regularly hear complaints about cars with deafening sound systems. Should the police ignore such complaints? Are they ignoring similar complaints in white areas because they want to give whites a pass? Do Ferguson’s white and black drivers blast loud music from their cars at the same rate? We never learn. Tinted windows pose a possibly lethal threat to the police during traffic stops, since they prevent officers from assessing the situation inside the car before approaching. Ignoring this infraction puts officers’ lives at risk. Should the police nevertheless do so? Such is the implication, if doing so would mean fewer fines for black motorists. The New York Times quotes a victim of the racist Ferguson traffic-enforcement system, who was fined for driving without a license. Why was his license suspended—was he driving drunk? Did he hit someone? We will never know. What is the crime rate in the black areas of Ferguson? Also something that the mainstream press is not interested in finding out.
But the most ubiquitous “Ferguson is racist” meme was the most familiar: the police force is too white. Four of Ferguson’s 53 officers are black. This imbalance must be the result of racism and must itself cause racist enforcement activity. How many qualified black applicants to the force applied and were rejected? Not an interesting question, apparently.
This book inspired me to want to love others more selflessly. Ruthie, though not perfect, was a good example of living the Christian life. I marked it down slightly for portraying her brother as a serious student of the Bible, but he didn't seem to grasp it well.
I know this is based on a true story so I wish the story of Ruthie's life would have told in more detail, emotions, etc. I wanted to know her better. We are told over and over what an amazing person she was but the personal touch was missing. I felt I never got to know her the way I wanted to so I could feel the difference she made in everyone's life. Something was missing in the story that I needed to draw me more personally into the story.
I kept getting the feeling that RD had left out some critical piece of information which would have explained the motives that the other people had. It is easy for me to imagine that had I been there I would have come away with a different impression of why what happened happened.
I found that he was too wrapped up in his own experience which blocked his depicting Ruthie in a personal, real way. Perhaps that's what was missing?
There were only about 30 people there in the side chapel; the cathedral only let people in who wanted to pray. I prayed before the relics of St. Zenobius (337-417), the first bishop of Florence, and again in front of the famed painting of Dante presenting the Commedia to Florence (it is much, much darker than the usual depictions).
Earlier in the day we had been to mass. Casella and James C. are Catholic traditionalists. I couldn’t find an Orthodox liturgy around town, so I accompanied them. It was a beautiful mass, but it really made me feel how deeply Orthodox I have become liturgically.
After a while, I began to feel a little dizzy, and had to step out for air. I walked around the block, looking to buy a bottle of water. I found one, then returned to the church and sat on the steps reading the Purgatorio, Canto 10.
We had lunch after mass, then gelato — fig and ricotta, black sesame, and pistachio for me — then picked up our tickets for the Uffizi.
The luminous genius of Botticelli and Michelangelo, in particular, defy my ability to describe. Eventually I just stopped trying to articulate to myself why these paintings were so great, and tried to allow myself to experience them directly....Eventually it’s too much. All that light and beauty is overwhelming.
Tonight James, Casella and I finished with dinner in our apartment. We ate good Italian food and drank good Italian wine and listened to Sidney Bechet, and then Louis Armstrong, and talked about God and Dante and Florence. Stepping into the kitchen to get more water for the table, I thought that this is the kind of moment I dreamed of when I was younger — a night like this, filled with friendship, music, food, and conversation about ideas.
