R. L. Dabney

Evangelical Eloquence: A Course of Lectures of Preaching by Robert Lewis Dabney

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


So far it is enjoyable, if a bit dry. Nothing really remarkable prose-wise, but content has a few notable issues.

First, his classification of oration is somewhat odd--it doesn't include poetry or anything that we would consider "just for fun." "The immediate end of eloquence is to produce in the hearer some practical volition."--page 30. "The end, I repeat, of every oration is to make men do."--page 34 But, if you just insert "sermon" for each "oration," it works out pretty well.

Second, he doesn't (and this surprised me, considering his uncompromising nature) consider it appropriate for a sermon to alienate. I understand this as a general rule, and I'm sure he just doesn't qualify it, or maybe I just haven't reached the qualification yet. Whatever. Just keep that in mind.

Third, and this was the big one for me, is that when speaking of the Sabbath, he seems to do what we all too often do--separate the week into secular and spiritual (page 42). The week is not ours with the Lord's Day being God's. The week is God's, and the Lord's Day is for us to renew the covenant that we broke over the week, and then start serving God in a new week. This is something that he lived correctly, but apparently taught wrongly, as it wasn't a big concern for his day. It is for ours.

Fourth, and this was an ouch, he seems to think that humans are rational, which we generally aren't: "How shall the heart be reached, except through the head?"--53. Generally, we should ask, "How shall the head be reached, except the defenses of the heart be superseded?" We don't use logos to affect a change in pathos, but vice versa.

However, it has so far been excellent, with a great wealth of invaluable teaching.

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Potter: Hallows

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Best of the Potter books by far. It does show that there is no such thing as pure evil, only good twisted beyond repair. Requires three pages of a review or none at all, and since I'm lazy, guess which one you're going to get.

The most annoying things about it are 1. We never really get to know the main character's wife: she's still a throwaway character, and 2. Why on earth doesn't she give the Defense Against the Dark Arts position to Harry? Oh well.

View all my reviews >>

Melville

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Tweakeresquely garrulous--how many tiles on the roof of that house two doors down? Let me tell you!

Great story, kinda skim the book.

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Wilde

The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde by Oscar Wilde

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Wilde's poetry leaves a good deal to be desired, but is generally enjoyable and occasionally profound.

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More Books

Rebecca's Daughters by Dylan Thomas

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Just great fun.

"You wouldn't say 'Bo' to a goose!" "Of course I wouldn't. What an absurd thing to say to a goose."

"And now, gentlemen, like your manners, I must leave you."

"After that night he spent tied up in a ditch..."
"A very distressing night for Sir Henry."
"Yes, very. And it wasn't even a ditch he knew."


View all my reviews >>

Two Books

Point of Impact
Stephen Hunter

This is the book that the sermon called Shooter, starring Marky Mark of the Funky Bunch was taken from. Of course the book is better, but more than that, the book isn't bad at all. A lot of fun, and a one-two day read for sure (about a five hour read).


The Most Brilliant Thoughts of All Time (In Two Lines or Less)
by John M. Shanahan (hooked on phonics fame)

The author is arrogant, repetitive, and careless in his citations (he attributes a quote from Ovid's Amores to Cato and enters the same quotes in multiple locations throughout the book). He apparently never thought anyone would read it cover to cover, and I wish he'd been right.

Just a tip: if you're writing a book called "The Most Brilliant Thoughts of All Time," you probably shouldn't quote yourself, and you really shouldn't quote yourself twelve times, but if you're going to quote yourself twelve times, you should really make sure that they're all new quotes: not ten quotes with two repetitions. And seriously: how do you quote yourself more than Chesterton, Bierce and Shaw combined? Ouch.

Leithart

MOSES' ARK AND BABEL'S TOWER
Exegetica
BY PETER J. LEITHART
SATURDAY, 26 JUNE 2010 05:53


Question from sharp-witted kid: How many animals did Moses take on the ark?

Answer from inattentive adult: Two of each kind.

Alternative answer from inattentive adult who wants to teach the kid something: Two of each unclean animal, and seven of each clean animal.

Punch-line from child: Moses didn’t take any animals on the ark! He didn’t have an ark.

Retort from adult with facility in Hebrew, who doesn’t want to be bested by a kid: Ahh, but he did have an ark, though it’s true he didn’t take any animals on it.

And don’t guess it was the “ark of the covenant,” because it wasn’t.

The Hebrew word for Noah’s “ark” is tevah, and the only other use outside the flood story is in Exodus 2:2-3, where the word is used to describe the “basket” in which Moses floats down the Nile. Moses is a new Noah, the one rescued from water who later rescues Israel through water in the Exodus and bring them rest (cf. Gen. 5:29). Water first appears in the first chapter of Exodus, where Pharaoh decrees that all male Israelite children will be drowned in the Nile (1:22). From the first, then, the waters of Egypt are the waters of death; the Nile is a river of blood long before Yahweh makes this visible in the first plague (7:14-19).

Yet, through the courage of his parents, Moses is delivered from the waters of death, in an ark-like basket, and raised up to have a new life in Pharaoh’s house. Were we unaware that the Nile was the grave of many Israelite boys, the rescue of Moses would be far less significant. As it is, his passage through the death waters is a resurrection, a baptism through death-waters to life. The waters of death turn back on Pharaoh, however. In a poetic application of the lex talionis, Yahweh drowns drowning Pharaoh in the Red Sea (14:28-31). Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, wound for wound, water for water.

When Moses is grown, he kills an Egyptian and flees to Midian, where he defends seven sisters from surly shepherds, and draws water for them (2:16-17). Moses, the one drawn from the water, is also a water-provider. Later, all Israel passes through the water of the Red Sea, and the same Moses who provided water for Jethro’s daughters will provide water for all Israel (17:5). Moses’ experience becomes the model for the experience of all Israel. Finally, the priests are required to wash from the water of the tabernacle laver before they enter the holy place. This is a “cleansing,” but it is, against the background of the water imagery of Exodus, a new exodus, a part of the priestly ascent through the waters to the architectural Sinai that is the tabernacle.

“Water” accumulates significance as the story goes. Initially associated with death, water is overcome by Moses and in the Exodus, and the water of death becomes water of life. By the time we read the end of Exodus, “water” is no longer merely referential, or a one-for-one symbol. It evokes a cluster of prior events, an entire story-line, the entire story of oppression and deliverance. It is no longer a single note, but strikes a chord.

But there’s more. When the men of Babel organize to build a tower reaching to heaven, they decide to use “tar for mortar” (Gen. 11:3; NASB). The Hebrew phrase repeats two different forms of the same root (chmr): The word for “tar” is chemar and the word for “mortar” is chomer, and the word is used elsewhere only in Genesis 14:10 (referring to “tar pits”) and Exodus 2:3 (referring to what was spread on the “ark” made for the baby Moses). Plus, earlier in Genesis, Yahweh instructed Noah to build an ark and to cover it inside and out with “pitch” (Gen. 6:14), using the Hebrew word kofer, related to the verb for “cover.” Like Genesis 11:3, Genesis 6:14 doubles the word: “you shall kafar it inside and out with kofer.”

Though the wording of the two passages is different, the contexts indicate that chemar and kofer are closely related terms. The ark is covered with pitch/asphalt, and the men of Babel use tar/asphalt as mortar in building their tower. The use of chemar in Exodus 2:3 supports this. As we’ve seen, Moses’ “ark” is clearly paralleled to Noah’s yet the word for the “pitch” that covers Moses’ ark is the word used for “tar” in Genesis 11:3. Moses’ ark is described with wording that draws on both the flood story and the Babel story, which not only links these two stories to the story of infant Moses, but confirms that the two other stories are linked as well.

Instead of a simple Moses-Noah parallel, then, we have a third term, the building of the tower of Babel.

These verbal links invite us to see other connections between these three passages, and indicates that the men of Babel see their tower as something of an ark of safety. They build the tower and city out of fear of scattering (11:4), as Noah builds his ark under the threat of the flood. The city and tower are intended to house all the peoples of the world, as Noah’s ark houses the one family that will survive the flood. More broadly, this connection seems reasonable and even obvious: Babel is the perennial symbol of the false church as the ark is historically a symbol of the true church or, as Luther had it in his great baptismal prayer, of Christendom. Genesis thus presents two contrasting building projects for the salvation of the nations and of creation.

All this is background for the ark of Moses. His ark is a reversal of the tower of Babel, for the Israel that Moses rescues through water is the seed of Abraham, the true humanity, which will bring blessing to the nations and will build the city of God and its tower. Through Moses, of the seed of Abraham, the curse of Babel is being reversed and the true gate of God – the tabernacle – will be built.

A Song of Lewes

Any of you that have read Sharon Kay Penman may enjoy this: I squeaked when de Montfort was mentioned. Odd looks abounded all round.


A Song of Lewes

Sit still now and hearken to me!
The King of Allemagne, by my loyalty,
Thirty thousand pounds asked he
For to make peace in the country,
And so he did more.
Richard, though thou be ever trichard,
Trick shalt thou nevermore!

Richard of Allemagne, while he was king,
He spent all his treasure upon swyving.
He gets himself not from Wallingford a farthing;
Let him have as he brew, sorrow to drink,
In spite of Windsor.
Richard, though thou be ever trichard,
Trick shalt thou nevermore!

The King of Allemagne thought to do well;
He seized upon the mill for a castle.
With their sharp swords they ground the mill;
He thought the sails were mangonel
To help Windsor.
Richard, though thou be ever trichard,
Trick shalt thou nevermore!

The King of Allemagne gathered his host,
Made him a castle of a mill post;
Puffed by his pride and by his great boast,
Brought from Allemagne many a sorry ghost
To store Windsor.
Richard, though thou be ever trichard,
Trick shalt thou nevermore!

By God that is above us, he did much sin
That let pass over sea the Earl of Warenne;
He has robbed England, the moor and the fen,
The gold and the silver, and taken them then
For love of Windsor.
Richard, though thou be ever trichard,
Trick shalt thou nevermore!

Sir Simon de Montfort has sworn by his chin,
If he had here now the earl of Warenne,
He should never more come to his inn,
Nor with shield, nor with spear, nor other engine,
Come to aid Windsor.
Richard, though thou be ever trichard,
Trick shalt thou nevermore!

Sir Simon de Montfort has sworn by his top,
Had he now here Sir Hugh de Bigot,
He'd pay him back his twelve-month scot
So he'd never more cast in his lot
To help Windsor.
Richard, though thou be ever trichard,
Trick shalt thou nevermore!

Be thee lief, be thee loth, Sir Edward,
Thou shalt ride spurless on thy lyard
All the right way to Doverward;
Shalt thou nevermore break forward,
And that reweth sore.
Edward thou didst as a shreward,
Left thine uncle's lore.
Richard, though thou be ever trichard,
Trick shalt thou nevermore!

Jobs

My current top job options are three different positions at the hospital, one as a personal banker at Wells Fargo (which would require a commute to Lewiston for about one month), and the Wall-Mart job. All of these are benefited, and I would be very grateful to get any of them. Please pray that they work out as they should.

Blessings,
Jesse Broussard

The Great Divorce & N. D. Wilson

Click on my title. This ought to be fun.

Theodore Dalrymple

I have just begun reading a collection of essays by Dr. Theodore Dalrymple, a British psychiatrist that works in a slum hospital and a prison in England.

First, the caution: he occasionally quotes his patients verbatim, which leads to... well... colorful, if mono-adjectival, conversations.

I don't think I would be able to praise this book highly enough. It is simply magnificent. I just finished reading Rodney Stark, so the prose seems to simply float by (I've been reading for two or three hours and I'm on page 162), and is, in tone, magnificent intelligence interspersed with wry drolleries. He seems to be one of those British chappies who's immaculately dressed, extremely intelligent, and I keep expecting him to say at any moment "Bless me, what do they teach them in these schools?" So it's been loads of fun so far.

A few quotes from the first half; forgive me for not giving pages and what not (I'm taking a break from job-hunting, and it needs to be a short one):


"It just didn't work out," they say, the "it" in question being the relationship that they conceive of having an existence independent of the two people who form it, and that exerts an influence on their lives rather like an astral conjunction.

Another burglar demanded to know from me why he repeatedly broke into houses and stole VCRs. He asked the question aggressively, as if "the system" had so far let him down in not supplying him with the answer; as if it were my duty as a doctor to provide him with the buried psychological secret that, once revealed, would in and of itself lead him unfailingly on the path of virtue. Until then he would continue to break into houses and steal VCRs (when at liberty to do so), and the blame would be mine.
When I refused to examine his past, he exclaimed, "But something must make me do it!"
"How about greed, laziness, and a thirst for excitement?" I suggested. "What about my childhood?" he asked.

My patient was intelligent but badly educated, as only products of the British educational system can be after eleven years of compulsory school attendance.

A surprisingly large number of auto-tattooists choose for the exercise of their dermatological art the chief motto of British service industries, namely F*** OFF. Why anyone should want these words indelibly printed in his skin is a mystery whose meaning I have not yet penetrated, though my researches continue, but I recall a patient who had the two words tattooed in mirror writing upon his forehead, no doubt that he might read them in the bathroom mirror every morning and be reminded of the vanity of earthly concerns.

It is a regrettable fact that psychological distress expands to meet the supply of publicly funded services available to reduce it.

(On someone turning the TV back on in the rooms of incapacitated patients): There is someone in the ward, however (a postmodernist, perhaps), who believes otherwise, who believes that a moment unentertained is a moment wasted, and that a mind unfilled by someone else's drivel is a vacuum of the kind Nature abhors.

The young men--especially those with ironmongery in their noses and eyebrows...

(In a club): Two young girls, one fat and one so drunk that she must surely throw up soon, gyrate to the music, but without reference to its rhythm.

Not a single one of my young patients has known the dates of the Second World War, let alone of the First; some have never heard of these wars, though recently one young patient who had heard of the Second World War thought it took place in the eighteenth century. In the prevailing circumstances of total ignorance, I was impressed that he had heard of the eighteenth century.

...parents whose philosophy of child rearing is laissez-faire tempered by insensate rage.

...a murderer who once said to me that he had had to kill his victim, otherwise he didn't know what he might have done.

(After relating truly horrific stories of Africa): Yet nothing I saw--neither the poverty nor the overt oppression--ever had the same devastating effect on the human personality as the undiscriminating welfare state. I never saw the loss of dignity, the self-centeredness, the spiritual and emotional vacuity, or the sheer ignorance of how to live that I see daily in England...I and the doctors from India and the Philippines have come to the same terrible conclusion: that the worst poverty is in England--and it is not material poverty but poverty of the soul.

Medical correctness hasn't reached the bingo hall yet. It is with a certain pleasure--no, joy--that I watch women with the physiques and mobility of beached whales refresh themselves constantly (as they mark their cards) with large piles of cholesterol-raising fried foods and large volumes of tepid, watery English beer. Tomorrow, of course, they'll go to their doctors and tell them that, however hard they try, they just can't seem to lose weight: they only have to look at food, and the pounds go on.



Blessings from the (currently) sunny land of ice and snow.
Jesse Broussard

And Yet More Wodehouse

For, like so many substantial citizens of his native country (America), he had married young and kept on marrying, springing from blonde to blonde like the chamois of the Alps leaping from crag to crag.

from Summer Moonshine

Blessings,
JB

Queer Musings Muttered Quietly

For if a man muses on a blog, and no one reads it, his musings must at the least be considered quiet. And I like the symmetry.

Anyone with a semi-intelligent opinion is welcome to offer said opinion for the low price of a piece of interesting trivia. Id est: "the two angels on either end of the slab in Christ's tomb should put us in mind of the cherubim on the ark," or "the aardvark has a tongue that can be up to eighteen inches long, and is one of the fastest digging animals on the planet."


1. Numbers 12:14: "If her father had but spit in her face..." Of all the various ways to be unclean, why did God choose to use this one?

2. Leviticus 14:7: "and shall let the living bird loose in the open field..." What is the bird symbolic of?

3. Genesis 24:2: Why is the hand put under the thigh when the oath is being made?

4. What is the significance of the red with Esau, with Perez and Zerah (Genesis 38:27-30) and with Rahab? And are they linked?


Depending upon the response, I may use this as a forum for questions more often.

Blessings,
Jesse Broussard

P.S.: A Wodehouse Book Dedication, The Heart of a Goof: "To my daughter Leonora: without whose never-failing sympathy and encouragement this book would have been finished in half the time."

The Book of Insults

A few commonplaces from Nancy McPhee's The Book of Insults. Enjoy, imbibe, liberally apply.

You may have genius. The contrary is, of course, probable.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

I have always thought that every woman should marry, and no man.
Benjamin Disraeli

Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.
Samuel Johnson

A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.
Samuel Johnson

Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.
Samuel Johnson, to Boswell

Twenty million young women rose to their feet with the cry "We will not be dictated to," and promptly became stenographers.
G. K. Chesterton

I do desire we may be better strangers.
William Shakespeare

They have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and to conclude, they are lying knaves.
William Shakespeare

They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.
Thomas Reed (Speaker of the House, commenting on members of Congress)

Wagner's music is better than it sounds.
Mark Twain

Is Wagner a human being at all? Is he not rather a disease?
Friedrich Nietzsche

The way Bernard Shaw believes in himself is very refreshing in these atheistic days when so many people believe in no God at all.
Israel Zangwill

Yes, I am proud; and must be proud, to see
Men not afraid of God afraid of me.
Alexander Pope

He is old enough to know worse.
Wilde

One of those characteristic British faces that, once seen, are never remembered.
Wilde

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Wilde

Bernard Shaw is an excellent man; he has not an enemy in the world, and none of his friends like him.
Wilde

I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar, and often convincing.
Wilde

He could charm an audience an hour on a stretch without ever getting rid of an idea.
Twain

When some men discharge an obligation, you can hear the report for miles around.
Twain

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctively native American criminal class except Congress.
Twain

I admire him, I frankly confess it; and when his time comes I shall buy a piece of the rope for a keepsake.
Twain (on Cecil Rhodes)

Blessings,
J. Broussard

Literature Stuff

Every once in a while, I get an e-mail forward that I really like. This was one.


> "I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up
> where I intended to be." - Douglas Adams

> The Bulwer-Lytton Contest ….
>
>
> This year's 10 winners of the Bulwer-Lytton contest, aka "Dark
> and Stormy Night Contest" (run by the English Dept. of San
> Jose State University), wherein one writes only the first line
> of a bad novel:
>
>
> 10) "As a scientist, Throckmorton knew that if he were ever to
> break wind in the echo chamber, he would never hear the end of
> it."
>
>
> 9) "Just beyond the Narrows , the river widens."
>
>
> 8) "With a curvaceous figure that Venus would have envied, a
> tanned, unblemished oval face framed with lustrous thick brown
> hair, deep azure-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes,
> perfect teeth that vied for competition, and a small straight
> nose, Marilee had a beauty that defied description."
>
>
> 7) "Andre, a simple peasant, had only one thing on his mind as
> he crept along the East wall: 'Andre creep... Andre creep...
> Andre creep.'"
>
>
> 6) "Stanislaus Smedley, a man always on the cutting edge of
> narcissism, was about to give his body and soul to a back
> alley sex-change surgeon to become the woman he loved."
>
>
> 5) "Although Sarah had an abnormal fear of mice, it did not
> keep her from eeking out a living at a local pet store."
>
>
> 4) " Stanley looked quite bored and somewhat detached, but
> then penguins often do."
>
>
> 3) "Like an over-ripe beefsteak tomato rimmed with cottage
> cheese, the corpulent remains of Santa Claus lay dead on the
> hotel floor."
>
>
> 2) "Mike Hardware was the kind of private eye who didn't know
> the meaning of the word 'fear'; a man who could laugh in the
> face of danger and spit in the eye of death -- in short, a
> moron with suicidal tendencies."
>
>
> AND THE WINNER IS...
>
>
> 1) "The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside darkness,
> crept along the greensward, and, with sickly fingers, pushed
> through the castle window, revealing the pillaged princess,
> hand at throat, crown asunder, gaping in frenzied horror at
> the sated, sodden amphibian lying beside her, disbelieving the
> magnitude of the frog's deception, screaming madly, 'You
> lied!"
>
>
> ***************************************************************************
>
> GREAT LITERARY TAUNTS
>
>
> "I feel so miserable without you, it's almost like having you
> here." -- Stephen Bishop "
>
>
> "A modest little person, with much to be modest about." ---
> Winston Churchill (about Clement Atlee)
>
>
> "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing
> trivial." --- Irvin S. Cobb "
>
>
> I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries
> with great pleasure." --- Clarence Darrow "
>
>
> He has never been known to use a word that might send a
> reader to the dictionary." --William Faulkner (about Ernest
> Hemingway)
>
>
> "He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in
> others." --- Samuel Johnson "
>
>
> He had delusions of adequacy."--- Walter Kerr
>
>
> "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
> --- Groucho Marx
>
>
> "They never open their mouths without subtracting from the
> sum of human knowledge." --- Thomas Brackett Reed
>
>
> "He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." --- Forrest
> Tucker "
>
>
> "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying
> I approved of it." --- Mark Twain
>
>
> "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
> --- Mae West
>
>
> "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they
> go." --- Oscar Wilde
>
>
> "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his
> friends." --- Oscar Wilde
>
>
> "He has Van Gogh's ear for music." --- Billy Wilder
>

Blog and Mablog (yet again)

Senator Edward Kennedy
Topic: Exhortation


As you all know, this last week, Senator Edward Kennedy passed from this life. This drew national attention, and in the media virtually everyone—right, left and middle—paid their respects. Some considered him as the exemplar of what is needed, while others praised him personally while reserving to themselves the right to differ with him "on policy matters." And at his funeral, praises were sung to the triune God of Scripture.

When it comes to speaking beside an open grave, or speaking about those who have departed this life, the pressure to be disingenuous is enormous. To speak honestly on the occasion of someone’s death is taken as the ultimate sign of churlishness. But honesty in these matters is not churlish, if you have an true and hearty desire for all men to find mercy in Jesus Christ. At the same time, grace is what it is, and cannot be redefined by sinful man into anything else. The grace of God in Christ saves us from our sins.

Death does not erase all sin—the only death that does that is the death of Jesus. The fact that we all die is a sign that we are of a race that deserves to die, and this death of the body (even for believers) is because of sin. If we want mercy at the time of death, something needs to have been done about the death we carry around in our hearts.

The life of Senator Kennedy, lived very much in public view, was a life that was badly lived. He was responsible for much public evil, including his responsibility for the continuing carnage of abortion in our land. In the judgment, Edward Kennedy, no longer a senator, will stand before God. When the sky has fled, and the oceans have receded, how can any man stand apart from Christ? How will he?

We are permitted to hope that Sen. Kennedy repented before God at the eleventh hour. We may wish his family well, as we do. But the Scriptures teach us to live our lives with the last day in view, and to do so out loud. The final judgment will not be conducted in private. Paul prayed that Onesiphorus would find mercy in the last day (2 Tim. 1:18). He desired that God would requite Alexander the coppersmith according to his works (2 Tim. 4:14). Leaving everything in the hands of God, where it belongs, we still recognize that public enormities will be met with perfect justice.

The thief on the cross repented at the very last, but as a wise Puritan put it, God gave us one last minute conversion in Scripture so that no one would despair, but only one so that no one would presume.

Posted by Douglas Wilson - 8/29/2009 5:11:43 PM

NSA Video

Capoeira

I finally caved. My humerus once again threatened to abandon its arranged marriage to my pristine scapula, largely due to the interference of the rather grizzled clavicle. This would leave my glenoid fossa desolately bereaved, along with causing considerable pain which would not, Miss Martens, be limited to my heart-like-thingy. The infatuation my humerus formed with my rib (they were much thrown together during rugby) is rather disconcerting.

So, I decided to start (very slowly) working on capoeira.


And by working on, I of course mean "looking at pictures and movies of (click on my title)". Actually, I'm starting a capoeira based workout (as in exercise) program. It includes a ridiculous amount of squats, jenga, handstand push-ups, bridge walk-arounds, and a bunch of other stuff. For the first couple weeks I'm just working on squats and handstand push-ups. The suggested amount is 5 sets of each, for 250 and 50. At the moment, it's two sets of each for 50 and 5. At least I'm working in multiples, right?

The upside? I've had "Bana na wey, bana na wey, bana na" going through my head all day. The downside? That's all I remember, and I don't even know what it means.

Biblical Hebrew

One of the world's coolest web sites. Worth wasting hours upon, as I shall attempt to amply demonstrate.

Blessings,
JB

A Book, Two Books and Half a Book

In reverse order...

The Epic of Gilgamesh is quite worth the read. Some awkward moments (that are generally hilarious), but as a whole, it demonstrates how little human society has changed in the past three millennia. It is enjoyable, though some parts are aggravating, as there are many missing sections. I've already found about six allusions that I'd heard in other places and will assume Gilgamesh to be the origin of (take it, Lady Astor: "this is the sort of nonsense with which we shall not put up.").


Foucault's Pendulum is good, if you have a mind that likes lots of details. Lots of details. Lots and lots of names that are completely irrelevant to anything you'll ever encounter (save a doctoral thesis on Umberto Eco's education), and he's not nearly so character driven as is someone like Dunnett, so the classical allusions work as a pleasant distraction, rather than an insight. It's the difference between a bunny-trail to an Italian gent out for a stroll (Eco) and a bunny trail to a Gaelic rabbit-hunter (Dunnett). But it's good, at least so far.

Lemony Snicket's okay. It works for what it is, but isn't all that good even at that. I read all three of them in about two hours, and have to say that the movie improved upon the book in several essential ways, the chief of them being the just ending. Not worth much more of a review: prose was alright (not a single commonplace in any of them), so, ah well. That's why I like libraries.


The American Libraries' Ezra Pound is staggering. Worth just about any price. Pound is amazing: along with Eliot, he's probably the best of the modernist poets: according to Eliot, he is "il miglor fabrio," which may be true, but I'm not yet willing to grant, as I've read Murder in the Cathedral, Four Quartets and Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock in the past month, and am still a novice to Pound. He, like Eliot, is chalk full of classical allusions, and, if possible, is at times even less accessible, though when he is intelligible, he is heartbreaking. I'll include a few samples below.


Grace Before Song

Lord God of heaven that with mercy dight
Th' alternate prayer wheel of the night and light
Eternal hath to thee, and in whose sight
Our days as rain drops in the sea surge fall,

As bright white drops upon a leaden sea
Grant so my songs to this grey folk may be:

As drops that dream and gleam and falling catch the sun,
Evan'scent mirrors every opal one
Of such his splendor as their compass is,
So, bold My Songs, seek ye such a death as this.


Thu Ides Til

O thou of Maydes all most wonder sweet
That art my comfort eke and my solace
Whan thee I find in any wolde or place
I doon thee reverence as is most meet
To cry thy prayse I nill nat be discreet
Thou hast swich debonairite and grace
Swich gentyl smile thy alderfayrest face
To run thy prayse I ne hold not my feet.
My Lady, tho I ne me hold thee fro
Nor streyve with thee by any game to play
But offer only thee myn own herte reede
I prey by love that thou wilt kindness do
And that thou keep my song by night and day
As shadow blood from myn own herte y-blede.


And a few lines, here and there:


Thou that art sweeter than all orchard's breath
And clearer than the sun gleam after rain...

If any flower mortescent lay in sun-withering dust
If any old forgotten sweetness of a former drink
Naught but stilt fragrance of autumnal flowers
Mnemonic of spring's bloom and parody of powers...

Let light flow about thee
As a cloak of air

,,,and drinks with me the soft wind and the keen.

Such peace as this would make death's self most sweet
Could I but know, Thou maiden of the sun,
That thus thy presence would go forth with me
Unto that shadow land where ages' feet
Have wandered, and where life's dreaming done
Love may dream on unto eternity.

We dwelt, amid the
Ancient boulders
Gods had hewn
And druids runed


And so on it goes. He truly is magnificent, and well worth the time that he will indubitably take.


So, to my faithful reader, I enclose my recipe for a pleasant Saturday evening:

1). Pipe of black cavendish or cherry cavendish with a touch of apple
2). Glass of some red alcoholic beverage (port would do quite nicely, bud-light with food coloring would not. Rum o.k.)
3). A type of soft cheese to be spread upon crackers (crackers permitted, if they behave quietly and with decorum)
4). A pen (twelve is the usual number, but fewer will be accepted)
5). Blank 3x5 notecard used as a bookmark
6). Ezra Pound's poetry
7). For the lucky number, a short, curly-haired honest thief (who knows riddles)

Apply moderately, and as desired.

Blessed Lord's Day to all.
JB