Beef and Stout Pie

What Williams-Sonoma calls their “Beef and Stout Pie” is actually a Beef and Stout Stew with a Stilton Pastry top. I can’t think of anything made in a 5 1/2 qt. dutch oven that should be called a “pie.” But “Beef and Stout Cobbler” just sounds gross.

Anyway, I’m copying the recipes here onto a single entry for my own convenience. The links above will take you to the various Williams-Sonoma pages. At least, they will until the next time W-S revamps their cryptic syntax. And today, their internal search engine is down, so I had to hunt this recipe up using a generic web search engine.

Why I want a copy of this is a mystery, even to myself. It looks very tasty, but I can think of no occasion when I could try it out. I have very few carnivorous friends, and this makes a whole lot of stew. I suppose that some cold day this winter, I’ll probably take my first whack at it, but will cut the proportions down. We’ll see.

Anyway, here’s the cut-n-paste (or is that, cut-n-pastry?).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Beef and Stout Pie

This hearty beef stew is slowly simmered on the stovetop, then topped with Stilton pastry and finished in a hot oven.

Ingredients:

• 7 Tbs. olive oil
• 1 lb. white button mushrooms, quartered
• 2 cups frozen pearl onions, thawed
• Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
• 3 1/2 lb. beef chuck roast, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 Tbs. tomato paste
• 2 1/2 cups Irish stout
• 1 cup beef broth
• 1 lb. carrots, cut into chunks
• 1 lb. red potatoes, cut into chunks
• 1 Tbs. finely chopped fresh thyme
• One 16-inch round Stilton pastry (see related recipe at left)
• 1 egg, beaten with 1 tsp. water

Directions:

In a 5 1/2-quart Dutch oven over medium-high heat, warm 1 Tbs. of the olive oil. Add the mushrooms, onions, salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, about 12 minutes. Transfer to a bowl.

Season the beef with salt and pepper. Dredge the beef in the flour, shaking off the excess. In the Dutch oven over medium-high heat, warm 2 Tbs. of the olive oil. Add one-third of the beef and brown on all sides, about 7 minutes total. Transfer to a separate bowl. Add 1/2 cup water to the pot, stirring to scrape up the browned bits. Pour the liquid into a separate bowl. Repeat the process 2 more times, using 2 Tbs. oil to brown each batch of beef and deglazing the pot with 1/2 cup water after each batch.

Return the pot to medium-high heat. Add the garlic and tomato paste and cook, stirring constantly, for 30 seconds. Add the beef, stout, broth and reserved liquid, stirring to scrape up the browned bits. Add the mushrooms, onions, carrots, potatoes and thyme and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the beef and vegetables are tender, about 3 hours.

While that’s simmering, make the:

Stilton Pastry

A sprinkling of creamy Stilton cheese sets this pastry dough apart....

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp. salt
• 1 Tbs. sugar
• 16 Tbs. (2 sticks/250g) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1/3 to 1/2 cup ice water
• 4 oz. Stilton cheese, crumbled

Directions:

In a food processor, combine the flour, salt and sugar and pulse until blended, about 5 pulses. Add the butter and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal, about 10 pulses. Add 1/3 cup of the ice water and pulse 2 or 3 times. The dough should hold together when squeezed with your fingers but should not be sticky. If it is crumbly, add more water 1 Tbs. at a time, pulsing twice after each addition. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and shape into a disk. Wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and let stand for 5 minutes. Sprinkle the top of the dough lightly with flour, place on a lightly floured sheet of parchment paper and roll out into a 12-by-16-inch rectangle. Sprinkle the cheese over half of the dough, then fold the other half over the cheese. Roll out the dough into a 16 1/2-inch square. Using a paring knife, trim the dough into a 16-inch round.

Refrigerate the dough until firm, about 10 minutes, then lay the dough on top of the beef and stout pie and bake as directed in that recipe. Makes enough dough for a 16-inch round.

Preheat an oven to 400°F.

Brush the rim of the pot with water. Lay the pastry round on top, allowing it to droop onto the filling. Trim the dough, leaving a 1-inch overhang, and crimp to seal. Brush the pastry with the egg mixture, then cut 4 slits in the top of the dough. Bake for 30 minutes. Let the potpie rest for 15 minutes before serving. Serves 8 to 10.

Creation & Art

“True art is made as if God were a lot of little cottage industries. Artists take up shapeless raw material -- paint or clay, or a blank sheet of paper -- and transform it into something wonderful that never existed before. This is such a joyous activity that I am at a loss to understand how an artist could ever be unhappy, and yet so many are. Perhaps, like God, they grieve when man ignores their handiwork.”

-- Roger Ebert, in his review of Robert Altman’s Vincent & Theo

Laws Concerning Food and Drink; Household Principles; Lamentations of the Father

Of the beasts of the field, and of the fishes of the sea, and of all foods that are acceptable in my sight you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the hoofed animals, broiled or ground into burgers, you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the cloven-hoofed animal, plain or with cheese, you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the cereal grains, of the corn and of the wheat and of the oats, and of all the cereals that are of bright color and unknown provenance you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the quiescently frozen dessert and of all frozen after-meal treats you may eat, but absolutely not in the living room. Of the juices and other beverages, yes, even of those in sippy-cups, you may drink, but not in the living room, neither may you carry such therein. Indeed, when you reach the place where the living room carpet begins, of any food or beverage there you may not eat, neither may you drink.

But if you are sick, and are lying down and watching something, then may you eat in the living room.

And if you are seated in your high chair, or in a chair such as a greater person might use, keep your legs and feet below you as they were. Neither raise up your knees, nor place your feet upon the table, for that is an abomination to me. Yes, even when you have an interesting bandage to show, your feet upon the table are an abomination, and worthy of rebuke. Drink your milk as it is given you, neither use on it any utensils, nor fork, nor knife, nor spoon, for that is not what they are for; if you will dip your blocks in the milk, and lick it off, you will be sent away. When you have drunk, let the empty cup then remain upon the table, and do not bite it upon its edge and by your teeth hold it to your face in order to make noises in it sounding like a duck; for you will be sent away.

When you chew your food, keep your mouth closed until you have swallowed, and do not open it to show your brother or your sister what is within; I say to you, do not so, even if your brother or your sister has done the same to you. Eat your food only; do not eat that which is not food; neither seize the table between your jaws, nor use the raiment of the table to wipe your lips. I say again to you, do not touch it, but leave it as it is. And though your stick of carrot does indeed resemble a marker, draw not with it upon the table, even in pretend, for we do not do that, that is why. And though the pieces of broccoli are very like small trees, do not stand them upright to make a forest, because we do not do that, that is why. Sit just as I have told you, and do not lean to one side or the other, nor slide down until you are nearly slid away. Heed me; for if you sit like that, your hair will go into the syrup. And now behold, even as I have said, it has come to pass.

Laws Pertaining to Dessert

For we judge between the plate that is unclean and the plate that is clean, saying first, if the plate is clean, then you shall have dessert. But of the unclean plate, the laws are these: If you have eaten most of your meat, and two bites of your peas with each bite consisting of not less than three peas each, or in total six peas, eaten where I can see, and you have also eaten enough of your potatoes to fill two forks, both forkfuls eaten where I can see, then you shall have dessert. But if you eat a lesser number of peas, and yet you eat the potatoes, still you shall not have dessert; and if you eat the peas, yet leave the potatoes uneaten, you shall not have dessert, no, not even a small portion thereof. And if you try to deceive by moving the potatoes or peas around with a fork, that it may appear you have eaten what you have not, you will fall into iniquity. And I will know, and you shall have no dessert.

On Screaming

Do not scream; for it is as if you scream all the time. If you are given a plate on which two foods you do not wish to touch each other are touching each other, your voice rises up even to the ceiling, while you point to the offense with the finger of your right hand; but I say to you, scream not, only remonstrate gently with the server, that the server may correct the fault. Likewise if you receive a portion of fish from which every piece of herbal seasoning has not been scraped off, and the herbal seasoning is loathsome to you, and steeped in vileness, again I say, refrain from screaming. Though the vileness overwhelm you, and cause you a faint unto death, make not that sound from within your throat, neither cover your face, nor press your fingers to your nose. For even now I have made the fish as it should be; behold, I eat of it myself, yet do not die.

Concerning Face and Hands

Cast your countenance upward to the light, and lift your eyes to the hills, that I may more easily wash you off. For the stains are upon you; even to the very back of your head, there is rice thereon. And in the breast pocket of your garment, and upon the tie of your shoe, rice and other fragments are distributed in a manner wonderful to see. Only hold yourself still; hold still, I say. Give each finger in its turn for my examination thereof, and also each thumb. Lo, how iniquitous they appear. What I do is as it must be; and you shall not go hence until I have done.

Various Other Laws, Statutes, and Ordinances

Bite not, lest you be cast into quiet time. Neither drink of your own bath water, nor of bath water of any kind; nor rub your feet on bread, even if it be in the package; nor rub yourself against cars, nor against any building; nor eat sand.

Leave the cat alone, for what has the cat done, that you should so afflict it with tape? And hum not that humming in your nose as I read, nor stand between the light and the book. Indeed, you will drive me to madness. Nor forget what I said about the tape.

Complaints and Lamentations

O my children, you are disobedient. For when I tell you what you must do, you argue and dispute hotly even to the littlest detail; and when I do not accede, you cry out, and hit and kick. Yes, and even sometimes do you spit, and shout "stupid-head" and other blasphemies, and hit and kick the wall and the molding thereof when you are sent to the corner. And though the law teaches that no one shall be sent to the corner for more minutes than he has years of age, yet I would leave you there all day, so mighty am I in anger. But upon being sent to the corner you ask straightaway, "Can I come out?" and I reply, "No, you may not come out." And again you ask, and again I give the same reply. But when you ask again a third time, then you may come out.

Hear me, O my children, for the bills they kill me. I pay and pay again, even to the twelfth time in a year, and yet again they mount higher than before. For our health, that we may be covered, I give six hundred and twenty talents twelve times in a year; but even this covers not the fifteen hundred deductible for each member of the family within a calendar year. And yet for ordinary visits we still are not covered, nor for many medicines, nor for the teeth within our mouths. Guess not at what rage is in my mind, for surely you cannot know.

For I will come to you at the first of the month and at the fifteenth of the month with the bills and a great whining and moan. And when the month of taxes comes, I will decry the wrong and unfairness of it, and mourn with wine and ashtrays, and rend my receipts. And you shall remember that I am that I am: before, after, and until you are twenty-one. Hear me then, and avoid me in my wrath, O children of me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This lovely little essay is copywritten:
Copyright © 1997 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved.
The Atlantic Monthly; February 1997; Laws Concerning Food and Drink; Household Principles; Lamentations of the Father; Volume 279, No. 2; pages 89 - 90.

The link in the title will take you to a page at The Atlantic Monthly where you can also hear sound files of Frazier reading sections. (I also once heard him read it on a Prairie Home Companion. RA file linked at that page.) There is also another format for the essay at The Atlantic Monthly that I find easier on my eyes, but with no sound file links. The essay is also available in a collection by that name. And don’t miss Frazier’s brilliant Coyote -v- Acme.

So with so much available, why am I copying the thing here? Because several times I have wanted to trot out this marvelous pastiche and it has been unavailable. For a while, The Atlantic even wanted one to pay to get access to their archives. Who knows when they’ll decide to do that again, and then I won’t have ready access when I want to trot this out for a class.

But do go to The Atlantic’s page and listen to Frazier reading this. And think what else you could be missing by not reading The Atlantic. And go read some more Ian Frazier, too; he’s a hoot.

Whose Blood is on the Altar in the Appearance of Wine

I’ve gotten a couple of questions about the inscription from St. Lawrence Outside the Walls. I’ll try to explain here what’s going on, and I’ll try to do that with my non-epigraphist friends in mind.

Let’s start with what I could actually see when I looked up at the slab. Here are a couple of snapshots I took while Professor Bianchi’s crew were setting up to take far better quality pictures. (For those keeping score at home, I’ll remind you that the date was Skylab Day, 11 July 2007.)







The slab of stone that has been set overhead has also been cut and inset with colored stone in a style and method known as Cosmatesque. There are several little floral decorations on this and the neighboring slabs, and this slab has also been inset with a large circle around an equilateral cross (like the cruciform halos seen in Christian art). The inset patterns have damaged an inscription. There are eight lines of Latin in the inscription, the last of which is partially covered by the horizontal bar of the cross. Whoever decorated the stone and set it in it’s current position (assuming that these actions were done at about the same time) apparently did not care about the earlier inscription.

In the inscription, the letters that I can actually read (in whole or in part) on the stone in our snapshots are these:

1 - ]VITRANSIS•QVAMSITBREVISAC[
2 - ]AVISITERADLITVSPARAD[
3 - ]OVVLTVMDN̅I̅FACIASTIBIPO[
4 - ]QVISQVISHÆCSACRAPERH[
5 - ]MMAD̅S̅LVMEN[ ]APIENTIAVIR[
6 - ]ALTARICRVORESTVINV̅Q[
7 - ]ILATERISPE[ ]OPVSMIRÆ[
8 - ]ENTERAQVAM[ ]RIBVISBAPTI[

The square brackets that I’m using are a standard notation. They indicate that the text I’m giving you does not end naturally, that there are other letters in the original that I can’t physically see. In papyrology, the square brackets normally signal damage to the papyrus itself (e.g., a torn edge or a hole in the middle). Here, they indicate two things: the first, places where none of a letter can be seen at all because of the mosaic pattern inset into the slab; the second, the edges of the stone, where letters are hidden by the walls upon which our slab is now resting.

The right edge of the slab with our inscription is sitting right down on top of supporting stone, and nothing more could be read without damaging stonework. The left edge of the stone is also resting on supporting stonework except where the eight lines of text are; here, a relief has been cut out of the supporting stone, and had I a ladder, a flashlight, and a different angle, I might have been able to read more of the letters. I believe that this must be how the extra letters along the left edge have been read before.

Looking through the stuff Professor Bianchi sent me, I see that his is not the first publication of this inscription. It was originally published more than eighty years ago by a Jesuit scholar.

Original publication:
Felice Grossi-Gondi, “L’iscrizione eucaristica del secolo V nella basilica di S. Lorenzo al Verano,” Nuovo Bullettino di Archeologia Cristiana, 1921, pp. 106-11.

And since that was so long ago, you can now nab a copy of that publication (one page at a time) for free off the interwebs. The six jpegs will cost you about 2.5 Mb of disc space, and the article is in Italian, and if your Italian was any better than mine (which is functionally non-existent), you wouldn’t have complained to me, but here it is anyway:
Original publication.

By the way, while looking for this article, I found it referenced here:

Another publication (which I have not yet seen):
Antonio Ferrua, Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae, vol. VII, 1980, n. 18324, pp. 164-165.

Fr. Grossi-Gondi recognized that the six lines of Latin start with a standard sentiment for an ancient epitaph. On headstones one will often read things like, “You who pass by and read this, have a kind thought for the poor sod beneath this sod. What you are, I once was; what I am, you will be.” We have something similar here. He also recognized that the Latin is in meter, and not in the usual (for headstones) elegiac couplets, but in the grander epic meter, dactylic hexameter (the form used by Homer and Vergil). So it’s not just an inscription, but a poem, and a poem that evokes epic rather than little ditties.

On p. 106, the first page of his article, he supplements the text that he can actually read with letters that he thinks are likely to be the correct ones. He has the advantage of knowing that whatever he puts at the beginning and end of each line has to fit the poetry; that is, his supplements have to scan properly. Here’s his solution:

1 - adsp]ICE QVI TRANSIS • QVAM SIT BREVIS AC[ipe vita
2 - atqu]E TVÆ NAVIS ITER AD LITVS PARAD[isi
3 - rell]EGE • QVO VVLTVM DN̅I̅ FACIAS TIBI PO[rtum
4 - percipias gra]T IAM QVIS QVIS HÆC SACRA PERH[aurias
5 - glor]IA SVMMA D̅S̅ LVMEN SAPIENTIA VIR[tus
6 - ver]VS IN ALTARI CRVOR EST VINV̅Q [videtur
7 - is]Q TVI LATERIS PER OPVS MIRAE [pietatis
8 - unde]POTENTER AQVAM tRIBVIS BAPTI[smate lotis

(For those who can scan Latin poetry, yes there are some minor irregularities. For instance, the second syllable of navis in line two has been lengthened.

If you go to the link for his article, you’ll see, too, that he’s managed to get the page typeset so that the letters on the page line up more or less the way they are on the stone. You’ll also see that his supplement at the beginning of line four sticks way out in front, that it starts farther to the left than his other lines do. This seems a bit unreasonable.


And it’s one of the places that Professor Bianchi has printed a different solution. (Since I haven’t seen Ferrua’s 1980 publication (no JSTOR access in my life right now), I don’t know how much of this is his work and how much Bianchi’s; I’ll refer to the later variants as Bianchi’s for the sake of simplicity, but in any sort of scholarly discussion, one would want to be more precise.) For line four Grossi-Gondi has:

Percipias gratiam quisquis haec sacra perhaurias.
May you obtain grace, whoever would drink down these sacred things.

For line four, Bianchi has:

Dicat iam quisquis haec sacra perhauriat ore
Whoever would drink down these sacred things, let him now say aloud,

To my mind, this makes a better transition between the first three lines, which are clearly addressed to the reader, and the fifth line, which names the One addressed in the subsequent lines, even if it makes the theology of the inscription less blatant.

Another change printed by Bianchi that improves the reading while muting the theology comes at the beginning of the sixth line. Grossi-Gondi has verus in altari cruor est / true blood is on the altar. Bianchi has cuius in altari cruor est / whose blood is on the altar. Either way, the line is still transubstantiationist. ___ blood is on the altar and seems to be wine.

Allowing that line six could go either way, Bianchi takes a couple of other minor improvements and prints his Latin text (with abbreviations expanded and spelling for the most part regularized)

1 - (Adsp)ICE QUI TRANSIS QUAM SIT BREVIS AC(cipe vita)
2 - (Atqu)E TUAE NAVIS ITER AD LITUS PARAD(isi)
3 - (Der)EGE QUO VULTUM DOMINI FACIAS TIBI PO(rtum)
4 - (Dica)T IAM QUISQUIS HAEC SACRA PERH(auriat ore)
5 - (Glor)IA SUMMA DOMINUS LUMEN SAPIENTIA VIR(tus)
6 - (Cui)US [o: (Ver)US] IN ALTARI CRUOR EST VINUMQUE (videtur)
7 - (Qui)QUE TUI LATERIS PER OPUS MIRAE (pietatis)
8 - (Omni)POTENTER AQUAM TRIBUIS BAPTI(smate lotis)

I’m not sure about the beginning of the third line. Bianchi is accepting a misspelling for dirige, and has supplied an altered vowel to match the one on the stone. He could just as easily have printed (Dir)ege, and I wouldn’t be surprised if an even better solution comes along later. But taking it as Bianchi prints it, I will supply the following pony (a “pony” in this context is a translation meant to explain the literal meaning of a foreign text; it is not meant to be a beautiful exemplar of clear, lucid English, but is meant to convey the sense and the ambiguities of the original):

1. Consider, you who pass by. Accept how brief life is
2. and
3. direct
2. your ship’s journey toward the shore of Paradise
3. to the place where you might make the face of the Lord your harbor.
4. Whoever would drink down these sacred things, let him now say aloud,
5. “Highest Glory, Lord, Light, Wisdom, Virtue,
6. Whose blood is on the altar and appears as wine
7. and You Who,
8. omnipotent, grant to those washed with baptism the water
7. of your side through a work of extraordinary mercy.”

One odd thing about ll. 5-8 is that they are all, grammatically, a direct address. All they are doing is saying good things about the person to whom the words are directed. They are an adoration:

O, Great Glory! (a bit stronger than merely saying, “o, Glorious One.” He is not merely characterized by glory, He is glory).
O, Lord!
O, Light!
O, Wisdom!
O, Virtue!
O, One Whose blood is on the altar in the guise of wine!
and, O, Omnipotent One who (through an act of wondrous mercy) grants the water of Your side to those washed by baptism.

I hope this helps. Feel free to ask for more if you need it.


Izzy
Feast of Corpus Christi, 2008

E-Church

I don't know why this tickles me, but it does. I haven’t had time to read my funnies, so I’m not sure what day this appeared. I found it in my inbox while using wifi before Mass in Floyd, VA. It was sent by my youngest brother.





Izzy,
who used to live a couple of blocks down the street from Dan Piraro in west Dallas

Salmon with basil & mint

It’s almost time for our annual retreat to Rocky Knob, so SWMBO is at her annual conference at the beach and I’m cleaning out the fridge. We’ve had some basil on the verge of going off and I thought I’d combine it with a nice piece of salmon. Poking around to see what others have done with this pairing, I found a recipe (I forget where) for salmon with basil & mint. And we just so happen to have some mint left over from the juleps we had during the Preakness (go Big Brown!). Here's what I did.

No... better... Here’s what I'll do next time.

• chiffonade about 1/6 c. basil leaves and 1/8 c. mint leaves for each salmon steak or fillet
• wilt the herbs in a bit of olive oil over a medium heat & set aside
• oil the baking pan & lay in the salmon
• cover with wilted herbs
• top with thin lemon slices
• bake in convection toaster oven for 13 minutes at 350

Fast, easy, and surprisingly tasty. I also had some vegetables, but everyone knows how to...

Wait a tick.

Easy corn on the cob:

• Shuck the corn & remove all the silk
• wrap tightly in plastic wrap
• roll into a tea towel
• nuke on high for a scant 2 minutes
• let sit for a few minutes (I put the fish in the oven, did the corn, and then unwrapped it right before the fish was ready).

Perfect.

Camembert & Caramelized Onion Quesadilla with Apple Chutney

The basic recipe is from the Food Network, with slight modifications for what we could get in town.

We had a tub of apple chutney, and I was wondering what to do with it all. So I did a web search for the phrase “with apple chutney,” and while most of the recipes called for pork of some sort (which SWMBO can not digest), there was one that looked pretty interesting.

Here’s what I used and how it came out:

• 2 Tblsp olive oil
• 4 Tblsp unsalted butter
• 4 sweet onions, peeled, halved and thinly sliced
• 2 Tblsp balsamic vinegar
• 4 tsp fresh thyme leaves, crushed in mortar & pestle
• 9 (6-inch) low carb flour tortillas
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• 3 4.5 oz. Camembert rounds, thinly sliced
• apple chutney

Modifying the original recipe, I made twice the recipe of caramelized onions. Sliced ’em up, tossed ’em into a large pot with the EVOO & butter on medium heat, and settled in for almost an hour’s worth of stirring, cooking down, and talking to moms on Mothers’ Day. When they had cooked way down and were a nice light brown color, I cut off the heat and stirred in the thyme and the balsamic.

The local stores don’t really sell Camembert by the pound, so I ended up buying several rounds of Ile-de-France brand creamy Camembert at 4.5 oz per round. Each round made one double-decker quesadilla.

As the recipe asks, I laid out six flour tortillas. I split the onions into six little mounds and spread one mound on each of the tortillas. I cut up the Camembert and put half a round’s worth on each of the tortillas, then stacked them up in pairs and covered each pair with another tortilla. I then had three little ungrilled stacks that went (from the cutting board up) tortilla, onion, cheese, tortilla, onion, cheese, tortilla.

We grilled them on a panini press (locking the upper grill in place just touching the top tortilla so it wouldn’t squish all the cheese out). On our first attempt, I put too much chutney on top; I’ll use less tomorrow. But other than that, not bad at all. I’ll bet it would be even better with brie.

The True Blood is on the altar and appears as Wine

Last Skylab Day, SWMBO and I were treated to an impromptu tour of St. Lawrence Outside the Walls by Prof. Lorenzo Bianchi. We were there on pilgrimage; he, to photograph an inscription that may be the earliest known epigraphical evidence of the doctrine of transubstantiation.

Last Saturday, a package arrived in the mail from Italy. Prof. Bianchi had mailed me a couple of his books and a few articles, including an off-print of the preliminary article (March 2006) to the scholarly publication for which he and his crew were shooting pictures (forthcoming).

The earlier article (March 2006) is available online.

The slab in question is directly over these men’s heads as you head into the lower crypt:



One of our pictures of the thing (to give you an idea of position and scale) is here:



Prof. Bianchi’s text and Italian translation are here:

1. (Adsp)ICE QUI TRANSIS QUAM SIT BREVIS AC(cipe vita)
2. (Atqu)E TUAE NAVIS ITER AD LITUS PARAD(isi)
3. (Der)EGE QUO VULTUM DOMINI FACIAS TIBI PO(rtum)
4. (Dica)T IAM QUISQUIS HAEC SACRA PERH(auriat ore)
5. (Glor)IA SUMMA DOMINUS LUMEN SAPIENTIA VIR(tus)
6. (Cui)US [o: (Ver)US] IN ALTARI CRUOR EST VINUMQUE (videtur)
7. (Qui)QUE TUI LATERIS PER OPUS MIRAE (pietatis)
8. (Omni)POTENTER AQUAM TRIBUIS BAPTI(smate lotis)

1. Guarda, tu che passi, intendi quanto sia breve la vita,
2. e raddrizza il viaggio della tua nave all’approdo del Paradiso,
3. là dove il tuo porto sarà vedere il Signore.
4. Dica ormai chiunque beve queste specie consacrate:
5. “Tu sei la somma gloria, il Signore, il lume, la sapienza, la virtù,
6. il cui [o: vero] sangue è sull’altare e sembra vino;
7. tu, che nella tua onnipotenza concedi con un’opera di mirabile misericordia
8. l’acqua scaturita dal tuo fianco a coloro che sono stati purificati nel battesimo”.


I eagerly await the full publication.

An obvious refinement

Two posts below I blathered on about LTLT and a caramelized white onion change in the onion confit (and, with the addition of raisins, a recipe heading out of the confit domain and into that of chutney). If LHLT is the method, what better tool than a crock pot? It seems obvious in retrospect, and so I had to try it.

This time, I made a full recipe -- 2 lbs. of onions to start with. We were out of chutney-esqe stuff for garnishing [1] and Vidalia onions (sweet yellow onions from a particular region of Georgia) are in season. And so I thought I’d try caramelizing the onions in the crock pot overnight. Slice & chop, into the pot, stir in some EVOO, cover, and turn on the pot. I let them go about ten hours on low. The limiting factor was that I had to leave for work the next morning, and so I went ahead and added the other ingredients before I left. Notes for future use:

• next time, start this right when I get home from work so that they have about four more hours to caramelize;
• use butter instead of EVOO; and
  
• if the onions are just going to be used as caramelized onions per se, just do them in a large cast iron pot and keep stirring. (Music and a decent single malt will enhance the experience.)
  

Anyway, after about ten hours of cooking down, I added the tawny, white balsamic, honey, and raisins. I stirred it up, put the cover back on, and went to work. When I got home, I gave it a taste to see what I needed to add (nothing, this time), left the cover off, and turned the pot to high to start reducing the mixture. After 8 hours, it was almost thick enough. I think ten would have done the trick.

So the upshot is this: if I don't have the time to supervise, or if (like yesterday) there is a lot of other cooking that needs to happen and a chunk of the stove can’t be spared, the crock pot is a good solution. But it needs much more time than I originally thought. And the flavor of the caramelized onions is more intense if done more quickly over the stove.

BTW, the recipe cooked down to three pints (one quart jar, one pint jar). This would obviously be less if I let it reduce further.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


[1] Or so I had thought. While I was simmering down the confit (or whatever it is), I asked SWMBO about a couple of plastic containers in the fridge. Turns out, one is an apple chutney. The other is also definitely in the chutney family, and much more sub-continent by the taste o it, but neither of us can remember what went into the making of it. So we're apparently set for chutneys at the moment, having a sweet apple chutney, and earthy onion confit, and some sort of curried chutney. Now we just have to cook things to put them on.

Ut Unum Sint

One of the things that drew me to the Catholic Church was reading and rereading Christ’s prayer in the Garden (John 17). While I was mulling over His prayer that all Christians be one and that our unity be a sign to unbelievers, Pope John Paul II promulgated his wonderful encyclical Ut Unum Sint.

This morning I listened to and read along with Benedict XVI’s Address at the Ecumenical Prayer Service at St. Joseph’s Parish (Manhatten) from two evenings ago. Wow. It is clearly pastoral, and clearly heartfelt, but he minces no words. He does not outright call our divisions a scandal to the name of Christ, but he firmly finds fault with variance from what is truly Catholic, what has been believed everywhere, everywhen. Here is the paragraph that caught my ear:

Too often those who are not Christians, as they observe the splintering of Christian communities, are understandably confused about the Gospel message itself. Fundamental Christian beliefs and practices are sometimes changed within communities by so-called "prophetic actions" that are based on a hermeneutic not always consonant with the datum of Scripture and Tradition. Communities consequently give up the attempt to act as a unified body, choosing instead to function according to the idea of "local options". Somewhere in this process the need for diachronic koinonia - communion with the Church in every age - is lost, just at the time when the world is losing its bearings and needs a persuasive common witness to the saving power of the Gospel (cf. Rom 1:18-23).

Go read the rest. And feel free to watch & listen (wmv) as well (link from this site; I'd happily post better streams).

Caramelized Onion Chutney

Two things here; first texture, then flavor.

Texture: LTLT (low temperature, long time)

I understand that the way to get really tender caramelized onions is to pile some thinly-sliced onions in a crock pot, put some butter pats on top, and let it go on low all night long. I didn't have that long, and I wasn’t preparing more than a single onion’s worth, so I used a cast-iron skillet over very low heat. I used a mandolin to do the initial slicing and then, because I was heading for a chutney, chopped the slices. Heated the skillet, melted a bit of butter, and tossed in the onion bits. Occasional stirring for about 75 minutes before the onion began to brown (the heat was that low), then another twenty minutes before the pieces were almost uniformly brown.

When I transferred the onion into a saucepan with the remaining ingredients, I again used a very low heat. It took over a half an hour for the sauce to start bubbling. It bubbled for over an hour before I had to add water (so it could keep bubbling and softening).

Low temperature. Long time.

Flavor:

I used the basic proportions of the red onion confit, but eyeballed it all instead of measuring (it was just one onion, after all). But the ingredients were modified to these:

• caramelized yellow onion
• honey
• tawny port wine
• white balsamic vinegar
• raisins

I think this one’s a keeper.

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun

The Second Coming
by William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.


Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

I suppose it was only a matter of time before I stuck a copy of this oft-quoted gem up here. Has anyone done a count of the number of other works that have been entitled from these lines (or from allusions to them)? At least two administration-authored reports on Iraq have taken their titles from this poem. (And just over a year ago there was a NYT op-ed piece pointing out the irony.) But no matter how you read it, its images and language stick.

“Do You Love Me?”

(I think that this duet from Fiddler on the Roof is my favorite love song. I’m posting it in honor of the day and because our 25th anniversary is looming. I hope that the color-coding will be obvious; it’s not quite blue and pink, but you’ll get the idea.)

Tevye: Golde, I have decided to give Perchik permission to become engaged to our daughter, Hodel.

Golde: What‽ He’s poor! He has nothing, absolutely nothing!

Tevye: He's a good man, Golde. I like him. And what's more important, Hodel likes him. Hodel loves him. So what can we do? It’s a new world... A new world.

Love.

Golde...

[Song starts.]

Do you love me?

Golde: Do I what?

Tevye: Do you love me?

Golde: Do I love you?
With our daughters getting married
And this trouble in the town
You’re upset, you’re worn out;
Go inside, go lie down!
Maybe it's indigestion.
Golde, I’m asking you a question:

Do you love me?

You're a fool.

I know.

But do you love me?

Do I love you?
For twenty-five years I’ve washed your clothes,
Cooked your meals, cleaned your house,
Given you children, milked the cow;
After twenty-five years, why talk about love right now?

Golde, the first time I met you

Was on our wedding day.
I was scared. I was shy.
I was nervous. So was I.

But my father and my mother
Said we’d learn to love each other
And now I’m asking, Golde,
Do you love me?

I’m your wife.

I know.
But do you love me?

Do I love him?
For twenty-five years I’ve lived with him,
Fought him, starved with him.
Twenty-five years my bed is his.
If that’s not love, what is?

Then you love me?

I suppose I do.

And I suppose I love you, too.

Both:
It doesn't change a thing,
But even so
After twenty-five years
It’s nice to know.

Glaring Across the Chasm of Flames

The Frick Collection is in the converted Manhattan town house of Henry Clay Frick. Much of the permanent collection is still arranged in living spaces, as if the family were going to move back in tomorrow. There are quiet spots for sitting and contemplating, tucked serenely between the walls of a house set down amidst the constant drone of New York’s Upper East Side. I was slowly sauntering from room to room when I entered the Living Hall and saw what is still my favorite group of paintings. The wit of the arrangement stopped me dead in my tracks and made me cackle so loudly that I was almost tossed out of the museum.

Inset into one wall is one of those large walk-in fireplaces. The mantle is just about head hight. To the left of the fireplace is the famous Holbein portrait of St. Thomas More, the Man for All Seasons; he looks to his left, across the great expanse of the fireplace. On the other side of the fireplace, looking to his right across the chasm, is a portrait of Thomas Cromwell also by Holbein the Younger.

Now, Cromwell was Henry VIII’s chief minister; it was he who was instrumental in organizing More’s martyrdom, questioning the Saint endlessly and trying fruitlessly to find or force a political justification for More’s execution. He was unsuccessful, but More was beheaded anyway, and now the pair of them, transported from their own island to this room in Manhattan, stare at one another across the flames, inviting us to guess which of the Thomases is on which side of the great chasm.

But that’s not all, for above the mantle, looking out at us from a height, is the famous El Greco of St. Jerome. He is elongated, dressed in red cape, and has his thumb plonked down into Scripture. His stern presence has been set as a judge between the two Tommys, but by his gaze and gesture he commands us to make our own judgement, and to base it on Holy Writ. Only the angle of his body within this grouping betrays his own choice, or (at any rate) the choice made by the person who had these three paintings hung together in this place.


The large fireplace, which would dominate most rooms, is subsumed by a fantastic and deliberate arrangement of portraits; the grouping uses it and gives it new meaning. It becomes a gateway to hell in an arrangement that reminds us of a notorious moment in history and tells us what the arranger thinks of the characters in the story.

And I suspect that there are similar stories to be read throughout the house, if only I had the wit and intelligence to discern them.

Get thee to the Frick.

Why, my beloved....

I was reminded this evening that even in the very early days of our marriage, way back when the earth was cooling and dinosaurs were just starting to check out the new digs, I was a fan and practitioner of the postmodern sensibility. (Cf. this old post and search down the page for postmodernism & the first long quotation.)

What SWMBO reminded me of was the stock answer I used to give anytime her insecure self asked me whether some aspect of her physical person was in order or not. You know the questions: “Does this (article of clothing / haircut / shade of makeup / live badger) make (me / my (body part(s)) / my artificial kidney) look (too big / too small / too hideous / indictable)?”

These questions are always minefields, and, having already lost a limb or two in such places, I refused to crawl in for another go. Instead, I would put on my best dim-witted-son face (and since I was raised in Texas by West Virginians, you know I come by such expressions naturally) and proclaim in a slow, deliberate monotone:

“Why, my beloved, I am so blinded by your feminine pulchritude that I am completely unable to perceive any minor flaws which you may feel that you possess.”

It has worked for me; feel free to try it for your own self.

Constitutional Commas

Yet another developing story about the importance of correct (and correctly understood) punctuation. This one an editorial by Adam Freedman in the Sunday, 16 December 2007 New York Times. N.b. that it also touches on matters particularly dear to the Latin teacher’s heart (**cough** ablative absolute **cough**).

Myself, I want to know about my right to keep and arm bears.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

December 16, 2007

Op-Ed Contributor

Clause and Effect

By ADAM FREEDMAN

LAST month, the Supreme Court agreed to consider District of Columbia v. Heller, which struck down Washington’s strict gun ordinance as a violation of the Second Amendment’s “right to keep and bear arms.”

This will be the first time in nearly 70 years that the court has considered the Second Amendment. The outcome of the case is difficult to handicap, mainly because so little is known about the justices’ views on the lethal device at the center of the controversy: the comma. That’s right, the “small crooked point,” as Richard Mulcaster described this punctuation upstart in 1582. The official version of the Second Amendment has three of the little blighters:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The decision invalidating the district’s gun ban, written by Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, cites the second comma (the one after “state”) as proof that the Second Amendment does not merely protect the “collective” right of states to maintain their militias, but endows each citizen with an “individual” right to carry a gun, regardless of membership in the local militia.

How does a mere comma do that? According to the court, the second comma divides the amendment into two clauses: one “prefatory” and the other “operative.” On this reading, the bit about a well-regulated militia is just preliminary throat clearing; the framers don’t really get down to business until they start talking about “the right of the people ... shall not be infringed.”

The circuit court’s opinion is only the latest volley in a long-simmering comma war. In a 2001 Fifth Circuit case, a group of anti-gun academics submitted an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief arguing that the “unusual” commas of the Second Amendment support the collective rights interpretation. According to these amici, the founders’ use of commas reveals that what they really meant to say was “a well-regulated militia ... shall not be infringed.”

Now that the issue is heading to the Supreme Court, the pro-gun American Civil Rights Union is firing back with its own punctuation-packing brief. Nelson Lund, a professor of law at George Mason University, argues that everything before the second comma is an “absolute phrase” and, therefore, does not modify anything in the main clause. Professor Lund states that the Second Amendment “has exactly the same meaning that it would have if the preamble had been omitted.”

Refreshing though it is to see punctuation at the center of a national debate, there could scarcely be a worse place to search for the framers’ original intent than their use of commas. In the 18th century, punctuation marks were as common as medicinal leeches and just about as scientific. Commas and other marks evolved from a variety of symbols meant to denote pauses in speaking. For centuries, punctuation was as chaotic as individual speech patterns.

The situation was even worse in the law, where a long English tradition held that punctuation marks were not actually part of statutes (and, therefore, courts could not consider punctuation when interpreting them). Not surprisingly, lawmakers took a devil-may-care approach to punctuation. Often, the whole business of punctuation was left to the discretion of scriveners, who liked to show their chops by inserting as many varied marks as possible.

Another problem with trying to find meaning in the Second Amendment’s commas is that nobody is certain how many commas it is supposed to have. The version that ended up in the National Archives has three, but that may be a fluke. Legal historians note that some states ratified a two-comma version. At least one recent law journal article refers to a four-comma version.

The best way to make sense of the Second Amendment is to take away all the commas (which, I know, means that only outlaws will have commas). Without the distracting commas, one can focus on the grammar of the sentence. Professor Lund is correct that the clause about a well-regulated militia is “absolute,” but only in the sense that it is grammatically independent of the main clause, not that it is logically unrelated. To the contrary, absolute clauses typically provide a causal or temporal context for the main clause.

The founders — most of whom were classically educated — would have recognized this rhetorical device as the “ablative absolute” of Latin prose. To take an example from Horace likely to have been familiar to them: “Caesar, being in command of the earth, I fear neither civil war nor death by violence” (ego nec tumultum nec mori per vim metuam, tenente Caesare terras). The main clause flows logically from the absolute clause: “Because Caesar commands the earth, I fear neither civil war nor death by violence.”

Likewise, when the justices finish diagramming the Second Amendment, they should end up with something that expresses a causal link, like: “Because a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” In other words, the amendment is really about protecting militias, notwithstanding the originalist arguments to the contrary.

Advocates of both gun rights and gun control are making a tactical mistake by focusing on the commas of the Second Amendment. After all, couldn’t one just as easily obsess about the founders’ odd use of capitalization? Perhaps the next amicus brief will find the true intent of the amendment by pointing out that “militia” and “state” are capitalized in the original, whereas “people” is not.

Adam Freedman, the author of “The Party of the First Part: The Curious World of Legalese,” writes the Legal Lingo column for New York Law Journal Magazine.

BTW, if you haven’t already signed up for free access to the NYTimes online, you really should do so. It’s free, and very informative. And for a nominal fee, you can do the Times crossword online. Beats the heck out of all that time you’re wasting playing solitaire.

It’s all in the Synopsis, pt. 2

This from SWMBO, who heard it on the radio:

On December 2, 1859, Mr. John Brown died during an important civic event being held in his honor, when the platform upon which he was standing gave way suddenly.

Now that’s spin.

Pasta e Fagioli

Fall is here, good soup weather, and only a month late.

Some students are coming over this weekend, and I’m thinking that it’s time for some pasta e fagioli.

A recipe that I’ve used before is one from the Food Network’s Everyday Italian. This is the one that looked most like what Vincent Bruno used to make, although he added ceci (chickpeas) and tended to use rotini or fusilli. He also used a LOT more garlic. So I tried it out, to good effect, and then thought I’d see what the show was like.

I like the recipe. I really do. But I have real trouble watching the show. She is just so wide-eyed, so effusive, so isn’t-this-marvelous. I can’t take it. But the recipes (yes, I’ve tried a couple of other things from the show’s archive) are pretty good.

And here’s the soup:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pasta e Fagioli

Recipe courtesy Giada De Laurentiis
Show: Everyday Italian
Episode: Italian Ladies

• 4 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1 large sprig fresh rosemary
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 3 ounces pancetta, chopped
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 5 3/4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 2 (14.5-ounce) cans red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 3/4 cup elbow macaroni
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Pinch red pepper flakes, optional
• 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

Wrap the thyme, rosemary, and bay leaf in a piece of cheesecloth and secure closed with kitchen twine. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil and butter in a heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, pancetta, and garlic and sauté until the onion is tender, about 3 minutes. Add the broth, beans, and sachet of herbs. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat, then decrease the heat to medium and simmer until the vegetables are very tender, about 10 minutes. Discard the sachet. Puree 1 cup of the bean mixture in a blender until smooth*. Before putting the puree back into the soup, add the macaroni and boil with the lid on until it is tender but still firm to the bite, about 8 minutes. Return the puree to the remaining soup in the saucepan and stir well. Season the soup with ground black pepper and red pepper flakes.

Ladle the soup into bowls. Sprinkle with some Parmesan and drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil just before serving.

*When blending hot liquids: Remove liquid from the heat and allow to cool for at least 5 minutes. Transfer liquid to a blender or food processor and fill it no more than halfway. If using a blender, release one corner of the lid. This prevents the vacuum effect that creates heat explosions. Place a towel over the top of the machine, pulse a few times then process on high speed until smooth.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When I made this for a lunch at work, I pre-cooked the pasta about 3/4 of the way to al dente and put it in a big ziplock. The soup I put in a big crock pot at work, and about 20 minutes before serving time, I put the pasta into the crock pot. It warmed up, finished cooking, and was the right texture without me having to do any of the cooking at the office.

“The Dead”

A while back a friend was headed on a trip with an older relative. I encouraged my friend to ask questions, probe family history, and steal some stories. The inevitable reply, and my response to it, are here:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“How do you steal a story?”

By taking it from its owner and making it your own. Whether it lay in a dusty old box, forgotten until some quirk of fate and time cause them to stumble across it, lift the lid, and remember; or whether it be worn down from innumerable gentle handlings over the years; their stories will have a meaning for them, will have a use for them. And often, when that story finds receptive ears, its meaning changes and the story finds a new owner.


I think here, especially, of Gabriel stealing Gretta’s story, the story of Michael Furey’s mortal love for her, at the end of Joyce’s “The Dead” (last story in Dubiners). “He thought of how she who lay beside him had locked in her heart for so many years that image of her lover’s eyes when he had told her that he did not wish to live.” And now that story of hers becomes for him, perhaps too late, the story that opens his heart, unlocks his own capacity for love at the very moment he becomes acutely aware of mortality — the mortality of the universe, the mortality of his country, the mortality of himself.

“The air of the room chilled his shoulders. He stretched himself cautiously along under the sheets and lay down beside his wife. One by one, they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. He thought of how she who lay beside him had locked in her heart for so many years that image of her lover’s eyes when he had told her that he did not wish to live.

“Generous tears filled Gabriel’s eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears gathered more thickly in his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw the form of a young man standing under a dripping tree. Other forms were near. His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, was dissolving and dwindling.

“A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”


The best form of fabulous theft is like that. The stolen story becomes a sort of grace in the life of the thief. There are other, more mundane, sorts of theft -- a grandmother’s story that becomes grist for cocktail chatter -- but even then, which stories we choose to lift will tell us something about ourselves. And, as we claim them, they claim us and change us. The stolen story becomes ours to tell, to shape, and to change, but to a degree, we also become the story’s, to be changed by it.


Pax,
Izzy


P.S. “The Dead” was lovingly crafted into a movie by a dying John Huston, and stars his daughter Angelica. We have a nearly worn-out VHS of the thing, and I eagerly await a Region 1 DVD (so far, there has only been a release in Spain -- region 2).


P.P.S.S. A Region 1 DVD finally hit the market in November of 2009. I snapped it up (at less that $10) and am delighted to find it a wide-screen edition. No scan & pan here.

For comparison sake, here is the final voice-over from the film:

One by one, we’re all becoming shades. Better to pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. How long you locked away in your heart the image of your lover’s eyes when he told you that he did not wish to live. I’ve never felt that way myself towards any woman, but I know that such a feeling must be love. Think of all those who ever were, back to the start of time. And me, transient as they, flickering out as well into their grey world. Like everything around me, this solid world itself which they reared and lived in, is dwindling and dissolving. Snow is falling. Falling in that lonely churchyard where Michael Furey lies buried. Falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living, and the dead.

Graham Greene & The Heart of the Matter

Three conversations (one in person and two via e-mail) in the last month have convinced me to search the old hard drive and some thoughts from days gone by. I’m here repurposing something sent to a discussion list back before the millenial shift. Actually, it was originally two somethings and has here been slapped together as if it were originally a single thing. I hope it’s still useful.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

...with regard to Greene’s faith. I know he was a Catholic (obviously), but not having read a great deal of his work (only P&G and ”Heart of the Matter”), his seems a rather dark, bleak outlook. Any comments?
Jim B

and the B doesn’t stand for Beam....

P&G was, according to Greene, the only one of his novels written to a thesis; he set out to demonstrate that the sacrament is valid despite the state of the one administering that sacrament. My own take was that it was much more a demonstration of just how worthy one could be despite all one’s flaws and self-doubt; the overwhelming impression the novel left me was just how heroic this degraded little whiskey priest really was when it came down to it. Beyond doubt one of Greene’s best. And as a polemic, it covers the same ground as the Donatist controversy. Which makes Greene seem rather more orthodox than I think he actually was.

For instance, the other book you mention is my personal favorite (primarily because I recognize Scobie’s besetting sin as a variant of my own and I read the thing just after I had given up on suicide (because I could think of no way to do it that would be fairly considerate and wouldn’t just seem ridiculous to the uninvolved observer)). I have a couple of times posted to this list sections from the dialog between Scobie’s priest and his widow at the end of the book (I’ll quote it again at the end of this post). In this dialog, Greene’s take on God’s mercy, while attractive, is clearly heterodox.

And in some of the interviews collected in Conversations with Graham Greene, Greene speaks quite frankly about his continued and illegal use of opium. E.g., this from V.S. Naipaul, originally The Daily Telegraph Magazine, 8 March 1968, 28-32:

….I [Naipaul] said I enjoyed tobacco less and less but didn’t know what to replace it with. Mr. Greene said, “I think you are ready for opium.” He added: “The fuss about opium and marijuana is absurd. The Battle of Britain was won on benzedrine.” He goes on to talk about how restful an opium nap is and to recommend that opium be made “available to everyone over fifty; there need be no bureaucratic complications; there can be properly supervised fumeries.”

You’re more or less right about Greene’s bleak outlook. I think it comes from doing so much political work in the times and places he did. On the other hand, he developed a fine sense of the absurd, on display in his comic novels like Travels With My Aunt and Our Man in Havana (Once while in a motel I saw the end of a movie version of the latter; B&W with Alec Guinness; I easily recognized the plot within two minutes and enjoyed watching it while we packed up).

His pessimism is usually directed at bureaucracies and the overly innocent (check out The Quiet American for a prophetic look at how American can-do optimism would go seriously awry Vietnam). The Comedians is as good a look into the black heart of Haiti as ever you’ll want to see, and was on my mind a few years back as I watched news footage of people normally shown happily beaming in friendly fashion butcher each other in the same carefree, offhand manner. If you want to see just how far his pessimism would go on an individual level, in the very short novel Brighton Rock, Greene tried to create a character absolutely beyond the reach of redemption. The denouement of this novel also includes an interview with a priest. It is interesting to note that his pessimism is not quite complete.

And while I’m at it, The End of the Affair is told from the point of view of a man whose lover has left him. He never really understands what she tells him plainly, that she has broken off their relationship because it was sinful and she has found God. It’s an interesting study in religion, superstition, and what might count as real faith.


Well, I don’t think I’ve answered your questions, but I’ve enjoyed rambling on here. Greene is one of my favorites, and I intend to read HotM again before too much more time goes by. Here are some quotations to show you why. I’ve tried to cull from my marked passages only the ones that will make a bit of sense without their larger contexts. If it doesn’t give a fair representation of the thought of the book, it will probably reveal more than I would like about my own reactions to the book.

Pax,
Izzy

---------------------------------------
Despair is the price one pays for setting oneself an impossible aim. It is, one is told, the unforgivable sin, but it is sin the corrupt or evil man never practices. He always has hope. He never reaches the freezing-point of knowing absolute failure. Only the man of good will carries always within his heart this capacity for damnation.

---------------------------------------
“We’d forgive most things if we knew the facts.... A policeman should be the most forgiving person in the world if he gets his facts right.”
--Asst. Police Commissioner Scobie

---------------------------------------
...for the first time he realized the pain inevitable in any human relationship--pain suffered and pain inflicted. How foolish one was to be afraid of loneliness.

---------------------------------------
...in the confusing night he forgot for the while what experience had taught him--that no human being can really understand another, and no one can arrange another’s happiness.

---------------------------------------
He said the Our father, the Hail Mary, and then, as sleep began to clog his lids, he added an act of contrition. It was a formality, not because he felt himself free from serious sin but because it had never occurred to him that his life was important enough one way or another. He didn’t drink, he didn’t fornicate, he didn’t even lie, but he never regarded this absence of sin as virtue.

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What an absurd it was thing to expect happiness in a world so full of misery. ... Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either extreme egotism, evil--or else an absolute ignorance.
Outside the rest-house he stopped again. The lights inside would have given an extraordinary impression of peace if one hadn’t known [of the shipwreck victims who lay dying inside], just as the stars on this clear night gave also an impression of remoteness, security, freedom. If one knew, he wondered, the facts, would one have to feel pity even for the planets? if one reached what they called the heart of the matter?
--the musings of Major Scobie

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It seemed to Scobie later that this was the ultimate border he had reached in happiness: being in darkness, alone, with rain falling, without love or pity.

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[The young widow] thought that she wanted to be alone, but what she was afraid of was the awful responsibility of receiving sympathy.

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“I’ve always envied people who were happy [at school].... To start off happy,” Harris said, “It must make an awful difference afterwards. Why, it might become a habit, mightn’t it?”

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It seemed to him for a moment that God was too accessible. There was no difficulty in approaching Him. Like a popular demagogue He was open to the least of His followers at any hour. Looking up at the cross he thought, He even suffers in public.
--Scobie, musing after confession

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The word “pity” is used as loosely as the word “love”: the terrible promiscuous passion which so few experience.

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...it wasn’t madness: he had long since become incapable of anything so honest as madness: he was one of those condemned in childhood to complexity.
--a description of Wilson

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He thought: I’ll go back and go to bed. In the morning I’ll write to Louise and in the evening go to confession: the day after that God will return to me in a priest’s hands: life will be simple again. Virtue, the good life, tempted him in the dark like a sin. The rain blurred his eyes, the ground sucked at his feet as they trod reluctantly towards the Nissen hut.
--Scobie, on his way to see his mistress

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Leaning back against the dressing-table, he tried to pray. The Lord’s Prayer lay as dead on his tongue as a legal document: it wasn’t his daily bread that he wanted but so much more. He wanted happiness for others and solitude and peace for himself. “I don’t want to plan anymore,” he said suddenly aloud. “They wouldn’t need me if I were dead. The dead can be forgotten. Oh God, give me death before I give them unhappiness.” But the words sounded melodramatically in his own ears. He told himself he mustn’t get hysterical: there was far too much planning to do for an hysterical man, and going downstairs again he thought three aspirins or perhaps four were what he required in this situation--this banal situation. He took a bottle of filtered water out of the ice-box and dissolved the aspirin. He wondered how it would feel to drain death as simply as these aspirins which now stuck sourly in his throat. The priests told one it was the unforgivable sin, the final expression of an unrepentant despair, and of course one accepted the Church’s teaching. But they also taught that God had sometimes broken his own laws, and was it less possible for him to put out hand of forgiveness into the suicidal darkness than to have woken himself in the tomb, behind the stone? Christ had not been murdered--you couldn’t murder God. Christ had killed himself: he had hung himself on the cross as surely as Pemberton from the picture-rail.

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“Why do we go on like this--being unhappy?”
“It’s a mistake to mix up the ideas of happiness and love,” Scobie said with desperate pedantry....
--Scobie and his mistress making chitchat

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Wilson felt sick; he wanted to sit down. Why, he wondered, does one ever begin this humiliating process: why does one imagine that one is in love? He had read somewhere that love had been invented in the eleventh century by the troubadours. Why had they not left us with lust?

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“...you must have a real purpose of amendment. We are told to forgive our brother seventy times seven and we needn’t fear that God will be any less forgiving than we are, but nobody can begin to forgive the uncontrite. It’s better to sin seventy times and repent each time than sin once and never repent.”
--Father Rank

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She said drearily, “Father, haven’t you any comfort to give me?”
Oh, the conversations, he thought, that go on in a house after a death, the turnings over, the discussions, the questions, the demands--so much noise round the edge of silence.
“You’ve been given an awful lot of comfort in your life, Mrs. Scobie. If what Wilson thinks is true, it’s he who needs our comfort.”
“Do you know all that I know about him?”
“Of course I don’t, Mrs. Scobie. You’ve been his wife, haven’t you, for fifteen years. A priest only knows the unimportant things.”
“Unimportant?”
“Oh, I mean the sins,” he said impatiently. “A man doesn’t come to us and confess his virtues.”
“I expect you know about [his affair with] Mrs. Rolt. Most people did.”
“Poor woman.”
“I don’t see why.”
“I’m sorry for anyone happy and ignorant who gets mixed up in that way with one of us.”
“He was a bad Catholic.”
“That’s the silliest phrase in common use,” Father Rank said.
“And at the end this--horror. He must have known he was damning himself.”
“Yes, he knew that alright. He never had any trust in mercy--except for other people.”
“It’s no good even praying...”
Father Rank clapped the cover of the diary to and said furiously, “For goodness’ sake, Mrs. Scobie, don’t imagine you--or I--know a thing about God’s mercy.”
“The Church says...”
“I know what the Church says. The Church knows all the rules. But it doesn’t know what goes on in a single human heart.”
“You think there’s some hope then?” she asked wearily.
“Are you so bitter against him?”
“I haven’t any bitterness left.”
“And do you think God’s likely to be more bitter than a woman?” he asked with harsh insistence, but she winced away from the arguments of hope.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mercy is not consistent; it’s like the wind; it blows where it will.
Mercy is comic, and it’s the only thing worth taking seriously.
T-Bone Burnett, “The Wild Truth”

Benedictio Cerevisae

MN: Beer Blessing in Latin
By Michael Novak
Tuesday, August 1, 2006, 3:46 PM
Beer Blessing
From the Rituale Romanum (no 58)
Bene+dic, Domine, creaturam istam cerevisae, quam ex adipe frumenti producere dignatus es: ut sit remedium salutare humano generi: et praesta per invocationem nominis tui sancti, ut, quicumque ex ea biberint, sanitatem corporis, et animae tutelam percipiant. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen
Bless, O Lord, this creature beer, that Thou hast been pleased to bring forth from the sweetness of the grain: that it might be a salutary remedy for the human race: and grant by the invocation of Thy holy name, that, whosoever drinks of it may obtain health of body and a sure safeguard for the soul. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
(Translation by Fr. Ephraem Chifley, O.P.)
(Access contributors’ biographies by clicking here.)
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added 28 January 2012, full entry
V. Adiutorium nostrum in nomine Domini.
R. Qui fecit caelum et terram.
V. Dominus vobiscum.
R. Et cum spiritu tuo.

Oremus.

Bene+dic, Domine, creaturam istam cerevisiae, quam ex adipe frumenti producere dignatus es: ut sit remedium salutare humano generi, et praesta per invocationem nominis tui sancti; ut, quicumque ex ea biberint, sanitatem corpus et animae tutelam percipiant. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.


Translation from XI.9.5 of Weller’s edition:

P: Our help is in the name of the Lord.
All: Who made heaven and earth.
P: The Lord be with you.
All: May He also be with you.

Let us pray.

Lord, bless + this creature, beer, which by your kindness and power has been produced from kernels of grain, and let it be a healthful drink for mankind. Grant that whoever drinks it with thanksgiving to your holy name may find it a help in body and in soul; through Christ our Lord. All: Amen.

It is sprinkled with holy water.
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Cf. also this BBC article.

Footnotes

I used to have the following as a sig:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* “If the reader does not understand this word, it is too bad.”

Best Footnote Ever, from p. 59 of Rats, Lice and History
(and brought to my attention by SWMBO)
http://steliz.blogspot.com/2005/12/rats-lice-and-history.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I suppose I should qualify that epithet to “Best Academic Footnote Ever,” since the footnote to which I most often refer people is not only in a different book altogether, it is in a different sort of book altogether.

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett is the funniest novel about the coming of the Antichrist that you will ever read. The premise is that the Spawn of Satan was, through bureaucratically designed accident, switched with a normal child. The effect is that those responsible for seeing to the Dark Child’s preparation and training are wasting their efforts with a thoroughly unsuited pupil, while the child with Hell’s powers is being reared in a bland British suburban setting. The book is populated with comic characters both mortal and immortal and peppered with a most entertaining set of footnotes. My favorite of those is informative and dry with just the right amount of snark; it comes upon the revelation that a particular member of the Witchfinder Army, name of Newt, is paid one old shilling per annum (p. 178 in my edition):

NOTE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE AND AMERICANS: One shilling = Five Pee. It helps to understand the antique finances of the Witchfinder Army if you know the original British monetary system:

Two farthings = One Ha’penny. Two ha’pennies = One Penny. Three pennies = A Thrupenny Bit. Two Thrupences = A Sixpence. Two Sixpences = One Shilling, or Bob. Two Bob = A Florin. One Florin and One Sixpence = Half a Crown. Four Half Crowns = Ten Bob Note. Two Ten Bob Notes = One Pound (or 240 pennies). One Pound and One Shilling = One Guinea.

The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated.

So there it is. I think Chesterton would happily accept the book’s dedication to himself. Read the reviews & descriptions at Amazon (linked in the title of this post) and then waste a few hours wiping tears from your eyes. It beats doing actual work.

New Appliance for the Heat

Long abouts Derby Day, we tend to make some mint juleps and have a little Derby Pie (Lizzy less of the pie in these diabetic days). The time-consuming part of making a decent julep has been the powdered ice. Using the mallet tired the arm and ruins a tea towel. So I've had half an eye out for a decent ice shaver. Most of the machines make crushed ice, and the smallest chips seem to be what you'd find in a snow cone. But then, while poking around at Amazon, I found a complaint that read in part:

I have tried shaving just plain ice first and then adding liquids, but because this machine generates snow, the snow tends to melt before you get a chance to enjoy it.

"...generates snow..." That sounded like my machine, and at $20, what's to lose?

So we've had it for a little while now and I have to say that this looks to be our julep machine. I'll have to hand-pack the shavings a little harder next time, because they really do want to melt away when a beverage is poured on top. They are that light and fluffy.

We've also played around with freezing other things to shave. Best so far: coffee. It comes out much softer than granita, and goes a treat with Bailey's. Shave some coffee, add some Irish cream. Yum!

Although it will have limited use, it could turn out to be our best kitchen appliance since the convection toaster oven, which is even now about to be loaded with some cookies.

~~~~~

BTW: click the title of this blog to arrive at the Amazon page. It's the Hamilton Beach Snowman Ice Shaver.

Tagged

Gashwin tagged me. If anything comes of it, it will be at livejournal.

Pronoun / Antecedent

One morning a fifth-grader saw me hand an empty egg carton over to another student. He asked why, and I told him that the other student’s family was going to fill the carton with a dozen freshly laid brown eggs.

His reply was, “we get brown eggs from our neighbors. They raise chickens. They’re rednecks.”

“Nicholas,” I said, “you do realize that that’s a derogatory term, don’t you? That it’s not a nice thing to call someone?”

In a completely guileless voice he said, “I don’t think they mind.”

“But you should mind, ” I told him. “They’re your friends. They give you eggs.”

He looked at me, his favorite teacher, as if I were an idiot and said, “they’re just chickens.”

I paused, tiny little cogitative wheels spinning furiously.

“Do you mean Rhode Island Reds?”

“Yeah!” he said brightly, “That’s it! Rhode Island Reds!”

“Ah... Well... I’ll see you in class, then.”

It’s all in the synopsis

Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.

Rick Polito, summarizing The Wizard of Oz
for the Marin (CA) Independent-Journal’s television highlights column.

Unintentional? Papal Snark

This on p. 52 of the first American edition (Doubleday 2007), in a quick review of just what "the Kingdom of Heaven / God" has meant and what it should mean:

Here, obviously, theory predominated over listening to the text.

cf. Lodge’s MLA scene.

Jesus of Nazareth

I'm reading the Pope's newest book, and am very much enjoying it. I've mentioned to a few people already that the forward should be published separately as a tract on how to do Biblical hermeneutics now that we've reached the limits of and seen the problems with the historical/critical method.

After I've finished it, I'm going to have to let it sit for a month or so and then go through it again. But for now I'll say: after so many years of fighting over the "historical Jesus," it's refreshing to read such a competent (and learned) search for the Lord Jesus in the gospels.

But for now, just one quotation, appearing above this post.