Apologetics

17 January 2024 By in Books Nonfiction, History Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Eusebius: The Church History

By Eusebius (of Caesarea)

Translated by Paul L. Maier

Kregel Academic

Copyright: © 2007

Original Publication Dates: 313-326 AD

Original Title: Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History

AmazonPicture

Maier Biography:

Paul L. Maier, born 1930 in St. Louis, author, public speaker, and historian has written twenty-three adult and children, fiction and non-fiction, books about Christianity. He is the son of Walter A. Maier, founder, and speaker of The Lutheran Hour.

He graduated from Harvard and Concordia Seminary in St. Louis with additional studies in Heidelberg, Germany and Basel, Switzerland. He was the Seibert Professor of Ancient History at Western Michigan University until he retired in 2011.

In addition to his definitive translation of “Eusebius: The Church History“, his 1993 “Skeleton in God’s Closet” was a number one best seller in religious fiction, a thriller concerning the Resurrection of Jesus. He also co-wrote with Hank Hanegraaff in 2006 a rebuttal to Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code“: “The Da Vinci Code: Fact or Fiction?“

In addition to writing books Maier has produced six religious documentaries including the 2014 “The Week That Changed the World“, detailing the Holy Week before Jesus’s resurrection, discussing the key personalities, the politics, and the treachery that sealed Christ’s fate.

Maier Bibliography-Books and Documentaries:

  • A Man Spoke, A World Listened: The Story of Walter A. Maier 1963
  • Pontius Pilate 1968
  • First Christmas: The True and Unfamiliar Story in Words and Pictures 1971
  • First Easter: The True and Unfamiliar Story in Words and Pictures 1973
  • First Christians: Pentecost and the Spread of Christianity 1976
  • Flames of Rome 1981
  • The Best of Walter A. Maier 1981 (paperback)
  • Josephus, The Essential Writings 1988
  • In Fullness of Time 1991
  • A Skeleton in God’s Closet 1994
  • The Very First Christmas 1998
  • The New Complete Works of Josephus with William Whiston 1999
  • Eusebius: The Church History 1999
  • The Very First Easter 2000
  • More Than a Skeleton 2003
  • Caspar Schwenckfeld on the Person and Work of Christ: A Study of Schwenckfeldian Theology at Its Core 2004 (paperback)
  • Martin Luther a Man Who Changed the World 2004
  • The Da Vinci Code: Fact or Fiction? with Hank Hanegraaf 2006
  • The Real Story of Creation 2007
  • The Real Story of the Flood 2008
  • A Skeleton in Rome 2011
  • The Constantine Codex 2011
  • The Genuine Jesus 2021
  • Christianity: The First Three Centuries (Documentary) 2003
  • The Odyssey of St. Paul (Documentary) 2003
  • Jesus: Legend or Lord? (Documentary) 2003
  • How We Got the Bible (Documentary) 2009
  • Christianity and the Competition (Documentary) 2010
  • The Week that Changed the World (Documentary) 2011

Eusebius Biography:

FootnoteA

“May I be an enemy to no one and the friend of what abides eternally. May I never quarrel with those nearest me and be reconciled quickly if I should. May I never plot evil against others, and if anyone plots evil against me, may I escape unharmed and without the need to hurt anyone else.” — Eusebius

Eusebius of Caesarea, also known as Eusebius Pamphili, was a historian, interpreter of scripture, and Christian apologist, born around 260-265 AD in Caesarea, where he gained prominence in the fourth century, before passing away around 339 AD. His early education was by the learned presbyter, and eventual saint, Pamphilus, the principle religious scholar of his generation.  Eusebius became bishop of Caesarea around 314 AD, shortly after Constantine became Roman Emperor, and remained in that position until his death in 339 AD. Eusebius became a significant figure in the theological controversies and politics of his day, becoming a, if not the leading spiritual advisor and confidant to Constantine.

Christians since the time of Christ were persecuted for their faith which came to a ghoulish crescendo under the Diocletian Edicts, also known as “The Edicts Against the Christians” of 303 AD. The edicts dissolved the Christians’ legal rights, compelled them to reject Jesus and to adhere to the local religious customs of paganism and polytheism. The edict saw the destruction of Christian scripture and churches along with the torture and execution of approximately 3500 church leaders and lay people including Eusebius’ teacher Pamphilus. The persecution ended with the Edict of Milian in 313 AD, decreed and signed by Constantine and Licinius proclaiming religious toleration within the empire.

FootnoteB

The edict gained the life-long gratitude of Eusebius culminating in the Christian bishop’s panegyric, “Life of Constantine“, in which the author details the emperor’s religious policies as well as a hagiographic account of Constantine’s life. Historians have described their relationship as complex, evolving over time. They have also stated that Eusebius may have been the power behind the throne or, as others have surmised, just an obsequious toady seeking protection from his church enemies. Regardless of the actual relationship it is agreed that Eusebius was Constantine’s spiritual and political advisor.

FootnoteC

Eusebius, through his bond with the emperor, helped structure the relationship between church and state, assisting in the creation of the Constantinian concept of a Christian empire, which had a considerable influence on the development of the early Christian Church and the Roman Empire, along with empires to come.

Constantine, to put down an early rebellion of church leaders, ordered three hundred bishops throughout the empire to meet at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD to resolve the controversy of Arianism, a concept that Christ was not divine but was created by God. Much of the Church believed that Christ was of the same substance, “consubstantiality“, as the Father and as such: divine. Eusebius, enjoying the emperor’s favor, sat next to him at the council and offered his own creed stating that Christ was begotten, not made, from the Father. The council, in the end, rejected Arianism and formulated the creed that is recited at every High Catholic Mass to this day. The council also set the time for Easter as the Sunday after the first full moon following the Spring equinox rather than occurring on the Sunday closest to Jewish Passover or on the Jewish Passover even it was not on a Sunday. Which explains why no one knowns when Easter occurs. Constantine was adamant about foregoing any Jewish practices in the honor of Jesus.

Eusebius is referred to as the “Father of Church History” due to his voluminous writings in the field including, as discussed below, his account of the first centuries of Christianity in his “Ecclesiastical History” or “Church History“. 

Church History (Ecclesiastical History):

FootnoteD

“Church History ” or “Ecclesiastical History” is the only exigent work that chronicles the development of early Christianity and its Church from the birth of Christ on into the fourth century. Eusebius’s account, written in Koiné Greek, lingua franca for the Mediterranean area from fourth century BC to fourth century AD, provides a chronological narrative, using the succession of Roman Emperors as a linear timeline, of the early Christian Church. Eusebius, with his access to the Theological Library of Caesarea, incorporated many church documents, acts of the martyrs, letters, and extracts from earlier Christian writings into his work, many which no longer exists. The “Church History” covers the succession of Church bishops, the history of Christian teachers especially Origen, the history of the many church heresies and conflicts, and Christianity’s relationships with Romans, pagans, and Jews. Despite accusations that “Church History” is more a defense of Christianity, an apologetic and hagiography, than a history, Eusebius’s work remains a valuable source for understanding early Christian history.

Below are the Maier’s chapter listings, brief descriptions, and Roman Emperors during the historical period covered.

  • Book I: The Person and Work of Christ: Eusebius on Christ. Augustus to Tiberius.
  • Book II: The Apostles: Eusebius on the Apostles. Tiberius to Nero.
  • Book III: Missions and Persecutions: Formation of the New Testament. Galba to Trajan.
  • Book IV: Bishops, Writings, and Martyrdoms: Defenders and Defamers of the Faith. Trajan to Marcus Aurelius.
  • Book V: Western Heros, Eastern Heretics: Death at Lyons, Rome, and Alexandria. Marcus Aurelius to Septimius Severus.
  • Book VI: Origen and Atrocities at Alexandria: Life of Origen. Septimius Severus to Decius.
  • Book VII: Dionysius and Dissent: Church Life According to Dionysius. Gallus to Diocletian.
  • Book VIII: The Great Persecution: Edicts Against Christians. Diocletian to Galerius.
  • Book IX: The Great Deliverance: The End of Persecution? Maximin, Maxentius, and Constantine.
  • Book X: Constantine and Peace: Eusebius and Constantine. Constantine.

Literary Criticism:

In C.F. Cruse’s 1850 translation of “Ecclesiastical History” he states that, “…Eusebius was not without his beauties, but they were rarely scattered, that we can hardly allow him an eminent rank as a writer.” This is an understatement of the 19th century although it is a polite way to admit Eusebius was incapable of engaging his readers in any form other than pedantic verbosity. This is also an example that Cruse was not immune from obfuscating meaning in his written translations and commentary. His comment above simply stated that Eusebius rarely wrote with elegance and concision. Eusebius’ writing was dense, confusing, dogmatic, and sometimes incomprehensible. Eusebius’ writing compares favorably, snark intended, with Edward Gibbons’ “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” whose erudite, verbose, and opaque style has managed to confuse his readers for two plus centuries now, but for some reason no one seems to mind, except me. Gibbons disliked, immensely, Eusebius’ “Ecclesiastical History” stating that it was full of lies and falsehoods which is an exceedingly difficult position to support due to Eusebius’ excessive use, usually in quotes, of original source material. Gibbons blamed the fall of the Roman Empire on the rise of Christianity, a problematic thesis considering Christianity was the least of the Empires worries. Unchecked immigration and a corrupt governing class were much bigger problems than a few Christians asking to be left alone to worship their God in peace.

Paul L. Maier’s translation of “Church History” is a masterful improvement over C.F. Cruse’s 1850 attempt to make Eusebius readable. Cruse strove to accurately translate Eusebius with the result of burdening his readers with difficult and cluttered phrasing. Maier saves his readers by reducing Eusebius’s lengthy sentences, dense language, and abrupt subject changes to intelligible bites of prose that are readable, understandable, and usable. An example of Maier taking difficult sentences and distilling them into something cogent can be seen in the two example sentences below. The first sentence comes from Loeb’s edition of “Ecclesiastical History“, which is a very faithful rendition of Eusebius’ writing, followed by Maier’s translated version. Loeb: “I have already summarized the material in the chronological tables which I have drawn up, but nevertheless in the present work I have undertaken to give the narrative in full detail.” Maier: “Previously I summarized this material in my Chronicle but in the present work I deal with it in the fullest detail.” The first sentence takes a few readings to comprehend the meaning. Maier allows for instant comprehension.

“Ecclesiastical History” or “Church History” is an important work in understanding the beginnings of Christianity and the governing hierarchy that was built up over the centuries. This is not a long book, less than four hundred pages, but it does take dedication to the task of reading and understanding it. In the end it is worth the effort as a little history is always useful if not enlightening.

References and Readings:

FootnoteA: Eusebius preceding his Eusebian Canons in the Garima Gospels. Michael Gervers. 2004. Public Domain

FootnoteB: The Christian Martyrs’ Last Prayer. Jean-Leon Gerome. Walters Art Museum. 1863-1883. Public Domain

FootnoteC: Eusebius of Caesarea. Unknown Source and Date. Public Domain

FootnoteD: Constantine the Great. Unknown Source and Date. Public Domain

Blue to Cartoon

30 December 2023 By in Art, Books Nonfiction Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Picasso

By Carsten-Peter Warncke

Translation By Michael Hulse

Taschen America LLC

Copyright: © 2001

Original Copyright: © 1998

AmazonPic

Warncke Biography:

There are only meager snippets of biographical information available on Carsten-Peter Warncke. The inside jacket of this volume on Picasso contains the most detail I was able to find, and I quote it in total below:

“Carsten-Peter Warncke was born in Hamburg in 1947, studied art history, classical archaeology and literature in Vienna, Heidelberg, and Hamburg, and received his doctorate from the last university in 1975. He is Professor of Art History at the University of Gottingen.”

FootnoteA

Warncke has authored multiple books on Picasso, a book titled Carl Becker: Decorative Arts, and a collection of love emblems from the 16th and 17th centuries titled Theatre D’Amour.

Picasso:

Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain in 1881 to Don Jose Ruiz Blasco, a painter who taught drawing, and Dona Maria Picasso Lopez. Pablo adopted his mother’s surname somewhere between 1897 and 1901 believing that his paternal surname was too common, plus he was convinced his name needed a double consonant to align with other artists such as Matisse, Poussin, and Rousseau.

Picasso was recognized as a child prodigy at a very young age. He began to paint with oils when he was eight and by the time he was thirteen he was selling his work. At the age of fourteen, he was admitted to the prestigious Barcelona art school: La Lonja. At the age of fifteen he made his official entry into the professional art world, presenting the painting, “The First Communion” at the Third Exhibition of Fine Arts and Artistic Industries in Barcelona.

FootnoteB

In 1900 Picasso exhibited 150 drawings at the Barcelona cafe, “Els Quatre Gats“. The cafe’s name derives from a Catalan expression which means “only a few people” and translates to “The Four Cats”. The expression describes people who are a bit strange or peculiar. The cafe was a popular meeting place for famous artists in the twentieth century including Isaac Albeniz, Gustavo Barcelo, Ramon Casa, Carlos Casegemas, and Santiago Rusinol.

Picasso moved around France and Spain about as often as he experimented with and changed his artistic style. In October of 1900 he moved to Montmartre on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris to open a studio with Casagemas. Shortly afterward the Paris art dealer, Pedro Manach, offered him 150 francs a month for his 150 aforementioned prints. There is no record of what else was required of Picasso to fulfill the contract, but the contract was either fulfilled or expired at the end of 1902 at which time the painter moved back to Barcelona. Finally, in a Hobbitian maneuver of there and back again, he returned to Paris in 1904 where he stayed until he moved to the French Riviera, initially on a semi-permanent basis, but eventually taking up full time residence in the area in 1952, where he remained until his death in 1973.

FootnoteC
FootnoteD

Picasso was constantly re-inventing himself over the course of his career that spanned three-quarters of a century. He began painting as a realist and gradually morphed into a modern artist laying claim to the greatest surrealist in the twentieth century.

Picasso viewed his art as a diary. He said he had no secrets, sharing his artistic journey with all. He was quoted as saying, “When I paint my object is to show what I have found and not what I am looking for.”

World events, such as war, and personal relationships often influenced his work. Picasso also anticipated the late twentieth century business mindset of “If it ain’t broke, fix it anyway” or more compactly, change for change’s sake. He conceptualized change as “A picture is not thought out and settled beforehand. While it is being done it changes as one’s thoughts change. And when it is finished, it still goes on changing, according to the state of mind of whoever is looking at it.“ This quote has also been paraphrased as “When I know what the picture will be beforehand, why make it?” In the same vein he also stated: “You mustn’t expect me to repeat myself. My past doesn’t interest me. I would rather copy others than copy myself. In that way I should at least be giving them something new. I love discovering things.” Change was religion for Picasso, and he worshiped it.

FootnoteE

Below is listing of the different art periods he laid claim to over the years:

  • Early Work from 1890-1901: Realistic style influenced by Expressionism and Post-Impressionism. Edvard Munch’s, Expressionist and painter of the 1893 “The Scream“, use of color and various themes resonated with Picasso. Wassily Kandinsky, Expressionist and painter of the 1903 “Blue Rider” moved in the same circles as Picasso and the two likely shared abstract artistic forms and themes. Picasso greatly admired the Post-Impressionist Toulouse-Lautrec with his 1900 “Le Moulin de la Galette” paying homage to Lautrec in style and spirit.
  • Blue Period from 1901-1904: Monochromatic paintings in shades of blue. Scenes of poverty and despair predominate this period exemplified by one of his most famous paintings from this period; “The Old Guitarist“. The painting, in addition to the characteristic blue, also shows the elongated bodies and fingers which the painter used to evoke emotion and reaction. Poverty and despair weren’t just a stylistic phase for him but a mirror into his personal depression. He was very poor and had lost his close friend Carles Casagemas in 1901. His depression began during his Blue Period and lasted in milder forms till the end of his Cubist Period.
  • Rose Period from 1904-1906: He used warmer colors than in his Blue Period with more cheerful subjects such as circus performers, clowns, and harlequins. His depression lifted slightly during this period possibly due to his relationship Fernande Olivier, a model and artist that Picasso painted over sixty portraits of. His best-known painting from this period is the 1905 “Boy with a Pipe“. Picasso described the boy, Louis, as an “evil angel” and used the garland of roses on his head to symbolize the blood of the Eucharist. This contrasted with the harsh street life that Louis actually endured along with the innocence of his youth. The garland of roses serves as a powerful symbol in the painting, representing the juxtaposition of innocence and the harsh realities of life. Beauty and thorns, side by side.
  • African Influenced Period from 1907-1909: He was inspired by African masks and sculptures. During this period, he experimented with geometric forms and shapes. His best-known work from this period is “The Ladies of Avignon”. This painting is considered a precursor to his Cubist Period and tangentially to his Surrealist Period. Art historian John Richardson said that this painting made Picasso the most pivotal artist in the West. Art Critic Holland Carter said that this work changed history. One can never accuse a critic of being subtle.
  • Cubist Period from 1909-1919: This period is divided into two phases: Analytic and Synthetic Cubism. Picasso’s Analytic Cubism from 1907-1912 combined deconstructed objects into overlapping planes from multiple viewpoints using muted colors. His Synthetic Cubism from 1912-1914 eliminated three-dimensional space and introduced extraneous matter mixed with bright subject colors. One of his better-known works during his Cubist Period is “Glass and Bottle of Suze“.
  • Neoclassicism from 1919-1924: Picasso returned to a more realistic style after WWI. Art critics at the time insisted Cubist art was a product of Germany coupled with the realization that Picasso’s Cubist art promoter was a German, causing the French to reject not only the style but also casting suspicion on the artist. Additionally, Picasso, being Spanish, did not serve in the French military during war causing public opinion to turn against him. To combat the ill feelings toward him he reverted to a more classical style. One of his better-known paintings during this period was “The Lover” which has the appearance of being lifted directly from a Greek or Roman bath.
  • Surrealist Period from 1924-1937: During this period Picasso incorporated elements of the subconscious, dreams, and fantasy into his art, exploring new ways to express emotion and reality. He was particularly interested in eroticism, violence, and primitivism. His art emphasized flowing lines and fragmented bodies which are interpreted to represent Picasso’s personal feelings towards his subjects. His anti-war “Guernica”, a response to Nazi bombing of the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War is his most famous Surrealistic painting or possibly his most famous painting in any style. If you didn’t know the story behind the painting and what it represents you would still see and feel the violence flowing from the canvas–knowing full well that supreme evil was in progress, seeping and dripping from the canvass in black and white. Picasso’s approach to Surrealism can be summed up with his words, “I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.”
  • Later Work from 1937-1973: Picasso continued to reinvent himself over the last quarter century of his life but with less success in the realm of originality. His paintings remained Surrealistic with occasional bursts of Cubism but were becoming more abstract and confusing. He began to reinterpret the old masters and explore love and death in more exacting detail while also branching out into distinctive and different mediums such as collage, sculpture, ceramics, and printmaking.
FootnoteF

Picasso was a prolific artist, orders of magnitude beyond the output of his contemporaries. As a way of comparison, the post-impressionist Toulouse-Lautrec, who was also considered a prolific painter, painted 737 oil paintings, 275 watercolors, 363 prints, and 5,084 drawings over a period of 20 years while Picasso is estimated to have produced 13,500 paintings, 100,000 prints, 34,000 book illustrations, and three hundred sculptures and ceramics over his 75-year career. On just the painting side of the equation Toulouse-Lautrec created, on average, approximately one painting per week while Picasso finished 3-4 paintings per week. Possibly only Qi Baishi, a Chinese painter of whimsical watercolors is known to have created more paintings than him.

The last known estimate of Picasso’s total oeuvre is estimated at over $500 million. Considering that eight of his paintings: “Les Femmes d’Alger” (Cubist/Matisse Adoptive–$179.4 million) “Le Rêve” (Surrealist–$155 million), “Femme à la Montre” (Surrealist–$139.4 million) “Fillette a la Corbeille” (Surrealist–$115 million), “Nude Green Leaves and Bust” (Surrealist–$106.5 million), “Boy with a Pipe” (Blue–$104 million), “Femme Assise Pres d’une Fenetre” (Surrealist–$103.4 million), and “Dora Maar au Chat” (Cubist/Surrealist–$95.2 million) exceed that estimate it would not be unreasonable to conclude that his collection may be worth something approaching 10 times that number or more. Additionally, his art increases in value by about 7.5% per year so the skies the limit.

Literary Criticism:

Warncke’s Picasso attempts the Herculean task of encapsulating the prolific artist in a few hundred pages of text and pictures. It fails but it is probably the best that can be done without overwhelming the reader with his enormous oeuvre. The one person that has attempted a thorough compilation of Picasso’s work is Christian Zervos who spent 46 years at the task. He brought together 16,000 of his paintings and drawings into the thirty-three volume “Pablo Picasso Catalogue Raisonne” which sells for 25,000 Euros (about $27,600). It’s still not everything that Picasso produced but probably more than anyone can digest.

Warncke’s book is a useful romp through the 75 years of the artist’s life, but what was most useful, for me, was the year-by-year biographical breakdown of Picasso’s 33,000 days, plus a few, on this Earth in the back pages of this volume. It provided me with a linear sequence of his progression and growth as an artist. I believe he was at the height of his powers during his Blue Period, but the big money goes to his Surrealistic Period.

Picasso Awards:

FootnoteG
  • Honorable mention from Madrid exhibition of fine arts, 1897
  • Gold medal from Malaga provincial exhibition, 1897
  • Carnegie Prize, 1930
  • Honorary curator of Prado Museum in Madrid, 1936
  • Silver Medal of French Gratitude from France, 1948
  • Order of Polish Renascence commander’s cross from Poland, 1948
  • Pennell Memorial Medal from Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, for lithograph “The Dove of Peace,” 1949
  • Lenin Peace Prize from Soviet Union, 1950 and 1962
FootnoteH

References and Readings:

FootnoteA: Photograph Pablo Picasso. By RMN-Grand Palais (Public Domain). 1908

FootnoteB: The First Communion. Pablo Picasso. Public Domain. 1896

FootnoteC: Le Moulin de la Galette. Pablo Picasso. Public Domain. 1900

FootnoteD: The Old Guitarist. Pablo Picasso. Public Domain. 1903-04

FootnoteE: Boy with a Pipe. Pablo Picasso. Public Domain. 1905

FootnoteF: The Ladies of Avignon. Pablo Picasso. Public Domain. 1907

FootnoteG: Glass and Bottle of Suze. Pablo Picasso. Public Domain. 1912

FootnoteH: Guernica. Pablo Picasso. Public Domain. 1937

Italian Retirement

19 December 2023 By in Movies Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Fast Charlie

Theaters:  7 October 2023 (Limited)

Streaming:  8 December 2023

Runtime:  90 minutes

Genre:  Action–Comedy–Crime–Drama–Mystery–Thriller

els:  7.0/10

IMDB:  5.9/10

Rotten Tomatoes Critics:  86/100

Rotten Tomatoes Audience:  87/100

Metacritic Metascore:  70/100

Metacritic User Score:  6.0/10

Awards: —

Directed by: Philip Noyce

Written by:  Richard Wenk–Based on Gun Monkeys by Victor Gischler

Music by:  Fil Eisler

Cast: Pierce Brosnan–James Caan–Morena Baccarin

Film Locations:  USA

Budget:  $16 million

Worldwide Box Office:  —

Fast Charlie is directed by Australian Philip Noyce whose best work revolves around the action, crime, and thriller genres. His oeuvre includes the 1992 Patriot Games, the 1994 Clear and Present Danger, and the 1999 The Bone Collector. Pierce Brosnan was Noyce’s first choice as Charlie due to gun skills and his acting abilities–Bond, James Bond. Brosnan does seem a natural in this film even though his interpretation of a southern accent is so heavy the vowels just drag into next week with a possible nap needed along the way. Never mind that the actual local New Orleans’ accent is closer to Jersey speak than a Charleston drawl.

Pierce Brosnan is Charlie Swift, a fixer, a concierge as he refers to himself when asked. If a problem requires that people disappear, he’s the man, the hitman to be exact. Charlie’s first hit in the movie is for money. After that they are for honor and revenge with the order being negotiable. Along the way he finally discovers the rational for his dream retirement in the hills and vineyards of Tuscany, Italy.

Brosnan sums up the movie his way, explaining the movie with a bit of inside baseball jargon thrown in for good measure: ‘Charlie is a little bit more of a chamber piece because of the tonality of his life and wanting to be as authentic as possible within the setting. When the curtain goes up, you really are in a specific place and time. It’s a more interior piece. But then of course, you put the gun in his hand, and he has to go shoot people.‘ Not sure what all that means except maybe it describes a swiftly made, low budget action movie that works.

FootnoteA

This is a movie to let go of your world for an hour and a half. There are no big messages to ponder. No hidden meaning to watch for. Just a good story with a no-hole plot, competent to particularly good acting and no extraneous scenes directing. There will be no awards for this flick, but the audience doesn’t care. As Glenn Kenny over at RogerEbert.com succinctly explains, “This is the farthest thing in the cinematic firmament from a world-changer you can imagine, but as an evening’s entertainment, it’ll more than do.“

On a final note, James Caan, 82, Sonny Corleone of The Godfather fame, gave his final performance in Fast Charlie. Filming for the movie began in April of 2022 and Caan passed away in July of 2022. Go out doing what you love. RIP.

References and Readings:

Footnotes:

  • FootnoteA: Pierce Bronsan as Fast Charlie. IMDb. 2023

South Fargo

17 December 2023 By in Movies Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Theaters:  4 September 2017

Streaming:  13 February 2018

Runtime:  115 minutes

Genre:  Comedy–Crime–Drama

els:  8.5/10

IMDB:  8.1/10

Rotten Tomatoes Critics:  90/100

Rotten Tomatoes Audience:  87/100

Metacritic Metascore:  88/100

Metacritic User Score:  7.8/10

Awards: Best Actress–Best Supporting Actor, Academy Awards; Best Actress–Best Picture–Best Screenplay–Best Supporting Actor, Golden Globe Awards; and many others.

Directed by: Martin McDonagh

Written by:  Martin McDonagh

Music by:  Carter Burwell

Cast: Frances McDormand–Woody Harrelson–Sam Rockwell–Peter Dinklage

Film Locations:  USA–England

Budget:  $12-15 million

Worldwide Box Office:  $162.9 million

How I missed this movie for 7 years is mystery but I’m glad I found it. The movie won multiple major Academy and Golden Globe Awards and it didn’t even register within my sphere of consciousness. Of course, if I paid any attention, which I don’t, to Hollywood award shows I may have caught it. But any who, I saw a mention about the movie online while browsing and decided to give it view. I’m probably the only person on the planet that hasn’t watched this movie but on the off chance you haven’t, you should.

After Coen Brother’s 1996 black comedy crime film: ‘Fargo‘, ‘Three Billboards‘ brings another black comedy crime film without the Coens but thankfully with Joel Coen’s spouse, the fantastically wonderful actress, Frances McDormand to the screen. McDormand takes the lead role in ‘Three Billboards‘, as she did in ‘Fargo‘, and turns in a engrousing performance as a grieving and scheming mother earning her the Academy and Golden Globes Best Actress awards in the process.

‘Three Billboards‘ was written and directed by Martin McDonagh in which he garnered the 2017 Golden Globe Best Screenplay for the movie. He followed up this film with the 2022 movie ‘The Banshees of Inisherin‘ which won the 2022 Golden Globe for Best Movie. In both movies McDonagh brings his trademark dark humor cloaked in a drama to the big screen. Tragedy is a better genre fit for McDonagh’s work but that term seems to belong to a time long passed.

FootnoteA

Frances McDormand, as Mildred, is a mother looking for closure over her daughter’s rape and murder in the small town of Ebbing, Missouri. After many months of waiting for the local authorities to solve the crimes she grows despondent and desperate over the lack of progress in apprehending, or at a minimum, identifying a suspect and begins to take matters into her own hands.

This movie hits on all cylinders, the screenplay, direction, cinematography which is beautiful, and acting all come together to produce a mostly coherent story with multiple sub-plots that are a feast for your senses and emotions. The only ding I have is that towards the end of the movie McDonagh introduces a twist in the plot that makes very little sense unless they were planning for a sequel, or it is a deus ex machina solution to an intractable plot problem. It is a minor irritation but in its defense, without the twist the final scene would have been very different and likely not as fullfilling.

On an extraneous side note, as with ‘Fargo‘ which was filmed mainly in multiple locations in Minnesota, ‘Three Billboards’ was filmed in multiple locations in North Carolina. Movies are for believers.

References and Readings:

Footnotes:

  • FootnoteA: Photo of Frances McDormand. Wikipedia. 2015

Summer of 1928

28 November 2023 By in Books Fiction, Novel, Short Stories, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Dandelion Wine

By Ray Bradbury

William Morrow

Copyright: © 2006

Original Copyright: © 1957

AmazonPic
Oh, when I look back now
That summer seemed to last forever
And if I had the choice
Yeah, I'd always wanna be there
Those were the best days of my life

Song written by Bryan Adams/Jim Vallance - Summer of 69 - Reckless album - Released 1985

Bradbury Biography:

“All education is self-discovery.” Bradbury

Ray Bradbury, 1920-2012, was an American treasure, an exceptionally talented and prolific writer in multiple genres that included science fiction, horror, and mystery but his passion lay in the field of fantasy. He felt that fantasy, by his definition, was “a depiction of the unreal“. He took inspiration and pleasure from the fantastical works of Poe, Wells, and Verne and spent a lifetime mining his imagination for the unreal. Fantasy was where he could not only “create myths for the future” but warn society of the dangers of technology and conformity. In his words: “to prevent the future.”

FootnoteA

Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois, a small town of 20-30 thousand people, at the time, north of Chicago, and came of age there during the Great Depression. It was a time when the future was murky, and he said he needed his imagination to see through the gloom. That imagination was fruitful and varied.

His writing was packed full of social commentary, especially Fahrenheit 451, but more on that in a bit. He wrote about the unreal side of the present but with an eye to the future. His prescient vision alerted us 75 years ago about the evils that will come from a monoculture dispensed from the organs of mass media and technology. He was afraid that it would keep society passive and ignorant. And ignorance has come to pass.

Bradbury never drove a car, but he did ride in them, he did not board a plane, heights bothered him, until he was in his sixties, and he never used a computer. He thought the internet was useless, perfectly encapsulating a flaw, maybe the major flaw in science fiction: predicting the future is hard and mostly wrong. Machines didn’t interest him but when he wrote about them, he just made it up as he went.

He initially corrected people when questioned about his “science fiction” writing, “I don’t write science fiction” he insisted. “I write fantasy. Fantasy is a depiction of the unreal.” In later interviews when referred to as a science fiction writer he just graciously accepted it and moved on. Science fiction he also said was “a depiction of the unreal but with an attempt to be faithful to reality.” He didn’t want to be faithful to reality. He stated that of all the stories he wrote, and it’s believed that there were more than a thousand of them, no one seems to be able to add them all up, Fahrenheit 451 is the only true science fiction he ever wrote. It not only has withstood the test of time as a classic piece of sci-fi literature, but it also was rendered into two motion pictures in 1966 and 2018. The former was only marginally bad with the latter being just flat out bad, proving the point that low budget sci-fi does not win any awards in Hollywood or with audiences.

FootnoteB

Bradbury made his mark in the literary world with The Martian Chronicles, a collection of loosely connected short stories released in 1950. The book chronicles the settlement of Mars, the home of Martians by Americans fleeing an Earth falling into a hellish abyss.

During the height of the second Red Scare beginning in 1947, Bradbury warned of government censorship with his fourth and possibly his greatest novel, Fahrenheit 451. The story initially appeared in book format in 1953 and was reprinted in the nascent publication Playboy in 1954. Fahrenheit 451 is the story of firemen not putting out fires but starting them. They burn books, and buildings with books to keep people ignorant and thus obedient. An obedient population was not a threat to the government.

Dandelion Wine:

FootnoteC

Dandelion Wine is Bradbury’s fifth novel and his most intimate creation. It is a loose collection of forty-nine semi-autobiographical short stories detailing a 12-year-old boy, Douglas Spaulding and his 10-year-old brother Tom, trying to stretch out the summer of 1928 into a never-ending triumph of pubescence experience in small town America.

In a 1974 introduction to Dandelion Wine, titled Just This Side of Byzantium…, Bradbury writes: “…Waukegan was Green Town was Byzantium with all the happiness that that means, with all the sadness that these names imply. The people there were gods and midgets and knew themselves mortal and so the midgets walked tall so as not to embarrass the gods and the gods crouched so as to make the small ones feel at home…Here is my (Bradbury’s) celebration, then, of death as well as life, dark as well as light, old as well as young, smart and dumb combined, sheer joy as well complete terror written by a boy who once hung upside down in trees, dressed in his bat costume with candy fangs in his mouth, who finally fell out of the trees when he was twelve and went and found a toy-dial typewriter and wrote his first ‘novel’.”

FootnoteD

About half of the chapters in the book were initially published, starting in 1946, as short stories in magazines such as Weird Tales (The Night), Charm (The Green Machine), and The Saturday Evening Post (The Happiness Machine). In 1957 all the stories were brought together into the book, Dandelion Wine. The title refers to Douglas’s grandfather making wine every summer from the petals of dandelions. Bradbury used the title as a metaphor for cramming all the joys and happenings of summer into one bottle. Or one book.

As a testament to the lasting appeal of the book, the 1971 crew of Apollo 15 named a lunar crater Dandelion. In 1986, as a testament to Bradbury’s lasting appeal as a writer, an asteroid was named after him called 9766 Bradbury.

And finally, in a 2010 interview with Universe Today a few years before his death, in reference to being buried on Mars, he said: “I don’t want to be the first live person to arrive there,” he said. “It’ll be too late. But I want to be the first dead person that gets there. I want to arrive in a Campbell’s soup can. Bury me on Mars in (a) thing called the Bradbury Abyss. They gotta name a place on Mars for me, and I will welcome that.” Maybe Elon Musk can help with this.

FootnoteE

Literary Criticism:

Ray Bradbury writes poetry as prose. Natural and chatty prose. Prose rich in explanation, metaphor, and image. Prose that is a joy to read, planting scenes in your mind that grow into a picture worthy of Raphael’s Triumph of Galatea.

Dandelion Wine is the extraordinary time in a boy’s life where innocence, friendship, and happiness occur without the weight of the substantial and ponderous adult years.

Read the snippet below from chapter 29 of Dandelion Wine, Summer’s Ice House and tell me you do not feel the chill.

Deep in winter they had looked for bits and pieces of summer and found it in furnace cellars or in bonfires on the edge of frozen skating ponds at night. Now, in summer, they went searching for some little bit, some piece of the forgotten winter...Summer’s Icehouse on a summer day! They said the words, laughing, and moved to peer into that tremendous cavern where in fifty, one-hundred, and two-hundred-pound chunks, the glaciers, the icebergs, the fallen but not forgotten snows of January…

Dandelion Wine is a masterpiece of prose, of imagination, and fantasy.

Bradbury Literary Awards:

  • World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement 1977
  • Prometheus Award for Fahrenheit 451 1984
  • Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement 1989
  • P.V. Helmerich Distinguished author Award 1994
  • Emmy Award for The Halloween Tree 1994
  • First Fandom Hall of Fame Award 1996
  • Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame Inductee 1999
  • Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters 2000
  • Hollywood Walk of Fame Star 2002
  • National Medal of Arts 2004
  • Sir Arthur Clarke Award 2007
  • Specila Citation Pulitzer. 2007
  • Ordre des Arts et des Lettres 2007
  • J. Lloyd Eaton Lifetime Achievement Award 2008
  • Spike TV Scream Award 2010

Bradbury Bibliography (‘Novels’ Only):

References and Readings:

FootnoteA: Photo of Ray Bradbury. Lennox McLendon / AP. Date Unknown

FootnoteB: The Martian Chronicles. NBC TV Poster. circa 1980.

FootnoteC: Fahrenheit 451. HBO Movie Poster. 2018

FootnoteD: Douglas Spaulding in a Field of Dandelions with Bradbury in the Background. GPT-4 Generated. 2023

FootnoteE: The Triumph of Galatea. Fresco by Rapheal. circa 1512.

Mental

11 November 2023 By in Books Fiction, Novel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

One Flew Over the Cockoo’s Nest

By Ken Kesey

Penguin Group

Copyright: © 2012

Original Copyright: © 1962

AmazonPic

Kesey Biography:

“Since we don’t know where we’re going, we have to stick together in case someone gets there.” Kesey

FootnoteA

Ken Kesey, who died at the age of sixty-six in 2001, was a novelist, hippie, and beatnik, tuning into the counterculture movement of the sixties that renounced materialism, institutions, and the middle-class, while embracing LSD, free-sex, and carrots. Kesey, I believe, just embraced LSD, grass, and laughs.

After finishing college at the University of Oregon–go Ducks–he moved to California and enrolled in Stanford–go Tree??–to study creative writing from 1958 to 1961 while simultaneously settling into the counterculture lifestyle gripping the area and the nation.

In 1959 he volunteered for the CIA’s LSD mind experiments being run under the code name MKUltra. These experiments were conducted at a VA hospital in Menlo Park, just northwest of Stanford. At the same time in 1959 he accepted a position as an attendant in the hospital’s psych ward, working there while tripping on LSD. He began writing One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1959 or 60 (various sources give different dates). In 1962 Kesey published his masterpiece. The rest is history.

FootnoteB

Later, in 1964 Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters, a group he and others formed in the late fifties, bought an old school bus, repainted it in the pop art and comic book style of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein respectively, and took off to survey and crash the Beatnik scene in New York City. While on the road to New York they handed out LSD in various forms, it wasn’t illegal until 1966, and held street party theater for the locals. The whole experience was recorded with microphones and cameras along with several books being written afterwards about the experience.

After returning to California in 1965 Kesey was arrested for marijuana possession. Fearing prison, he faked his suicide which didn’t really fool the police and escaped to Mexico. A few months later in 1966 he was captured and sent to an honor prison camp in Redwood City, California for six months where he cleared brush and kept a diary of his experience later publishing it as Kesey’s Jail Journal: Cut the M*********** Loose.

Upon release from prison, he gave up the bohemian lifestyle, returned to Oregon, and settled down to the life of a respectable middle-aged citizen with a little acid and weed still making recreational appearances.

FootnoteC

Defending his drug use he made the point, in an interview with Charley Rose in 1992, that doing drugs was a personal decision and if your neighbor incurred no harm, then no one need be concerned. A thoroughly libertarian position not terribly different than William Buckley’s view on pot. He also denied being a mindless drug addict stating in an interview with Terry Gross, “I’ve always been a reliable, straight-up-the-middle-of-the-road citizen that just happens to be an acidhead.”

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest:

The story’s narrator, Chief Bromden, a 6’6″ tall member of a Columbia River Indian tribe, is a schizophrenic patient in an Oregon psychiatric hospital, passing himself off as a deaf, mute with an agreeable disposition. Bromden forms a bond of friendship with Randle McMurphy, a new psych patient who, rather than put in a few months in at a prison work farm, convinces his jailers that he is insane so he can get transferred to a no work sanitorium with better meals. McMurphy initially finds his situation much improved and installs himself as head crazy but quickly butts heads with Nurse Ratched the chief administrator for his floor. Nurse Ratched is a humorless soul sucking battle axe who quickly realizes that she is in a clash of Titans and wits with McMurphy where the winner takes all. As in Macbeth only one king, or Queen, shall live or as Shakespeare states, “if the assassination / Could trammel up the consequence”. In today’s vernacular, the Machiavellian “when you set out to kill the king, you must kill him” and damn the repercussions is more succinct.

Literary Criticism:

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is one of the best American novels written in the latter half of the twentieth century easily standing with Steinbeck’s East of Eden and Of Mice and Men, Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, and Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Except for Hemingway’s novella they all explore good and evil within the context of human nature and its effect on one’s soul. Kesey’s book pokes and prods the reader with almost farcical battles of weak minds against strong minds. Wills of strength versus the will of the state. Occasional good against consistent evil.

Every literary device and human character flaw known has been applied to this novel, simile, metaphor, personification, action, protagonist, antagonist, conflict, allusion, imagery, climax, male chauvinism, misogynism, sexuality, sexual repression, fear, hate, violence, intimidation, dominance; it is all here, a masterpiece of storytelling that maybe only Dickens was capable of duplicating.

In Aristophanes’ play The Birds he invented the term “cloud cuckoo land” as the name for his bird utopia but in reality, it was the home for the absurd. Whether Kesey intended to imitate Aristophanes social criticism and sarcasm inherent in The Birds is not known but they both found their subject matter bizarre and ridiculous.

Mental Health and the Cuckoo’s Nest:

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the book, the play, the movie, likely accelerated the deinstitutionalization of mental patients in the U.S. and the world. It was a process that had already begun in the mid-fifties with the introduction of the antipsychotic drug, chlorpromazine, allowing mental illness to be treated outside of a hospital setting. In the sixties and seventies President Kennedy and California Governor Reagan were champions of providing mental health services without walls. In hindsight it should have been easily anticipated the inevitable negative consequences of such policies. Homelessness and incarceration, rampant use of illicit drugs and crime, the general breakdown of societal norms when the mentally ill were allowed to take charge of their own care without supervision. Assuming logical outcomes from illogical inputs is well–illogical.

In Virgil’s Aeneid he wrote, “facilis descensus Averno (the descent to hell is easy)” or as Samuel Johnson updated the proverb by stating, “…hell is paved with good intentions”. Today we just say the “Road to hell is paved with good intentions” and hell is a dystopian wasteland.

Kesey Bibliography:

References and Readings:

FootnoteA: Photo of Ken Kesey. Maybe copyrighted. Copyright is ambiguous. Possilby Vintage News 2017

FootnoteB: Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters Bus

FootnoteC: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Starring Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher. Amazon Picture

Politics Downstream of Culture

7 November 2023 By in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Profiles in Courage

Ghost Written by Ted Sorensen

Concept by John F. Kennedy

HarperCollins

Copyright: © 1984

Original Copyright: © 1956

AmazonPicture

Sorensen Biography:

FootnoteA

Ted Sorensen, died in 2010 at the age of eighty-two, was White House counsel and speechwriter for President Kennedy and speechwriter for Lyndon Johnson from 1961-1964. In the early days of Kennedy’s administration, he assisted in drafting the President’s inaugural speech in which the famous line, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

Initially Sorensen was limited to domestic issues within the administration but after the April 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco, a 24-hour failed attempt to overthrow Castro, which ostensibly Sorensen bitterly opposed, Kennedy asked him to help with foreign policy going forward.

Eighteen months later in October 1962, the Cuban Missile Crises gripped the nation and the world. The Soviets were staging nuclear missiles in Cuba just ninety miles from U.S. shores. The U.S. responded with a naval blockade of Cuba along with the threat of invading the island. Soviet First Secretary Khrushchev offered to remove the missiles if the U.S. promised not to invade Cuba. Khrushchev also added an additional condition less than 24 hours later, insisting that the U.S. also remove their missiles from Turkey. The President was inclined to accept the Khrushchev’s initial proposal, but the second condition took them by surprise. McGeorge Bundy, Kennedy’s national security advisor, suggested that the administration just ignore the second proposal and proceed with accepting the conditions from the first offer. Sorensen collaborated with the president and Robert Kennedy in drafting a letter agreeing to the Soviet leaders’ initial terms; missiles out of Cuba and the U.S. will not invade the island. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to most, Robert Kennedy was meeting with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin agreeing to also remove U.S. missiles from Turkey. This was a secret agreement that the Soviets agreed never to make public. Truth and lies. War averted.

Sorensen was also involved with Kennedy and the Vietnam War. Sorensen wrote in his memoir that the President was “determined not to lose Vietnam to communism” and that he “believed that only the South Vietnamese could win it.” Sorensen also wrote that Kennedy “never accepted the advice of those who urged him to send American combat troops to Vietnam” and that Kennedy did not believe in the Domino Theory. By 1962 the Kennedy administration had increased U.S. military personnel in Vietnam, from less than eight hundred under Eisenhower, to about 9,000 during his administration. Others have also said that Kennedy accepted without serious question the basic tenets of the Domino Theory. Sorensen also claimed that Kennedy had a secret plan to withdraw US advisers from Vietnam after the 1964 election although no one has ever been able to find any evidence to support this claim.

On 22 November 1963 Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Sorensen was riding in a car behind the president’s limousine when the shots were fired. Sorensen stayed on briefly after Kennedy’s death to assist the new president, Lyndon Johnson, as a speechwriter but left the White House in 1964.

Sorensen remained loyal to the Kennedy family, supporting Robert (Bobby) F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign in 1968 and attempting to provide damage control for Ted Kennedy’s Chappaquiddick drunk driving episode that resulted in the senseless death of Mary Jo Kopechne in 1969.

FootnoteB

Kennedy Biography:

“The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.” JFK

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, assassinated in 1963 at the age of forty-six, was the charismatic 35th president of the United States remembered as much for his initiatives, which were many as his accomplishments, which were few.

JFK, born into a wealthy New England family, the second oldest of nine siblings, educated at the best schools but he was a poor student academically, having interests only in history and girls. Near the end of his studies at Harvard he finally pulled himself together enough to author a commendatory analysis, as his senior thesis, of England’s lack of preparation for WWII. The thesis relied heavily on his father’s contacts and position as the U.S. ambassador to England. His thesis was soon published in book form, titled Why England Slept, and sold 80,000 copies in England and the U.S.

He joined the U.S. Navy after Harvard and commanded a torpedo boat in the South Pacific during WWII. His boat was split into two by a Japanese warship, killing two of his sailors and permanently injuring his back. He and his remaining sailors managed to swim to a nearby island and were rescued six days later.

In 1952 he ran for the U.S. senate from Massachusetts challenging the Republican incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge. Kennedy won the race and became a rising star in Democratic politics.

After the election to the senate, he married Jacqueline Bouvier in 1953. They had three children: Caroline, John Jr., and Patrick Kennedy.

While recovering from back surgery in 1956, due to his WWII naval injury, he began his book, Profiles in Courage, with Ted Sorensen, which won him a Pulitzer in 1957.

After 8 undistinguished years in the senate, he ran for president in 1960 against Richard Nixon. He won, becoming the second youngest president ever elected. He served as president for three short years, being assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas on 22 November 1963. His domestic and foreign policy initiatives were significant but due to his limited time in office he saw few results or conclusions related to his governing vision. A few of his strategies, visions, and world events during his presidency are listed below:

  • Creation of the Peace Corps in 1961
  • Increased U.S. involvement in Vietnam 1961-1963
  • Bay of Pigs Invasion 1961
  • Soviet construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961
  • Cuban Missile Crises 1962
  • Desegregation of Mississippi colleges in 1962
  • Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with Great Britain and the Soviet Union 1963
  • Sent the Civil Rights Act to Congress in 1963 (passed into law in 1964)
  • Proposed sweeping tax cuts in 1963 (Revenue Act passed in 1964)

Profiles in Courage:

Profiles in Courage is a compilation of vignettes describing eight senators’ actions that bucked their party and sometimes popular public sentiment to help pass legislation. Each vignette is preceded by a short ‘Time and Place‘ chapter that sets the stage and mood of the country at the time.

  • Federalist John Quincy Adams, from Massachusetts, broke with his party and sided with the Republicans. The Republicans became better known as the Democrat-Republicans which eventually became just the Democrats. The Federalist party morphed into the Republicans with a slight stop-over as Whigs. Using today’s terms Adams broke with the Republicans and sided with the Democrats. Adams courage was for shutting down the Massachusetts economy by voting for the Embargo Act of 1807. The act attempted to punish the English for their impressment of American sailors and disrespecting American sovereignty. War with England occurred shortly after in 1812.
  • Federalist and Whig Daniel Webster, also from Massachusetts, spoke in favor of the Compromise of 1850. The Compromise of 1850 was five separate bills concerning slavery status in various states and the District of Columbia, California state admission to the Union, boundary disputes between the states, and assumption of Texas debt by the Federal government. The bills broke mainly along geographic lines, northern states versus southern states with party loyalty playing a secondary role. The Compromise of 1850 kicked the slavery issue down the road and postponed the civil war for ten years. At the time it was believed the compromise would settle the issue permanently. The consequence of voting in favor of the Compromise was to allow the north to grow stronger, economically and militarily, and the south to weaken.
  • Democrat Thomas Hart Benton, from Missouri, was a staunch anti-slavery politician but remained in the pro-slavery Democratic Party, hating Republicans more than slavery. This was called courageous.
  • Democratic-Republican (Democrat) Sam Houston, from Texas, voted against the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854, which would have allowed the voters of those two states to decide on the slavery question themselves effectively repealing the Missouri Compromise. Houston wanted to uphold the Missouri Compromise which would have banned slavery in Kansas and Nebraska. Texas was a pro-slavery state thus Houston’s vote was condemned as treasonous in his home state. Houston eventually left the Democrat Party.
  • Republican Edmund G. Ross, from Kansas, voted for acquittal in the Democrat Andrew Johnson’s impeachment trial. As a result of Ross’s vote, along with six other Republicans, Johnson’s presidency was saved, and the stature of the office was preserved. The charges against Johnson were insubstantial and without legal merit or in other words it was all about politics.
  • Democrat Lucius Lamar, from Mississippi, eulogized anti-slavery Republican Charles Sumner on the Senate floor and made other efforts to mend ties between the North and South during Reconstruction. Charles Sumner was a nominal Republican having thoroughly alienated his standing with presidents, Lincoln, and Grant. Lamar eventually convinced the voters of Mississippi that his tactics were correct, and they were wrong.
  • Republican George Norris, from Nebraska, opposed Republican Joseph Gurney Cannon’s autocratic power as Speaker of the House, spoke out against arming U.S. merchant ships during the United States’ neutral period in World War I, and supported the presidential campaign of Democrat Al Smith, the first Catholic to be a major party nominee.
  • Republican Robert A. Taft, from Ohio, criticized the post-WWII Nuremberg Trials that were trying Nazi war criminals under ex post facto laws. His whole argument revolved around fairness to the accused. Taft may have had the law on his side, but it was like a lawyer getting his guilty as sin, ax murdering client off Scott-free due to a technicality. Tone-deaf would be a better adjective to describe Taft rather than courageous.
FootnoteC

Literary Criticism:

I’ve always wanted to read this book. It just took a long time to get around to it. I heard and read glowing terms of its contents since I was in high school and the few snippets I had read were interesting. I should have left matters at that.

Profiles in Courage is a pedestrian book with little new to add to the history and biography of the eight senators covered. The analysis is light and generally one sided which can be summed up as voting for Democrats is courageous, voting against Democrats isn’t. Kennedy was awarded a Pulitzer for this book. It is always good to be born and raised on the right side of the tracks.

Authorship Note:

In 1957 Drew Pearson, journalist, stated on The Mike Wallace Interview show that “John F. Kennedy is the only man in history that I know who won a Pulitzer Prize for a book that was ghostwritten for him.” Pearson added that Ted Sorensen, Kennedy’s advisor, and speech writer authored the book. Joseph Kennedy’s, JFK’s father, response was to sue Pearson and ABC, the network broadcasting Mike Wallace’s show. ABC made a retraction and issued an apology.

Herbert Parmet, historian, and biographer, wrote in his 1983 book Jack: The Struggles of John F. Kennedy that Kennedy developed the concepts and provided direction for Profiles in Courage, but it was Sorensen who wrote the bulk of the book. The essays in the first and last chapters were likely written by John F. Kennedy.

Sorensen in his 2008 memoir, Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History stated that he helped write Profiles in Courage. Sorensen admits that he wrote “a first draft of most of the chapters” and “helped choose the words of many of its sentences“. He also wrote: “While in Washington, I received from Florida almost daily instructions and requests by letter and telephone – books to send, memoranda to draft, sources to check, materials to assemble, and Dictaphone drafts or revisions of early chapters“. 

Sorensen Bibliography:

Kennedy Bibliography:

References and Readings:

FootnoteA: Ted Sorensen. USA Government Photo. Bernard Gotfryd Photographer. 1983. Public Domain

FootnoteB: John F. Kennedy. Oval Office Photo. Cecil Stoughton Photographer. 1963. Public Domain

FootnoteC: The United Sates Senate Occupies its New Chamber… 1950. Library of Congress. Public Domain

Exploration 19: Ears Don’t Hear

5 November 2023 By in Music, Trivia, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Mondegreen Definition (mon-de-green):

  • a word or phrase that results from a mishearing especially of something recited or sung. (Merriam-Webster)
  • a word or phrase that is misinterpreted as another word or phrase, usually with an amusing result. (Collins)
  • also known as oronyms
  • the word originates with journalist Sylvia Wright, who wrote a column in the 1950s in which she recounted hearing the Scottish folksong The Bonny Earl of Morray. Wright misheard the lyric “Oh, they have slain the Earl o’ Morray and laid him on the green” and thought it was “Oh, they have slain the Earl o’ Morray and Lady Mondegreen.” (Merriam-Webster)

“In love, as in life, one misheard word can be tremendously important. If you tell someone you love them, for instance, you must be absolutely certain that they have replied ‘I love you back’ and not ‘I love your back’ before you continue the conversation.” (Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can’t Avoid. HarperCollins, 2007)

“The interesting thing about mondegreens is that the mis-hearings are generally less plausible than the intended lyrics.” (Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language. William Morrow, 1994), but they are usually more interesting and amusing.

I was out for a walk in the neighborhood the other day, early October snow crunching beneath my sneakers, iPods keyed into a blues mix, when Tony Joe White’s first and only hit ‘Folk Sally Annie‘ started playing; a song I’ve heard a hundred times before, except for the first time I listened to the intro. In the intro Tony Joe White explains who ‘Folk Sally’ is and I learned, as I said, for the first time, that ‘Folk Sally‘ is a plant similar to a turnip green, ‘except it ain’t‘ and the po’r folk of Louisiana picked it in the wild for their dinner. At this point I realized what I had been hearing for decades wasn’t ‘Folk Sally Annie‘ but ‘Polk Salad Annie‘. Chorus below:

‘Polk salad Annie, polk salad Annie
Everybody said it was a shame
‘Cause her momma was a-workin’ on the chain gang
(A mean, vicious woman) Uh!‘

It just goes to show ya that even with ears wide open you may not be hearing reality. I remember listening to an FM station many years ago that did a three- or four-hour show consisting of call-in requests by listeners who couldn’t remember the title of the song, just a snippet of the lyrics, which they amusingly mis-quoted. These misheard lyrics are what are commonly known as mondegreens or oronyms. Words one hears but interpretes wrongly. It was a great show of great music and amusing stories of the misinterpreted.

FootnoteA

A story I ran across a few years ago, I no longer remember the names of those involved, relates a father’s advice to his 10-year-old son when he was leaving for grade school one morning. His father holds him back for a few seconds and tells him, “Remember son. ‘Knowledge is power. France is bacon‘.” With this consul he sends his son off to class. His son pondered this remarkable piece of advice all the way to school and most of the rest of that day. ‘Knowledge is power. France is bacon.’ The ‘knowledge is power‘ part he understood but he was totally perplexed by the ‘France is bacon‘ bit. What could that mean? Years later he stumbled across a quote in one of his high school textbooks which said, ‘knowledge is power‘. It was attributed to forteenth and fifteenth century English philospher Francis Bacon.

The brain is a remarkable organ. If it recieves something blurred or indistinct it will fill in the blanks or gaps and we are never the wiser, for a while anyway. Hopefully.

Truly Great Lyrical Mondegreens:

  • “Every time you go away/you take a piece of meat with you” (for ” … take a piece of me with you,” by Paul Young)
  • “There’s a bathroom on the right” (for “There’s a bad moon on the rise” by Creedence Clearwater Revival)
  • “Excuse me while I kiss this guy” (for “Excuse me while I kiss the sky” by Jimi Hendrix)
  • “The girl with colitis goes by” (for “the girl with kaleidoscope eyes” by the Beatles)
  • “Dirty things done to sheep” (for “Dirty deeds done cheap” by AC/DC)
  • “Bring me an iron lung” (for “Bring me a higher love” by Steve Winwood)
  • “It doesn’t make a difference if we’re naked or not” (for “It doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not” by Bon Jovi)
  • “She knows Ohio stinks” (for “She knows the highest stakes” by Dixie Chicks)
  • “It’s too late, you’re gonna die” (for “It’s too late to apologize” by OneRepublic)
  • “There’s no happy ending, no hand relief” (for “There’s no happy ending, no Henry Lee.” by Train)
  • “I’m gonna take my horse to a hotel room” (for “I’m gonna take my horse to Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X)

Polk Salad Annie Original and Covers (Partial List):

FootnoteA: Painting of Francis Bacon by Paul van Somer, 1617. Wikimedia.

References and Readings:

Painter of Love

5 November 2023 By in Art, History Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Botticelli

By Frank Zollner

Prestel

Copyright: © 2015

AmazonPicture

Zollner Biography:

FootnoteA

Frank Zollner, born 26 June 1956 in Bremen, Germany, is an art historian specializing in Renaissance painters, specifically Leonardo, but also Michelangelo, Rapheal, and Botticelli. He has been a professor of art history at Leipzig University since 1996.

As an expert in all matters Leonardo, he has been wrapped up in the authenticity of the multiple Mona Lisas that exist around world. The Mona Lisa actually painted by Leonardo that everyone appears to agree on is in the Louvre. Experts also agree that parts of the Isleworth Mona Lisa may have also been painted by Leonardo. Then there is the two Mona Lisas that are most like each other, the Louvre Mona Lisa, and the Prado Mona Lisa in Madrid. The Prado Mona Lisa is acknowledged to have been painted in Leonardo’s workshop but not necessarily by Leonardo himself. The two most famous paintings are the Louvre Mona Lisa and the Washington National Gallery’s Mona Lisa. The National Gallery Mona Lisa is believed to have been painted by one of Leonardo’s followers, possibly Salaì or Francesco Melzi. So, it would appear that there are a lot of Mona Lisa’s floating around but only one fully authentic and completely Leonardo.

Zöllner re-introduced the art world to the ancient concept of aesthetic hedonism. Aesthetic hedonism states that for art to have value one must experience emotional pleasure when viewing or experiencing it. The value related to aesthetic hedonism is derived from empirical observations and experiences. Philosophers, such as Hume and Kant, have argued that aesthetic pleasure is universal, reflecting the intellectual harmony within one’s mind. Plato and others, on the other hand, suggest that empiricism alone is not enough to render value to an object of art. Other subjective factors also need to be considered such as moral, social, or religious values.

Which brings us to an impertinent detour but much needed critique of modern art. Where is the beauty, the pleasure, or at a more essential and primeval level, where is the talent for what passes today as modern art? A deplorable example of modern art totally lacking in artistic talent or merit, unable to provide any visual pleasure, is Vienna’s newest fountain: WirWasser. A cultural devolution that is utterly sad and heartbreaking. Look at the picture of the fountain with the people responsible for that monstrosity. They are smiling. What is wrong with those people?

Botticelli Biography:

“By throwing a sponge soaked with deffernet colors at at a wall one can make a spot in which a beautiful landscape can be seen“…Botticelli.

Sandro Botticelli, born Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipep circa 1445, later given the moniker Botticelli by an older brother meaning ‘little barrel’ in Italian, is considered the greatest humanist painter of the Early Renaissance Era.

Botticelli’s art was always about dignity, about maintaining the grace and soulfulness of his subjects. His genus lies in capturing the emotional persona of people populating his paintings along with the technical ability to skillfully show perspective, accurately express anatomy, and the mastery of color and light.

Botticelli died in Florence in 1510 at the age of 64 or 65. His complete oeuvre is unknown but at least 137 artworks have been attributed to him, including panel paintings, works on canvas, frescoes, and drawings for Dante’s Divine Comedy. Among his most famous and recognizable paintings are La Primavera (shown above) and the Birth of Venus (shown below), which today, are synonymous with perfection and Early Renaissance art.

The La Primavera, shown above, was originally in the possession of one of the younger Medicis and was given as a wedding present to Semiranmide Appiani who married Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici in 1482. The painting depicts, beginning on the far left continuing to far right, Mercury in winged shoes poking at the clouds with a wand, the Three Graces in the company of Mercury creating an atmosphere of beauty and what else, grace. The central figure is Venus. The floating cherub above Venus is Cupid, her son by Mars. To the right of Venus is Flora, goddess of flowers, springtime, and fertility. The woman to the right of Flora is Chloris, originally a virginal nymph who was transformed into Flora by the wind God Zephyr shown floating above ground on the far right. Zephyr raped Flora/Chloris but made amends by making her his wife.

Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, referred to by some art critics, including Zollner, as the Arrival of Venus, shows the goddess of love on the shores of the island of Cythera. Botticelli based the painting on a poem by Greek poet Hesiod, describing Venus emerging from the sea, formed from the severed genitals of Uranus. Venus is standing on a giant scallop shell, blown by the wind god Zephyr and his companion Aura, a goddess of breeze, and welcomed by one of the Horae, likely a goddess of spring, who offers her a cloak.

Literary Criticism:

Zollner’s Botticelli is a masterpiece in scholarship and beauty. The reproductions of Botticelli’s art are crisp and clear, but the text brings it all together, biography, provenance, technique, and history. To follow a painting from brush to museum, as Zollner has, is itself a work of art and love.

FootnoteA: Frank Zollner. Welt newspaper 2021

Frank Zollner Art Book Bibliography (English):

References and Readings:

The Changeling

24 October 2023 By in Books Fiction, Play Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The Changeling

By Thomas Middleton and William Rowley

Kessinger Rare Reprints

Copyright: © 2010

Original Performance Date: 1622

Original Publication Date: 1652

FootnoteA
FootnoteB

Changeling Definition:

  • a child surreptitiously or unintentionally substituted for another. (dictionary.com)
  • a child who is suspected not be a couple’s real child. (vocabulary.com)
  • (in folklore) an ugly, stupid, or strange child left by fairies in place of a pretty, charming child. (dictionary.com)
  • a human-like creature found in folklore throughout Europe. A changeling was believed to be a fairy that had been left in place of a human (typically a child) stolen by other fairies. (wikipedia.com)
  • Synonyms: oaf, dummy, fairy, gnome, pixie, swapling, shapeshifter, substitute
  • Archaic: turncoat, imbecile
  • First use: 1534

Middleton Biography:

FootnoteC

Thomas Middleton, born in London in 1580 living for 47 years, was a famous and prolific Jacobean playwright and poet. He wrote about 27 plays, 18 alone and the remainder with other English playwrights including, William Shakespeare (Women of Timons), Thomas Dekker (The Roaring Girl, et al), John Fletcher (Nice Valour, et al) and of course William Rowley. Middleton’s plays raised him to the loftiest heights of seventeenth century theater, with his fame only eclipsed by Shakespeare and possibly Ben Jonson (Volphone) and John Webster (The White Devil).

His oeuvre included comedy, tragedy, satire, and masque. His greatest play was his great tragedy, The Changeling, which combined violence, intrigue, and a modicum of comedy to produce one of literature’s most intriguing characters: Beatrice-Joanna, a psychopath only surpassed by Patricia Highsmith’s twentieth century protagonist and rogue Mr. Ripley.

(Masque plays were performances that included music, dance, poetry, elaborate sets, and costly costumes which included the wearing of masks. These plays were immensely popular in London theaters and in the courts of nobility such as the English queen Anne of Denmark and Louise the XIV of France. Masque plays can be traced, in various forms, from Greek theater during the Golden Age of Athens to present day Broadway in New York.)

Rowley Biography:

FootnoteD

William Rowley, born in London(?) in 1585, living until the age of 39, is best known for works written in collaboration with other contemporary playwrights. Today he would be categorized as a freelance writer, an independent that works for a set fee. His work is easy to identify as his unexceptional verse stands in stark contrast to the often-polished language of his co-writer(s).

Plays written solely by Rowley are rare and generally of contested authorship. The fact that he co-authored so many plays with the greatest playwrights of his time suggests they saw something in him that critics of today do not. His name lives on though, mainly because of his collaboration with Middleton on ‘The Changeling‘.

The Changeling:

In an attempt to ascertain who wrote what in this play, Pauline Wiggin’s writing style studies in 1897 along with David Lake in 1975 parsed the authorship in the following manner: Middleton likely wrote Act II; Act III, scenes i, ii, and iv; Act IV, scenes i and ii; Act V, scenes i and ii while Rowley likely wrote Act I; Act III, scene iii; Act IV, scene iii; Act V, scene iii. This division of labor credits Middleton for the main plot and Rowley wrote the subplot along with the opening and closing scenes. The main plot of ‘The Changeling‘ is taken from John Reynolds’ 1621 stories.

The main plot revolves around Beatrice-Joanna and her betrothed, Alonzo, along with the one she genuinely loves: Alsemero. To clear the way for her to marry Alsemero she persuades De Flores, her father’s ugly servant, and one who also secretly loves her, to murder Alonzo. Thus, tragedy ensues. The sub-plot occurs in a nearby madhouse run by a Dr. Alibius who is jealous of and afraid that his young wife Isabella will not be loyal to him because he cannot satisfy her. Lollio, the doctor’s servant who also loves Isabella is entrusted by Alibius to make sure she is kept safe from any unwanted romantic advances. Lollio assures him that no madmen will bother her in his house. Franciscus and Antonio, the changeling, are also in love with Isabella. They pretend to be a madman and a fool, respectively, to get committed to the doctor’s care so they can be with her. A sub-plot of comedy wrapped around a main plot of tragedy.

Literary Criticism:

A play of intrigue, treachery, murder, adultery, and death. A play displaying human failings without remorse. Love and treachery in one house, madness in another. But which is which. A morality play for the ages which hasn’t lost its sheen or relevancy in four hundred years.

FootnoteA: It is common today to find William Rowley’s name not listed on the cover of reprints for ‘The Changeling‘. I’m not sure there is any meaning in the omission other than the publishers didn’t do their homework. Amazon picture

FootnoteB: A scene from “The Legend of St. Stephen” by Martino di Bartolomeo, in which the devil steals a baby and leaves a changeling in its place. Wikimedia Commons

FootnoteC: Thomas Middleton. Wikimedia Commons

FootnoteD: The Witch of Edmonton: by William Rowley, Thomas Dekker, John Ford, &c. Printed in London by J. Cottrel, 1658. One of the few plays showing Rowley’s name. Wikimedia commons

Middleton and Rowley Bibliography — Plays:

References and Readings: