Sing, goddess, the rage of Meredith,

and its devastation, which brought pains thousandfold

upon the messageboards and their swift-fingered denizens,

who delight in pouring out wine-dark calumny to sour the day

for passers-by: Catholics from various places,

St. Blog's and Phatmass and the Trad Catholic forums...


Indeed, I have been busy lately. I've been reading the Illiad for school (I'm going to Christendom in two weeks), and it's been slow going. It's very dense, and I have trouble keeping the events in order. I've been babysitting three little girls every day (now I'm finally done with that job), and for the first time I actually encountered one of those wacked-out fundamentalist message boards - you know, the ones where they can't decide whether Catholics worship Mary, the sun, or perhaps pinecones - and I started writing messages. Now I know why most people just give up. Alcovey and I tried to show Tan how ridiculous his ideas about the "paganism" of Catholic symbols were by "proving" that the cross and the fish were pagan. He freaked out, and then said something to the effect of, "Okay, if I throw out my crosses and fish symbols, you have to throw out your statues and rosary beads, alright?" *facepalm*

If you want to take a swing, here's the board: Catholic Reformation. Budge and Tan are the two main Protestant debaters. It's really sad; most of the protestants there are ex-Catholics who were brought up in wretched heterodox parishes, and they are justly revolted by the modern scandals. They seem more willing to listen to Trads... anyway, if you haven't mortified yourself enough today, you could always put in some work at this place. Bleh.

In other news....


The Shrine of the Holy Whapping is a year old toda- er... a fortnight ago! But I can still celebrate it because Matt has declared an octave of partying that will peter out on... oh, Monday. In honor of the Shrine's birthday, here is a link to one of Matt's best Roman romances: A Seacoast in Bohemia. Never will I forget his description of an Eastern bishop as "Tsar Nicholas II dressed as a disco ball."

"After an incongruous and short interlude passing through the closed-down gift-shop, we began to burrow into the earth, under pale stony arches and past faded frescoes of St. Clement’s legendary tomb beneath the waves. It had stood visible at low tide on the shores of the Crimea and the images showed processions back and forth full of candles, gleaming lamps and mitred pomp, just as we were doing. An amusement to postmodernists, life imitating art—but for us it was simply life as usual, the endless interwoven Celtic-knotwork world of Catholicism where history and reality blurred into one seamless whole."

Ah, when will he publish the book?


My friend Alex sent me the violin part for Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante, which is a wonderful richly layered piece that - well, it's like a double concerto for violin and viola, but it's a symphony at the same time - the orchestra part is so involved that it could stand on its own much of the time. Anyway, when Alex gets back from his super-intense music camp we're going to play it together. Yay!


Brian changed the name of his blog to In Pectore: Annúlond. This made me realize that I had forgotten to link to him. Fixed that! Go read his post on the theology of Middle Earth and the Elvish neologisms he created to express said theology. It is lovely.


There is now another Belloc text on the Blackmask site: The Historic Thames. Good thick English history.

It [the White Tower] was handed over to Louis of France upon his landing, and during the next reign almost every misfortune of Henry III. is connected with the Tower. He was perpetually taking refuge in it, holding his Court in it: losing it again, as the rebels succeeded, and regaining it as they failed. This long and unfortunate tenure of his is illumined only by one or two delightful phrases which one cannot but retain as one reads. Thus there is the little written order, which still remains to us for the putting of painted windows into the Chapel of St John, the northern one of which was to have for its design “some little Mary or other, holding her Child”—“quandam Mariolam tenenten puerum suum.” There is also a very pleasing legend in the same year, 1241, when the fall of certain new buildings was ascribed to the action of St. Thomas, who was seen by a priest in a dream upsetting them with his crozier and saying that he did this “as a good citizen of London, because these new buildings were not put up for the defence of the realm but to overawe the town,” and he added this charming remark: “If I had not undertaken the duty myself St. Edward or another would have done it.”