Arcadia Est Imperare Orbi Universo

Feast of the First Martyrs of the Church of Rome
On the Sounder Train, near Sumner, Washington

Dear and faithful reader,

I've been sleeping poorly, mostly due to continuing nightmares in which my son prominently features.

To take my mind from this troubled vale (and perhaps to entertain or excite you, my one faithful reader), I present some interesting links.

Jackson dies, almost takes Internet with him - best recent news headline

Carcosa intrudes: the astounding Amargosa Opera House of Marta Becket.

And speaking of Carcosa, here is an extremely interesting essay on Beauty and Desecration: explaining why "we must rescue art from the modern intoxication with ugliness". Just fascinating.

Yesterday being the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, I was reminded of a place I found beautiful: the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls. Nowadays, you can tour part of it without ever going to Rome.

Those who enjoy maps, or history, or the shady edge of myth may enjoy the Atlas of True Names.

Just when you thought the world could not possibly be any more surreal, here come the superheroes.

Speaking of surreal, go read a few of Greg Homer's book reviews.

And then there's the physicist trying to build a time machine.

I think that should be enough for now.

First, your meme of the day, courtesy of literary_equine :


Am-I-Dumb.com - Intelligence Test

That's 24 out of 25 correct. I wonder which question I got wrong?

We'll move on now to the geeky Church news portion of today's entertainment. Never mind Catholic / Orthodox rapprochement (a thousand years of schism can't be wrong!), it seems the Russians are upset with Constantinople (that's Istanbul, for you young Turks out there). I blame Estonia. If they'd only converted to Unitarianism, none of this would have happened.

And as I've long suspected, the Pope really is crazy like a fox. I won't bore you with his other chess moves (they're mostly liturgical), but for those who thought this would be a transitional Papacy, Benedict is increasingly making Pope John Paul II look like he was the transition.

And when did BBC stop capitalizing God?

On a more personal note, my schedule has really screwed up my praying of the Hours. I'm trying to fix that, but it's been a struggle.

Meanwhile, wedding plans are the chaos that wedding plans apparently always are. Still, we've finally got another planning session put together, so that's a good thing.

My plans for continued employment with Catholic schools in Tacoma is collapsing like a startled soufflé.

Plan A is proving a difficult sell - a month I've been on-and-off working on a presentation to the Principals and Pastors, and it only started coming together yesterday in any meaningful way. Trouble is, the plan only makes financial sense if you assume that the goal is to (eventually) open several more schools. It's rather difficult to get these folks to that view, when their paradigm is built on "can we afford to stay open for another year?"

The demographics support twelve or more schools where we currently have seven, but I don't think I can get them to look that far ahead.

Plan B is increasingly looking unlikely. The Archdiocese just hasn't budgeted for the position I'd fill.

Plan C involves sending out résumés. This, I started yesterday. Looks like Frank Russell is looking for a FrameMaker guru. Why not?

Oh, and my laptop finally died. There went my savings account.

Cruenti Dei continues to stumble on towards the starting line. I'm very pleased with amphigori's illustrations. I still haven't seen anything from badhairs , which doesn't surprise me given his life situation, nor from starkad67 , which is quite worrying.

I'm still trying to get up to speed on Campaign Cartographer 2 - I'm was hoping to have these maps done pretty quickly, but it's proving more difficult than I thought. I may have to go with hand-drawn maps. Not my first choice, but I'm trying to work to deadline, here.

I did get the Preview PDF put together, complete with a couple of illustrations and a silly little sketch map. amphigori's Wenemet sketch makes the whole thing worth downloading, though for the final masterpiece, you'll have to purchase the rulebook when it's available.

Speaking of which, the rulebook is pretty much done, except for the tables and the illustration inserts. So that's something.

Did I mention I've been really busy?

I've also not been sleeping very well for the last few weeks, something that I seem to share with a number of people on my friendslist. I suspect that R'lyeh may be poking its wee head above the waves. I've also been having quite the surreal nightmares. Interestingly, I've not been to Carcosa in a while.

TTFN!

Taking a quick break for breakfast. Thought I'd better post this before I forgot again.

So last night in a bout of insomnia, my brain wandered freely and wide over the internets, and I came upon the site of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. Now why can't we have political parties like that in this country? Or are the established parties already so insane as to defy parody?

From here, I came (eventually) to the 1999 policies of the McGillicuddy Serious Party of New Zealand. Now here's a party! The core of their philiosophy is Funism - the most fun for the most people - and their governmental program is based on accomplishing this through The Great Leap Backwards™.

Again, why can't we have political parties like that in this country?

Darn it, I think it's time to resurrect the sadly defunct Whig Party and start writing a manifesto!

(Why Whigs? They were a major party, once; their name is really kind of silly; it's time to reclaim the letter W.)

While I very much admire the McGillicuddy Serious Party's basic philosophy, we will need to make some changes to account for American insensibilites and to bring it up to date for these trying times.

Frankly, that's way more work than I want to do right now. That will require, I suspect, a new barbeque, much beer, and a select group of Whigs. So I'm thinking Spring some time.

For now, I'll simply propose a plank for the platform, as it were, on a minor issue.

Proposed Plank 0001: Male Head Covering

Hats are a civilizing influence on the male of the species, therefore the Whig Party will seek to enact local and national laws strongly encouraging men to wear hats in public. This may include such enforcement provisions as tax exemption for haberdasheries and for television and film productions where all male characters wear hats in public. Men shall not be compelled to wear hats, but they'll look pretty silly if they don't. For the purposes of these laws, baseball caps are not hats. They are appropriate only when actually playing baseball or golf, or perhaps while gardening.

I can hardly wait for somebody to write the plank on the reinstitution of duelling.

The ever-lovely jaynefury spent most of the weekend at the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat (and came home every night smelling of sheep - don't think I'm not on to you, Ms. Francine!)

I went to church wicked early on Sunday, arriving just as the previous Mass was letting out. For a few glorious moments, I was pretty much alone in our beautiful NeoRomanesque church. I was a bit startled to note that they'd put cushions in the pews. Cushions in Catholic churches! What's next? A working sound system?

Prayed the Office of Readings, and laughed out loud at second reading, which began "Lord, who can comprehend even one of your words?"

(Full reading here.)

This particular passage by Saint Ephrem spoke deeply to me, particularly considering my Kemetic background. In Kemet*, God (Netjer) manifests Himself** in various netjeru (Ra, Aset, Djehuty, Bastet) because humans are incapable of fully understanding the infinite ineffable. Mind, each of these "facets" are actually complete, whole persons and personalities in themselves, because that's what being infinite and ineffable is all about.

St. Ephrem says, "God’s word offers different facets according to the capacity of the listener, and the Lord has portrayed his message in many colours, so that whoever gazes upon it can see in it what suits him. Within it he has buried manifold treasures, so that each of us might grow rich in seeking them out."

And that's it exactly, isn't it?

This morning, I was woken from sleep about 3:00 by a sudden shuddering of Ms. Francine. Dreaming of sheep, no doubt. I couldn't get back to sleep, and so am a little punchy just at the moment. Reread St. Ephrem and discovered I'd never heard of the book he was commenting on.


* At least according to Hornung's now widely accepted theory of Egyptian pluriform monotheism.
** The noun in Ancient Egyptian is masculine.