Les Deux Magots

Something on Facebook this evening reminded me of the time Beth and I ate at the famous Les Deux Magots in Paris in 2019. Fun to pretend to have literary and artistic fame, LOL. 

Schumann's Symphonies

 A wonderful set that I purchased in Vienna a few years ago. Schumann's four symphonies make a wonderful "landscape" to traverse.  I discovered #1 as I was driving on U.S. 89 in northern Arizona years ago. 

Paul Klee, "Red Balloon"

Paul Klee, "Red Balloon" (1922)

 Copied under fair use principles 

Happy birthday, Sainte-Hilaire!

Born April 15, 1772, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire was a French naturalist who theorized an underlying unity of organismal design, and the possibility of species transmutation in time. Developing on the ideas of his colleague Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Saint-Hilaire gathered evidence in embryology, amassing evidence for his claims through research in comparative anatomy, and paleontology. His ideas anticipated the evo-devo evolutionary concept. 

Bart Giamatti

A. Bartlett Giamatti was born on this day in 1938. He was Yale University's president in 1978-1986 and then National League Baseball president and later Commissioner of Major League Baseball, during which he negotiated Pete Rose's withdrawal from baseball. The actor Paul Giamatti is his son--such a great actor! During a Yale festival of some sort in the early 1980s, I noticed Pres. Giamatti and took his picture while he was chatting with the mayor of New Haven.

50th Anniversary of the 1974 Super Outbreak

On April 3-4, 1974, there was a "super outbreak" of 148 tornados across the Midwest, 20 of them in Indiana and 26 in Kentucky. When we lived in Louisville in the 90s, folks still occasionally talked about the destruction there. I've a friend from Xenia, OH, where the death toll was high. This map can be enlarged at https://www.weather.gov/iln/19740403 Back in the '90s, I did some writing for the Kentucky Council of Churches. One of my interviewees talked about how Kentucky churches worked together to minister to tornado victims.

An Ancient Holy Saturday Homily

"The Lord descends into hell

"Something strange is happening — there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and Hell trembles with fear. He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, He who is both God and the Son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the Cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone, ‘My Lord be with you all.’ Christ answered him: ‘And with your spirit.’ He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.’

"I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in Hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I in you; together we form one person and cannot be separated.

"For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.

"See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On my back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.

"I slept on the Cross and a sword pierced my side for you who slept in Paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in Hell. The sword that pierced Me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.

"Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly Paradise. I will not restore you to that Paradise, but will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God. The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The Bridal Chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The Kingdom of Heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity."

From The Liturgy of the Hours, II, Lenten and Easter Seasons (New York: Catholic Book Publishers Corp. 1976), 496-498.