Christopher Tolkien's Interview

"Invited to meet Peter Jackson, the Tolkien family preferred not to. Why? "They eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25," Christopher says regretfully. "And it seems that The Hobbit will be the same kind of film."

This divorce has been systematically driven by the logic of Hollywood. "Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time," Christopher Tolkien observes sadly. "The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me. The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away.""

--From the first ever press interview of Christopher Tolkien by Le Monde

Pencils H, 2B and 6B

Altarpiece

Daniel Mitsui at The Lion and the Cardinal posts this wonderful altarpiece, called the Mill Altar:

Click to enlarge

"The Four Evangelists stand at the centre of the altarpiece and are pouring the contents of four great bags into a grinder. From the left to right: Mark (with the lion's head), Matthew (in angel form), John (eagle's head) and Luke (bull's head). They are grinding quotes from the Gospels (on the white strips) that refer to man's creation from the Word -- 'In the beginning was the Word.' Symbolically, the apostles' words undergo a transformation -- the four strips become one, and this one strip joins with the figure of the Christ Child in a chalice. the mill, normally used for the manufacture of food, points to the scene's meaning: through the grinding stone the Word becomes flesh, from the grinding stone comes the food of life, and in the grinding stone Christ is sacrificed." -- Edward Norman, The Roman Catholic Church: An Illustrated History

I love that sort of condensing of vision, that ordered conflation; it's something only art does.

More Hobbit

"Coxon reminds me of a former friend of mine who couldn't understand why people would spend hours arguing about some obscure (to her) plot point, such as "Who is John Connor's real father?" (That question was answered on this blog, by the way.) But the catch was that she perceived our discussions as something we would do instead of "just enjoying the movie." So she was taken aback when we replied, practically in chorus, "What do you think we're doing???"

Discussing a movie, even to the point of heated argument, has become a legitimate way to enjoy that movie. And filming a live concert and uploading it later for others' comments has become a legitimate way to enjoy that concert." --Enbrethiliel at Shredded Cheddar who should post more Catholic punk thoughts.

I totally agree with, "Discussing a movie, even to the point of heated argument, has become a legitimate way to enjoy that movie".

I'm not so sure about, "And filming a live concert and uploading it later for others' comments has become a legitimate way to enjoy that concert."

But that's just me.

Which reminds me. I have not fully exhausted my wrath concerning The Hobbit. What a horrendous piece of hack work.

The city of Dale in the days before the coming of the dragon in the prologue looks ridiculous. A compacted CGI set jostling with way too many extras.

The halls of the dwarves under the Lonely Mountain look ridiculous. Cold, Vulcan and alien. The treasure hoard looks ridiculous: it's supposed to be a great huge treasure hoard - not freaking CGI infinity.

There's one point in the film when the dwarves are sitting around Baggins table and it's painfully clear that you're watching some actors not even trying to act like dwarves. They look and feel like some guys who have been partying it up because they're in a big Peter Jackson film.

Did I mention that Thorin does not have a beard? Oh, what's that? No, that's not a beard, sorry. Big beards are synonymous with dwarves, and Thorin in the film does not even have a beard.

Galadriel - that is, the true Galadriel - does not use telepathy. People have their minds "read" by her because of her humility. To the transparent, others will be transparent. I'm too lazy to open up The Fellowship of the Ring right now, but there are a number of evocative references to this about Galadriel.

Other writers have said Galadriel in The Hobbit is more akin to the Mary figure of the book than previously seen in the The Fellowship. I disagree.

The riddling scene between Bilbo and Gollum is just so...I don't know. It brings to mind what bugs me most about Jackson's LOTR work: there's no sense of an inner dynamic, an inner logic that unfolds something of the book, which is not concerned only with plot and characters. The Fellowship had a sense of it. For all of its foreshortening, it spoke something of the inner logic of the story.

Then with the next two they became self-aware.

So yeah, I'll go to see the next installment of The Hobbit.

Our Lady of Land's End

In these dark times of vainglory and unbelief, Our Lady of Land's End keeps vigil, By
Georges Rouault

"There are other places
Which also are the world's end, some at the sea jaws,
Or over a dark lake, in a desert or a city—
But this is the nearest, in place and time,..."

--T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, Little Gidding

2B and 6B pencils

Little Denethors

People who haven't bothered to check their ignorance, nor ever will, are enmeshed in the belief that Big Government is the main thing that ails us, and the unreality of their monomania can be gauged by the fact that they actually end up sloughing in the insanity that cryptography is some kind of answer.

And put your hope in guns too.

And canned food.

Because it's the Government.

Little Denethors.

BTW, when that government breaks down, you will not end up with some kind of benevolent blank slate, nor even a wild and chaotic blank slate; what you will have is rule by what is presently the invisible government, only it will no longer be invisible. It will be Belloc's Servile State.

The main problem with government today is not that it is big. The government in many ways is too big; but that's not the main problem. The main problem with government today is that it is bought.

They answer only to their financiers. When the government "bailed out" the banks all what the government did was borrow tons from the banks. That's what the banks were saying to the government when they said to bail them out: borrow more money from us.

The Earth Rejects

On the death shores
are made fires
you do not know.

You grasp life you lose it.
If you die you live.
If you know, you do not know.

All comes to you
from the brink of death.
Back from the brink, steep
and pit of death
countless conceptions
come

making births. All births.
Else there is no birth.

On the death shores
are made fires,
and the life of the earth.

Kings walk them,
the shores of death,
freely chained and open-handed

giving blessings
the earth rejects.

Three favourite Pärt pieces

This is the best version of Annum per Annum that I've listened to. There's either fast versions, or there are slower ones. I don't know, but it seems to me the slow way is the way it's meant to be played. Volume has to be turned up.






This is the best version of Mein Weg hat Gipfel und Wellentaler that I've listened to. Volume has to be up.






This is the best version of Fratres that I've listened to.





Happy Epiphany!

Orwellian?

"One of the social rights and duties most under threat today is the right to work. The reason for this is that labour and the rightful recognition of workers’ juridical status are increasingly undervalued, since economic development is thought to depend principally on completely free markets. Labour is thus regarded as a variable dependent on economic and financial mechanisms." --Pope Benedict XVI in his New Year Day Message for 2013

Maybe "free market" is sort of Orwellian ain't it?

Financial mechanisms are the idols given the burnt offering of our dignity, a dignity which is supposed to find expression in economic development undivided from that inherent dignity - meaning that dignity must be evident, given translation in economic development that follows?

We must give these burnt offerings instead because man is totally depraved and for him to regard economic development as so important as to make the beneficence of the common good its foundation under God is to make of it an idol?

No, no, we can't have that. We must leave it to the "free market". We must stop thinking about this economy stuff; it's obsessive. Leave it to the "free market". Because otherwise you're making of it an idol. And then God no longer has any place in our lives. So leave it to the "free market". Give your burnt offering.

Money is a law of man

If the scarcity of gold and the labour and time required to dig more of it out of the earth is what makes for the magical quantitative control of money, then why the more commonplace silver as gold's magical toady - the two making "sound money" and "hard money"?

And if silver, then why not bronze and copper?

Why not just control the quantity ourselves instead? Because that's all what's being done the whole time with the magical gold and silver: with gold and silver you're just saying that you would prefer the quantity of money be controlled by the rich people - that's all.

So you see, it is a question of who controls the quantity, not what backs the money.

Because when you are talking about what backs the money, you are talking about nothing but controlling its quantity.

And there is always a who.

So you cannot get away from that question - who controls the quantity - not with all the appra-ca-dabbra-alla-cazam let-the-magical-free-market-decide-and-it-will-all-sort-itself-out magic spells in the world.

Zippity-do-da-day.

H, 2B and 6B pencils

Bwahahahahahahaha!!!

Pencil

Thinking about an artist I like

I love Michelangelo. He took sculpture out of the stiff, remote enclosures of the Gothic and gave birth in marble to a warm Christian humanism, unprecedented and unsurpassed.

That the holy warmth of his inner vision found its full expression in cold hard stone is consonant with the living paradox of the Gospel message, the Incarnation, surpassing the understanding of the proud.

I know I could sit in front of any one of his Pietàs all day contemplating, and then some.

A mentally disturbed geologist who made messianic claims to himself took a hammer to Michelangelo's most well known Pietà in 1972. The sculpture, one of the greatest Christian masterpieces, endured significant damage.

Venerable Pope Paul VI, upon being notified of the horrific act of vandalism, said, "...Satan is entered in the rooms of the holy buildings. He hides himself, he dissimulates, he seduces, divides, slanders. But it's him, ever him: the prince of darkness, the impoverished angel, the first and last cause of evil in the world."


Source for quote.

The Pope's New Year Message

Did the Pope attack Capitalism as we know it? Yep.

Pope Benedict's New Year's Day message can be read in full here.

Here are some things he said (my emphasis in bold):

"It is alarming to see hotbeds of tension and conflict caused by growing instances of inequality between rich and poor, by the prevalence of a selfish and individualistic mindset which also finds expression in an unregulated financial capitalism....

".... Peacemakers must also bear in mind that, in growing sectors of public opinion, the ideologies of radical liberalism and technocracy are spreading the conviction that economic growth should be pursued even to the detriment of the state’s social responsibilities and civil society’s networks of solidarity, together with social rights and duties. It should be remembered that these rights and duties are fundamental for the full realization of other rights and duties, starting with those which are civil and political

"One of the social rights and duties most under threat today is the right to work. The reason for this is that labour and the rightful recognition of workers’ juridical status are increasingly undervalued, since economic development is thought to depend principally on completely free markets. Labour is thus regarded as a variable dependent on economic and financial mechanisms. In this regard, I would reaffirm that human dignity and economic, social and political factors, demand that we continue “to prioritize the goal of access to steady employment for everyone.” If this ambitious goal is to be realized, one prior condition is a fresh outlook on work, based on ethical principles and spiritual values that reinforce the notion of work as a fundamental good for the individual, for the family and for society. Corresponding to this good are a duty and a right that demand courageous new policies of universal employment."

Uh oh. How about that, eh? The Pope also said this at the beginning of his message (my bold):

"Fifty years after the beginning of the Second Vatican Council, which helped to strengthen the Church’s mission in the world, it is heartening to realize that Christians, as the People of God in fellowship with him and sojourning among mankind, are committed within history to sharing humanity’s joys and hopes, grief and anguish, as they proclaim the salvation of Christ and promote peace for all."

Thank God for the Second Vatican Council. If it was not for the Church's mission in the world, perhaps we would have lost the liturgy.

Also, thank God for Venerable Pope Paul VI.

Here is some more of what the Pope said (my bold):

"In many quarters it is now recognized that a new model of development is needed, as well as a new approach to the economy. Both integral, sustainable development in solidarity and the common good require a correct scale of goods and values which can be structured with God as the ultimate point of reference. It is not enough to have many different means and choices at one’s disposal, however good these may be. Both the wide variety of goods fostering development and the presence of a wide range of choices must be employed against the horizon of a good life, an upright conduct that acknowledges the primacy of the spiritual and the call to work for the common good. Otherwise they lose their real value, and end up becoming new idols.

 

"In order to emerge from the present financial and economic crisis – which has engendered ever greater inequalities – we need people, groups and institutions which will promote life by fostering human creativity, in order to draw from the crisis itself an opportunity for discernment and for a new economic model. The predominant model of recent decades called for seeking maximum profit and consumption, on the basis of an individualistic and selfish mindset, aimed at considering individuals solely in terms of their ability to meet the demands of competitiveness. Yet, from another standpoint, true and lasting success is attained through the gift of ourselves, our intellectual abilities and our entrepreneurial skills, since a “liveable” or truly human economic development requires the principle of gratuitousness as an expression of fraternity and the logic of gift. Concretely, in economic activity, peacemakers are those who establish bonds of fairness and reciprocity with their colleagues, workers, clients and consumers. They engage in economic activity for the sake of the common good and they experience this commitment as something transcending their self-interest, for the benefit of present and future generations. Thus they work not only for themselves, but also to ensure for others a future and a dignified employment. 

"In the economic sector, states in particular need to articulate policies of industrial and agricultural development concerned with social progress and the growth everywhere of constitutional and democratic states. The creation of ethical structures for currency, financial and commercial markets is also fundamental and indispensable; these must be stabilized and better coordinated and controlled so as not to prove harmful to the very poor. With greater resolve than has hitherto been the case, the concern of peacemakers must also focus upon the food crisis, which is graver than the financial crisis. The issue of food security is once more central to the international political agenda, as a result of interrelated crises, including sudden shifts in the price of basic foodstuffs, irresponsible behaviour by some economic actors and insufficient control on the part of governments and the international community. To face this crisis, peacemakers are called to work together in a spirit of solidarity, from the local to the international level, with the aim of enabling farmers, especially in small rural holdings, to carry out their activity in a dignified and sustainable way from the social, environmental and economic points of view."

 

Pencils H, 2B and 6B