On the sensitive subject of legacy

That's the title of my latest article at Spero News, just released this morning.

Go, read, comment.

If only . . .

. . . Babdist preachers were allowed to marry, this sort of thing would never, ever happen again!

Oh, what's that you say? They can?

Never mind!

How to know your diction is poor

Sometimes I threaten my choir with doing something like this, but they don't take me seriously -- probably because they know the church doesn't have the money!

Seriously -- do they really need surtitles when they sing in English? I could understand if they were doing the shows with an all-native-Uzbek cast or something, but one would hope that English singers would be able to sing in their mother tongue.

About that Bach manuscript . . .

. . . that was recently found -- it's very exciting. I'm sure there are still a few dusty MSS lying around private libraries in Germany.

This goes to reinforce my opinion that great masterpieces usually come to be known during the composers' lifetime; I can't think of a single great masterpiece that was discovered moldering away in a trunk, years after the composer's passing.

Still, it's pretty exciting stuff when it does happen! I can't wait to hear it.

Remember the Book Meme?

Okay, I realize I am the last blogger to do this meme, not counting Zorak, who said she wasn't doing them. That said, here are my answers. Thanks, Cacciaguida, for the tag!

1. Total Number of Books I’ve Owned.
   
   As Bridget Jones said, in assessing alcohol units: Oh, thousands.


2. Last Book I Bought.
   
   The How-to Book of the Mass by Michael Dubruiel.


3. Last Book I Read.
   
   From cover to cover? Probably Here. Now. by Amy Welborn.


4. Five Books that mean a Lot to Me.
   
   
   
   
   1. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. Need I say more? In retrospect, it was one of the main keys to the opening of my mind and heart to the Catholic Faith.
   
   
   2. Collected Poems by George Herbert. This is probably cheating, because it’s really a bunch of poems that are meaningful to me individually, but there they are.
   
   
   3. Collected Stories and Poems, Edgar Allan Poe. I had a very negative childhood, marked by alienation and a desire to become not-alienated. Poe’s Alone pretty well sums it up. I also share Poe’s fascination with the “dark side,” so to speak, but fortunately not his dipsomania or his, ahem, preoccupation with teenaged girls.
   
   
   4. Confessions by Saint Augustine, one of the greatest minds in the history of the Church (or of the world, for that matter). I think I had better not say too much about why this means so much to me; like Augustine, I will leave the details vague.
   
   
   5. Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady by the inestimable Florence King. Like her, I have a pretty low regard for my fellow human beings. This book, however, is told with good humor and a high regard for the eccentricities of Southerners, and that is a subject about which I know uncomfortably much.
   
   
   
   
5. Tag five others and have them do this on their own blogs.
   
   Hasn’t this meme pretty well run the cycle? Every blog I read has already done it or (in Zorak’s case) refused to do it.

This is so lame. I can never remember all the books I've read.

. . . and speaking of terrible puns . . .

Her last words to her husband were reported to be, 'So long, old chum.'

Ba dum BUM!

A really terrible music joke . . .

. . . courtesy of Aristotle.

Such a concatenation of puns is crying out for me to return the favor, so here goes:

Once upon a time, there was this guy who had a problem with drinking. He came home drunk three or four times a week. So one night, he came home drunk again (this is starting to sound like a country song!), and his wife gave him an ultimatum: Come home drunk one more time, and I'll toss your sorry butt out in the street.

So everything goes swimmingly for a while. He stays on the wagon for week after agonizing week, until one day he gets a promotion at work, and he goes out to celebrate with the boys. One thing leads to another, and before he knows it, he's three sheets to the wind.

When the evening winds up, he begins to feel remorseful, and then downright scared. He thinks and thinks as he walks home (hey! at least he isn't drinking and driving, right?): I've got to think of something! Some excuse! Just then, he walks past the display window of a music store, and the idea comes to him like a thunderbolt!

He staggers home, and his wife is furious. She threatens to throw him out then and there, but he says, "Honey, wait! I went to the doctor today, and he told me I have syncopation. He says it's incurable, and I didn't know what to do."

"Honey! you should have told me sooner," she says. And things are fine until the next afternoon, and when he comes home, he sees his clothing and all his possessions lying in the grass on the front lawn.

"Honey, what's wrong? I told you I had syncopation!"

"Oh yeah," she says. "I looked up your syncopation, honey. And the dictionary says it's an irregular rhythmic movement from bar to bar!

A fantastic story . . .

. . . from Aish ha Torah (Fire of the Law).

There's nothing like a conversion story, is there? This guy epitomizes Jesus's story of the Prodigal Son.

Amusing dictionary . . .

This reference work would have been awfully handy if I could have read it before I went to Europe back in the day.

Sample entry:

treacle n. What we in the UK call treacle, Americans call molasses. I prefer "treacle" - "molasses" makes it sound as if the stuff is made out of the rear ends of small animals.

Via the Mighty Eve Tushnet.