Lord Chalfont tells a story about his days as a Junior Minister in the Foreign Office. He attended a very grand dinner party, and spotted a lady standing alone in a long red dress. The besotted Chalfont staggered across to ask if she would waltz with him … The lady drew herself up: “I will not waltz with you for three reasons. First this is not a waltz it is the Czech national anthem. Second, you are drunk. My third and greatest objection is that I am the Cardinal Archbishop of Prague”.
Auberon Waugh, Diary, 1976-05-02 (Posted by @AuberonWaugh_PE, 2022-05-02).
August 12, 2022
QotD: Diplomatic adventures in the British Foreign Office
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August 5, 2022
Don Camillo blesses the river Po
Perhaps the first foreign author I encountered as a child was Giovanni Guareschi — in English translation, of course, I’m not a natural linguist — and I’d read most of his stories by the time I was twelve. They didn’t always make a lot of sense to me as far as the political aspects were concerned, but the human stories always hit home. Clearly, Sarah Hoyt (who is a natural linguist … she read them in the original Italian, although I’d expect they would work very well for Portuguese readers) feels much the same way about the Don Camillo stories:
A still from one of the 1952-1965 film adaptations of the Don Camillo stories, with Fernandel as Don Camillo and Gino Cervi as Mayor Peppone.
There is a poignant scene in one of the Giovanni Guareschi Don Camillo books, (set in mid-century Italy, where communism and Catholicism are fighting it back and forth. They’re humorous, profoundly human, and easy reads. The stories are like 200 words each.) in which, during a period of high strife, the priest goes out to bless the river. Btw, if you need examples of how to be a flea on the side of the commies, that character is terribly subversive in little ways (as well as liking to hit them on the head. I might have taken him for a model when I was a pre-teen. Sigh. And Comrade Don Camillo is the best book for how to turn things on their heads if you’re in deep hiding in a lefty stronghold, either professional or geographic.)
Anyway, in the little village on the Po river where the priest and the communist mayor fight it out, the river is an ever present danger, and people cope with it the way they have coped with such things throughout history: every year the priest goes to the river and blesses it, in the hopes that it will become (I am remembering in Italian, the English translation is probably different) “A well behaved citizen and stay within its bounds”.
Now, this is not magic, of course, and the priest explains that. Blessing the river does not guarantee that the river won’t burst out of its bed and flood the village (later on in the book there are accounts of a flood, and if you think that a book can’t paint a picture, be sure it can. For the rest of my life, I’ll carry the image of the priest saying mass in the deserted and flooded village, while across the river, on the safe bank, his flock who fled the flood kneel on the muddy soil at the tolling of the consecration bell. BTW Guareschi is the writer I’d like to be when I grow up. Trained as a journalist, he uses minimal words, but the images stay with you.) It’s just that blessing it gives people hope it won’t, and allows them to live in a precarious place, at a precarious time without losing their minds. (It is important to remember that whatever else humans are, they’re creatures of ritual and habit, and sometimes those are the only panaceas for difficult situations.)
Well, the communists have their dander up, so they tell the priest they want to march in the procession to bless the river with their flags and paraphernalia and the priest says no, they say anyone in the procession will get beaten. They demand the priest cancel it, and people lose their minds. So, the priest says he’ll go alone, if needed. Needless to say, the communists follow, in what is an intimidation maneuver (they have no new moves, really.)
So, Don Camillo, without looking back, gets to the river and prays that the Lord will keep the river within its bounds. And of course, because he knows the audience at his back, he says “If the houses of decent people could float, I’d ask you for a flood like Noah’s. But since the houses of decent people are made of the same stone and brick and sink like the houses of scoundrels, I beg you to make the river behave.”
In case you’re wondering what went wrong in America, and why we are where we are: we forgot our houses can’t flood.
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July 28, 2022
QotD: Getting to sleep
Me: Gets into bed. Adjusts pillows. Wonders what to do with my arms. Too warm. Puts one leg out of covers. Worries about leg grabbing monster. Tries to sleep. Brain reminds me of every stupid thing I’ve ever done.
Husband: Gets into bed. Goes to sleep.
Amanda (Pandamoanimum), Twitter, 2022-04-23.
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July 25, 2022
Rowan Atkinson & Hugh Laurie – Shakespeare and Hamlet (1989)
Nathaniel Brechtmann
Published 1 Sep 2011A sketch called “A Small Rewrite”, performed by Hugh Laurie (aka House) as Shakespeare and Rowan Atkinson (aka Mr Bean) as the editor.
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July 21, 2022
The Railrodder (1965)
NFB
Published 15 May 2015This short film from director Gerald Potterton (Heavy Metal) stars Buster Keaton in one of the last films of his long career. As “the railrodder”, Keaton crosses Canada from east to west on a railway track speeder. True to Keaton’s genre, the film is full of sight gags as our protagonist putt-putts his way to British Columbia. Not a word is spoken throughout, and Keaton is as spry and ingenious at fetching laughs as he was in the old days of the silent slapsticks.
Directed by Gerald Potterton – 1965
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July 20, 2022
Book Review: The Wipers Times
Forgotten Weapons
Published 6 May 2018Get your copy here: https://amzn.to/2jzWnkI
Or here: https://amzn.to/2JOpMm3The Wipers Times was a satirical trench newspaper printed from February 1916 until December 1918 by British Captain F.J. Roberts and a crew of assistants. Such papers were not particularly uncommon, but the Wipers Times was particularly successful, well written, and long-lived, and it has survived in reprints today to a greater extent than any other similar work. A total of 23 issues were printed, and they consist of poetry, commentary, mock advertisements, advice columns, and short stories. While much of the humor is still quite accessible to us today, much of it also includes references, abbreviations, and inside jokes that are inscrutable to those who are not quite knowledgeable about life in the trenches.
Roberts and his cohorts were legitimate front-line soldiers, not writing as visiting journalists or from the safety of the rear echelons. Beyond its basic entertainment value, their writings also provide a rare and interesting view into the minds of men who were truly living the Great War.
Note that a book about the newspaper has also been printed, titled The Wipers Times, and with a very similar cover. If you want to buy a copy of the reprinted original issues, make sure you are not buying that book.
The BBC made a 90 minute program based on the Times, which is available in its entirely on YouTube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKPXu…[The original channel has been deleted, but I believe this is the same video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juZBxhUYRpg]
(more…)
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July 11, 2022
QotD: The sad plight of the academic
Boredom is, in fact, the modern West’s signature pathology. Nobody with a rich, full life — a rewarding job, some hobbies, family and friends — bothers about “intersectionality” and whatnot. That’s not to say that Normals don’t get bored. However, for us boredom is a temporary feature of life. We know how to handle it; we have a zillion ways of killing time. What’s more important, we know that boredom’s just a part of life; it happens to the best of us.
For them, each episode of boredom is an existential crisis. They’ve convinced themselves that they have all the answers, that to be #Woke is to be a god among men. So if their lives aren’t 100% wonderful and fulfilling all the time — every second of every minute of every hour of every day — it throws the fundamental premise of their entire existence into question. It it any wonder, then, why they’re constantly hyperventilating about everything? Without a constant infusion of drama, they have to face the fact that they’re just people, buggering through life with the rest of us.
Severian, “The Reluctant Revolutionary”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2019-04-05.
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July 2, 2022
QotD: How To Read Lacan
I could answer this question on many levels. For example, the theological level: maybe I committed some sin in a past life. Maybe I was predestined to unhappiness. Maybe, having given me free will, God is no longer able to save me from my own bad choices.
On a more practical level: I’m trying to learn more about leftism, I’m trying to learn more about continental philosophy, and I’m trying to learn more about psychoanalysis. I figured I might as well get it all out of the way at once.
I was expecting this to be incomprehensible, but I was pleasantly surprised how good a writer Zizek was. He explains everything clearly, in down-to-earth prose interspersed with mildly funny Slovenian jokes that illustrate his points.
(Lacan himself is completely incomprehensible, to the point where he might as well be speaking Martian, but this book wisely avoided quoting Lacan except where absolutely necessary).
Despite being very readable, this book never really came together. Each chapter consisted of a Lacan quote, followed by Zizek’s interpretations and thoughts. The thoughts were always things like “Sometimes the act of communication itself can communicate something” or “We are never truly engaged with another person, even during sex”. These are always kind of reasonable, Zizek always does a good job proving them and relating them to mildly funny Slovenian jokes, and I came away agreeing with all of them. But I don’t feel like I understand how any of them cohere together into an object called “Lacanianism”, and none of them really seemed like a very surprising revelation, which is one reason this doesn’t get a full book review.
Scott Alexander, “Short Book Reviews April 2019”, Slate Star Codex, 2019-04-09.
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June 20, 2022
QotD: Swinish western civilization
Now traditionally, pigs had extended sharp tusks, and were death on swineherds. They still have them, but diminished in size by breeding, and sometimes even the wee vestigial bumps are removed, at the risk of cracking our jaws. This does not mean the captive suid is perfectly contented; only that he has been disarmed.
(I have a theory that humans are descended from pigs, not monkeys. I don’t actually believe it, but the argument can be developed in a way that will drive the village Darwinist crazy. Note: the average pig is smarter than a monkey; and can’t be bothered climbing trees.)
But I seem to be distracting myself into zoology, and my purpose was hardly to advance naturalism. Indeed, my self-assigned brief is for supernaturalism. My affection for pigs is just an aside. In the end it must be said there has never been a pig civilization, and the prospect that one may emerge by the ministrations of animal rights activists is, to my mind, dim.
David Warren, “A rant for Saint David’s Day”, Essays in Idleness, 2019-03-01.
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June 16, 2022
QotD: The Guardian and “capitalism”
It’s practically a rule. If a Guardian contributor drinks too much, eats too much, buys too many shoes … well, obviously, they’re the victim because consumerist peer pressure somehow made them do it against their will, such as it is. The premise is generally “capitalism made me fat”, followed by “capitalism made me anxious about being fat”, followed by “tax such-and-such to buggery, or ban it altogether, and then I’ll be thin”.
David Thompson, from the comments to “Reheated (55)”, DavidThompson.com, 2019-04-01.
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June 12, 2022
History Re-Summarized: Egypt
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 18 Feb 2022I for one was shocked to learn the Egyptians actually buried their kings in a giant Millennium Puzzle.
We’ve covered Egypt on this channel in previous videos, but this History Re-Summarized is the Definitive Edition, redone from the ground up to present the best possible account — starting at the beginning for a full chronology of Ancient Egypt, from the very first Pharaohs to the Muslim Conquest.
(Observant Egyptologists and D&D players might note the Pyramids are actually D-*Fives*, but technically they’re D-*Nines* since each face is actually two right triangles at a slight angle to each other and not a single flat isosceles triangle, so shhh, we can pretend it’s a D4.)
Sources & Further Reading: The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt & Ancient Egypt: A Very Short Introduction by Ian Shaw, World History Encyclopedia entries on “Ancient Egypt”, “Old Kingdom of Egypt”, “First Intermediate Period of Egypt”, “Middle Kingdom of Egypt”, “Second Intermediate Period of Egypt”, “New Kingdom of Egypt” https://www.worldhistory.org/egypt/, The Great Courses’ lecture series “History of Ancient Egypt” by Bob Brier. Additionally, I have an undergraduate degree in classical studies (re: Persia, Ptolemies and Rome). Extra special thanks to our OSP Discord server moderator & Egyptology connoisseur Billy, for his assistance and guidance for this video!
Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.
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QotD: Zima
There was, however, something perversely enticing about a drink that seemed to come from a post-apocalyptic wasteland in which color did not exist. There was an ingrained assumption that Zima must be expressly targeted at somebody, but nobody knew who that was … Zima was ridiculous … but did that actually mean it was brilliant? The only viable conclusion was “sort of”.
It’s true at first blush, but so douchey that you want it to be wrong just to spite whoever wrote it. I’ve never wanted a Zima more in my life than I did after reading that passage. But at second glance, it’s laughably false. Ask anyone who was in college in the 1990s; they’ll tell you exactly who Zima was “expressly targeted at”: Frat bros who were expecting female company. Because it was clear — no, really, it was beer(-ish) that looked like club soda — it somehow seemed like “diet beer”. Which meant your female party guests were almost guaranteed to have three or four more than they should.
In other words: Zima was the midrange panty dropper. Not as classy as white zinfandel, not as trashy as Boone’s Farm, there was no other possible reason to have it in your dorm fridge, but it somehow had plausible deniability when you offered it to her as a light refreshment. If Klosterman ever had sex at any time between January 1, 1990 and December 31, 1999, he knows this. There’s no way he doesn’t.
Severian, “A Meta-Review”, Founding Questions, 2022-02-24.
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June 5, 2022
QotD: The Matrix
The point is Andy and Larry Wachowski figured they’d hit on the perfect wrinkle for a classic postmodern nerd franchise — the Star Wars of our generation. And if you say, “Hang on, old boy, surely Star Wars is the Star Wars of our generation?”, I’d say, nah, it’s too 1930s radio serial, and its grandiosity is plonkingly earnest and squaresville instead of as coolly meta as Keanu Reeves’ too-bored-to-act acting style. The Matrix was quickly followed by The Matrix Revisited, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Recycled, and Neo got paleo pretty quick. None of the sequels could quite match the initial red-pilling of surface reality, and so they simply dug the rabbit hole deeper. Zion is the last outpost of humanity — but maybe it’s merely a Matrix-within-the-Matrix? Ever consider that, huh? And what if Neo himself is a Matrix-within-the-Matrix-within-the-Matrix? He was supposed to be “The One” — but maybe one of the others is The One. Maybe The One flew over the cuckoo’s nest.
By the sequel, the Wachowskis’ “innovative visual style” (a Cecil B De Mille-scale computer game peopled by sullen pouters) was looking a lot less innovative: they did all the same things they did in the first film all over again, just more expensively and even more arbitrarily — the scene in which Keanu/Neo is fighting a hundred guys in black and doesn’t win, doesn’t lose, but just finds himself fighting vainly the old ennui and so buggers off after 15 minutes pretty much sums it up. By the second movie, Keanu had perfected his morose blank look, and fine actors like Laurence Fishburne were turning in performances so clunkily solemn you’d think they were auditioning for George Lucas. As usual, the subterranean city of Zion proved to be just another generic dystopian underground parking garage; and the orgiastic dance party looked like a weekend rave in Huddersfield.
Mark Steyn, “The Matrix”, Steyn Online, 2019-04-06.
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June 4, 2022
QotD: A smidgen of forgiveness for the Boomers
That has to mess with your head a bit.
In the same way, no previous generation had ever seen their youth commercialized and sold back to them in middle age, and that’s what messed with our heads. The passing fancies of those ordinary suburban kids in 1963 all involved sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. We — Gen X — wanted those things too, but since by definition nothing is lamer than your parents, we had to be all, like, you know, whatever about it.
If you can grok the concept of a 45 year old telling you — with complete, almost heartbreaking sincerity — not to trust anyone over 30, you can grok the 1990s.
If you can’t, I don’t recommend trying. It’s like an anti-koan — if you solve it, you’ll achieve a lower consciousness. But if you’re determined to experience it, get really, really, really drunk and watch Forrest Gump a few times back to back. Really experience it as a work of art … because it is. It’s meticulously constructed. Forrest Gump is a mildly retarded man who stumbles, through dumb fucking luck, into fame and fortune through every significant event of the last half century. (He even has a huge dick, although that’s a detail from the source novel that got left on the cutting room floor).
Is there any more perfect metaphor for My G-G-Generation than that?
That’s what we grew up with. That whole generation was what some wag said about George Bush the First: Born on third base, thinking he hit a triple. And, of course, by merciless application of cold logic: that was also us. The only difference was that while the Boomers were congenitally incapable of seeing it, we were congenitally incapable of getting over it. So, you know, like, whatever.
Severian, “A Meta-Review”, Founding Questions, 2022-02-24.
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May 31, 2022
QotD: Chaos, the ancient enemy
I was probably one of the few people not at all surprised that Jordan Peterson’s seminal work was subtitled “An antidote to chaos”. Because of course that is our ancient enemy, the enemy of everything that lives down to the smallest organized cell.
Perhaps it is my Greek ancestry (in culture, via the Romans, if nothing else. I mean 23 and me has opinions, but they revise my genetic makeup so often I’m not betting on anything. Also, frankly, they base it on today’s populations, so that if say every person in an extended family left Greece to colonize Iberia, today I’d show only Iberian genetics. [Spoiler: I don’t. Europeans are far more mixed up than they dream of in their philosophies.]) that makes me see Chaos as a vast force waiting in the darkness before and around this brief bit of light that is Earth and humanity, ready to devour us all.
I can’t be the only one impressed by this image, as I’ve run across echoes of it in countless stories both science fiction and fantasy. If you’re reading the kind of story that tries to scrute the ultimate inscrutable and unscrew the parts of the mental universe of humanity to take a metaphorical look under the hood, sooner or later you come across a scene where the main characters get to the end of it all and face howling chaos and darkness. Only it usually doesn’t even howl, nor is it dark. It’s just nothing. Which is the ultimate face and vision of chaos. And most of us know it. Perhaps writers, most of all.
I have a complex relation with chaos, in that part of me seems to be permanently submerged in it. Some of this is the culture in which I was brought up. You know, the Portuguese might have crime, but no one can accuse them of having organized crime. Or indeed organized much of anything.
It’s not just the disease of “late industrializing culture”. There’s something more at work. For one, the Portuguese pride themselves on it. They routinely contrast the British habit of queuing for everything to the Portuguese habit of queuing for nothing (And you haven’t lived till you see a communion scrum with the little old ladies having their elbows at the level of young men’s crotches) by describing the way Portuguese do not queue as “All in a pile and may G-d help us”.
Sarah Hoyt, “The Ancient Enemy”, According to Hoyt, 2019-04-05.
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