The Blog of the Courtier

The Blog Has Moved; New Author Site Launched

2011-05-02T08:13:00.000-04:00

The Courtier has moved! Please point your browser and change your bookmarks to:

http://blogofthecourtier.com

In addition to gaining a domain name and switching to WordPress for the daily blog, I have also created an author site at:

http://wbdnewton.com

The author site will act as an umbrella linking together my current and any future projects, including Blog of the Courtier and Catholic Barcelona. It will provide a central point where those interested in such matters will be able to see what I am up to, follow me on social media, and read what others are saying about my work. It also provides a contact form for those who would like to communicate with me outside the confines of posting a blog comment.

Both sites will require some tweaking and refinements, since I am by no means a professional web designer. To that end, your comments and suggestions will be helpful and most gratefully received. While I cannot attempt, nor do I want, to be all things to all people, I will consider any suggestions I receive.

While this web address for The Courtier will no longer be updated, and all previous posts have been moved to the new site. However the old posts will be maintained here for the time being, for those who find their way here from other starting points as well as for those who have linked here in their own blog posts, etc. For now, the comments on old articles will be left open as well, though this may change for the sake of clarity.

Thank you, gentle reader, for your continued patronage, and see you round the new manse!

Detail from "The Journey of the Magi" by Benozzo Gozzoli (1459-1461)
Palazzo Medici Ricardi, Florence

Kindred Spirits: St. Catherine of Siena and Sigrid Undset

2011-04-29T11:20:00.000-04:00

Today is the Feast of St. Catherine of Siena: mystic, stigmatic and Doctor of the Church. The writings of St. Catherine (1347-1380) have inspired many people down the centuries, but among the most interesting examples from comparatively recent times is the Norwegian Nobel Laureate, Sigrid Undset (1882-1949). I will spare the reader any vain and pitiful attempt on my part to analyze the sometimes above-my-head ideas related by St. Catherine. Instead, I draw attention to the work of Undset, whose admiration of this remarkable 14th century saint led to a wonderful, accessible reflection on St. Catherine and her writings.

Sigrid Undset was one of Norway's most important modern writers. In recognition of her talents, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928 - back when one actually had to be able to write, bring about peace, etc. to merit the award. Her trilogy "Kristin Lavransdatter", set in 12th century Norway, ought to be required reading for all Catholics. Herself a convert to Catholicism, the 20th century Norwegian writer, Undset, found much in common with the 14th century Italian writer, St. Catherine.

Both women were Third-Order Dominicans, and lived in times when the Church appeared to be in danger of disintegrating. Indeed, Undset's conversion from secular atheist to fervent Catholic was considered a tremendous scandal both among the Low-Church Lutherans and the no-Church intellectuals of her countrymen. Yet like St. Catherine fighting against a tide of materialism in her own day, Undset encouraged the faithful to fight back again the secularization of Western society.

Undset's magnificent spiritual biography of the saint, "Catherine of Siena", was published posthumously in 1951. It is a fitting introduction or companion for those interested in learning more about St. Catherine, written in a thoughtful and sensitive style that is typical of the author's other works. The fact that Undset was so interested in the Middle Ages, not just in her own country but in the idea of Christian Europe, allowed her to build a bridge for us between our own day and a world which may at times seem very foreign to our experience.

Like many of us, Undset recognized the fact that the writings of this great Italian mystic are not always easily accessible for the modern reader. Apart from most likely not having had any mystical experiences, the modern reader most certainly did not have the benefit of growing up in the more deeply spiritual world of Medieval Europe. Yet she saw that, as in St. Catherine's day, man's perennial tendency to either ignore God completely or remake Him in our own image leads to evil results.

In "Catherine of Siena" Undset opined that the problems of the modern age grew out of a denial of man's being made in the image and likeness of God, and all that entails. In order to justify his own bad behavior in violation of the natural law and the teachings of Christ and His Church, man can convince himself that sin is, in effect, virtue. If we have "ceaselessly stained and crippled the image of God in ourselves," she writes, "we have succumbed to our desire for power and flattery, to our passions, hate and revenge, lust and ambition."

In Undset's view this paradoxical mindset leads to impotence, or destruction, or both. She notes that modern men are always planning utopian visions of the future, only to tear them down: man accomplishes something good, and almost immediately sets about destroying it. There is no sense of planning or preservation, all is caprice, shallowness, and pique. "We are afraid of change," she writes, and yet simultaneously are "afraid of stagnation. We love old things and institutions, and will have something which is new and different."

St. Catherine's dogged perseverance, such as in trying to get the Papacy to return to Rome from Avignon, impressed Undsett tremendously: particularly because the saint seemed so often to be fighting a losing battle against the materialism of her times. Undset points out that the efforts made by St. Catherine to persuade others to take the right path were pursued with the full understanding of the saint herself that she might very well never see their fruits. In this, Undset says, St. Catherine drew closer to Christ:

She gave of herself until her physical life was used up; in a fight whose final results she was as sure of, as she was sure that she would not see many victories on the battlefield of this world. But in fact Our Lord has never made any promises regarding the triumph of Christianity on earth - on the contrary. If we expect to see His cause triumph here, His own words should warn us: "When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith upon the earth?" He did not tell us the answer.

Undset points out that even in the Middle Ages, when Christianity was in full flower all over Europe, there were still plenty of people who refused to follow Christ. She counseled that those who speak of "the bankruptcy of Christianity in our times" ought to keep this in mind, as well as Jesus' own aforementioned speculation from St. Luke. God gives us no promises about the safety of the Church - other than that the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.

Living as do we, in an age of horrors which St. Catherine could not have imagined in her most intense mystical experiences, Undset championed the idea put forward by St. Catherine's example that the single soul must stand up to be counted. Undset reminds us that, whatever the world may say, "every man is born individually, and must be saved individually." This last point is an important one, for it gives us cause to not only hope but to continue to act in accordance with God's Will for us, even if we feel we are all alone or there is seemingly little or no possibility of stemming the tide.

One of St. Catherine of Siena's most famous counsels is: "Be what you are meant to be, and you will set the entire world alight!" Undset must have taken that counsel very seriously, for she "put herself out there", as the saying goes. She may have lost the respect of some of her peers by rejecting secular materialism, but she gained the far greater blessing of Christianity in return. Let us hope that God, in His Mercy, has not only gathered her to Himself, but also that she and St. Catherine have become friends in heaven, given what extraordinary women each of them in her way was upon earth.

St. Catherine of Siena by Sano de Pietro (c. 1442)

Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht

Church Vandalism in Spain: Credit Where It's Due

2011-04-28T09:42:00.000-04:00

Who would have thought that, in the 21st century, one would be able to regularly blog about or even tweet regarding acts of church vandalism in Spain? From Madrid to Barcelona and beyond, it seems that every week there is a new story of uncivilized, sometimes politically motivated, acts of violence against the fabric of the Church. As appalling as these events are however, it is extremely important to stress that cooler heads must prevail when reporting on these events. Not every physical attack on a church building comes about as a result of political action.

Recently for example, I learnt of a new act of vandalism in the historically important city of Burgos, located in central Spain. Two 13th century statues on the main entrance portal of the church of San Esteban (i.e. St. Stephen) were decapitated sometime late on Holy Thursday or early in the morning of Good Friday by an unknown person or persons. San Esteban was built between the 13th and 14th centuries, and is considered by some architectural historians to be the most important example of Gothic church architecture in the city after the Cathedral of Santa Maria La Mayor. It was declared a National Monument of Spain in 1931, and at the present time it serves as the Altarpiece Museum for the Archdiocese of Burgos.

This morning Spanish authorities announced the capture and charging of an individual in connection with the case. The heads of the statues of St. Peter and St. Lawrence were recovered by the National Police from the individual, and these have been returned to the church for restoration. The defendant is a local man, who had been arrested and charged recently with antiquities theft in another matter, but was out on bond at the time of the San Esteban incident.

From the beginning the Archdiocese of Burgos has been very careful not to jump to the conclusion that this was an anticlerical act, and expressed its belief that this was probably an act of theft. Vandalism of ancient churches to feed the black market in looted antiquities is a problem throughout Europe, and Spain is no exception. When the incident was first reported, a spokesman for the Archdiocese noted the important detail that the heads were taken away, rather than left at the scene, as would normally be expected from leftist vandals. Nor was there any accompanying graffiti or other indications to suggest that the vandalism was a politically motivated act.

A similar, commendable restraint was shown by the Archdiocese of Barcelona and local authorities last week, when the sacristy of the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia was torched by a mentally ill man. Neither the Archdiocese nor the police alleged that there was any connection between the individual and leftist anti-Catholic actions. By taking this cautionary approach in Burgos, Barcelona, and elsewhere, the Church is doing exactly what it needs to do, even if authorities are often powerless to prevent vandalism - politically motivated or not - against its property.

There is a trait in the Spanish character at all points along the socio-political spectrum to jump to conclusions about the cause or motivations behind an act, which at the moment the Church appears to be avoiding institutionally, unless there is undeniable proof of an anti-Catholic motivation. Perhaps the most famous example in recent years of the Spanish tendency to form an opinion with insufficient evidence occurred on March 11, 2004, when the Madrid subway system was bombed three days before national elections were scheduled. The conservative government and some elements of the media immediately blamed ETA, the Basque separatist group, which denied all involvement - and admittedly the charge against them seemed rather bizarre to outside observers at the time, including this writer, since attacks like these are not the usual m.o. for ETA.

Through subsequent investigation it quickly came to light that the Madrid subway attacks were carried out not by Basque separatists, but rather by Muslim terrorists. The public reaction against the conservatives for making ETA the scapegoat for 3/11, as the subway bombing has come to be known, was harsh and swift; the small lead which the conservatives had enjoyed as the election was drawing to a close completely evaporated. This catapulted Mr. Rodriguez Zapatero and the Spanish Socialist Party into office, where they remain at the present time.

There is without question a rising sentiment of anticlerical fervor in Spain, and this needs to be addressed both through engaging those who seek to harm the Church, and by insisting that civil authorities do their job to maintain law and order. However, the bishops, the media, and the laity need to act with restraint when assigning blame to acts of Church vandalism. Tarring with too a wide brush will only hurt the perception of the Church in the court of public opinion, creating a "boy who cried wolf" situation. And it is among the members of the law-abiding public, Catholic or not, where the real power to combat deliberate acts of anticlericalism resides.

The 13th century statues of St. Peter (L) and St. Lawrence (R)
on the entrance portal of San Esteban in Burgos, prior to last week's vandalism

On the Virtues of Narrow Guest Lists

2011-04-27T11:07:00.001-04:00

One of the most difficult lessons for men of good will to learn is that there is no way to be all things to all people. In society, at the office, in the parish, within the charitable/philanthropic spheres, etc., stretching yourself too thin and losing sight of the goal is a guaranteed recipe for disaster. Nowhere is this more readily apparent than when playing host. Yet hosting an event can be, if handled correctly, not only a great deal of fun for yourself and your guests, but more importantly a wonderful opportunity to edify those around you.

There are seemingly endless social minefields to traverse when throwing a party, before even getting to the logistics, that can distract from the point of hosting one. Take the guest list: if you invite Jane because you want her to meet Susan, then you must also invite Jane's fiancee Tom. And the problem is that Tom and Harry do not get along, but you are compelled to invite Harry because he and Dick invited you to their New Year's Party this year, and you owe them both a return invitation. And if you invite Harry and Tom but not their girlfriends, then they might not come. And you know that Susan is going to call you at the last minute and ask if she can bring her sisters, because they really won't take up much room and they would so love to see you (and she is always doing this sort of thing.)

In just under two months I will be hosting my 6th annual "Festa Catalana" at the manse. For the past several years, the party has been held around the "Nit de Sant Joan" ("Night of St. John") marking the birth of St. John the Baptist, commemorated on June 24th in Barcelona and throughout Catalonia with all-night parties and fireworks. This is my chance to have a group of old friends and new acquaintances over and serve them Catalan food and drink, celebrating the Catalan part of my heritage and allowing people whom I like but who might not otherwise meet to get to know each other.

Unfortunately, the event has proven to be a victim of its own success, for while it has grown, the house has not. From a chatty, sit-down dinner for 8 out in the garden back in 2006, it has expanded exponentially to the point where last year the many dozens of people in summer cocktail attire were jammed cheek-by-jowl both outside and on multiple floors inside on a stiflingly hot and humid evening. Indeed, one of the ladies in attendance fainted from the heat and had to be revived, much to my concern and chagrin.

Since I am still in the same tall and skinny house, this year's guest list is going to have to be rather severely curtailed, in order to get the event down to an enjoyable, manageable size. This means that there is no way I am going to be able to avoid potentially hurting the feelings of a number of people whom I like, some of whom began asking me way back in February if I was holding the festa again this summer. Yet the thing must be done: otherwise, the goal of bringing good people together for good conversation and fellowship will be lost.

That is all very well, you may ask yourself, but why does any of this matter? The answer comes from this blog's patron, Count Castiglione himself. He maintained that the courtier must not only educate himself and develop his talents, but also do his part to encourage the building up of polite society, because of the good deeds which flow from it.

For Castiglione, the man who is fortunate enough to move in society has a responsibility to show others that good manners, education, an appreciation of the arts, and so on, are virtues to be cultivated; from such flowers the fruits of good deeds will grow. "Therefore I think that just as music, festivals, games, and other pleasant accomplishments are, as it were, the flower," he writes, "in like manner to lead or help one's prince towards what is right, and to frighten him from what is wrong, are the true fruits of Courtiership." It is therefore through celebrating and encouraging good behavior that the work of the courtier is truly accomplished.

By so doing, in Castiglione's thinking the courtier serves as a defense against the tendency of fallen human nature to selfishness, violence, greed, and the other vices. "This is because among the many faults which we see today in many of our princes, the greatest are ignorance and self-esteem," Castiglione remarks - no doubt to the surprise of self-esteem gurus such as Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra. "And the root of these two evils is none other than falsehood: which vice is deservedly hateful to God and to men. For the ignorant mind deceives itself and lies inwardly to itself."

For Castiglione, throwing a party should of course be a pleasant experience for the host, but also a responsibility he takes seriously. A social event should bring good people together to allow the possibility of good, perhaps long-lasting results - acts of charity, exposure to cultural interests or to literature and music previously unfamiliar, and so on. Castiglione certainly enjoyed having a good time, and encouraged his followers to do so as well, but to do so within a self-imposed sense of restraint within which the focus always remains on striving to do good.

No doubt a party which ends in a conga line of revelers wearing lampshades on their heads can be a very memorable one, so far as memories of it are preserved ahead of the intake of spirits. Yet if that is all that comes out of an event, the host has lost an important opportunity to build up his immediate society, rather than allowing it to sink to a baser level. In no way do I mean to I suggest, gentle reader, that your cocktail party be a dour, sombre occasion dedicated to the discussion of Kierkegaard and the reform of the Roman Missal. Instead, consider the opportunity of hosting such an event to be more than the meeting of a mutual appreciation society, and instead the chance to allow ladies and gentlemen of good will to get to know one another and perhaps come up with ways to benefit and improve the society in which all of you live.

Popery and Politics in 21st Century Britain

2011-04-26T10:12:00.000-04:00

It may be something of a surprise to the regular reader of these pages to learn that I have no interest in watching coverage of the British royal wedding this weekend. Certainly I wish Prince William and Catherine Middleton well in their marriage, but I cannot bring myself to be as enthralled by it as is virtually every pin and cog of the media juggernaut on both sides of the pond. I would never favor abolition of the British monarchy, much as I am quite happy not to live in a monarchical system. Yet as a Catholic I cannot help but turn up my nose a bit at it, since in its present form it represents the continued power of institutionalized British anti-Catholicism in the more than 300 years since Catholics were removed from the line of succession upon passage of the 1701 Act of Settlement.

Recently Deputy British Prime Minister Nick Clegg nixed the idea of abolishing the prohibition on Catholics, following pressure from Church of England leaders. As Peter Hutchinson reports in The Torygaph today Alex Salmond, First Minister of Scotland and head of the Scottish National Party, has called for Mr. Clegg to issue a formal clarification of the government's position on the issue. The reader will no doubt note the curious fact that Mr. Salmond is not himself a Catholic but a member of the Church of Scotland; even more curiously, Mr. Clegg is an atheist who is married to a Catholic Spaniard, and whose children are being raised as Catholics. Make of this what you will.

The issue of the British succession came up last evening in the context of a discussion among friends regarding Prince William's decision not to wear a wedding ring - a practice very widespread among the married Englishmen I knew during the time I lived in London. One of the gentlemen in our conversation was surprised that I did not really care either way whether he wore one. My response was simply to state that my position on matters related to the Saxe-Coburgs is one which I can only describe, for lack of a better term, as "Jacobite".

Jacobite views were well-regarded in my family; indeed, one of my siblings has "Stuart" as one of his middle names for this reason. The attempt to try to get the Stuarts back on the throne is one of those great lost causes of history which still inspires the romantic, as indeed is the Carlist cause in Spain. In both cases, these wars of succession are still being fought, albeit off the actual field of battle, in the trenches of constitutional law, where the anti-Catholic reaction to the Jacobites came to be formally enshrined at the dawn of the so-called Age of Reason.

Subsequent attempts to abolish or reform the Act of Settlement in order to allow Catholics to succeed to the throne have been considered and dropped numerous times. This is partly due to the complicated legal maneuvering that would be required, and partly due to the continued opposition of politically conservative British Protestants. Thus the re-emergence of this issue in recent weeks has been more interesting to me than questions about whether Prince William ought to wear a wedding ring or whether the tune "Coal Miner's Daughter" should be played whenever Catherine Middleton enters a room.

For unlike the romantic notions of putting a Stuart back on the throne of Britain or a Hapsburg back on the throne of Spain, the Act of Settlement is a blatant instance of institutionalized anti-Catholicism that is still enforced today. It remains the law of the land not just in England and Scotland, but throughout the British Commonwealth, since any attempt to change it must be passed by the respective governments of each of the members of the Commonwealth, from Canada to Australia, New Zealand to Jamaica, and so on. It is so ancient a prejudice as to be deeply embedded in the fabric of the entire empire.

Those in Britain, the U.S., and other northerly climes who look at the ongoing arguments between Catalonia and Castile in Spain as being anachronistic remnants of the Carlist and Bourbon conflicts of the early 18th century, have only to look at Britain's own history for an example of deliberate policies of exclusion that date back to precisely the same period. The key difference, of course, is that in Spain religion did not directly enter into the question of succession. In Britain, by contrast, religion is very much at the heart of the matter.

The Church of England is very right to point out that to allow a Catholic to ascend the throne could create a potential constitutional crisis. That fact would seem to suggest, to a reasonable mind, that the flaw is not in the idea of opening the succession, but rather in the anti-Catholic language of the Act. To undertake what is difficult, but just, may result in tears or worse, but that does not mean that apathy or inaction are the better choices.

Portrait of Prince Charles Edward Stuart
by Maurice Quentin de la Tour (1748)
Scottish National Portrait Gallery

Review of "Le Corbeau": Why Shock Value Isn't Enough

2011-04-25T09:20:00.001-04:00

A film whose central character is a philandering abortionist would seem to be too hot a commodity for mainstream cinema to attempt, even today. Yet Henri-Georges Clozot did so in his controversial 1943 work "Le Corbeau" ("The Raven"), which I screened over the weekend. While the film shows there really is nothing new under the sun, insofar as shocking audiences is concerned, I must confess that it left me rather underwhelmed: it is all crime and no punishment.

"Le Corbeau" is set in a small town in France, where all of the local residents have closely-guarded secrets. From the start, we are made very much aware that this is not a happy, peaceful town: long-standing hatreds are commonplace, and people are often very much less than kind to one another. The "hero" of the story, if we are to call him that, Dr. Rémy Germain (Pierre Fresnay) works as a surgeon at the local hospital, and practices illegal abortions on the side. He is carrying on an affair with Laura (Micheline Francey), the wife of one of his colleagues, and in the course of the film succumbs to the amorous advances of his landlady Denise (Ginette Leclerc).

As the story develops, a series of poison-pen letters signed by someone who calls himself "Le Corbeau" begin to circulate, accusing Dr. Germain and others of committing various crimes. The supposed mystery of the writer's identity, as matters become more heated and turn to acts of violence, is what occupies us as the film gets going. Unfortunately for this reviewer, I realized who the author of the letters was almost immediately, and so the foregone conclusion turned the experience into something of a waiting game.

"Le Corbeau" is a film which is usually on the must-see list for those of us interested in the development of French cinema, and it is not hard to understand why. It is a something like a combination of Edgar Allen Poe and Alfred Hitchcock - in the French taste, natch. Parts of it are superbly well-shot, particularly in using empty space/silence and unexpected camera angles to create a threatening atmosphere. And there are a number of good performances from the cast, though throughout the movie I kept thinking that the character of Denise would have been played more convincingly by the great Jeanne Moreau, a generation later. Most view it today as a kind of veiled criticism of the atmosphere of distrust brought about as a result of the Nazi occupation, when neighbors would turn in their neighbors to the Gestapo.

However the real notoriety of the picture stems from its scandalous public history. It was produced by a German-owned company, and seemed to offend almost everyone across the moral and political spectrum - from the Church to the French Resistance to the Vichy Regime. The film was banned for a time, and Clozot himself was barred from working in French cinema for two years after the war. As we all know, anytime something like a book or a movie is formally banned, it is going to attract an audience keen on examining it for themselves, and this is one reason why "Le Corbeau" continues to be studied today.

This did not have to become the only reason to see the film, however, even though that is now the case, at least in the opinion of this reviewer. The poison-pen letter used as a plot device by Clozot can be a useful tool for ripping open the painted scenery and showing us what lies just behind. He could have allowed the possibilities open to him through the implementation of this device to lead him to create a script and accompanying film which captures our universal desire to see crime being punished. He would not have been the first Frenchman so to be fascinated, or successful, in considering the subject through the use of this plot device.

Perhaps the most famous French example is the 18th century novel "Les Liaisons dangereuses" by Choderlos de Laclos, which has been treated by cinema many times on both sides of the pond. Two examples with which my American readers may be familiar are the now-classic Glenn Close/John Malkovich "Dangerous Liaisons" from 1988, and the Reese Whitherspoon/Ryan Philippe reinterpretation "Cruel Intentions" from a decade later. In these films, crime has consequences that not only result in death, but in actual punishment.

The spectacular performance by Glenn Close in the earlier film as her world crumbles around her is made particularly satisfying because her own methods are being turned against her. We enjoy her punishment because it is part of our fallen nature to enjoy revenge, but more importantly because we realize, as she does, that she will go on experiencing a living hell on earth. She has ruined the lives and reputations of others, and now her life and reputation are ruined: the punishment fits the crime.

By contrast, in "Le Corbeau" the writer of the letters is punished, vigilante-style, but we are left unsatisfied by the outcome, thinking, "That's it?" The doer of the deed comes almost out of nowhere; the story has become so convoluted by this point that we have forgotten about them almost entirely. And despite some last-minute "what ifs?" by Clozot there is never any doubt as to the writer's identity or fate.

Clozot leaves us with important, unanswered questions. Are the townspeople just going to go back to being mean to one another? Is Dr. Germain still going to be committing infanticide and fooling around? Is Denise still going to be playing Potiphar's wife to all of her husband's lodgers? In other words: has anyone actually learned anything? "Le Corbeau" fades out on a beautiful shot, but the story faded long before we got to this point - and this is ultimately its greatest problem.

Making something shocking is one sure-fire way to gain notoriety, or at the very least some attention. Yet the real power of a well-written play or novel that also happens to shock its audience at the time of its initial appearance is its staying power to continue to shock audiences a decade (or a century) or more later. Certainly, there is much to like about "Le Corbeau", if you are interested in the history of cinema. Yet those interested in really getting into the meat of man's inhumanity to man, in ways that can be just as shocking to us today as they were at the time their works appeared, would be better served by reading Balzac or Camus.

Good Friday: Darkness Within, Darkness Without

2011-04-22T08:27:00.002-04:00

There are no words by which I should presume to bring anything more than a mediocre reflection upon the death of Our Lord. Therefore for the last post in this Holy Week series, I shall say little and allow St. Matthew to say more. I also reproduce a favorite painting of the Crucifixion (though my absolute favorite is that by Velázquez in The Prado) by the great Spanish master Zurbarán. It sits at the top of a staircase in the Art Institute of Chicago, where it always made a powerful impression on me when I went to see it, like a window through time to 3:00 PM on Golgotha. After all the darkness of hatred, sin and abuse pours out from within those mocking Him and joins with the darkness of the skies around them, Zurbarán gives us the moment when the Light goes out of the world - until Sunday, of course.

Those passing by reviled Him, shaking their heads and saying, "You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross!"

Likewise the chief priests with the scribes and elders mocked Him and said, "He saved others; He cannot save himself. So He is the king of Israel!? Let Him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in Him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He wants Him. For He said, 'I am the Son of God.'"

The revolutionaries who were crucified with him also kept abusing Him in the same way.

From noon onward, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And about three o'clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?", which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Some of the bystanders who heard it said, "This One is calling for Elijah." Immediately one of them ran to get a sponge; he soaked it in wine, and putting it on a reed, gave it to Him to drink. But the rest said, "Wait, let us see if Elijah comes to save Him."

But Jesus cried out again in a loud voice, and gave up His spirit.
St. Matthew 27:39-50

The Crucifixion by Francisco de Zurbarán (1627)
Art Institute of Chicago

Holy Thursday: The Robe of Christ

2011-04-21T12:31:00.001-04:00

A sometimes-overlooked detail from the Passion of St. Matthew, but a point upon which we can pause and reflect, is St. Matthew's assertion that Jesus was wearing his own clothes when he went to His Crucifixion. In artistic portrayals of Christ making the Way of the Cross, He is sometimes depicted as wearing nothing more than a loincloth, but according to St. Matthew such a portrayal would be incorrect. After Jesus was beaten and tortured by the Roman soldiers, including being dressed in a scarlet military cloak and crowned with thorns, St. Matthew tells us:

And when they had mocked Him, they stripped Him of the cloak, dressed Him in His own clothes, and led Him off to crucify Him.
St. Matthew 27:31

Tradition says that the seamless garment which Christ was wearing when He came to Golgotha, and for which the soldiers cast lots, was woven by His Mother. I have written previously about this article of clothing, which has fascinated many writers, artists and filmmakers over the centuries. Probably the most famous example of an artistic treatment of Christ's garment from popular culture is the classic 1953 epic film "The Robe", starring Sir Richard Burton and Jean Simmons, OBE.

While we cannot be sure who made Jesus' robe, let us assume for our purpose of reflection that it was indeed made by the Virgin Mary. This is not a dogma of the Faith, of course; it is simply a pious notion. That being said, I ask you to note the significance, gentle reader, of the fact that as He takes the road to Golgotha, Jesus is enveloped in something made for Him by His Blessed Mother, even as we consider what she must have thought as she saw Him wearing it to His execution.

Jesus' progress to Calvary has been depicted many times, of course; sometimes He is clothed, sometimes not. One of the most aesthetically beautiful portrayals of a clothed Christ on the Via Dolorosa is a late work by Raphael, my favorite Italian painter and a good friend of this blog's patron, Count Castiglione. Entitled "Christ Falling on the Way to Calvary", but more commonly known as the "Spasimo di Sicilia", the enormous altarpiece was painted in Rome between 1516-1518, and measures nearly 10 feet tall and 7.5 feet wide. It provides us with a further, interesting point of reflection on the robe worn by Jesus to His execution and its connection to the Blessed Mother.

This painting shows Jesus falling on the Via Dolorosa as He exits the city of Jerusalem. As He falls, He turns back to see His Mother reaching out toward Him, almost like He was still a little boy and she wanted to keep Him from falling. Her face is filled with a mother's grief; His with pain, but with an expression that says, "It has to be this way, Mother."

What is particularly unusual about the image however, is that Jesus is wearing a blue robe, not the white we usually see. Blue is a color which is normally associated with the Virgin Mary, of course, if one is familiar with Christian iconography. I believe it is no accident that Raphael chose this color deliberately, to draw our focus to the relationship between Christ and His Mother.

This beautiful image was originally commissioned for a monastery in Palermo, Sicily, but when it was shipped from Rome the vessel was shipwrecked. Amazingly, the crate containing the altarpiece washed up in the port city of Genoa some days later, with the water-tight crate having protected the panel completely. The Genoese thought this a miraculous event and wanted to keep the picture, but Raphael's great patron Pope Leo X intervened and ordered them to turn over the painting to the monks in Palermo who had paid for it. In 1661 it was subsequently sold by the monks to Philip IV of Spain, himself the great patron of my favorite Spanish painter Velázquez, for what at the time was considered the most expensive price ever paid for a painting; the king himself referred to it as "the most costly gem in the world".

It is fitting that this gem of a painting, therefore, shows us another connection between Jesus and Mary. Christ came into the world of men through His Mother's "fiat" at the Annunciation; subsequently, through the power of the Holy Spirit, His flesh was knit from that of His Mother in her womb. Now as He goes to die, He wears the garment she knit for Him from cloth. On Good Friday, He will lose that garment, and lose the flesh she knit as well. Yet not only is Mary there at this moment in His Passion, on the wayside before Golgotha, but in a way her love quite literally surrounds Him in the form of the robe she made for Him in her favorite color, as He takes that journey which will lead to His death - and ultimately to our salvation.

"Lo Spasimo di Sicilia" by Raphael (c.1516-1518)
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Spy Wednesday: Judas and the Monkey

2011-04-20T09:30:00.000-04:00

[N.B.: A big change is coming to the Blog of the Courtier next week, stay tuned for details.]

Today is Spy Wednesday, when the Church recalls Judas Iscariot's plot to betray Jesus. In continuing our reflection this Holy Week on St. Matthew's Passion Narrative, it is worth considering a rather interesting question, unanswered by the Scriptures, and which perhaps has slipped our attention. Why did Judas hold on to the 30 pieces of silver?

St. Matthew tells us that two days before the Crucifixion:

[O]ne of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, "What are you willing to give me if I hand Him over to you?" They paid him thirty pieces of silver, and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand Him over.

St. Matthew 26: 14-16

Of course we know what happens next. Judas plays his part perfectly, but he comes to abhor what he has done. St. Matthew writes:

Then Judas, His betrayer, seeing that Jesus had been condemned, deeply regretted what he had done. He returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, "I have sinned in betraying innocent blood." They said, "What is that to us? Look to it yourself." Flinging the money into the temple, he departed and went off and hanged himself.

St. Matthew 27:3-5

Notice that Judas is not giving the Temple any old money to try to bribe the officials into letting Jesus go. St. Matthew tells us that he "returned" what we are told are the 30 pieces of silver. It is the actual blood money that Judas gives back, and rather interestingly Judas defiles the Temple by throwing the coins into the Temple precincts. The real defilement of course, was that undertaken by the Temple authorities themselves, who in effect ordered a "hit" on Jesus.

So why does Judas still have this money with him, on the morning of Good Friday? One answer could be that he simply did not have time to spend it. Another answer is that his sudden wealth would have been conspicuous, and the Apostles would have suspected him of stealing (again) from the communal purse. Yet I think the answer can be found in a simple, but superb painting by the great early Italian Renaissance master Giotto: the bag containing the thirty pieces of silver became the monkey on Judas' back.

The bargain to betray Jesus has not been treated as frequently in art as the kiss of Judas, but Giotto's rendering of this infernal deal can be seen in the famous fresco cycle he completed before 1305 for the Arena Chapel in Padua. Judas is shown receiving the bag containing the 30 pieces of silver from one of the Temple officials, while two others discuss the exchange. Clasping onto Judas, like the proverbial monkey on the back, is a frightening black demon - not noticed by any of the participants in the scene - complete with claws, sharp teeth, and cloven hoof.

From this point forward, Judas becomes just as burdened with his demon, monkey, albatross, etc., as any substance abuser. He cannot spend the money, not only because it will draw attention and suspicion upon him, but because somewhere in his mind he knows that what he is doing is wrong. The money he carries around becomes the burden that will ultimately drag him down to hell. Even when he throws the monkey off his back by trying to return the money and undo his actions, the monkey jumps right back on again. For Judas doubts the power of God and His forgiveness, and instead chooses suicide as a punishment for his sins, no doubt goaded on by that monkey on his back.

The Church on earth, as I often have to remind others, is an institution populated entirely by sinners. Because this is the case, many of us have our own monkeys on our backs just like Judas, which we are carrying around and remain unwilling or unable to put down. They do not have to be tangible in the way that a bag full of coins is, in order for them to have a powerful pull on us. We can only be relieved of these heavy burdens through the Grace of God, and how fortunate we are to be able to seek and obtain that Grace through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Judas, of course, denied the power of Christ to forgive, and therefore could not rid himself of the monkey he had allowed to climb onto his back. For many, going to confession to seek forgiveness is viewed as an unpleasant experience, and it is therefore avoided. In my experience, the relative pleasantness of an action often has little to do with its efficacy. Much of life is not pleasant, but eternal damnation as a result of intentionally unrepented sin is, we are assured by Christ Himself, infinitely less pleasant.

Easter is only a few days away, but we do not have to follow Judas' example and allow the monkey - or troop of monkeys - on our backs to continue to dictate how we are to act. Until we die, it is never too late to seek the Grace of God through the sacrament with a contrite heart. For those of my readers who have not been to confession for quite a long time, please think about whether it is time to ask God's Grace to get that mangy old monkey off your back. I know that I will be doing the same for myself.

The Pact of Judas by Giotto (c. 1503)
Arena Chapel, Padua

Tuesday of Holy Week: Who's the Victim Here?

2011-04-19T10:24:00.001-04:00

[N.B.: A big change is coming to the Blog of the Courtier next week, stay tuned for details.]

Continuing with our series of reflections from the St. Matthew Passion as depicted in art, let us turn to the moment where Pontius Pilate washes his hands. We are all familiar with the event and its symbolism, and using the phrase "I wash my hands" in metaphor reminds us of that moment. Indeed, when speaking in Spanish and describing an event as being a cut-off point or that I am finished dealing with a certain individual or topic, I often make the gesture of wiping my hands and say, "Poncio Pilato."

St. Matthew tells us that the washing of hands came after several unsuccessful attempts by Pilate to mediate the situation, and after he ignored the warnings of his wife not to condemn Jesus to death. The supporters of Annas and Caiphas, and the crowds, will have none of it. "When Pilate saw that he was not succeeding at all, but that a riot was breaking out instead, he took water and washed his hands in the sight of the crowd, saying, 'I am innocent of this man's blood. Look to it yourselves.'" (St. Matthew, 27:24)

Ever since this public, highly symbolic act, there has been endless debate as to Pilate's intentions, and as to what sort of man he was. The moment has been considered and portrayed from the imagination of numerous artists since the earliest days of Christian art. I would like to draw the attention of the gentle reader to a rather unusual vision of it, created under the influence of an equally unusual late-Gothic genius, which portrays Pilate in a way which today is considered rather unpopular and unsympathetic.

The wonderfully weird Flemish painter Hieronymous Bosch (c. 1450-1516) created paintings that are often filled with absolutely bizarre details, from grotesque figures to wicked imps, making much of his oeuvre a kind of theological "Where's Waldo?" Because of his huge inventiveness but small output, he was copied and imitated by a number of artists working in his shadow. Such is the case of the "Christ Before Pilate" panel painting presently in the collection of the Princeton University Art Museum, which at the time of its acquisition was thought to be by Bosch himself; it is now generally believed to be by a follower.

Whoever the author of the panel, it is a powerful, disturbing image. Christ is at the center of the picture, in a dirtied, but resigned pose. He is surrounded by guards with hideous, exaggerated features who look something like characters out of "Star Wars" or "The Fifth Element". To the right, a servant is about to pour the water for Pilate to wash his hands.

This is not a Pilate that most of us would recognize today, thanks to films and more recent artistic interpretations. Here, the painter has portrayed the governor of Judea not as a tough, military man with a stoic bent, dressed in a toga or clad in armor, but rather a reptilian, nearly hairless aesthete, wearing a pretentiously vain, veiled cap. This is a Pilate who has spent his life indoors, trying to slither his way up the social ladder. He is so detached that he does not even dare to look Jesus in the face: instead, Pilate slides his gaze over to his corpulent servant without turning his head and, with a limp gesture, indicates that it is time to pour the water from the great brass pitcher into the matching basin.

In recent years Pilate has become the subject of a kind of ongoing "Apologia pro Vita Sua" among many in the West. Of course, in some of the Eastern Churches he has always been viewed as a saint, but this estimation is questionable at best. In the West, there is an increasingly commonly-held view that Pilate did his best, but was a victim of circumstances, prevented from doing the right thing by political concerns.

How very modern, and how very relativist, this thinking is. It ignores external evidence of Pilate's deeds from the first-century historians Philo and Josephus, who wrote about Pilate's cruelty and persecution of the Jews and Samarians. Indeed, Pilate's heavy-handedness got to the point that he was recalled to Rome to explain himself to the Emperor Tiberias. Some historians believe that, like many a Roman official who fell out of favor, he subsequently went into forced retirement in Gaul, and later committed suicide.

Contemporary thinking about the newly-virtuous Pontius Pilate reverses the ancient military maxim of "Death Before Dishonor". Pilate participates in ordering the murder of an innocent victim, and yet he is excused in some corners for being a kind of victim himself. It is reminiscent of those who tried to convince fence-sitting Catholics in the last U.S. Presidential election cycle that a vote for Mr. Obama is in fact a Pro-Life vote, rather than a vote for someone so strongly committed to preserving legalized infanticide at any cost, that he would rather shut down the entire government than compromise on funding one of the most evil organizations on the planet.

Rarely are we given the opportunity to directly confront the Devil, in all his naked power to draw us into sin, as he is normally a far more insidious fellow. The test of the good man is how he acts when that direct, confrontational moment comes. Pilate is given that opportunity, accepts an accommodation with evil, and kills a man whom he knows is innocent - supposedly so as to live to fight another day, rather than taking a stand and saying, "No, this is intrinsically evil and I will not do it." He then washes his hands to try to take the blood away, but like Lady Macbeth, the stain remains.

Let us not be fooled by the rugged, stoic Pilate which has become more commonplace in art, literature, and film. That is a vision embraced by those who see only shades of gray, and no black and white. This 16th century image of him from Princeton, while not in the strictest sense an accurate portrayal of a 1st century Roman, is in fact a far more accurate a portrayal of the corrupted nature of Pilate himself.

"Christ Before Pilate" by Follower of Hieronymous Bosch (c. 1520)
Princeton University Art Museum

Monday of Holy Week: Mrs. Pilate's Dream

2011-04-18T10:08:00.000-04:00

[N.B.: A big change is coming to the Blog of the Courtier next week, stay tuned for details.]

Last year I wrote a series of pieces - I hesitate to use the term "meditations" because they fall far short of such a level - on Holy Week, taking as the touchstone works of art and their connection to the events of this season. This year, in a similar vein, I will be reflecting on the St. Matthew Passion which we read at mass yesterday, and examining art depicting the verse(s) chosen. Today we begin with the obscure but fascinating figure of the wife of Pontius Pilate.

St. Matthew tells us that when Pilate is seated before the crowds, debating whether he should free Jesus or the "notorious criminal" Barabbas, a message is brought from Pilate's wife. We do not know her name with any certainty, though she is recognized as a saint under various names in some of the Eastern Churches. Nor do we know how her message is delivered - whether she does so in person, perhaps by passing her husband a slip of parchment, or whether she remains in another part of the palace and the message is conveyed to him somehow.

Interestingly enough, Pilate's wife only appears in St. Matthew's Gospel, and only in a single verse: but a powerful one it is. "Have nothing to do with that righteous man," Pilate's wife warns him in St. Matthew 27: 19. "I suffered much in a dream today because of him."

Among the Gospel writers, St. Matthew was particularly aware of the significance of dreams. For example, in St. Matthew's Infancy Narrative, both St. Joseph and the Magi receive heavenly messages through dreams, and then act upon them. Throughout the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, important messages are often relayed through dreams; analysis of the subconscious mind was taking place in the Holy Land long before the establishment of psychoanalysis in Vienna.

Here, St. Matthew does not tell us exactly what it is that Pilate's wife dreamt. Whatever the content of her dream, she is convinced by it of both Jesus' innocence and sanctity, a conviction which she conveys to her husband by a message. That message is then ignored: she has awoken from a troubled dream, and rather than release from her fears has found herself in a living nightmare.

Surprisingly, despite the dramatic opportunities provided by this single verse from St. Matthew, the dream of Pilate's wife and her brief but powerful appearance in the the Passion has rarely been treated by artists. Yet there is one notable exception: Antonio Ciseri's famous "Ecce Homo" of 1871. The painting captures the moment where Pilate shows Jesus to the crowds, just prior to ordering His execution, saying, "Ecce Homo" - "Behold the Man."

The sharply contrasting lighting and skillful foreshortening employed by Ciseri, almost anticipating cinematography, draw the eye to the center of the beautifully composed picture. The painter positions us inside the cool stone and marble walls of the palace, looking out and imagining a seething crowd down below, bathed in bright Mediterranean sunshine. We all recognize what is taking place, though the more observant will note that we do not see the faces of most of the players in this scene at all.

The only figure whose face we can clearly make out is that of the tall, elegantly dressed Roman matron shown in 3/4 profile, to the right of the scene, who both by her presence and her carriage Ciseri intends to represent Pilate's wife. Using the sight lines of the picture we realize that her back is turned to that of her husband - or rather, he has literally and figuratively turned his back on her - and she dejectedly walks away from him. She is accompanied by a servant girl whose face is still pointed in the direction of Jesus, but like those of her mistress her eyes are downcast.

In Ciseri's painting, we see that Pilate's wife has placed her left hand limply on the girl's left shoulder, in a gesture simultaneously seeking support and acknowledging defeat. "I've done all I could do," that hand says, "and I have to give up." We can sense that in the next moment that languidly posed hand is going to slip back down to the lady's side, and shortly thereafter the maid will turn and follow her mistress back off the balcony and into the governor's palace. Thus Pilate's wife walks off the stage of history, and we do not know what subsequently happened to her.

Despite or perhaps because of the rejection of her cause, i.e. seeking mercy for a good and just man, Pilate's wife has unwittingly drawn closer to Christ. She is taking a risk by acting on His behalf, even though she does not know Him, because it is the right thing to do. But in a way, she has had a parallel experience to that of Christ, for her message of justice and compassion is rejected, even though she is under her own roof. "A prophet is not without honor," Jesus says in St. Matthew 13:57, "except in his native place and in his own house."

If the dream of Pilate's wife and her conveyance of that message are a kind of prophecy, then Pilate and the others ignore that prophecy to their peril, as indeed they ignore the rest of Christ's message. Admittedly, most of us will not be visited by heavenly messengers, waking or sleeping. Yet during Holy Week we, too, should be attentive to God's word to us, where it is that He wants us to go or what He wants us to do, even if undertaken at significant personal cost or risk of rejection.

"Ecce Homo" by Antonio Ciseri (1871)
Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Florence

Parading Past Your Screen This Friday

2011-04-15T08:57:00.001-04:00

Next week being Holy Week, The Courtier intends to use each day to reflect on some aspect of Christ's Passion through examining selected works of art, as he did last year in an effort which was well-received by the gracious readers of these pages. We often forget when we go to museums and galleries and view sacred images that they were intended for public/private devotion and meditation. They may be works of art, but they were created to point to something eternal; considering them individually may allow the reader to finally see them as something very different from something like a landscape or portrait painting.

That is for the week ahead. On this Friday however, when the work day often drags on interminably toward its close, oftentimes we need some extra reading material if there is little going on at the office. Here in the Nation's Capital it is both a government holiday and furlough day, meaning that a number of people are not even at their desks today. For those of my readers who are, your attention is drawn to the following:

- TAKING A SPILL: I am neither a military man, nor a British subject. However as my English friends know, after many visits to the House Guards Parade I commonly remarked that had I born on the other side of the pond and been given the opportunity, I think I would have enjoyed the chance to serve in the Household Cavalry of the Life Guards. Part of this is the romantic, chivalric notion of wearing armor and riding a horse, but nevertheless there is something very majestic about this branch of the services. Therefore I had great pity for a jockey-sized young soldier in the Life Guards who happened to fall off his mount today, during rehearsals for the Royal Wedding on April 29th.

- DAVE BRUBECK IN GEORGETOWN: Every time the great jazz pianist Dave Brubeck comes to play at the Blues Alley jazz club in my neighborhood of Georgetown, I seem to find out about it too late to get tickets. Of course, when tickets go on sale they tend to sell out in a matter of minutes, partially because Mr. Brubeck is now 90 and we do not know how many more opportunities we will have to enjoy his genius, and partially because the intimate venue cannot possibly hope to hold all of the people who would give their right arm to be able to see and hear him up close, instead of in a large concert hall. Mr. Brubeck is giving four concerts this weekend, and as you might imagine they all sold out almost immediately. Those of you willing to resort to scalpers will probably find this your only option - no one who has tickets and is not on their deathbed will miss him, and possibly not even then.

- MISS NANCY WILSON IN BETHESDA:
Another jazz legend from the 1950's and 60's, Nancy Wilson is one of the few remaining singers from back in the day who is still touring, and showcasing her sassy, elegant, and smoky singing style for new generations of audiences. Her rendition of Cole Porter's "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To" off her 1963 album "Hollywood - My Way" is my favorite recording of this swinging classic. If you are interested in catching this legendary performer - who BTW during the Kennedy era sold as many albums as The Beatles - she will be at the Strathmore on April 23rd; as of this writing there are only a very few seats left.

- STOLEN EL GRECO, GOYA RECOVERED:
So far details in the press have been few, but news outlets in Spain are reporting this morning that the Guardia Civil has recovered two important Old Master paintings stolen back in the 1990's, after learning that they were about to be taken out of the country and brought up for sale on the black market. The works, an "Annunciation" by El Greco and "The Apparition of Our Lady of the Pillar" by Goya, had been lent out for international exhibitions, but after the shows had ended and the works shipped back to Spain, they disappeared before they could be returned to their rightful owners. The paintings were seized from a private residence in the city of Alicante. Nice job, Spanish police. Maybe we can borrow you to help us out on this side of the pond? We've got a little cache that's now been missing for 21 years...

Put Some Clothes On

2011-04-14T09:21:00.000-04:00

As The New York Times reported yesterday, the city of Barcelona intends to crack down on public nudity, taking a u-turn from a position which the government of that city adopted several years ago. Back in 2004, the city council issued a document encouraging citizens to consider "Expressing Yourself in Nudity", and pointing out that there was no law on the books to prevent them from going naked in public. This followed a massive nude-in organized by photographer Spencer Tunick, in which thousands of people stripped off around Barcelona's Plaça d'Espanya.

Although there has not been a rush to undress on the streets of the Catalan capital, in the years since the issuance of this publication celebrating immodesty Barcelona has experienced a significant increase in loutish behavior, which is having a devastating impact on its historic sites and tourist attractions. The open use of drugs is becoming common, as has publicly relieving oneself. The explosion in tagging and other graffiti on historic buildings and museums to shops, businesses, government offices and homes throughout the city is nothing short of epidemic. Despite its status as one of the world's most beautiful cities, on street level Barcelona has, over the past decade of socialist leadership, come to look more like a war zone and less like a desirable place to live or visit.

This is the result of a rather anarchic way of thinking: a literalism which is subjectively adopted by the left when it suits its purpose. If public nudity is not statutorily prohibited, (presumably because previous generations of city leaders thought it self-evident that this practice was undesirable) then it must be implicitly permissible. Yet to follow this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, there must be other lewd or destructive activities not expressly forbidden which the citizenry of Barcelona could pursue. What those activities may be I will not dare to suggest, for fear that someone may adopt them.

Realizing that as a result of relativistic, laissez-faire policies on public decency their city today looks more like a rubbish tip than the jewel of the Mediterranean, Barcelona is beginning to rein in such behavior. Banning public nudity is a start, though no doubt there will be those who seek to challenge such bans in the courts as a violation their human rights. While we can agree that everyone has the fundamental right to be a functional idiot, if that is the best level of mental acuity they can achieve, one would hope that when such a case comes before the courts - as it surely will - rational heads will prevail, even if solely on the basis of public hygiene.

To take the anarchic line of reasoning into our own hands however, if the courts decide that the citizenry and visitors to Barcelona have the right to go about starkers, then someone needs to assert their own fundamental human right not to be forced to look at something offensive. One can avoid a museum or film dealing with unpleasant subject matter: a gallery exhibition of blasphemous art can be sidestepped just as easily as a big-budget slasher flick. No one is forced to look at such things, and this is why they are generally found to be permissible by Western legal systems. In the public square however, such as in a commercial exchange or when seeking government services, these interactions cannot be avoided.

Therefore my proposal is that public nudity, if a fundamental right, be regulated through a quarterly permit process. Residents and tourists alike who wish to go about in the altogether in Barcelona will have to be inspected by a panel of aesthetic experts, chosen from the worlds of art and design, media, and health, to determine whether or not they are sufficiently aesthetically pleasing so as to be seen naked. If approved, the applicant will be charged a fee for a 90-day nudity permit. At the conclusion of each quarter, they will be required to return to the panel in order to undergo inspection once again, to determine whether they are still eligible for permitting.

This policy would have several highly beneficial effects on a naked Barcelona. It would deal with the increasing problem of obesity and bad eating habits, by encouraging physical fitness and proper diet. It would add revenue to the local government through the initial permitting and subsequent mandatory quarterly review process. It would increase commerce through multiple sectors of the economy, from the fitness and health industries to the organic and health food sectors, and would also lead to increased tourism and associated revenues from those who not only want to see good-looking naked folk, but also among those whose narcissism would lead them to seek official government recognition of their being attractive. This in turn would yield increased revenues in the form of taxation to city coffers, which would then be redistributed in the form of improved city services.

St. Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians addressed some of the hedonistic practices of the community at Corinth, which were not uncommon in the pagan world of his day - a world to which we in the West are rapidly returning. He noted that the libertine attitude adopted by some of his flock was going to end up doing them and others harm:

'Everything is lawful,' but not everything is beneficial.
'Everything is lawful,' but not everything builds up.

1 Corinthians 10:23

Taking your clothes off in public is the ultimate way to draw attention to yourself by flouting common decency, and this is why those who engage in such behavior do so: it has nothing to do with being "natural", and everything to do with being selfish. In the West, there is no natural reason for us to go about naked - particularly in a large, wealthy city like Barcelona. I hope that the good people of my favorite city will use this opportunity to continue the effort to take back their streets from the purveyors of relativism, whose way of thinking has quite literally sullied them.

"The Goddess" by Josep Clarà (1928)
Plaça Catalunya, Barcelona

Write Your Bishop for Holy Week

2011-04-13T07:26:00.001-04:00

Today the Church marks the Feast of Pope St. Martin I, one of the bravest pontiffs to ever sit in the chair of St. Peter. When the pope refused to follow certain overreaching dictates of the Byzantine Emperor, the latter sent troops to the Lateran and arrested him, taking Martin to prison in Constantinople and eventually exile in the region of the Black Sea, where he later died. He was not the first nor the last bishop in history to find himself isolated and alone for refusing to cave in to temporal authority.

During some excellent dinner-and-libations conversation last evening one of the gentlemen in attendance reiterated something those of my readers who are fellow Catholics have no doubt heard many times before: the bishops need our support. Yet beyond just the bricks and mortar issues, which is when most of us usually think about the bishops, it is important that we realize that their flock is a necessary source of encouragement for them, in a wider society containing elements that violently hate them. They are a group of prominent men suffering one of the greatest ironies of the contemporary, celebrity-based culture: they do not get a lot of fan mail - indeed, often quite the reverse.

What I want to encourage my readers to consider, as we approach the beginning of Holy Week on Sunday, is whether they could take the time to write just a brief note of encouragement to their local bishop - not to criticize, but to thank him for something good that he has done on behalf of his flock. Because of the high prominence of the Church doing Holy Week, the bishops in the larger cities always find themselves or their Holy Week services under attack from crazies on the Left. A lot of them will rise to the challenge, but they are human beings after all, not saints. They signed up for the job of pursuing their vocation, but that does not mean that they could not, from time to time, do with a little temporal encouragement, particularly under times of particular stress.

One aspect of being a courtier is to recognize that the mission of the Church must supported by those of us who are in positions to do so. Certainly financial donations help with expenses and projects, but there is an even greater thing that can be accomplished through the simply writing of a few lines. Supporting your local bishop and giving him a bit of encouragement, even if you disagree with him on a number of points, is a way of not only giving the bishop a break from the bad news and angry comments he is flooded with every day, but simultaneously gives you the opportunity to provide some comfort to and to engage in the encouragement of the highly important and far-reaching apostolate of another.

If of course you decide to send an Easter Card to your bishop, I would try to eschew what are really "Happy Vernal Equinox" cards with fuzzy ducklings and glittery rabbits. Yet given the selection available in most stores, you are probably just better off sending a plain letter or note card. Unless, of course, you know your bishop reasonably well and feel that he would see the humor in it.

I am very happy to let the bishops be bishops, for theirs is not a job that I, for one, would relish. But I am also happy to realize that, even as a single parishioner in one of the many parishes in his diocese, telling the bishop "thank you" for his service, or finding one good thing that he did and writing a few well-chosen and encouraging lines about it will mean a great deal. If people of good will who care about the Church can do some small thing like this for their bishop, whether at Easter or at other times of the year, I wonder whether there wouldn't be even greater readiness on their part to challenge the evils of the anti-culture which face us.

Pope St. Martin I

Anti-Culture in Spain

2011-04-12T10:40:00.000-04:00

Near the beginning of his thought-provoking presentation yesterday at the Family Research Council, Ignacio Arsuaga, President of HazteOir.org, noted that one of the problems faced by conservatives in Spain was the unavoidable fact that their country suffers from a "culturally weak Right". Having allowed themselves to be defined, as S. Arsuaga puts it, as the "representatives of a Contra-Culture", many have adopted a defeatist attitude that the culture wars are over, and they have lost. HazteOir and other groups are trying to combat that defeatism and foster greater participation in politics and society by those who have, until now, thrown up their hands in frustration and resignation at the path which Spain has been taking over the past several years.

The Spanish Left has, in an astonishingly short period of time, made good use of parliamentary party discipline to pass a number of outrageous laws, such as that allowing teen-aged girls to obtain the so-called "Morning After Pill" without either a prescription or parental notification, and mandated the teaching in public schools of deliberate lies as part of an "Education for Citizenship" about world history. One very pertinent example of the latter given by S. Arsuaga from one of the approved texts was a real whopper: a claim that in 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution succeeded in overthrowing the Tsar in order to give freedom and democracy to the Russian people. [N.B.: Presumably the millions of people whom Lenin, Stalin and the rest executed for disagreeing with them accepted their own executions as a necessary aspect of their new "democracy".]

As is often the case in Spanish history, there is a tendency towards exaggeration and magnification, and this often crops up when things go awry. During a convivial dinner discussion about yesterday's presentation with friends Gonzalo Castañeira and Thomas Peters, the former pointed out that when Spain tries to do something evil, it usually succeeds in spectacular fashion. This is part of the Spanish character which I touched on recently in my post on the great Spanish painter Francisco de Goya's "A Fight to the Death with Clubs", and which was in fact repeated in a quote given during S. Arsuaga's talk yesterday - i.e., the conventional wisdom is that the Spaniard only understands the cudgel.

Yet historically speaking, even if the forgoing character assessment is true, people from outside of Spain have always found much to admire in the more conservative aspects of the Spanish character. Count Castiglione, the patron of this blog, not only spent a great deal of time in Spain but also, in "The Book of the Courtier", extolled many of its virtues to his fellow Italians. In lauding their conservative but elegant appearance, Castiglione reflected that the way Spaniards look is a reflection of their character: "Things external often bear witness to the things within." Similarly, when visiting Spain in the 19th century, the English writer and art critic Richard Ford (1796-1858) found much to admire in the seriousness of the Spaniard and what we would perceive as a preference for small-government conservatism.

Ford's seminal book, "A Handbook For Travelers in Spain", has long been considered one of the best travel books ever written. Indeed, in his obituary The Times stated that "so great a literary achievement had never before been performed under so humble a title." Following many years traveling throughout the country, Ford observed that a great deal of power was held by local governments in Spain, in order to better address local problems. He felt that the strength of these local governments was that, seemingly paradoxically, "they kept Spain Spanish, because such institutions were congenial to national character, which, essentially local, abhors a foreign centralising system. They again have grown with the country's growth, and have become part and parcel of the constitution."

Spain was very much admired in the past for its seriousness and straightforwardness, as well as its ability to let its hair down when appropriate. The juxtaposition of the serious and the joyful, like the dark, deeply spiritual men and women who appear in the portraits of El Greco with the unadulterated, passionate joy of flamenco, is something which has attracted discerning American visitors from Washington Irving to John Singer Sargent to Ernest Hemingway. Today, those who try to espouse the dignified, conservative aspects of traditional Spanish character are considered to be, as S. Arsuaga points out, intentionally fighting what leftists consider the "culture" of today's Spain.

Truthfully, what the Spanish left describes as the "culture" is really a non-entity lacking any culture whatsoever. It is in fact an anti-culture, in which there are no universal standards or ideals other than those arbitrarily adopted and rejected as whim or cult of personality dictates. And ironically enough, the proverbial cudgel is the preferred tool for promoting the so-called diversity of the left: disagree with me, and I will bash your brains in rather than allow you to retain your own thoughts.

It is high time for the Spanish people to wake up, to reassert themselves, and to put aside the monstrous anti-culture which seems to have infected every element of their visible society. It is extremely encouraging that S. Arsuaga and others - including, albeit somewhat belatedly, the Spanish Episcopal Conference - are trying to do that awakening, but there is much more that remains to be done. The impression from this side of the Atlantic that Spain is slipping irretrievably into anarchy is not going to be overcome otherwise.

Lady in a Fur Wrap by El Greco (c. 1577-1580)
Pollok House Collection, Glasgow

Catalan Independence: Come Together, Now

2011-04-11T09:50:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend a non-binding referendum held in the Catalan capital of Barcelona resulted in almost 90% of those participating supporting the idea that Catalonia declare independence from Spain. The results of this poll are essentially the same as polls taken in the other counties of Catalonia over the last two years, in which over 90% of participants also voted in favor of Catalan independence. While a full declaration of independence or secession is nowhere near a reality, there are some very significant developments in this area which ought to give naysayers some pause. Before we can get to that, however, some disclosures are necessary.

The regular reader of these pages is in no doubt as regards my general political leanings - though I put the tenets of my Catholic faith first, ahead of any political considerations. Thus although my posts often have a certain point of view, I do not in general blog at any length on overtly political issues. In this case, being half-Catalan, I need to make an exception.

With regard to the issue of bias, I freely admit that I am very much in favor of Catalonia regaining its independence from Spain, or at the very least engaging in the creation of a federal system within Spain similar to that which we enjoy in the United States, or that of Germany. If independence proves impossible but the latter path of federalism could be equitably applied, it would allow the individual states to retain a significant amount of control over their own finances, public policies, and so on. It would concentrate the power to govern in local hands, in order to better address local issues, while demarcating the powers of a national, centralized government to address large issues, such as defense, which are better-handled collectively.

Apart from the suspicious leanings of The Courtier in the eyes of some on the issue of Catalan independence we must also, when considering the poll result, drill down into the numbers of the poll results themselves; percentages only tell us part of the story. The number of voters in yesterday's referendum was a bit north of a quarter of a million people. This figure represents a little over 21% of the estimated population of the city of Barcelona.

While I believe this does not detract from the fact that there are a large number of people in favor of Catalan independence - nearly one out of every five eligible Catalans and Catalanistas in Barcelona and throughout Catalonia voted in favor of it, after all - I think it reasonable to assume that those who went out to vote in this non-binding poll were the "true believers", for lack of a better term. They are people who took the opportunity to make sure their voices were heard, even though they knew that there would be no direct result; the rest either were indifferent and thought the poll was not worth their time, or were opposed to the poll even taking place.

All that being said, what is significant about this most recent polling is that, unlike on previous occasions, the Catalan Center-Right participated more actively in the discussion. The current President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, is a member of the largest Catalan conservative party, and voted in favor of independence, as did Jordi Pujol, the previous Catalan conservative head of government in the 1990's. The strongest voices for Catalan independence have, in recent years, been those on the far Left, but the fact that the middle-class party is taking the question more seriously than it has in years is an indicator that perceptions may be shifting, given the disastrous governing of Spain's present Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

Because of its association with the Left during the 1930's, many commentators outside of Catalonia and even many Catalans themselves forget that the rebirth of a desire for independence in Catalonia began in the mid-19th century, with the "gent de be", i.e. the Catalan version of the UHB or "Urban Haute-Bourgeoisie" [with apologies to Whit Stillman.] This powerful group of aristocrats, gentry, industrialists, professionals and intellectuals, were proud of their Catalan heritage, outward looking at what the rest of Europe and the world had to offer, and yet remained deeply devout Catholics. They fundamentally changed not only the look of Barcelona, commissioning the work of legendary architects such as Gaudi, but also altered the future of Catalonia. Through their efforts, Catalonia emerged from being a cultural and economic backwater in the 17th and 18th centuries, after years of repeatedly being stomped on by Madrid and losing their empire, which once stretched from Barcelona to Palermo to Athens.

That we have a situation today, not seen since the transition after the death of Franco, in which both the Left and the Right among the Catalanist parties are willing to talk to each other but also to find common ground, is a very remarkable state of affairs. Even a low level of participation, but participation nonetheless among Catalan conservatives is noteworthy, and it should give pause to members of both the national conservative party, the Partido Popular ("PP"), and the national Socialist Party ("PSOE"). For ironically enough, Catalan independence is an issue which both the national Left and the national Right in Spain will put down their weapons over, and link up arm-in-arm to prevent from happening.

The press seems to focus on what the PP has to do and say because it is, in the eyes of many journalists, too Right-wing. This is because most Spanish journalists worship the philosophical quicksand that Mr. Zapatero walks on. Be that as it may, Catalan independence is, for the PP, first and foremost a philosophical issue. They do not see the Catalans as a nation-within-a-nation, even though the majority of Catalans see themselves that way - including those who would not vote for full independence from Spain for political or practical reasons.

Yet for all the press about the Right, the Socialists as currently headed by Mr. Zapatero, could not govern Spain if the Catalans were to leave. The national Left has always needed Catalan money and political support in order to remain in power. During the Civil War, when they were chased out of Madrid, Barcelona became the capital of Spain for the Leftist, Republican side. Today as then, take Catalonia out of the equation and Spain as a whole not only becomes significantly poorer, but also significantly more conservative politically. Thus, both the national Left and the national Right in Spain can, in fact, agree on one thing: that it is in neither of their interests for Catalonia to declare independence.

The idea of full independence through secession, or simply a larger degree of de-centralization, is one which gets knocked around in this country from time to time (e.g. in Texas and Hawaii), but which rarely gets any practical traction. In Europe however, there have been many examples in recent years of groups gaining either full independence or increased separation from the centralized state which had historically came to dominate it, often as a result of the absolute monarchies and empire builders of the 18th and 19th centuries. Critics call this "Balkanization", based on how poorly this process was handled in the former Yugoslavia.

Yet as terrible as that was there are other examples - Scotland, Slovakia, etc. - where it was not necessary to shed blood in order to either gain greater autonomy or separate completely. In disintegrating Belgium over the last several months we have been witnessing the birth pains of what is probably going to be at least two new countries. Catalonia, if it eventually chooses to go its own way, does not have to be the next Kosovo or Bosnia.

This afternoon I will be attending a conference on the evils Mr. Zapatero and the Socialists have wrought in Spain over the past few years. The speaker will, I am sure, not favor Catalan independence, and so there is little point in my raising the issue with him. However, my hope is that the Catalans themselves will continue to actively engage in this issue, and not simply relegate it to the bar, cafe, or living room following yesterday's referendum. Those are the places where this discussion needs to take place, of course, for it was in the homes and clubs, over a good coffee or brandy, that such talk began back in the 19th century among Barcelona's UHB. Yet those discussions will need to move beyond the comfy chair or the tottering stool if they are ever going to be seriously considered by the Catalan people as a whole.

Giant Catalan flag unfurled at the legendary
Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona

Idle Hands: Leftist Failures and Anti-Catholicism in Spain

2011-04-08T10:37:00.002-04:00

In the overnight hours of March 22nd-23rd, a group of radical feminists set fire to the historic 18th century church of Saint Vincent in Sarrià, a place which I know well and have written about on my other blog, Catholic Barcelona. The formerly independent village of Sarrià is a pretty, well-to-do neighborhood in the north end of Barcelona, somewhat reminiscent of Georgetown here in DC. Why those responsible chose this particular parish we do not know, though its pastor, Father Manel Valls, is well-known both in Barcelona and throughout Catalonia for being the celebrant of the televised Sunday Mass on TV2, one of the main Catalan television stations.

The anonymous group which claimed responsibility for this act intended to do not only as much damage as possible to the church building, but also to wound the hearts and minds of Catholics everywhere, not just local parishioners. Mocking the part of the mass known as the Presentation of the Gifts, during which lay members of the congregation process with bread and wine to the altar and then present these gifts to the priest to be used for the Consecration of Jesus' Body and Blood, the unnamed group sneered on their website that "by this action, we present our unique offering to the Church and its values: 3 liters of gasoline, which burned to illuminate the darkness of the night." Fortunately for the parish, the group only succeeded in burning part of the main portal and door of the church, as shown below: next time, the parish may not be so lucky.

Direct attacks by leftists on Catholic houses of worship have been increasing across Spain in recent weeks. From a student chapel at Madrid's most important university, to parish churches in Segovia, Tenerife, and elsewhere, anti-Catholic violence has been undergoing a real resurgence. However this particular action in Barcelona is a significant stepping up of the level of violence seen so far. Until this recent attempt at church burning, the current rash of break-ins and protests have involved offensive graffiti and signs, or demonstrations which devolved into laughable acts of hysteria and crowd frenzy. They could be dismissed as disgusting, but to some extent predictable, elements of life in a free society.

Yet the more disturbing aspect of this has been the appearance of signage and chanting, calling not only for the deliberate burning of the churches, but also the killing of the members of the clergy and religious orders, actions last undertaken during the rule of the Left before and during the Spanish Civil War. My fear is, it can only be a matter of time before the targets of assault and even destruction cease to be structures, and start to be people. It would not be the first time in Spanish history that such evils took place.

Despite pleas from Church officials and the laity that these matters be taken seriously before they are allowed to go too far, these classic, tell-tale signs of trouble seem to be taking many by surprise. It was thought in many quarters, from the media and academia to politicians and bureaucrats, both within Spain and internationally, that in this day and age there was no real physical threat either to the property of the Church or to either its leaders/adherents. Not only is this an utterly ignorant position, for anyone who knows a little about the history of Spain and its tendency to repeat itself, but it also betrays a subconscious attitude on the part of many that by not "keeping up with the times" with respect to its social teachings on abortion, contraception, or on the ordination of women, the Catholic Church in some way deserves what it gets.

The reason for this increasing radicalization is said by many to be unclear, but I attribute it to three, key points. First and foremost, we must take into account the precarious state of the Spanish economy, which has been circling the drain for some time, with market watchers worrying over the state of the country's savings banks, increasing interest rates, and slashed growth forecasts. Overall unemployment currently stands at 20% of the population, but youth unemployment for those in the 18-35 age bracket is stuck at a shocking 40%. If idle hands are the Devil's workshop, there is nothing like a young, unemployed Spanish leftist to do his handiwork.

Secondly, blame must be laid at the doorstep of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who recently announced that he will not be seeking a third term as President of the Spanish Government. Not only have "the Shoemaker's" policies since 2004 led his country to the point of economic collapse, but his thinly-veiled loathing of both conservatives and the Catholic Church have been expressed through the radical social policies he has pushed through parliament, to rapturous adulation from those on the left. All the while, he has been giving the Spanish people circuses rather than bread; now they have realized that they are hungry, and by standing down for the next general election he has clearly indicated that he does not want to be thrown to them for food.

And finally we must consider what I believe to be the third cause for the increase in anti-Catholicism in Spain which, ironically enough, is the success of the faithful within Spain to stand up for themselves with the visible support of their Pontiff. The Papal Visits to Santiago de Compostela and Barcelona last year drew enormous crowds - not of the elderly, though of course they were there also, but more significantly of the young. Watching streaming media coverage of the consecration of the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, the clearly audible and visible shock of the jaded newscasters at the presence of enormous numbers of youth overjoyed to see this elderly German priest made me smile rather broadly. And of course this summer, the celebration of the Holy Father of World Youth Day in Madrid - which will, in fact, go on for much longer than a day - is going to throw the supposedly sophisticated Spanish leftist for an even bigger loop.

The idle hands which I mentioned earlier have to up the ante if they are going to prevent the Church in Spain from having any kind of a future, and this is why those hands are putting down their placards and picking up cans of gasoline. For the left cannot claim that these young people - who have no memory at all of General Franco and the repressive aspects of his regime - are being forced to practice Catholicism or to admire the pope. The under 40's in Spain have grown into their teens and adulthood knowing that virtually every libertine path is open to them, and yet a surprisingly large number have chosen to reject social engineering, radical feminism, and bioethics standards taken from the collected works of Josef Mengele, and instead freely and willingly choose to follow the path of Christ. The fact that a Spaniard born into modern, democratic Spain would exercise their free will to be a Catholic sends your average Spanish leftist into a screeching hissy fit.

The latest chapter in the history of anti-Catholicism in Spain is being written before our eyes; we are living under the curse of that Chinese proverb, "May you live in interesting times." How much more violent that anti-Catholicism becomes - and I fear it will inevitably become even more violent - will depend on the willingness of those in authority to protect not only the property of the Church, but also the safety of those who work for and worship within it. Those of us who care can do our part by not only following the news about what is going on in Spain, but also by blogging, tweeting, e-mailing, and talking about it with those in our circle. And in the meantime, let us hope and pray that these attacks will stop soon, before something far more grave occurs.

The entrance portal to the church of St. Vincent in Barcelona,
after being attacked by leftists last month.

The Sacred Made Tangible: "Treasures of Heaven" at the British Museum

2011-04-07T09:36:00.000-04:00

Across the pond the cousins have announced a new exhibition at the British Museum entitled "Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe", which opens June 23rd and runs through October 9th. It will examine the pious customs of collecting religious relics and going on pilgrimage, considering these practices not only in the wider context of Christendom during the Middle Ages, but also looking at the narrower aspect of their expression in the United Kingdom. The Vatican has lent a number of pieces for the exhibition, as have many churches, museums and private collectors, meaning it will be quite an opportunity for the interested visitor.

In particular, while not intended to be a tool for evangelization, the organizers are hoping that visitors will gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of both the religious piety and high level of artistic craftsmanship that characterized Britain before Henry VIII and all the nonsense that followed:

Treasures such as these have not been seen in significant numbers in the UK since the Reformation in the 16th century, which saw the wholesale destruction of saints’ shrines. The exhibition offers a rare opportunity to glimpse the heritage of beautiful medieval craftsmanship that was lost to this country for centuries.

Although the Daily Telegraph rather breathlessly declares that the museum "is bringing together the world's largest collection of Christian relics," for the show, this is a gross exaggeration. True, the museum will be displaying somewhere around 150 relics, many of them contained in reliquaries of great historical and artistic significance, but this is hardly the largest assemblage of Christian relics in the world. Beyond the obvious example of St. Peter's, many important churches around the world have far more than 150 relics in their keeping.

If you were to visit the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at the University of Notre Dame, for example, you would be astonished to see the enormous number of relics in the care of that church. Apart from the relics of St. Marcellus, St. Stephen, and Saint Sebastian placed inside the high altar, Notre Dame points out that in its Reliquary Chapel are relics of each of the 12 Apostles, a piece from the manger at Bethlehem, a piece from both the veil and the belt of the Virgin Mary, relics of all the saints in the pre-Vatican II Church calendar (you can do the math), part of the True Cross, and the bones of Saint Severa, martyred in the 3rd century A.D. In terms of sheer numbers alone, Notre Dame's collection alone easily eclipses that which will be on display at the British Museum.

That being said, the British Museum's exhibition will nevertheless be an important follow-up to Pope Benedict XVI's watershed visit to Britain last year, the beatification of John Henry Cardinal Newman, and the historic creation of the Anglican Ordinariate. In the press and in the pews, many of the British people took time to look back at their history, as well as where they are going socially and spiritually. An examination of that history can bring about quite a change in perspective, if approached with an open mind. Newman himself famously stated, "To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant": we could, in present-day Britain, extend that thesis to include the pagan and the unbelieving, as well.

While the less-favorably inclined will no doubt poke fun at the relics on display at this exhibition, questioning not only whether they are genuine but also the expense that was laid out to preserve them, it is not so much the authenticity of the relics nor the cost of the materials to house them which we ought to focus on. Rather the real story here is the significance of personal devotion to Christ and His saints, which Christians from the time of the Romans to the present day have expressed in numerous ways through the arts, literature, music, and so on. The relic is an example of the faithful, recognizing that they are not pure spirit but both flesh and spirit, wanting to keep close to them some tangible connection to those who have gone before them in the Faith.

This is not, as some would have it, a type of ancestor worship, for the Faith does not depend on the existence of these objects. They are an expression of piety which dates back to the earliest days of the Church, when obscure symbols and secret meetings in private homes and hidden places were the only ways Catholics could practice their faith. I continue to believe that we are headed back to those days once more, and given recent legal and policy decisions in Britain, perhaps this display is in fact a kind of foreshadowing of events to come.

Be that as it may, not unlike some recent, previous exhibitions in London which, much to the surprise of regular readers of The Guardian, attracted enormous numbers of visitors - such as "The Sacred Made Real" and "Seeing Salvation", both at the National Gallery - it would not surprise me if this ticketed show becomes extremely popular both with locals and with those visiting the British capital this summer. The scaled-down version of "The Sacred Made Real" which crossed the pond to Washington was very well-received, but of course there is a much larger Catholic presence hereabouts, with larger overall regular church attendance. That these types of exhibitions can find good audiences in Britain means that there is at least some desire, however deadened by secularism it may be, for the richness and beauty of the Catholic faith, still alive in the hearts of the British people.

The high altar at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart,
University of Notre Dame du Lac

Why the Devil Wears Prada

2011-04-06T11:18:00.000-04:00

In the brilliant Ernst Lubitsch film "Ninotchka" (1938) the title character - wonderfully played by Greta Garbo in perhaps the finest part of her legendary career - is a dyed-in-the-wool Communist sent from Moscow to Paris, to help negotiate a deal on behalf of the Soviet Union. She is initially stunned and appalled by the bourgeois world around her, though by the film's end she has embraced it. In a very memorable scene when she first arrives at the grand hotel where she will be staying, she passes a window display for the hotel's boutique, and pauses before an outlandishly shaped, sculptural-looking object. Ninotchka is informed that the object is in fact a lady's hat. Shaking her head in disgust, she remarks, "How can such a civilization survive which permits their women to put things like that on their heads? It won't be long now comrades."

In a somewhat different vein, on Monday evening I dropped into a recently-opened shop in Georgetown on my way up the hill to the home of a fellow blogger (where we spent a convivial evening on the back porch with some non-blogging friends discussing various and sundry matters.) The shopgirl whom I was chatting with as I examined the selection on offer grabbed my arm and said, "I have a Prada suit that would look *great* on you." Giving a sly smile, I remarked, "I'm sure it would. But I don't wear designers who sponsor communism."

Admittedly the comment as regards myself borders on the immodest, but that regarding my rejection of a particular label is based on a long-time awareness of the machinations of said label's head designer. Miuccia Prada is well-known among the cognoscenti in the design world as a communist and an active promoter of left-wing social and political policies, a fact which may be lost on many Americans who purchase her wares. Given my distaste for communism, I have never owned anything designed by her, nor would I accept anything designed by her as a gift, such is the extent of my admitted and fully-embraced prejudice. This aside from the fact that her menswear consists of utterly putrid, predominantly androgynous garments, which are really just clothes for genetic males who look like unattractive women with a penchant for copying "From Russia with Love" villain Rosa Klebb's style.

Britain's The Independent not long ago described Sig.ra Prada's output as being full of "irony and sheer brains", as she employs thread and needle to make fun of the bourgeoisie:

At the root of her work, like the theme of a symphony to which it constantly returns, is the conservatism and restraint that are so typical of bourgeois Milan and so at odds with the world's image of Italy, and which she absorbed with her mother's minestrone. But this conservatism is constantly punctured and subverted, rudely shoved aside and cruelly mocked, by a whole mad world of motley influences and by an almost childish compulsion to do what everybody says you mustn't and what nobody expects.

Those familiar with Whit Stillman's film "Metropolitan" may recall the scene in which the character of Charlie Black (Taylor Nichols) talks about his disappointment with Spanish director Luis Buñuel's 1972 film "Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie" ("The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie"). Charlie, a member of a group which he has christened the "UHB" or "Urban Haute-Bourgeoisie", describes how excited he was on hearing of the film's title, and his subsequent disappointment upon actually seeing the movie. "I thought, 'Finally! someone’s going to tell the truth about the bourgeoisie!' But it's hard to imagine a less fair or accurate portrait.”

Of course Charlie is not aware that, as is typical of many Leftists with the leisure to pursue such ends, Buñuel himself was no proletarian: he came from a decidedly wealthy background, and heartily enjoyed being around wealthy people. And for someone who is supposedly so ironic, so biting in her criticism of the bourgeois, in mocking the bourgeoisie Sig.ra Prada is also, even more ironically mocking herself. She is nothing if not a woman of comfortably middle-class origin supported by a decidedly upper-class income. Like other dowdy, aging baby boomers who criticize traditional ideals, she fails to perceive her own hypocrisy in supporting Marxist ideology on the one hand, while simultaneously flogging her goods with the other - at ridiculously inflated prices, natch - in order to increase her own wealth. Indeed, Sig.ra Prada has now appeared on Forbes' list of the world's richest people for many years.

The response from the Left, of course, is that Sig.ra Prada, Buñuel and others like them very much recognize their own hypocrisy, but they are more than happy to take the resources of those whom they perceive as perpetrators of the evils of mankind, and use those resources to promote their supposedly more moral or liberating projects, causes and beliefs. In so doing however, they prove themselves to be no different from the people whose views and methods they claim to despise. They may not believe in the God of the Bible, but they worship themselves through self-promotion; they may pay their workers a living wage, but they would never eschew staying in grand hotels, let alone live in a shared, modest apartment with any of them. (Where would they keep the Château Margaux they laid down two summers ago?)

As Leon Trotsky writes in his 1938 screed, "Their Morals and Ours", not long after founding the Fourth Communist International and his falling out with what for lack of a better term we can call mainstream communism:

Among the liberals and radicals there are not a few individuals who have assimilated the methods of the materialist interpretation of events and who consider themselves Marxists. This does not hinder them, however, from remaining bourgeois journalists, professors or politicians. A Bolshevik is inconceivable, of course, without the materialist method, in the sphere of morality too. But this method serves him not solely for the interpretation of events but rather for the creation of a revolutionary party of the proletariat. It is impossible to accomplish this task without complete independence from the bourgeoisie and their morality. Yet bourgeois public opinion actually now reigns in full sway over the official workers' movement.

So much, Trotsky seems to be saying, for the champagne socialist.

I do not mean to suggest that we should always avoid, by our purchases, supporting the work of those whose views differ from our own. That would not only be ridiculously impractical, but decidedly narrow-minded. My personal rejection of the work of Sig.ra Prada is merely a personal affectation, based on my deep antipathy toward both her views and how her aesthetic is informed by them. What I do - most emphatically - mean to suggest, however, is that the educated courtier engage in some very practical exercise of their own powers of discernment. Said discerning gentleman or lady ought to consider exactly what it is that they are buying into, with their purchase of clothing, media, and the like, irrespective of its popularity.

Charles Baudelaire - a man who as a result of his own tumultuous personal life knew whereof he spoke - famously remarked that the greatest trick Satan ever pulled was to convince the world that he does not exist. With greater discernment, we can perceive an infernal hand in many places in our world today - in the way we treat one another, yes, but also and perhaps more subtlety in our entertainments and the way in which we live and even dress. The Devil is very much among us - and I definitely believe he wears Prada.

Ninotchka (Greta Garbo) considers a very curious hat.

One Man's Trash: Evangelization and the Passive-Aggressive

2011-04-05T09:26:00.000-04:00

Back in an antediluvian age of the world, when I was an acolyte at Farm Street Parish in Mayfair, one of the English Jesuits made a wonderful suggestion - whether in the course of a homily or at the "coffee and biscuits" hour after the high mass I do not now recall - that it would be a very good thing indeed to share a copy of the parish bulletin with people we know, or to leave it somewhere where others might pick it up and read it. Certain now-aging elements of the Order aside, given the views of the average cleric at that particular parish in London, both in terms of its history and location, I do not believe he was intending to suggest that the parishioners engage in something as tacky as an act of civil disobedience. It would be hard to fathom a church where Evelyn Waugh set some of "Brideshead" advocating intentional littering when one alighted from a cab, was perusing the aisles at Fenwick, or had dinner at Scott's. Still, the idea had legs, insofar as I perceived it, and it began a now well-ingrained habit with me which an uncharitable mind might consider a passive-aggressive form of evangelization.

While the great Catalan Dominican preacher St. Vincent Ferrer, whose feast day is today, was a fiery orator and evangelist, most of us are granted neither celestial visions nor such extraordinary capabilities of inspiration and persuasion. Even if we happen to strut and fret our hour upon the stage as an actor, politician, lawyer or so on, and are compensated for our ability to do so persuasively, when it comes to spreading the faith it is fair to say that the vast majority of us must perform our apostolate of preaching the Gospel by the way in which we live and in our relations with one another, rather than through standing in pulpits or on street corners proclaiming Christ's message. This, in my view, is rather a good thing, for too often we are presented by the media with those who have achieved recognition in one of the aforementioned-spheres of professional development, who are held up to preach to us on matters related to theology, Church history and Catholic moral teaching of which it is self-evident that they know little or nothing. Would that St. Vincent and Congresswoman Pelosi, for example, would be able to appear together on something like the old "Firing Line" series: what an amusing, light-hearted evening's entertainment that would be.

What is the average Catholic meant to do, therefore? Certainly taking advantage of social media is one way in which to witness to the Gospel, and when directed at the right target it can be a very effective weapon for dispelling ignorance or misconceptions about who Catholics are and what we believe. Though if we tweet or post to our wall some link, quotation, or media that reflects our Christian faith, we know that while there is a possibility of ridicule and attack, there is also an equal if not greater possibility of a kind of payback from our friends and supporters. In other words, we can receive an immediate, direct pat on the back for our efforts in the form of positive retweets, laudatory comments on our blog or wall posting, and so on, from those who share our views.

This does not mean we should avoid such opportunities of public witness, but since many times the reward is near-instant gratification, or there is a far greater upside than downside in the responses we receive, there is a slight whiff of preaching to the choir in such actions - particularly when all or most of one's friends or followers just so happen to be practicing Catholics as well. The harder and oftentimes more unpleasant task is to reach the hard of heart, or the indifferent.

What I would suggest that you consider instead, gentle reader, is to consider an effective example of getting a message across which an old housemate of mine used to employ. If a dirty plate or utensil was left in the sink, he would take it out and put it in the center of the kitchen table, in order to draw attention to the fact that house rules mandated the cleaning and proper storage of such items for the general welfare of all. Annoying an act as it was in its passive-aggressive quality, it was devastatingly effective. By placing the object in public view, the viewer was more inclined to deal with it than if it lay hidden in the depths of the kitchen sink.

Like many Catholics, in addition to the church bulletin I find that I am inundated with Catholic printed material which appears in my mailbox on a regular basis. Give one donation to a particular Catholic institution and you will suddenly find yourself flooded with unsolicited paper. Yet rather than throwing these things away, I keep a continually-replenished stack of such materials - so substantial is my horde - from which I select those items which I do not want to keep for myself, but which I take with me as I head out and about, to leave where others may find them. It could be considered a passive-aggressive act, for it forces someone else to look at something, whether they are picking it up to read it or picking it up to throw it away, though I prefer to think of it as an attempt to even the playing field - and quite a trash-strewn playing field it is, too.

Those of us living in urban environments, in particular, have often become so deadened to messages celebrating human degradation/objectification and promoting neo-pagan secularization, that we oftentimes no longer notice the painful and misleading messages which flood our senses. We do not necessarily stop and think about the dangers of such media, because we train ourselves to ignore or dodge it: we may be grazed by the bullet, or it may completely miss us, but it rarely hits home. We do not, however, always consider the direct and catastrophic impact that these messages are having on those who are outside of the faith, or floundering in it. In turning what would otherwise be considered trash into potential treasure, we can try to address that imbalance, by sending out messages of encouragement, love, and a true reason to hope.

Unlike the earlier-mentioned examples of using social media to support the Church, with the possibility of instant reward from within our circle, this almost confetti-like method of spreading the Gospel is wonderfully non-responsive. We will likely never know whether anyone has read that bulletin, looked at that card or leaflet, which we left on the table at a cafe or on a park bench, or whether it simply got thrown in the trash. And that is the point: by choosing to take on a very simple role as God's instrument, and doing so not only completely anonymously but also with no way to know whether our message has been received, we remove ourselves from the equation entirely. God will know whether that message has reached His intended target, and we will not: there is no direct payoff for us other than the joy in doing His work, and that is as it should be. That old germ of an idea from Farm Street can grow and blossom into a very practical way of going about the job of the disciple, and it has an additional benefit to us as well in our not being able to claim it as a self-congratulatory act.

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star?

2011-04-04T10:04:00.000-04:00

Continuing with some themes I explored last week, gentle reader, I had a very good and productive exchange via GChat last evening with a contact made through Twitter - not only about arranging an in-personam meeting later this week with a mutual friend, but also about the use of that particular branch of social media. As he has considerably more followers than I, we discussed some of the benefits, methodology, and pitfalls of Twitter, as well as some negative aspects of the behavior on the site. Following our conversation and before turning in, I was doing a bit of bedtime reading, and it so happened that I selected St. Josemaría Escrivá's "El Camino" ("The Way") off the shelf.

I should preface my next remarks by declaring that I am not now, nor have ever been a member of Opus Dei - let alone the Communist Party, the Bilderburg Group, or the Mickey Mouse Club. That said, Escrivá's writing is appealing to me in its very Spanish directness, often quite blunt indeed. My shelf of spiritual books runs the gamut from St. Francis de Sales to Thomas Merton, but the shortness of the passages in this particular book makes them more easy to digest if you do not have a great deal of time available to you - or your eyelids keep closing.

When I do spiritual reading, I will sometimes choose to open to a page or a passage at random, and reflect upon what catches my eye. In this case, we can translate the passage I stumbled across as follows:

Better to burn like a torch, setting fire to all you touch,
than to glitter like a star in the heavens.

In other words, rather than seeking to become famous and shine from on high and far off, we should make more of an effort to burn strongly where we are, bringing light and heat to the world, or at least the corner of it which we inhabit.

How very well Escrivá's thought ties in with yesterday's mass readings, which talked about the importance of light - and not just the physical light by which we see with our eyes, but the light by which we not only see ourselves as we really are. We hear of Samuel discerning David as the future king of Israel through God's instruction, not through his own eyes; St. Paul reminding the early Christians of the light of Faith and how their lives have been changed by that light; and finally the superb recounting in St. John's Gospel of Christ opening the eyes of the blind man. As Monsignor Langsfeld pointed out yesterday in a very well-crafted homily tying all of the readings together, it is often that we think we see, when we are in fact blind to what is going on both in front of and within us.

Then through courtesy of a Catalan friend - also made through Twitter over the course of several months' exchanges - this morning I read a very interesting interview with professor Jordi Llovet, a well-known Catalan critic, translator, and philosopher, on the occasion of the publication of his new book, "Adéu a la Universitat" ("Goodbye to the University"). While Dr. Llovet is a modern humanist, as is the case with any men of true intelligence he can not only see the trees, but the forest as well. His words immediately struck me, for he is casting light on why our society is faltering.

Dr. Lllovet writes that the university, in his experience as an academic and thinker, is in great need of reform, because Western civilization has collapsed from a lack of any values beyond those of materialism and the desire to be famous - or at the very least to be popular. He maintains that [N.B. please excuse my imperfect translation] what drove mankind in previous centuries - whether God, humanism, reason, etc. - has been replaced by a completely financial and profane motivation. Thus, even his own field of education "has taken the basic form of love for business, consumerism, the accumulation of goods, the illusion of "welfare" and, something new, a mentality and everyday culture derived from present-day forms of entertainment and new technologies."

Dr. Llovet goes on to observe that

The new generations seek fame more than greatness, they want acclaim more than recognition, and build self-sufficient small societies through the mobile phone, chat and Facebook - all of which is ersatz social and political life, in a global sense. This all follows a law of present-day history, according to which the past is something discredited and any theory on the future leads to a likely scenario which it is better not to think about.

How very much I see myself, in my worst moments, as well as many people I know, in his observations.

The temptation to make ourselves little gods of our own universes is so great, and so easily achievable through manipulation of social media, that we now have the commonly observed example of someone becoming famous for doing very little. The question "Why is so-and-so famous?" has been beaten into the ground long ago, arguably starting with "The Real World" and picking up steam with "Survivor", "The Simple Life", and moving through to "The Hills", the Kardashian sisters, the "Real Housewives" and so on. The question keeps being asked, but no one really wants to hear the answer: these people are famous because we want to be famous, too.

We willingly follow, like lemmings off a cliff, those who say, "This person is worth your time!", suspending our disbelief and joining in the attention being heaped upon someone who is often either unintelligent, untalented, unattractive, or all three. We do so in the hope that we will somehow belong, or be thought cool, hip, and so on. We also hope that we, too, may become famous, or at the very least end up with more followers on Twitter, more friends on Facebook, and more contacts in our iPhone. The end result of that effort will, if we are honest with ourselves, therefore hopefully make up for the fact that our lives are marked by the accumulation of useless "stuff" and the pursuit of fleeting, sometimes immoral pleasures, which ultimately leave us unsatisfied.

I have great admiration and respect for the men and women I have come to know through social media who are not only very competent in what they do, but use social media to its best ends: the establishment of contacts and the exchange of information. Their behavior is that of the adult, who does not need the adulation of others in order to have fulfillment. Those such as the manufacturer, the writer, and the photographer, for example, can reach an enormous potential market base through social media networking.

For his part, the individual who does not use social media either primarily nor secondarily for professional efforts, can use it to find others who share their interests far more easily than was ever possible before. It is also, no doubt, an extraordinary opportunity to reach out for charitable and philanthropic purposes. All of these are rational, adult methods for the proper use of social media. And most of us, dare I say so, who are active in social media fall very short in our efforts to remain adults in our activities online.

So the challenge that I present to you, dear reader, and one which I am going to try to take on for myself as well, is to make my use of social media more meaningful. Those of you who read these pages know that I do not generally produce the written equivalent of fast food in my work: I hold not only myself to a higher standard, but also my readership. I do not assume your ignorance, but rather your intelligence. You would hardly spend any time here if you were incapable of reflection on issues which cannot easily be addressed in a sound bite or a single 140 character statement. And that leads us to our point: it is time for those of us who employ social media to grow up, and to be a man. (Or lady, as the case may be.)

If Escrivá is right, if it is better to set others aflame and illuminate truth through one's efforts and example, then the well-placed thought, even a brief one - such as, indeed, he himself often wrote - can do a great deal of good, if it is handled in an adult fashion. Yet at the same time Dr. Lllovet's criticism of Gen X, Gen Y, etc. is well-founded, in the manifestations of our use of social media that are so easy to observe. The adult solution to this seeming dichotomy, and the childishness of social media as it clearly is employed at present by alleged adults, is to continue to employ it, but with more discernment and discretion. It may be that we should not seek to glitter like the stars, but we should not seek to behave like toddlers on a playground, either.

The Affected Conservative: It's All About Eve

2011-04-01T11:34:00.000-04:00

Last evening I had the very enjoyable experience of taking a visiting friend from Barcelona and a few colleagues around the village to do some shopping, followed by a good dinner at Leopold's, where we ran into some other friends of mine. Georgetown is, of course, part of Washington D.C. proper these days, but geographically and stylistically it continues to have a sense of "otherness", which is very noticeable, particularly if all you have seen for several days has been the inside of a hotel ballroom in Crystal City. For me the benefit of the experience was not only catching up with an old friend and meeting new ones, but also having an experience the antithesis of yesterday's cautionary post about Twitter - which seems to have struck a nerve with a number of people - about using social media to build real connections.

When I arrived back at the manse, I proved this last point by engaging in an email conversation with a conservative friend I met some time ago via Twitter - the proof being, we do not merely tweet to each other but communicate outside of it on several platforms. We talked briefly about a number of subjects, including personal style, and it was pointed out that I come off as a strong-willed person. Less kind persons might have said "stubborn", but it is a fair assessment.

Second-hand, I have heard myself referred to as "intimidating", which certainly ought not to be the case at all. Someone's being opinionated should not intimidate others, if they have their own developed sense of self, though I have occasionally had to step back and apologize when I fear that I am being too forceful. I suspect that the combination of being rather tall, a trial lawyer, and a conservative would do it, if my personal habit of sometimes affecting what I like to call "biker preppy" style does not do it alone. Exterior appearances may easily deceive the untrained eye, particularly where conservatives are concerned.

To those on the outside looking in (and perhaps even to the majority of those within), there is often an apparent "sameness" of appearance among people marked as conservatives. Yet among genuine conservatives there are people who espouse certain affectations which may seem incongruous or surprising. Part of this surprise has to do with a false assumption that everyone who believes in conservative principles ought to look a certain way. Yet part also has to do with the inherent human desire to name and categorize, which is inescapable. Let us consider each of these in turn.

Whatever the liberal press may tell you, a conservative can have just as much style, if not more so, than your average Hollywood bleeding-heart liberal fashion plate. Of course, the fact that Hollywood is dominated by the latter type does not mean that the film industry fails to show us examples of idiosyncratic style among people who have decidedly conservative views. When they do appear, it is not only their point of view but their style which surprises us, when we pay attention to detail.

This evening for example, I am going to a dinner party where we will be watching one of my favorite films, "All About Eve". Director and screenwriter Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who was as bleeding-heart as they come, probably intended the witty, urbane, but somewhat shady character of Addison De Witt (George Sanders) to be the lone Republican in the ensemble, given some of the searingly vicious lines which he has Addison say. Yet also, I think notably, Addison is distinguishable by what he wears, as much as by what he says in conversation, or what he writes in his newspaper column.

Unlike the other men in the cast, Addison is shown on multiple occasions to enjoy wearing hats. He also likes to wear what looks to be a very expensive overcoat lined with fur - probably vicuna - and often smokes using a long, ebony cigarette holder. Addison not only has a hugely expert eye with respect to the theatre world, but in his personal style he stands out from the others. This is not just because he is considerably taller than the rest of the men in the room, but also because he has a clear appreciation for style and attention to detail. He pulls off looking different from the men of his day because although he dresses appropriately for the occasion, he also knows what he likes, and does not care whether others also like his choices or not.

Addison is, interestingly enough, quite the ladies' man despite his seemingly aloof, foppish and snobbish personality. We learn that he picked up the stunning and considerably younger Miss Caswell (Marilyn Monroe) dancing at the Copacabana nightclub; later Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) discovers that she "belongs" to him after he bends her to his will. In the scene where Eve comes to understand this, he is very much aware of the importance of appearances: when Eve throws open the door to her hotel room and tells him to get out, Addison scoffs, "You're too short for that gesture."

As the scene continues, we get a glimpse of Addison's respect not only for the political change of heart after Pearl Harbor which gave America a new role in the world, but also his appreciation for human decency. When Addison catches Eve in a lie about her supposed fiancee, killed during World War II, the realization that she has been found out sends her into a paroxysm of rage. "That was not only a lie," he chides her, "but an insult to dead heroes and to the women who loved them."

That line of Addison's always reminds me of the character of Lieutenant Fred Boynton, another crypto-conservative, in Whit Stillman's brilliant film "Barcelona". Fred Boynton (Chris Eigeman) is a naval officer being shown around the Catalan capital by his cousin Ted (Taylor Nichols). A rather trashy-looking group of Catalan youths pass them and sneer at Fred's naval uniform, calling him a fascist. Ted tries to calm his cousin down by explaining that it is not his uniform which is the problem; if you comb your hair and put on a tie, those types of Barcelona youths will call you a fascist. Fred then goes off into a diatribe where he points out that men wearing the same uniform died ridding Europe of fascism. He is, in effect, showing the ignorance of the liberal in mocking his style of dress.

While Fred may have been ill-advised to wear a naval uniform when not on duty - we later learn that he has brought no civilian clothes with him, and needs to borrow from Ted's closet - one suspects that he is secretly glad to be wearing it, as a stylistic indicator of how he sees himself. Its unexpectedness in the setting is what makes it - and him - stand out. We find it hard to believe that Fred has really forgotten his civies, and instead realize that this affectation comes about because he knows he looks good in a uniform, and because he likes how the uniform sets him apart.

Similarly, in Whit Stillman's earlier film "Metropolitan" the character Nick Smith - ironically enough also played by Chris Eigeman - has a conversation with another character, Tom Townsend, in which he explains his own personal affectation, that of wearing dress shirts with detachable collars:

Nick: “You haven’t seen this? Detachable collar, not many people wear them anymore, they look much better. So many things which were better in the past have been abandoned for supposed convenience.”

Tom: “I had no idea anyone wore those anymore.”

Nick: “It’s a small thing, but symbolically important. Our parents’ generation was never interested in keeping up standards, they wanted to be happy. But of course, the last way to be happy is to make it your objective in life.”

Tom: “I wonder if our generation is any better than our parents.”

Nick: “Oh, it’s far worse. Our generation’s probably the worst since…the Protestant Reformation, it’s barbaric. But a barbarism even worse than the old-fashioned, straightforward kind. Now barbarism is cloaked with all sorts of self-righteousness and moral superiority.”

Tom: “You’re obviously talking about a lot more than detachable collars…“

Nick: “Yeah, I am.“

When we leave the world of moving pictures for the real world, things become a little less clear. If Georgetown, in its best sections, has a sense of otherness, much of white-collar Washington has a sense of "sameness". However, not everyone in Washington who wears a blue blazer and khakis to work is a conservative, as the first-time visitor often mistakenly believes. That is simply the local mufti, worn irrespective of party politics. In its blandness perhaps it tells us more about the general population of the capital area, rather than anything about those persons who adopt it, as individuals or party members.

By trying to class people through their style we are of course naming and categorizing, and by naming and categorizing we are engaging in something which we as a species have done from the very beginning. In the Bible we are told how God created the universe, from sun, moon and stars, right down to the animals and human beings. But the observant reader will note that while God Himself names certain elements and principles of His creation - "day", "night", "earth", "sea", and so on - and He also names Adam, it is Adam himself who names the animals.

Certainly God could have named the "things which creep upon the earth", but He chose not to do so, leaving that job up to Adam. It is interesting to note, by the way, that in the Koran it is God rather than Adam who names the animals. Not to put too fine a point on it, but there are some important considerations we could take from this difference between Judaism/Christianity and Islam, but that we shall perhaps leave for a future post.

As creation unfolds, God wants to see whether Adam is going to become particularly attached to any of the animals, so that they will be his companion in creation:

So the LORD God formed out of the ground various wild animals and various birds of the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each of them would be its name.

Genesis 2:19

As it turns out, none of the animals prove to be fully satisfying to Adam, which brings about the creation of Eve. Thus, the human female is the very last element of the universe which God created. Women should recognize that fact with some understandable pleasure, and men should be aware of its significance, for God was clearly aware of the fact than men are usually not so good at taking care of His creation all by themselves.

When God brings His final creation to Adam in Genesis 2:23, Adam does not at first give her an individual name, as God did to him. Instead he calls her "woman", recognizing that she seems to be part of his nature as a human being, having been formed from part of Adam himself, but at the same time not seeming to fully understand exactly what she is. One could make the observation therefore that man's inability to completely "get" women is of primeval origin. After they have sinned by eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but before they are cast out of the Garden of Eden, Adam recognizes the woman as an individual who fully shares his nature, and his fate, and gives the woman the individual name of Eve, Genesis 3:20.

When they are finally thrown out of the Garden of Eden, God does not give Adam and Eve seeds, or ploughs, or even teach them how to make fire. The only thing He does do, is to make them clothing out of leather, to replace the leaves that they themselves had unsuccessfully tried putting together to cover themselves. God Himself becomes the first true couturier. [N.B. Just imagine having the label "Hand Made by Almighty God in the Kingdom of Heaven" on the back inside lining of your biker jacket.]

Ultimately, the conservative recognizes that it really is all about Eve. Sin, death, salvation and redemption are all woven around a single decision she made, long ago, to exercise her free will, and to convince Adam to do the same. That recognition of the supreme importance, spiritually and philosophically, of the concept of free will, is foundational to the Western conservative, operating in the Judeo-Christian understanding of humanity and of himself.

When a conservative fellow stands out a bit from the crowd then yes, he is probably hoping in part that an attractive eye will bat his way - that is all about Eve, too. But outside of that fact, he is also engaged in exercising his free will in order to say something about himself: what he enjoys, what he supports, what he appreciates. The more stylish he is, the more unique or subtle the exercise.

Centuries ago the choice of a particular color, pattern, symbol, etc. in a man's dress or accoutrement would have been endowed with a great deal of symbolic significance not only by the wearer but also by those who saw him. Today, as Nick Smith points out, many do not take the time to think of such things. Among those who do, it is with men of a conservative persuasion that the exercise of free will often proves particularly interesting.

George Sanders and Anne Baxter begin to form
their unholy alliance in "All About Eve" (1950)

Out on a Limb: The Blessing and Curse of Twitter

2011-03-31T11:31:00.000-04:00

The other evening I was getting such bad eye strain from watching television and searching Twitter for interesting people, news stories, and connections at the same time that I tweeted, "I should have more seriously considered giving up Twitter for Lent instead." Said tweet got no response. Yet it also sparked the thought process that led to this post which, admittedly, may seem at first a bit too Washington D.C.-specific, but I ask you, gentle reader, to bear with me.

Recently the magazine Men's Health conducted a survey to try to find out which of the U.S. cities made the heaviest use of social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. The editors (reasonably) assumed that Palo Alto, unofficial capital of the Silicon Valley, would probably get the top spot. Instead, the winner was Washington, D.C., with neither Palo Alto nor New York City even making the Top Ten.

Any poll or survey is suspect, of course, depending on the methodology involved. As observed in the second brilliant BBC mini-series on fictional British Prime Minister Sir Francis Urquhart "To Play the King", figures can be subtly and easily manipulated depending on how a question is asked or how a sampling is analyzed. That being said, Washingtonians spend a great deal of time engaging in social media interactions, increasingly through the use of Twitter, and it often comes as a surprise to those of us inside the Beltway how many of our friends outside of it either use Twitter infrequently or do not even have a Twitter account.

Those who view this result in a positive light pointed to how interconnected the professional community in this city is, from politicians to interest groups to journalists and all those associated with them. Among the various social networking tools, Twitter stands in the unique position of being almost custom-made for the Nation's Capital. It is a sound-bite maker's dream. Whether you are a lobbyist, a congressman, a lawyer, or reporter, if you are to be successful here you have to be able to distill down the point you are trying to make into a few key words and phrases which your audience will take away and, hopefully, act upon. Long-gone are the days when the public had the patience for listening to or reading blowhard speeches from the floor of the House.

Having personally made the migration back in the day from Friendster to MySpace, and then on to Facebook and A Small World (an invite-only site sometimes referred to as "Snobster" by critics, populated mainly by good-looking people with ties to Europe), Twitter did not seem to be much of a draw for me at first. The limitation of 140 characters and not being able to communicate directly with someone via a private message or email - which is often preferable to the full-out public statement depending on the sensitivity of the matter at issue - was a definite turn-off. However over time I warmed to it, recognizing that I could find diverse but kindred spirits through Twitter more quickly than possible on Facebook, and it could help me to find additional readers for these pages.

With more use of Twitter its benefits and drawbacks have become very apparent. Yes, I have met some interesting people through it, and through those virtual meetings I have made new friends and found new sources of information as well as new readers. In that respect, Twitter has proven to be very satisfactory. Yet in the very nature of Twitter itself lies what is the proverbial sting in the scorpion's tail, for the enforced brevity of the medium leads to some muddling of the message, and at the same time the use of Twitter, if it does not develop properly, can lead to a deterioration of the self just as easily as any other pleasure taken to excess.

From a stylistic standpoint, there is something disturbingly egalitarian about the tweet, or at least what is considered a readable, acceptable tweet. For those who appreciate the verbal contortions imposed by the limitation of characters, but also try not to offend the mother tongue, the little countdown of available spaces is rather like a creative exercise of the OuLiPo literary movement. However since the rules of grammar, spelling and punctuation do not typically apply to the tweet, or are given a pass, average joes who could barely pull a "C" in freshman writing may have ten times as many followers on Twitter as those with a proper but clever grasp of the English language and its possibilities in a limited amount of space.

The content then, is arguably more important than the presentation, but it remains true that no one cares what the main course is, if the appetizer is turds in a blanket. Putting aside the personal explanations of what one is doing or where one is headed off to - which we will return to momentarily - most tweets fall into the sphere of the "commentariat": a re-posting of links to a news item with the tweeter's brief opinion, or simply the posting of an opinion on a current topic. The grammar and spelling in the tweet is not infrequently poor, and the comment itself is either poorly thought out or so instantaneous that the tweeter has not taken sufficient time to reflect on what he is about to announce to the world. Like little hot-headed Martin Luthers, tweeters go about nailing things to their virtual front door in a fit of rage, and in the hope that someone will pay attention to them.

And therein lies the rub, for most tweeters - and I accuse myself of this as well - do not stop to ask themselves why anyone should care what team they support, what Presidential candidate they like, or what they thought of last night's reality show-du-jour episode. They put themselves out on a limb, and in so doing have publicly invited their followers and (unless they protect their tweets) anyone else on Twitter to throw stones at them. Yet exactly what happens when we perch out on our limb varies depending on what we have to say, the level of active participation in Twitter among those who follow us or are searching for the topic we have written about, and so on.

The highest mark of acceptance is, arguably, the re-tweet or RT: it is an unequivocal endorsement of our opinion in which our follower climbs out on the limb with us, giving us an added sensation of being in the right, safety being in numbers. Moving down the scale we get to the MT or modified tweet (sometimes incorrectly called an RT which, if changes are made to the original tweet, it should not be), which can be good or bad. Then we have the Reply, which may be good or bad as well, depending on whether the replier starts throwing stones at us, hoping to knock us off our perch.

Then we have what can seem the worst of all possible responses, which is no response at all. In some cases it is understandable that we do not receive a response. A tweet to a movie star or head of state for example, unless you are a person of some importance in your own right, is likely to garner no interest from that individual. A tweet to a "tweep" from the Twitter world which goes unanswered however, goes beyond simply ruffling our feathers in an argument which tries to cast us from our perch. It can feel like suddenly discovering we were never perched out on a limb at all - we weren't even in the forest.

The blog, longer and (comparatively) slower a means of communication as it is, provides a public forum for publishing what is essentially one's own newspaper or magazine. It requires a greater involvement of time both in its creation and consumption. The tweet, on the other hand, can be so instantaneous that a thought flies off the fingers and out into the world without the writer giving due consideration to how his words are going to impact those who read them. True, it can later be deleted or modified, but it can never wholly be undone.

Taking a chance by tweeting means that you may come to find that your views are, in fact, incorrect, and you end up not only being knocked from your perch but completely molt your old feathers. The benefit of being a rational being rather than an instinctive animal means that one's views can change. You may have started out as a fan of Mr. Obama, for example, perhaps because you were frightened by an elephant at the zoo when you were at the child, but later on come to embrace a Republican candidate for President in 2012. You are allowed to change your mind, and it is even possible that through communication with others on Twitter, that change of mind may come about.

However no matter how beneficial the connection on Twitter may be to your thought process, your cause, or even to the development of your business, it should be a spark to create, rather than a substitute for, the development of a human relationship. This is why tweeting can be such a dangerous thing, for it becomes all too quickly a substitute for actual conversation, and almost inevitably leads to worthless, disposable commentary with the value of a rice cracker: slight burst of airy saltiness followed by virtually no nutritional value or sense of satedness. Let it never be claimed that I despise the short, well-crafted, cutting remark: I have made a few in my day. Yet the face-to-face or telephone conversation, the thought-out blog post or e-mail, is less likely to devolve into something like passing notes in class - which is what Twitter very often seems most to resemble - and can help cement our relationships in ways which Twitter cannot.

Here in Washington, Men's Health clearly recognized that we tend to work rather hard and often employ new media, but did not note that we do not seem to socialize as much in the evenings as perhaps is the case in other large cities. There are very few neighborhoods in D.C. with local gathering places that are as jammed as those in New York on any given Tuesday night, for example. Part of this also has to do with the fact that apartments in Manhattan are so much smaller, and the commute to suburbia so much more unpleasant and difficult. Yet as NBC Washington reporter Carissa DiMargo observed, in response to coverage of the Men's Health story, "Maybe we're #1 because we're all overworked and lonely. There. We said it!"

Now that is going out on a limb, and one I suspect that quite a few of us hereabouts find ourselves on, at times. And perhaps this false community vs. self-imposed isolation dichotomy is something we ought to consider, not only with respect to our tweeting, but also with respect to the types of relationships we form. Are we only looking to meet people who are like us as much as possible? Do we pursue connections like two infants playing with each other in a crib, each acting purely out of self-motivation and not out of a genuine interest in the other?

Trollope once famously stated that a friendship cannot be preserved on the cost of a postage stamp. Yet neither can it be fostered and grow if we fail to take concrete steps to see that connection moves beyond flippancy and armchair quarterbacking into something of value. Twitter is a blessing, if we use it as a means to an end, but a curse if it is taken as an end unto itself. If I take my own advice - and we shall see how that goes - I will be tweeting less, but better. If you take mine however, use Twitter as a tool to meet new people, but at the same time take care not to turn it into a substitute for building real relationships.

Goya and the Spanish Love of Hate

2011-03-30T10:08:00.000-04:00

Today is the birthday of the great Spanish painter Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828), and it gives me the opportunity to draw the attention of my readers to a rather nightmarish but deeply affecting work from his brush. Two men wielding cudgels are rushing at each other in a landscape, about to beat each other's brains in. Are they fighting over a woman? Was there some insult, or act of theft? No one knows. And yet it is quite possibly the best representation, in a single image, of the history of Spain presently in existence.

Though older by a generation, in both sympathy and in a wider European context Goya can be viewed as a kindred spirit to Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). Both men lived through incredibly tumultuous times, from the downfall of the Ancien Régime to the Napoleonic Wars and the unsettled politics which followed. Both were passionate, tortured geniuses whose work, as they aged and as their respective maladies overtook them - including shared deafness - distanced them more and more from the frothy, light-hearted places from which each of them began.

Goya should not properly be considered an Old Master painter, though I have seen him erroneously included in such lists on numerous occasions. As I have written about previously, the designation "Old Master" is, admittedly, to some extent dependent on an arbitrary cut-off date of 1800. Artists like Goya and J.M. W. Turner, whose work straddled the turn of the 19th century, are often segregated by more sensitive minds into a category known as the "Romantic" painters. This leaves us with a critical problem however, since much of the Rococo art which Goya himself produced early in his career, such as in his cartoons for the Royal Tapestries in Madrid, is an echo of the work of artists a generation older than he who are definitely Old Masters, such as Tiepolo.

But it is not on this lighter work that today's spotlight falls, but rather a picture from Goya's so-called "Black Paintings". Painted between 1819 and 1823, these works are the ravings, in paint, of a very troubled mind. By this time Goya had already been exploring the violent and the macabre for some years, though his earlier efforts pale in comparison to these later nightmares.

In 1793 Goya went deaf following a lengthy, serious illness, and the painter whose wit and connections had made him a popular society figure - in part due to his alleged affair with the Duchess of Alba - started to turn in on himself and away from the world. He began to produce strange little paintings aside from his commissioned work, and published etchings of nightmarish scenes criticizing the follies of contemporary society, in a series known as the "Caprices". These were followed by the "Disasters of War", in which Goya chronicled the death and destruction wrought by Napoleon and the Peninsular Campaigns in both paint and engraving.

Yet by comparison the subsequent "Black Paintings" overwhelm these earlier works, not only because they are, nearly a century before the tortured explorations of the psyche by Symbolist and Expressionist painters such as Edvard Munch and Egon Schiele, astoundingly innovative, but also because they were private. Goya's "Caprices" and "Disasters of War" were created for public consumption; the "Black Paintings" were not. The 14 images, some of them quite enormous, were painted directly onto the plaster walls of his house in Madrid. They were never exhibited to the public during his time there, and Goya fled to France in 1823, leaving them unfinished.

Of course there was no intent to "finish" them, per se, because they were not meant to be shown. They are, in paint, the thoughts of a man who has done and suffered much, and is haunted by what he as seen. In its way Goya's bizarre home decorating project reminds me of a similar project by one of my Catalan ancestors, the last direct male heir in his line, who spent his declining years in the 16th century carving his name followed by the words, "a sinner", into the walls of the now-ruined castle in which his family had lived since the days of Charlemagne.

Although today each of the "Black Paintings" has a name, so far as we know Goya himself never titled these works. The sobriquets that have subsequently been assigned to them over the course of time by art historians or the Prado Museum, where they are now housed, try to give them descriptions so that we can understand them better. Yet if Goya had been working in the 20th century or today, like many modern and contemporary artists I suspect he would not have found it necessary to actually give names to his work: the choice of "Untitled" by an artist, whether directly or through a refusal to name his piece, is a deliberately enigmatic act.

The fresco of two men about to brain each other - variously titled "A Fight to the Death with Clubs", "Duel with Cudgels", etc., - is one of these legendary "Black Paintings". There is a universal aspect to it in Goya's recognition of man's tendency, since the time of Cain and Abel, toward violence against our brother, despite our intellect and ability to reason. From all he had seen and experienced, Goya recognized that the line between civilization and savagery is a very fine line indeed. Greed, lust, anger, and all of the other deadly sins which have accompanied us since Adam and Eve decided to play Johnny Appleseed can cause us to do unspeakable things to one another. Yet on a more personal level, this work is affecting for anyone who knows the history of Spain.

Spain can be categorized in part as an historic construct based on geographic limitations. There has existed a politically united Spain for only just over 500 years, with some interruptions, and during those centuries the peoples who inhabit the Iberian Peninsula, from Basques and Catalans to Galicians and Castilians, have been fairly constant in going about fighting with each other. On top of this, there is a never-ending battle between rich and poor, Catholic and anti-clerical, intellectual and philistine, that has led to a recognition of blood and violence as a permanent aspect of the culture. It is folly for contemporary Spain, as more and more people seek to ban bullfighting, to think that the bloodlust so much a part of the country's character has disappeared merely because everyone now has televisions and microwave ovens.

For this reason Goya's painting is a far more powerful mirror of the horror that is often the experience of Spain than is Picasso's more famous "Guernica", which seems to be the de rigeur image chosen for the dust jacket of any contemporary work on Spanish history published over the last 30 years or so. Picasso condemns the horrors of violence, yes, but his condemnation is one-sided: it is the forces of General Franco who are doing the killing, and the Leftists who are doing the dying. It is a painting which is completely unbalanced in its representation not only of the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, but also in its understanding of the Spanish psyche.

What Picasso's masterpiece fails to show, and where Goya's is immeasurably more successful, is a reality which Spain does not like to admit but which is inherent to understanding Spain as a whole: Spaniards hate one another, equally, regardless of what side they happen to be on in an argument. They are not a gentle, loving people with one another nor, as a result, are they particularly good at organizing themselves into a nation. Insult and put-down is a skill practiced and honed from a Spanish child's earliest days, and the class structure, while not as grossly apparent as in Britain, still informs how people treat one another in ways which in the U.S. would seem almost unimaginable. The history of Spain since 1492 is not one of a peaceful, prosperous people united by a common language and culture, but one of unabashed and often violent tribalism which has never really gone away, but merely taken on different forms.

It is in this deceptively simple yet deeply profound painting that we get a glimpse of the true character of Spain, whatever Spain actually is outside of demarcations on a map. Beyond the vibrant spectacle of flamenco dancing, glorious octopus-predicted soccer victories, and PBS' José Andrés happily pretending that he knows how to cook, there is a very dark nature to the Spanish character which Goya understood and appreciated better than any other Spanish painter before or since. In this single image he encapsulates everything that you need to know about Spain, and he does so unflinchingly, which in itself is a supremely Spanish thing to do.

"A Fight to the Death with Clubs" by Francisco de Goya (c. 1820-1823)
Prado Museum, Madrid

Thoughts After Going to the Dogs

2011-03-29T09:33:00.000-04:00

As I was leaving the Spring Gala at the Dominican House of Studies on Saturday I was rather surprised, as I descended the steps of the priory, to suddenly hear the remark, "Hey, that's a blogger!" Turning round, the interlocutor turned out to be one of the Dogs of the Lord ("Dominicanes"), who was speaking with an older lady and donor to the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception. After introductions were made, it emerged that the priest in question is Father Benedict Croell, O.P., Director of Vocations for the Dominican Province of St. Joseph, and that he is not only a fellow blogger, over at Order of Preachers Vocations, but has perused these virtual pages as well as having re-posted them to the Province's Facebook group. In addition to being deeply flattered that these scribblings would be considered worthy of dissemination to a wider audience - an occurrence which never ceases to amaze - it was also the first time that The Courtier was recognized as a writer "on the street", as it were, by someone whom he did not already know.

As wonderfully organized by The Wondrous Pilgrim and aptly described last evening by The American Papist, the event was a tremendous success. It was a great opportunity to see old acquaintances and make new ones, and all involved worked very hard to make what one hopes will become an annual event thoroughly enjoyable. If you did not have the opportunity to attend, rest assured that it will be brought to your attention again this time next year, and that plenty of advance notice for scheduling purposes will be provided.

On the way to an after-party The Courtier and a professor friend who specializes in European history and political theory at an area Catholic college got into a discussion about the historic role of the gentleman - or lady - of means in supporting religious communities like the Dominicans. This was partly due to the atmosphere itself, since it is not often that one has the opportunity to attend an event within a structure that would have been easily comprehensible and recognizable to people living in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. However the situs of the Dominican Priory in particular was significant for this writer, having always been drawn to St. Dominic and chosen him as his confirmation saint - partially due to his being a Spaniard and partially because of his very courtly devotion to Our Lady.

Those of us who are not called to the religious life - and we of course constitute the significant majority in the Church - are asked to support our parish and diocese as best we can with donations of money, time and talents. Yet the desire to support one of the religious houses is something beyond our obligation to help our local parish and which may not occur to those of us who have seen a monastery, convent, and the like but never gotten to know any of the men and women who live there. Becoming a benefactor of one of these foundations connects us not only to the apostolate of the order which we support, be they contemplative, preaching, teaching, and so on, but also to the history and culture of the Church. Our Western civilization, whether in the preservation of ancient wisdom or in the development of the arts and sciences, would arguably not have been possible, or at the very least would certainly have been less robust, but for the connection between the religious houses and the laity which supported them.

This blog's model and patron Baldassare Castiglione, Count of Novilara, tells us that the the courtier must act justly in the support of others when he is possessed of means to do so, since the gentleman is called to show the love of Christ at all times

but much more when they are in prosperity, so that afterwards they may the more reasonably have confidence to ask Him for mercy when they are in some adversity. For it is impossible to govern rightly either one's self or others without the help of God; who to the good sometimes sends good fortune as His minister to relieve them from grievous perils; sometimes adverse fortune, to prevent their being so lulled by prosperity as to forget Him.

The Book of the Courtier, Part IV.

Patronage of a religious house does not mean that you have to commission an altarpiece, or build a beautiful new carmel, on behalf of the religious community you are drawn to support. Of course, if you are in a position to do such things, then you certainly ought to consider doing so. [N.B. I have already promised one of the friars that I will pay for the repair of the marble floor in the cloister if I win Powerball.] What it does mean however, is that you adopt a willingness to go beyond what is expected of you as a Catholic-in-the-pew to making a sacrifice in support of something larger than yourself, as did the widow in the Temple. It is something that I challenge you to consider, gentle reader, in your own life.

This does not necessarily mean that you have to support the Dominicans and the Little Sisters of the Poor here in D.C., or the Poor Clares in Barcelona, as I do. Worthy as these groups are, wherever you may find yourself in the world as you are reading this, you can be certain that there is a religious community near you which would be deeply grateful for your support, however large or small. It is through their lives of prayer, sacrifice, hard work and devotion that we are all given a model to follow in our own lives. And because they are dependent upon charity, a true courtier has the obligation to consider whether he can do something to help in the promotion of the good works of these, our brothers and sisters who have chosen to accept God's Grace and direction in their lives in an unique way.

Altarpiece of St. Dominic
Unknown Aragonese Master (c. 1300-1320)
National Art Museum of Catalonia, Barcelona

Review of "Mongol": Poking About in Mongolia

2011-03-28T09:11:00.000-04:00

I understand that the film "Mongol" is the first part of a planned trilogy on the life of Genghis Khan. Let us hope that the subsequent offerings will do better justice to this great tough guy of history. There is much to admire in this first installment, but its often slow-poke pacing and head-scratching plot holes will have you checking the display menu to see how many more hours are remaining before you even reach the halfway point.

Russian director Sergei Bodrov begins his semi-historical film in flashback. Temujin Khan - played, oddly enough, by a Japanese rather than a Mongolian actor - is leader of one of the Mongol tribes, and a sideshow captive in a Chinese provincial capital. Temujin is the son of a Mongol clan chief, who is killed when Temujin is a young boy. Being the rightful heir, he is hunted by those who have turned against him and his widowed mother, and like many a hero in one of the Greek tragedies, he must make allies when and where he can. Also like one of those heroes, his memory is long, and his desire for revenge will eventually cause his enemies to pay for what they have done to him, his family, and his clan.

Departing from the prison sequence and returning to Temujin's youth at the age of 9, Bodrov moves the story along with what at first is a forgiveably plodding pace. For those of us not hugely familiar with the history and culture of Mongolia - and I number myself among such persons - Bodrov makes sure we understand both the similarities and the significant differences to our Western society in this corner of the globe, and in doing so wants us to understand that grasping some small part of it requires our patience and our time. It is we, not Temujin, who are fish out of water here: he knows not only the land but the ways of its people, animals, and gods, and is a man cut from the whole cloth of that world.

Once the film has caught us up to where we began, we return to the now-enslaved Temujin, housed in a cell perched between two tower bastions, with a plank and rope bridge strung across the chasm so that the curious may come and look at him. Below the large grated window into his cell hangs a sign mocking him as the man who dared to say he could destroy the Tangut Kingdom. One is immediately struck by the parallel to Christ on the Cross, complete with titulus.

Yet as it turns out, how Temujin ended up in this position is not entirely clear. For despite giving the viewer information and symbolism which would, in a better film, be neatly tied up, Bodrov fails to connect the dots in the story in many instances. In the particular instance of the imprisonment, unlike Christ's admission of his Divinity to Caiphas which led to his inevitable execution, Temujin never declares that he will bring down the Tangut; he is made an example of, but there is no statement, boast, or action on his part, as the picture unfolds, which would have warranted the governor of the capital to put him in this position. It is but one example of a script rich with Greek tragedy, Biblical parallels, and Eastern symbolism which falters on Bodrov's over-attention to appearances at the expense of plot.

In another scene the young Temujin, on the run from assassins, falls through the ice into a frozen lake, and the camera shows him disappearing into the murky depths. Yet with no visual or vocal explanation, in the next scene we see Temujin out on the ground, perfectly dry, where he is discovered and saved by Jamukha, another young Mongol boy. This sense of disjointedness or bad editing, which occurs at many points throughout the film, is only heightened by cuts from one scene to the next in which the camera fades and the next scene begins at a pace which is far too quick. Neither the eye nor the brain are allowed a moment to pause and absorb before the next sequence begins, but this quick transitioning is not accompanied by a comparable sense of speed in the movie.

It is perhaps understandable that this would be the case for "Mongol" is, in visual terms, as sweeping a film as the stunning, untouched scenery of Mongolia itself. Apart from the town in which Temujin is imprisoned, there are no urban settlements whatsoever: only the occasional cottage or yurt encampment. It brings to mind not only the great American Westerns of directors like John Ford, but also the examination of native culture at once at home in but simultaneously dominated by its landscape in "A Man Called Horse".

Like the latter film, "Mongol" has battle sequences and chase scenes a-plenty, enough to satisfy anyone with a lust for blood and rippling horseflesh. Men get impaled or maimed enough times that one is astounded there were enough people left to fight the final war between Temujin and his former blood brother Jamukha, which is the film's climax and what will cement Temujin's transformation into Genghis Khan. There is perhaps too much of a reliance on the effect of hitting an artery at full pump, with the expelling blood glittering away from the victim like a spray of rubies in sunshine, but then again no one ever accused the Mongols of being hemophobic.

Unfortunately, Bodrov in several instances seems to be copying and pasting certain shots and ideas almost directly out of Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. This is of course interesting for film fans, as it demonstrates what a powerful influence Jackson's work has had on an international audience of filmmakers trying to make epic films. Yet the mind seems to withdraw from the film at hand when these instances arise, and reflect back on the same scene in the "Rings" cycle. One sequence in particular is so reminiscent of one of King Theoden in the Golden Hall of Medusel that I laughed aloud when the camera zoomed in on the character of Temujin as he turns to the camera.

"Mongol" has many of the necessary ingredients that go into the best of epic filmmaking: a titanic historical figure, exotic cultures, royal intrigue, vast landscapes, a passionate love story, and lots of warriors shooting things. Getting that mixture right, however, requires more than just stirring all the ingredients together and letting them coagulate in a pot. If the filmmaker is not careful, the entire stew can come off as heavy and soporific, or the balance of flavors can be thrown off by some undercooked portion, and this is what has happened here. It is not a terrible dish, but it could have been much better with a bit more overall care.

Genghis Khan (Tadanobu Asano) gets poked

A Dominican Weekend (No Merengue Required)

2011-03-25T08:45:00.000-04:00

It is a big weekend for the Dominican friars here in the Nation's Capital, and it's not too late for you to get involved in their upcoming events this Saturday and Sunday!

The Priory of the Immaculate Conception is located at 487 Michigan Avenue NE here in Washington, D.C., only a couple of blocks from the Brookland-Catholic University Metro station on the Red Line. With the annual Cherry Blossom Festival kicking off this weekend, many tourists or residents with visitors will find themselves with much to do during the day, admiring the blossoms and participating in many cultural events, but may also find themselves wanting something more edifying to do with their evenings. A visit to the Priory is a welcome antidote to the crowds and hustle-and-bustle of tourist Washington. There is a wonderful sense of timelessness, as in the best European monasteries, where in its hallways, chapel, and cloister, the Priory imparts a sense of permanence and removal from the everyday world, while at the same time not feeling completely cut off from it.

On Saturday evening beginning at 6:30 pm the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies ("DHS") will be holding their Spring Gala, and it is not too late for you to attend: online registration is closed, but tickets can still be purchased at the door. The evening will include a reception with food and drink (including beer brewed by the Student Brothers at the Priory!) prepared and served by the Dominican Student Brothers; a silent auction of many - for lack of a better word - tempting items, including such lots as signed prints by my friend Matt Alderman of New Liturgical Movement and Shrine of the Holy Whapping fame, as well as pieces by local artists, and tickets to events at The Kennedy Center, The Folger, and The Shakespeare Company, among others. The evening will conclude with Compline in the beautiful main chapel of the Priory. I have been looking forward to this evening for many weeks now, and hope to see not only old friends but perhaps meet some of my readers in person.

On Sunday evening at 7:15pm my friend Brother Innocent Smith, who was recently interviewed by The Washington Examiner about the season of Lent, will be giving a talk at the DHS on Lenten Gregorian Chant, as part of the series "The Passion of Christ: Conferences for Lent 2011". More specifically Fra. Innocent, whom I have found to be quite the scholar of early music, will be examining three of the Dominican chants for Compline: "Evigila", "Media Vita" and "O Rex Gloriose". He writes:

The Dominican liturgy preserves many ancient chants that are sung during Lent and Passion-tide. These chants present beautiful articulations of Christian teachings on death, suffering, dependence on God's mercy, and Christ's protection of his people. This presentation will include the singing of several Latin chants, and will offer an exposition of their history, influence, and theological meaning.

If you cannot make this Sunday's talk, for your reference keep in mind that there will be Sunday evening talks in this series up to and including Palm Sunday. Upcoming talks by the friars will consider St. Luke's narrative of the Passion, a modern-day example of St. Dismas the "Good Thief" of Calvary, and the iconography of the Passion and Redemption in the work of the great 20th century fiction author Flannery O'Connor. The Dominicans are, of course, more properly known as the Order of Preachers, and because of their apostolate take great care in crafting their public presentations so as to prove not only well-thought out but also memorable.

I would also like the reader to consider the idea of visiting the Priory as a small, personal pilgrimage - and not just because the friars have quite a number of very interesting saintly relics in the cloister (which they do.) A pilgrimage does not, as some would think it, necessarily entail an enormous outlay of time and resources combined with personal discomfort in order to reach a distant point on the map. We forget that, for many centuries, people would flock to the nearby houses of the various religious orders at Lent and other times of the year for periods of prayer, reflection, and works of piety, during which their spiritual and temporal needs would be provided for.

A true pilgrimage begins with the desire to change the heart, rather than simply ticking off a "been there, done that" box on some sort of list of major Catholic shrines and Lent itself is meant to serve as a pilgrimage from death to life. We are approaching the mid-point of Lent, but there is still time for you to act on those Lenten resolutions which you wanted to take on with all sincerity back on March 9th. Spending some time with the Dominicans this weekend will be a tremendous boost for you to continue to persevere in those efforts, or to make a new start at sticking to them as you continue your Lenten pilgrimage.

Statue of St. Dominic outside of the
Priory of the Immaculate Conception, Washington D.C.

Barcelona's Bull Market

2011-03-24T10:00:00.000-04:00

Today, residents of Barcelona who have the good sense not to attend this play will have the opportunity to be among the first to visit a brand-new shopping center, built over ground soaked with the bodily fluids of countless dead animals (and a few humans.) The Las Arenas commercial center is a joint effort between the famous British architect Sir Richard Rogers and rising-star Catalan architect Lluis Alonso to convert the old Las Arenas ("The Sands") bullfighting ring into a mixed-use facility featuring retail and office space, a domed courtyard for special events, a multiplex cinema, sport and health facilities, and a museum dedicated to the history of local rock music. The project has taken years and faced a number of setbacks and infighting among the two architectural firms, as well as requiring a rather spectacular engineering feat of removing the surrounding roadway and supporting the old building on curved steel braces. According to today's press reports, the building has been leased to nearly full capacity: quite a feat given the economic woes from which the Iberian Peninsula as a whole presently suffers.

In the effort to preserve old structures and convert them to new uses, once they no longer serve their original purpose, architects, city planners, and engineers need to work together to solve the problems that can arise when one is unable to start from scratch. Just getting people to agree on what to do with a vacant or unsuitable old building can be a challenge. I wrote earlier this week about the possibility of converting the Federal Trade Commission headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue here in Washington into a third wing for the National Gallery of Art, a project spearheaded by Congressman John Mica (R-Fla.) Sometimes the result of such conversions is uneven or even unpleasant, as in the conversion of the chapel of the Dominican Priory in Maastricht into a bookstore, although at least the historic fabric does not disappear behind the wrecking ball and will probably be renovated again.

The effort to convert Las Arenas into newly useful space was an important one given the sheer size of the building and the prominence of its location, but took a great deal of time and effort to bring off. The original architect of the structure, Augusto Font y Carreras, had designed the arena in 1898 in a traditional Moorish style, the look preferred throughout Spain but which is somewhat foreign to Catalonia's architectural vocabulary. The end result, after it was completed in 1900, is a building which, though large, is neither very original nor very attractive. Perhaps appropriately, as it turned out, it was built adjacent to what is now the Plaça d'Espanya, but which at the time was the location for public hangings.

The Plaça d'Espanya is perhaps the one place in Barcelona where the visitor is overwhelmed by a host of generally uninteresting, but enormous buildings and public spaces which lack any sense of the visitor being specifically in Catalonia. Rather much of the area looks like a generic pastiche of Euro-Mediterranean architecture that could be found anywhere from California to Calabria. Around this massive square all seems very grand and stately from a distance, when the structures and landscaping are looked at as a grouping, but when examined more closely virtually everything is flawed or purely derivative. There are no works of genius other than Mies van der Rohe's tremendously significant but comparatively small Barcelona Pavilion of 1929, which is tucked away in a corner at the far end of the broad promenade leading from the square to the National Museum of Catalan Art.

Unlike Barcelona's "Monumental" bullring built in 1914, there is nothing about Las Arenas which speaks of Barcelona's flowering of Art Nouveau in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Even the Monumental, while displaying the preferred Moorish influence, has some of the weird mixture of swooping curves and industrial design characteristic of early 20th century Catalan architecture, a strangeness which gives anyone who strolls through Barcelona such a great deal of visual pleasure. The somewhat dark, dour-looking structure at Las Arenas has none of this; it would look more at home in the provinces of Andalucia or Extremadura, where bullfighting is far more popular an activity.

Bullfighting has of course, never been hugely popular in Catalonia, although the claims of both animal rights campaigners and nationalists that it was somehow forced upon the Catalans by the Spaniards is an assertion of dubious merit. One need only look across the border into the parts of southern France where bullfighting still takes place, and which either used to be part of Catalonia or were under a heavy Catalan influence, to realize that there is a cultural affinity for the activity that is Mediterranean, rather than specifically Castilian, in origin. In nearly every town of any importance around the rim of the Mare Nostrum, Roman ruins attest to the popularity in ancient times of feats of daring combined with blood-letting.

That being said, Las Arenas actually stopped hosting bullfights as long ago as 1977, and eventually went to ruin despite its hugely prominent location. Indeed, with the precipitous decline in the popularity of bullfighting over the past thirty years in Barcelona, and the passage by the Catalan Parliament of a law banning bullfighting by 2012, new uses will have to be found for all of the old bullrings throughout Catalonia. The Monumental, currently the sole remaining bullfighting venue in Barcelona itself, will be turned into a concert arena when it ceases operations. This is a natural development of course, for the building was specifically designed for temporary entertainment.

Whether the conversion of Las Arenas from an entertainment venue into a place to buy Calvin Klein underwear will be successful remains to be seen. It does strike me as somewhat odd that, with the general trend in architectural and urban planning away from building enclosed shopping centers that Barcelona would take this particular path toward the rehabilitation of the old arena. Frankly, it has little architectural significance or merit whatsoever, and really ought to have been torn down. As a city celebrated and studied throughout the world over the last 20-odd years for its architectural, engineering and planning innovations, turning a bullring into a shopping mall seems a rather too-safe, petit-bourgeois choice.

Building the dome over the old
Las Arenas bullfighting ring in Barcelona

Anti-Catholic Theatre in Catalonia: The Play's Not the Thing

2011-03-23T10:56:00.002-04:00

A new play is premiering tomorrow night at the National Theatre of Catalonia, in my beloved city of Barcelona, entitled "Gang Bang - Open Until the Hour of the Angelus". As if the title was not enough of an obvious clue, based on [WARNING: graphic material] the press reports I have seen, the plot is a predictably amateurish and puerile mixture of anti-Catholicism and human degradation, fed through a meat grinder. The director-playwright and the actors claim that it is not an attack on the Church, but rather exploring loneliness and spirituality through unconventional expression. They also joke that there is smoking in the play, which is what the audience should find truly controversial given Spain's new smoking ban.

Because the production is being funded in part by taxpayer money, it was inevitable that complaints would ensue. The National Theatre of Catalonia is a prominent theatre indeed in both influence and actual size; this is not some off-off-Broadway venue. There are already calls by Christian groups for an investigation, and promises of lodging official complaints and the taking of other measures against the government in Catalonia. As often happens of course, the controversy has led to record advance ticket sales.

Much as this sort of thing disturbs us to some degree, it is also an occasion to reflect on what it means to be a gentleman (or lady) in the present age, not only in framing our response but more importantly in examining ourselves. Regular readers know that Castiglione, the inspiration for this blog, has much to say on how a courtier ought to develop himself. What does he have to say about those who shock for the sake of provocation and notoriety?

In his seminal "The Book of the Courtier" (of which title the title of this blog is a pun), Castiglione explains why it is that those of marginal abilities who are seeking wealth, power, fame, or all three, often resort to shock value to make a name for themselves. During a part of the discussion in the book as to how to behave in public, the character of Archbishop Federico Fregoso describes how people who want to become popular are often so lacking in personal humility as to make fools of themselves. "People like this very often embark on certain things without knowing how to finish," he says, "and they then try to extricate themselves by raising a laugh. But they do this so awkwardly that it does not succeed, and instead their efforts fall flat and they inspire the greatest distaste in whoever sees or hears them."

Fregoso goes on to criticize the equally common tendency of the under-talented to try to shock others for the sake of shocking. "On other occasions, convinced they are being terribly witty and amusing, they use filthy and indecent language in the presence of ladies, and often to their face," he states. "And the more they make the ladies blush, the more they are convinced that they are being good courtiers; they never stop laughing and they pride themselves on the fine talents they believe they possess."

"But the only reason they behave in such a beastly fashion," continues Fregoso, "is because they think it makes them the life and soul of the party. This is what they think truly laudable and what they pride themselves on most. And so to acquire this reputation they indulge in the most shameful and shocking discourtesies in the world."

One feels that Castiglione could just as easily apply such descriptions to Josep Maria Miró Coromina, the writer and director of "Gang Bang". Mr. Miró hails, appropriately enough, from the provincial sausage-making capital of Vic, where he was born in 1977. Through Catalonia's generous education system he has managed to earn a doctorate in literature and work his way up to the prominent position of becoming a writer in residence at the National Theatre. He has feigned surprise in press interviews at the controversy surrounding his piece, telling people that if they are worried they will be offended they ought not to come and see the play, and that such complaints are completely foreign to his experience due to his age - an oblique reference to his having been born after the death of Spain's long-reigning dictator General Francisco Franco, under whose fist censorship held sway.

Of course, Mr. Miró's is a very old canard indeed: so old its feathers and the bits of beak and sinew have been fed into his sausage-making machine. It is typically waved about by shock-makers as a justification for their actions, since no one likes the idea of censoring the free exchange of ideas. In this case, it is their way of seemingly offering what most people want, i.e. a sense of choice. I do not have to eat the nasty broccoli on my plate, and can instead turn my attention to the mashed potatoes and the sausage.

However the point of course is not that one is free not to see the play, any more than one wants to see how to go about getting the bits with which to make sausages. Rather, the issue here is that public money is being used. Since I do not pay taxes in Catalonia, my money is not supporting Mr. Miró's sausage festival; I can question his artistic integrity from a financially neutral position. Those who do have to pay for it however, have every right to question why they are being forced to do so: that is no choice at all.

This type of controversy is nothing new, of course, for such controversies over funding happen in this country and in Europe on an almost weekly basis. We have seen such things in New York, in Vienna, and here in the Nation's Capital in recent months, and fortunately there will always be good Catholics in a position to stand up and complain. Sometimes they will succeed in getting the work removed from the taxpayer's bill, and sometimes not. At first glance, this play is just another example of more of the same.

However, in considering the context of this particular bit of offal, I believe the fact that Mr. Miró set his play on the eve of Pope Benedict XVI's Papal Visit to Barcelona this past November is a more significant one than he lets on. The popular reception which the Pope received when he came to dedicate the Sagrada Familia, Barcelona's most iconic building let alone church, and raise it to the level of a basilica, took many of the commentariat in Catalonia by surprise. The fact that Barcelona, cradle of anarchists for the past century or more, and home to the most leftist of leftist intellectuals in the Iberian Peninsula would be inundated with people overjoyed to see the Pontiff, was no doubt itself a shock to those who thought that the Church was just about finished in Catalonia.

And what is likely even more worrisome to such people were the enormous numbers of young people, with no memory of either General Franco, the Civil War, or a time when they were forbidden to speak Catalan, excited to even catch a glimpse of this elderly German priest and to participate in the mass. Indeed, this past November was a likely preview of what is about to happen when the Pope arrives in Madrid this August for World Youth Day. If the Church as it exists in Catalonia today is no longer any real threat to Mr. Miró or those of his ilk, they would not bother to try to denigrate it. The fact that the flame may be burning low, but has demonstrably not gone out, means that the Church is not as weak as believed.

Ultimately, Mr. Miró's efforts will fail of course. It is doubtful that any devout Catholics will go to see his play. He may succeed in further hardening the hearts of those who loathe the Church as he obviously does, and he may even convince a few unfortunate theatre-goers to go over the edge and join him. Yet one reason why Castiglione makes the point he does about those who seek to put on an uncouth show, is that no matter how much fame, attention, or popularity such individuals may gain, they know in their heart of hearts - even if they do not choose to admit it - that the more they wallow in filth, the more they disappoint those whose approval they desperately want. And in the case of Mr. Miró and others like him who attack the Church, that person is Christ.

National Theatre of Catalonia, Barcelona

A Still Uncertain Fate for DC's Manly Art Deco Landmark

2011-03-22T09:52:00.000-04:00

Regular readers of these pages know not only of my deep appreciation for the muscular Art Deco of the Federal Trade Commission building here in Washington, but also of my enthusiasm for the idea of the National Gallery of Art expanding to take over the building. The National Gallery is currently housed in two structures on The National Mall, across the street from the FTC headquarters: the original or West Building by John Russell Pope, completed in 1941, and the East Building by I.M. Pei, completed in 1978. Congressman John Mica (R-Fla.) has been pushing for a number of years now for not only the expansion of the National Gallery into this space, but also for the relocation of the FTC to a larger, more modern space suited to the contemporary needs of the agency, which among its duties investigates deceptive and fraudulent commercial practices, reviews corporate mergers, and encourages competition. The present FTC headquarters, a 1930's interpretation of Greek and Roman elements, is a great structure, a kind of masculine, industrialized and pared-down classicism that one can imagine a present-day King Leonidas of Sparta using as a palace.

Last week at a House of Representatives Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management, Congressman Mica stated that the transfer of the building to the National Gallery and the finding of a new home for the FTC is of supreme importance to him. He noted that "I have no other priority for the balance of my tenure in Congress." As the Chairman of the overall Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which is not only the largest committee in Congress but that which this subcommittee falls under, Mica's is quite a statement.

As a man who for many years has shown a determination to bring about the reform and fiscally sensible expansion of America's presently poor system of passenger rail, known as Amtrak, as well as improvements to commuter transit and renovation of the existing infrastructure, Mica is not someone who shies away from the spade and backhoe. On the arts front, he serves as a Trustee of The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and sponsors an art competition among his younger constituents for display at the Capitol every year. Mica is someone who clearly sees the Nation's Capital as a place where many of the ideas and ideals of urban planning can bear fruit, and serve as models for the rest of the country.

So what's the problem here? In the now-Republican-controlled House, certainly Mica can get this transfer done, and has introduced and re-introduced legislation mandating that the building be transferred to the National Gallery. Yet the FTC itself has always resisted, as indeed have some local Democrats, including D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton. As I am not particularly interested in her opinions on any subject whatsoever, I suggest that you ignore her (I always do.)

The FTC does not want to leave its current building, where it has been housed since 1938, for what seems a rather curious, emotional reason for an agency which deals with economic matters. In 1937 when FDR laid the cornerstone for the FTC headquarters, he gave an address in which he stated, "May this permanent home of the Federal Trade Commission stand for all time as a symbol of the purpose of the government to insist on a greater application of the golden rule to the conduct of corporations and business enterprises in their relationship to the body politic." This is the primary justification for the FTC not leaving the building, even though as it happens the FTC already has several satellite offices elsewhere around the city.

This situation seemingly puts the FTC in a bit of a quandary, but their position should also give us something of a clue as to their probable motivations. When someone tells you that they are unwilling to move but they need more space, that is an indication to those who can read between the lines that plans for an addition may be in the works. However in this case, it seems impossible to fathom exactly where the FTC would be able to construct such an addition.

The block on which the FTC building sits has no room for expansion, and the surrounding blocks are already filled. To the immediate west of the FTC is the National Archives, where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, among other treasures, are housed; there can be no legitimate suggestion that they will be moving anywhere. To the south stands the iconic West Building of the National Gallery of Art. To the north is a very broad stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue, with both a large, modern office block and an historic Victorian bank building on the opposite side, all fully occupied. To the east is a very small triangle-shaped park with a fountain, but one so impractical as a building site that it would barely hold a Cape Cod, let alone an expanded office block.

Given these physical limitations, the FTC cannot mean to suggest that it intends to build at its site. Rather, what I suspect it wants is to build a large hive of sorts for its worker bees, somewhere else in the city, while keeping its executive-level staff at the more prestigious Pennsylvania Avenue headquarters, which are not only a grander space but closer to the action on Capitol Hill, The White House, etc. Human beings are easily prone to becoming snobbish creatures, even in a republic. If you have worked your way up in your organization to a position of some influence, one of the perks of success is to have a nice office in a nice part of town.

Using FDR's words as a justification however, rings hollow on closer inspection. The FTC was created in 1914 by Woodrow Wilson; not by Franklin Roosevelt. It was originally housed in a building on D Street beginning around 1915, which served as its headquarters until the building was destroyed by a fire in 1930. Afterward the FTC had to shuffle around a bit, until the construction of the present building. By 1938, the agency came into residence at a large, solid building in the center of town, which meant that it could settle in and do what bureaucracies always do: expand in size and scope.

Yet what did Franklin Roosevelt mean by saying that this building was to be the "permanent" home of the agency? Did he mean that literally? Or was it - as I suspect it was - a tacit acknowledgement of the fact that the FTC had, for lack of a better term, been living out of a suitcase ever since the 1930 fire destroyed its original home? These are questions that need to be asked, both regarding the future of this magnificent building as well as how the agency itself sees its own mission. Can it not serve its duty to the American people by consolidating its efforts elsewhere in the city?

One also wonders what FDR would have thought about the expansion of the FTC and the National Gallery in one fell swoop. Given his joy in creating more and more federal government organizations whenever possible, and his love of construction projects, I think FDR would actually chide the FTC for failing to take advantage of the opportunity to not only grow but also to either build or renovate a huge new building as part of that growth. At the same time, FDR - who was President when the National Gallery was first created and then built - would no doubt appreciate the expansion of that institution, as well as the thriftiness of repurposing an old building to new use.

Whatever the real motivation for the agency's intransigence, the future of the FTC's present headquarters is likely going to remain a question mark for some time. For the present most tourists and visitors to the Mall and Federal Triangle can only appreciate it from the outside. My personal preference would be to tear down the National Gallery's leaky, wastefully designed I.M. Pei building and try something else. As this is unlikely to happen, it stands to reason that of the buildings in its immediate vicinity, the FTC's is the only existing structure which can serve the needs of the National Gallery for the next several decades.

"Man Controlling Trade" by Michael Lantz,
Federal Trade Commission, Washington DC

Review: Coco avant Chanel

2011-03-21T09:50:00.000-04:00

Rarely have I seen a movie more apologetically but accessibly deferential to the intelligence of its viewers than director Anne Fontaine's beautifully thought-out 2009 film "Coco avant Chanel" ("Coco Before Chanel") starring Audrey Tautou. Based on the early life of Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel (1883-1971), the film chronicles Chanel's rise from obscurity to become one of the most innovative and celebrated fashion designers of the 20th century. If it were simply a bio-pic there would be plenty to chew over, for Chanel was a complex and unconventional woman whose past she intentionally kept somewhat obscured during her own lifetime. Yet this stunning production also assumes that the viewer will be able to pick up on the influences which shaped Chanel's work, taking the piece outside of what might otherwise seem a made-for-tv costume drama and creating something extraordinary.

The film begins with the young Gabrielle Chanel arriving at a provincial Catholic orphanage with her sister, where the two are being left by the father, who is either unwilling or unable to take care of them; the film never makes this clear, and Chanel herself does not help. In fact, from this point on the viewer should be aware that during her lifetime, Chanel changed her biography numerous times, depending on whom she was speaking to and what she wanted them to believe. Throughout the film, as she moves from working in a dressmaker's shop and singing in a bar (where she obtains the nickname "Coco") to auditioning for the dance hall and becoming a live-in mistress, we see Chanel lie about some aspect of her upbringing, background, connections, experiences, and so on.

In doing so Chanel is creating the persona she feels is necessary in order for her to scramble up out of the gutter. To her surprise, she comes to understand that it will be in fashion, rather than in the bedroom or on the stage, where she will make her name. But make no mistake: Coco wants the good life and is going for it, conventions be damned. When she and her sister are observing from a distance some of the wealthy assembled together, her sister comments how bored they all look. Chanel replies, presciently, "Soon they will be willing to kill just to dine with us."

It is perhaps difficult for us today, when an item such as a Chanel tweed suit (or a knock-off of one) is considered de rigeur among successful women, to realize what a shock Chanel's style was to the women of her time. The film takes pains to point out to us how exceedingly uncomfortable it was to be considered well-dressed at the turn of the previous century, wearing yards and yards of fabrics, heavy make-up and jewelry, with giant hats pinned into long ropes of hair. At one point Chanel meets her sister at the races; the latter is wearing a long, fitted white lace gown, and explains that it is the latest fashion from Paris. Chanel snorts at its impracticality and remarks, "I'm sure that train picks up a lot of mud."

In another, beautifully shot scene, Chanel walks down the boardwalk at Deauville toward the sea, wearing a simple plaid dress and straw hat of her own design. Despite the sun and the heat the women on either side of her are cinched into enormous, heavy dresses that cover every part of their bodies, which of course are dripping in jewels. On top of their heads are hats piled with accordion folds of material that then tie beneath their chins. The modern movie-goer, watching these women try to keep from moving about too much, can only imagine how stiflingly hot and uncomfortable it was.

As she walks past them with the love of her life Arthur "Boy" Capel, Chanel makes catty, but well-observed comments about these supposedly fashionable women. About one, wearing a huge necklace which spreads like a peacock's tail across her chest, Chanel says, "She's wearing the family silver." About a group of others in enormous, uncomfortable hats she sneers, "Looks like a bunch of meringues." When Capel offers to take her dancing that evening, she explains that she does not have any evening clothes. He counters that she should make a simple evening dress, like the one that she has on.

This is the impetus for Coco to create the famous "little black dress", Chanel's lifelong mantra which has become a staple of women's attire down to the present day: a simple, comfortable, but elegant black cocktail dress that every woman should have in their closet and which can be worn to any dressy occasion. Chanel and the tailor whom she visits that afternoon have quite a discussion about how the dress is to be constructed; Chanel knows what she wants, but needs encouragement from Boy to keep the dress from looking too conventional. When Chanel and Capel waltz around the hotel ballroom later than evening, she stands out in a sea of more enormous white dresses, feathers, and frippery with her simple dress and hairstyle. It is a look which, despite the passage of nearly 100 years, would be completely at home at an evening event today.

It is in these moments of observation, and there are many, in which the filmmakers excel, by giving us a taste of materials, experiences, and the like which came to have an influence on Chanel as an artist. I use the term "artist" intentionally for, as a friend pointed out last night in discussion of the film, one cannot separate Chanel's radical departure from the fashion of her own day without considering what was going on artistically at the same time. Picasso, Stravinsky, and Gropius were doing in painting, music, and architecture what Chanel was doing in fashion: learning the conventional and then rejecting it to create something new.

The filmmakers take full advantage of the environment that surrounds Chanel to not only provide hints and suggestions of what she will do later in life, but also to create beautiful works of art themselves. Many of the scenes have an autumnal palette to them, like the leaves falling at the House of Elrond, for the Gilded Age does not know that war is on the horizon and that the world they know is coming to an end. Indeed, the often-found-riding Chanel is, from their perspective, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, if they would but recognize it.

When Gabrielle Chanel makes the final transition to become Coco Chanel, the lighting changes: the golden glow disappears and black and white come to dominate the camera's eye. There is one scene in which she is shown, working alone at night at her sewing machine not long after Boy's death in an automobile accident, where the only source of light is a sort of gooseneck lamp. Virtually everything in the scene is jet black but for the bright scarlet fabric she is working on, and Chanel stops her work to reflect on and mourn her lost love. It is a short sequence but a brilliant composition, with its vivid slash of red cutting through the darkness reminding us of the work of Eduard Manet or Edward Hopper.

Audrey Tautou is, as ever, an actress who is not only capable of wonderful subtlety in her expressions, but also develops her character through such things as movement, posture, and manner of speaking. Because my French is practically non-existent, in fact I did not pick up on a further subtlety in the performance which was pointed out by a colleague. During the course of the film, just as she visually becomes more and more polished, as she moves up the ladder Chanel's French also becomes more and more polished. By the final montage when Gabrielle, in the fully-realized persona of Coco Chanel, is seated at the top of her famous staircase watching the models parade past her, the transformation is complete: Tautou is like a Horst photograph of Chanel come to life.

It is interesting to consider the fact that, from a practical perspective, Chanel has had a far greater influence on people's day-to-day lives than any of the aforementioned artistic giants of the early 20th century. Yet her contributions may not be recognized by the general public for the enormous significance they carry in this regard, in part because she made clothes, and in part because she was a woman. If you are at all aware of the rag trade, or at least have a curiosity about anthropology and sociological development in the 20th century, you will find much to muse over in this film. Even if you do not fit into these categories however, you will enjoy the stunning cinematography of this film in its re-creation of a now-departed age, as seen through the eyes of one of the figures responsible for ushering it out.

Alessandro Nivola and Audrey Tautou in "Coco avant Chanel"

Dublin's Secret Castle

2011-03-17T08:47:00.000-04:00

One of the joys of developing an appreciation of architecture is that it allows us to combine a number of disciplines together; not just the actual engineering and methods involved but also, in many cases, history, archaeology, etc. Such is the case with a structure which I wanted to highlight for you this St. Patrick's Day, gentle reader, namely Ashtown Castle in Dublin. While dating from long after the time of the great apostle to the Irish people, this building is an intriguing and charming example of what can be found hiding in plain sight.

Ashtown Castle has an uncertain history, but it was certainly built sometime well before the year 1600; there is some evidence to indicate that it may originally have been built around 1430. Never a particularly important residence, it passed through many hands and underwent various renovations until 1774, when it was literally subsumed into the fabric of a new, Georgian building called Ashtown Lodge. In other words, the old structure was not torn down, but rather a new building was built around it. Ashtown Castle effectively vanished, to lay forgotten for over two hundred years.

The Neoclassical Ashtown Lodge was used as the official residence of the British Under Secretary for Ireland for many years, until it was leased to the Vatican in the 1920's to serve as the residence of the Papal Nuncio. In 1978 structural engineers determined that the Lodge was suffering from an irreparable case of dry rot. This is a condition in which the timbers that support a building become infested with one or more varieties of fungus, which then eat the wood and thereby damage the structure. By the time the dry rot was identified in the Lodge, it was too late to save the building, and it had to be condemned; the Papal Nuncio moved elsewhere.

During demolition of the Lodge however, the medieval building that had been swallowed up within the 18th century structure came to light. It was structurally sound due to its solid stone walls and foundations, as well as the fact that it had been protected from the elements for over two centuries. Renamed Ashtown Castle, it was eventually restored, and now serves as a museum and exhibition space for the visitor's center of Phoenix Park, Dublin's largest public park. The outline of the old Georgian building that surrounded and protected it is represented in the form of a hedge laid out in its landscaped grounds.

Architecturally speaking, Ashtown Castle is what I would call an unremarkable building but a remarkable survival. It is not a large or particularly grand structure, as far as fortified homes from the Middle Ages go. However, the fact that there are few of these types of buildings left in large Irish cities makes it all the more historically significant, in that Ashtown Castle provides visitors with both a tactile experience and a visual understanding of what medieval Dublin must have looked like.

In this case of course the term "castle" is not an exact term for the original purpose of the building, though its romantic connotations lend it a greater popular appeal. Like in other ancient cities such as Barcelona, Florence and San Gimignano, the well-to-do in Dublin often built themselves fortified houses that could protect their inhabitants in times of distress. Throughout Europe during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, financial incentives were often provided by local rulers to those of the local gentry who were willing to take on the expense of building these structures. In the examples of the aforementioned towns, local history, geography, and custom led to a variety of methods for added security.

Thus in Barcelona, the medieval "palau" or "palace" - really more of a large townhouse - usually had a severe, nearly windowless facade facing the street, which led to a protected interior courtyard open to the elements and surrounded by an arched colonnade, as a modification of a standard Roman villa design. In Florence the "palazzo" - also meaning "palace", but in this case often truly palatial - was built along similar lines but with more fenestration facing the street, with the ground floor level usually having very small windows and the facade being built of thick, rusticated stone block. In the Tuscan hill town of San Gimignano, the populace constructed their famous tower-houses, much like the Barcelona examples but distinguished by unique, gigantic watchtowers to which the residents could retreat during a siege or civil unrest.

Dublin's so-called Ashtown Castle is actually a tower-house and, in Dublin like in San Gimignano in its heyday (but without the outscale height of the latter), these distinctive structures were ubiquitous in the city for many centuries. As one French visitor noted in the 16th century, the well-to-do in Dublin usually lived in such towers, which "consist of four walls extremely high." Today of course, Dublin is not recognizable as a medieval city, thanks to the efforts of the Wide Streets Commission which, beginning in 1757 and anticipating the work of Baron Haussman in Paris a century later, tore down much of the old city and laid broad avenues leading to large Georgian squares, which characterize much of present-day Dublin.

It is ironic that the demolition derby known as the Wide Streets Commission, the political desire of the British Crown to suppress Ireland's Catholic heritage and supplant it with a Protestant present, and the 18th century fashion for neoclassical architecture as a rejection of what were perceived as the dark days before the Enlightenment, all worked together to preserve rather than destroy this unusual survival. Moreover, given the fashion for Neo-Gothic which arose a little less than a century after Ashtown Castle disappeared into the walls of Ashtown Lodge, it is interesting to speculate what might have happened had the Victorians managed to get their hands on it. Perhaps it would have been "Gothicked" to death, creating more of a pastiche than preserving the medieval core of the house.

In any case, we are fortunate that Ashtown Castle stands today as a wonderful example of Dublin's architectural history.

Entrance facade of Ashtown Castle
Phoenix Park, Dublin

Tangled Questions in British Art

2011-03-16T11:15:00.001-04:00

Yesterday a good friend and fellow blogger sent me an article from The Daily Mail, which details an interesting but unscientific experiment conducted recently at Tate Britain in London. Four works by deceased, well-regarded artists of the preceding centuries were contrasted with the works of four British contemporary artists, based on observations of how long people stopped to look at each of the works of art, and providing anecdotal evidence of the comments of visitors about the pieces they looked at. The results, so far as they go, are interesting but not surprising: people generally like to look at attractive images. Unfortunately, the article is fatally flawed in that it demonstrates a poor grasp of art history, its methodology is suspect, and it fails to ask the right questions.

To begin with, the article refers to the deceased artists in this experiment as "the great masters". However, this is not really a precise or useful term, and somewhat slapdash-shorthand. One can be a "great master" of just about anything - a great master cabinetmaker, for example, or a great master chef. If we are going to use a term for purposes of comparison, then we need to be a bit more careful about what we mean.

The term "Old Masters", for example, which may be what the article intended to reference, can be generally defined as European painters working between the dawn of the Renaissance and the end of the 18th century, though the endpoint is somewhat imprecise. Of the now-dead artists whose works were selected for this experiment - William Hogarth, John Millais, John Singer Sargent, and James McNeil Whistler - only the 18th century satirical illustrator Hogarth may technically fall into the time frame for Old Master painters, though personally I would hesitate to include him as a member of that body of artists. The English painter Millais was a member of the mid-19th century Pre-Raphaelite movement, and therefore not an Old Master. Sargent and Whistler, two American painters working from the mid-19th into the early 20th century, are definitely not Old Master painters either.

Another flaw in the experiment is that not only are the "great master" works selected for the purpose of comparison all paintings, but as evidenced above they are all in completely different styles. Of the four works by contemporary British artists selected - Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst (two works), and Rachel Whiteread - only one is a painting. The remaining three are, respectively, a photograph, an installation piece, and a sculpture, leaving us with something of an apples and oranges situation. Had the article compared Whiteread's sculpture to one by, say, Flaxman, then we might be getting somewhere, although even this would be a problematic comparison for various reasons.

We must also consider the issue of how both art criticism and general popularity can change over time. The article describes how popular Millais' famous "Ophelia" from the Royal Academy exhibition of 1852 was with the visitors observed for the experiment, and recounts the positive comments of the painter's lush treatment of the landscape and the costume of the figure. Yet this painting, beloved as it is today, was ridiculed by many when it was first exhibited.

John Ruskin, possibly the most influential art historian-critic of the 19th century, castigated Millais for having painted a "rascally wirefenced garden-rolled-nursery-maid's paradise" in this picture. The contemporary Atheneum magazine, in its critique of the painting, thought the figure of Ophelia herself was terrible:

The open mouth is somewhat gaping and gabyish,--the expression is in no way suggestive of her past tale. There is no pathos, no melancholy, no brightening up, no last lucid interval. If she dies swan-like with a song, there is no sound or melody, no poetry in this strain.

The point is not to suggest that future generations will view the work of Emin, Hirst, and others in a rosier light; in fact one hopes that this will not be the case but that sense will finally prevail. Rather, it is further evidence, if it was needed, that this article is not only poorly-informed but fails to ask the right questions. As amusing as it is, the experiment is of little practical use in the consideration of contemporary British art.

The amount of time one spends in looking at a work of art in a museum can certainly be an indicator of its attractiveness, but it is not necessarily an indicator of whether or not that work of art is any good. Beauty is an important consideration when considering the worth of a work of art, but not when placed in a vacuum. What turns many people off to contemporary art is its profound ugliness; there is an embrace of the unpleasant image in a way which could not, at first glance, seem to be more distant from the slick and sensuous portraits of Sargent, for example.

Yet attractiveness can just easily become a fetish, as Roger Kimball points out, if it is disconnected from life. There are plenty of paintings that are admittedly unpleasant to look at - Goya's "Black Paintings" for example, or the horrifically hellish torture scenes of Hieronymous Bosch, or the crucifixions of Matthias Grünewald, and so on - but which nevertheless are very great works of art. The decoupling of long-held Western ideals of civilization from practical, technical achievement in the plastic arts is what has led, in large part, to the mess that we see in contemporary art today.

While arguably well-intentioned, this experiment at Tate Britain fails because it does not actually tell us anything that we do not already know. It also engages in what has always been, in art history terms, a problematic exercise, i.e. using popularity as the best gauge of whether or not something is a work of art, instead of questioning whether the art is good, and if not why not. Indeed, the article might have been more cogent if it questioned how contemporary Britain sees itself, as reflected in the art it puts on display in a museum dedicated specially to British art. These are the types of questions that need answering, and remain unanswered in this piece.

If we are to go down the road of popularity being tantamount to artistic achievement, then the National Gallery will be filled with Norman Rockwells, still life bowls of fruit, and dogs playing poker. That would be a very bad result indeed. There is certainly an enormous problem in the fact that our culture has gone down another, rather tritely passé-Marxist and nihilistic road, which is reflected in the art it places on its plinths. But while popular opinion can be instructive in common-sense terms, if it is considered as dispositive in and of itself of the relative worth of a work of art outside of any deeper contextual analysis it is, in its way, just as superficial a consideration as the art at issue.

Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais (1852)
Tate Britain, London

Catholic Media Promotion Day

2011-03-15T09:04:00.000-04:00

The redoubtable Father Roderick Vonhögen of the Star Quest Production Network ("SQPN") has asked those of us who scribble, podcast, and use smartphone apps or social media to participate in today's first Catholic Media Promotion Day. The laudable idea is to draw attention to some of the great resources available to users who may not be aware of the wealth of resources available to Catholics and non-Catholics interested in learning more about the Church, whether news and commentary, history and culture, or just the daily life perspectives of those who contribute to new media outlets from a Catholic perspective. Father Roderick asks that we list three of our favorites in several categories, as well as describing our own individual work, and I am happy to oblige in the hope that you, gentle reader, may find some of these resources both interesting and useful.

My Projects

Of course if you are reading this blog, you are aware of this particular project, but I will sum up both this and my other site in case you are new to these pages:

- The Blog of the Courtier
This is my daily blog where I post Monday to Friday on various topics, often related to the arts and culture; naturally, as a practicing Catholic my views and opinions are often informed by my Catholic faith. Based on the ideas and ideals of the great Renaissance man of letters Baldassare Castiglione as contained in his seminal work "The Book of the Courtier", my hope is that I am contributing to a frank but informed discussion about our civilization, both in looking at its past and in considering where it is going. This summer will mark the third anniversary of the blog's first appearance, and I have met many wonderful people through it.

- Catholic Barcelona
This is an ongoing project which I began in 2009. For years it frustrated me that when I would visit Barcelona, which I do on average about once a year, the English-language information available to me about the city's many churches, chapels, and religious communities was often sparse at best. I have therefore taken on the ongoing task of cataloging, as I am able to find information and photographs, all of the more interesting Catholic sites in the city, with entries - now totaling nearly 80 and still growing - that are updated whenever new information becomes available. The hope is that it will serve as a resource for those who live in or visit the city of Barcelona and wish to learn more about its nearly 2,000 years of Catholic history.

Catholic Bloggers

- American Papist
The two individuals who most strongly encouraged me to begin blogging nearly three years ago were Dawn Eden of The Dawn Patrol and Thomas Peters of American Papist. Times have changed a bit since then. Miss Eden is now focused on her graduate studies and finds time to blog very infrequently, whereas Mr. Peters' blog now forms part of a larger group of blogging and new media producers called Catholic Vote.org. Mr. Peters continues to break news stories and discuss topics which are often obscured or ignored in traditional media outlets, and is not afraid of speaking his mind even when it may make some uncomfortable by confronting them with the truth, which makes his work all the more timely and important.

- Fallible Blogma
To date I have not had the pleasure of meeting Matthew Warner, proprietor of Fallible Blogma, in person, which situation hopefully will be remedied before too long. In the meantime, I know that if there is news coming out of either the Church or the secular world which is important to young Catholics, Mr. Warner's site is one of the resources to which I can turn for links, information, and thoughtful commentary. One of the benefits of keeping up with Mr. Warner - and as a young husband and father one wonders how he finds the time to do it all - are his tweets, which often alert the wary to important developments in the Church or Pro-Life issues.

- Ten Thousand Places
It is no exaggeration to refer to Margaret Perry as a prolific blogger whose work you should become familiar with. In addition to Ten Thousand Places, where she writes about diverse topics ranging from her daily life to style and design, to cooking and literature, and of course her Catholic faith, Miss Perry is also the authoress of the children's book site Little Lamb Books, as well as one of the triumvirate of contributors to The Magdalene Sisters, a blog by three young Catholic women exploring what it means to be a laywoman in the Church. She has always been very gracious in her support of my efforts.

Catholic Podcasts

- Catholic In A Small Town
Mac and Katherine Barron are the hosts of the very popular Catholic In A Small Town, a podcast that is one of the many resources available through SQPN and an absolute must-listen if you are considering an exploration of the world of Catholic podcasting. Over the course of the past several years, they have charted their lives as Catholic converts and parents to three growing boys, living in a small, predominantly Protestant town in Georgia. Media-savvy and often hilariously funny, their good humor is completely infectious, yet they also take the time to deal with serious topics affecting young Catholics and Catholic families.

- The Journey Home
For nearly fourteen years now Marcus Grodi, head of The Coming Home Network International, has hosted a one-hour show on EWTN known as The Journey Home, in which he interviews converts and reverts to the Catholic Faith about their lives and how they came to cross the Tiber. Even if you have never strayed from the Church, have never been a Catholic/have no active intent of ever becoming one, Mr. Grodi's podcast of the television show is always full of compelling conversation and discussion in which we can learn a great deal. Whether discussing the differences in theological views of the various branches of Christianity or other world religions, the philosophy of those who shifted from an atheist or agnostic perspective to that of the Catholic Church, or examining the influences that family and environment can have on our spiritual upbringing, Mr. Grodi's show at its best is like the Charlie Rose program with a soul.

- Just A Catholic Dad
Comparatively new to the Catholic New Media scene, having recorded his first podcast just under a year ago, Sean McCarney of Just A Catholic Dad is building a following of listeners around the world as a result of his entertaining and informative podcast - and not just because he sounds slightly like the Geico Gecko. For Americans in particular, Mr. McCarney's experiences and viewpoints as a Catholic in England provides us with great food for thought in our own language, when we think about the English-speaking Catholic community and the opportunities and challenges it is facing in the Mother Country and around the world. In addition, his tales of adventures with his four-year old daughter and as an air traffic controller are often uproariously funny, for in his podcast menu Mr. McCarney always makes sure to balance his cheese course with his main course.

Other Catholic Media Resources

- Daily Mass Readings
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has a dedicated portion of their site where visitors can read the day's mass readings, using the approved translation from the New American Bible which appears in the Lectionary. Whether you are a lector preparing for mass or a parishioner who wants to reflect on the readings before arriving at church, this is a wonderful resource that should be used frequently by everyone, even if you are too busy to get to daily mass. It also links to the full text of the NAB for further scriptural study.

- Twitter
Because the nation's capital is full of twittering folk, it is often a surprise to me to learn that many of my acquaintance are not yet using Twitter for news and information. I will admit that at first, I too wondered what the fuss was about. Yet for anyone who has been online following the news in recent weeks and months coming out of Egypt, Libya, and Japan, you cannot but be aware that the instantaneous reporting available via Twitter has outpaced traditional news broadcasts, print journalism, and even blogging. There are many Catholic tweets and twitterers on the site of course, but three whom I follow are:

@TheAnchoress
Elizabeth Scalia, editor at Patheos.com and weekly contributor to First Things

@StevenErtelt
Steven Ertelt, founder of LifeSite News

@thomaspringle
Thomas Pringle, blogger and Catholic news commentator

- Universalis
If you are a layman and have ever tried to pray The Divine Office - also known as The Liturgy of the Hours - without assistance, you know that there is often a great deal of flipping back and forth that has to go on when attempting to use the printed book format. Univeralis solves that problem by allowing you to navigate to their website whenever you wish, and find the right prayers and readings for that particular hour of the day. Their content can also be downloaded and yes, for those of you who have drunk the Apple Kool-Aid, they also offer an iPhone/iPad app.

The Archangel Gabriel by Jan van Eyck (c. 1432)
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid

Review: Séraphine

2011-03-14T09:33:00.002-04:00

The great pleasure and responsibility of having received an education, at least when it is properly instilled, is the realization that there is so much to learn, and so much personal ignorance to attempt to overcome. Even if one is knowledgeable about history, literature, and the arts, the more one learns the more there is to learn. Cultural education should not end when you receive a slip of paper saying you have fulfilled a certain number of arbitrary, quantifiable measures. The educated man, if he is fulfilling his duty, is always coming across interesting information that was previously unknown to him, even if already well-known to others. Thus the work of Giovanni Segantini, which was new to me, became something I wanted to share with the readers of these pages.

So it is that another strange artist has come onto my radar screen, this time the French painter known as Séraphine de Senlis, born Séraphine Louis (1864-1942), whose biography was made into a 2009 French film called "Séraphine". The artist lived in rural France her entire life, often in grinding poverty, spending her days cleaning people's houses and washing their linens, while at night painting extraordinary pictures in a highly idiosyncratic style. Séraphine was a deeply devout Catholic, but she was also mentally ill; she was eventually diagnosed as suffering from a chronic psychosis, which ended her artistic career and led to her being permanently institutionalized. Fortunately, unlike some of her contemporaries in Germany, she managed to avoid being shipped off to a concentration camp where she would have faced certain death.

The important modern art dealer Wilhelm Uhde came across her when she worked as a cleaner in the country house he rented. He initially encouraged her work, but had to flee France when World War I broke out; before leaving, he told her to keep developing her skills as a painter. This she did and, upon his return to France years later, Uhde came across her again, finding that her work had matured, as he had hoped. This time he provided her with the tools to make her painterly fantasies a reality, and she produced works of breathtaking complexity, as shown below.

Séraphine's mature work in particular is absolutely unforgettable once you have seen it and, I must admit, quite literally brought me to tears - something which does not happen often, at least for me, in the art world. Just LOOK at it. There is clearly evidence of an obsessive madness, but there is also a profound level of deep analysis, almost like a snapshot of what a microbiologist sees in looking at a microscope slide. And there is a sense of rich color and rhythmic complexity of pattern that puts one in mind of the intricate stained glass windows and manuscript illuminations of the Middle Ages.

The film "Séraphine" won numerous awards last year, including Best Picture, Best Actress, and five other prizes, at the César Awards - France's equivalent of the Oscars. This in combination with the fascinating life of its subject matter would seem to be as strong an endorsement as one could wish for when considering whether to put a movie on the Netflix queue. It is a pity therefore that the film itself should prove to be so disappointing on first viewing, though it improves in the mind after having stepped away from it to reflect upon it further.

This is not to say that director Martin Provost takes too many liberties with the facts, or that Yolande Moreau does a poor job at playing the title character. What is unfortunate is that this languidly-paced movie seems at odds with the passions of Séraphine herself, and leaves many unanswered questions about the characters' motivations. Of course, one could claim that trying to find rationality in the world of Séraphine is an exercise in futility, yet even the mad have their methods.

One important aspect of the title character's motivations is her religious faith. Séraphine makes repeated gestures of piety throughout the film that Catholics will recognize. For example, before she starts to paint, she sings "Veni Creator Spiritus", asking for the grace of the Holy Spirit to guide her brush; she continues to chant and sing hymns while she is working. As her landlady points out to a neighbor, when they go to Séraphine's flat to find out if she is all right, something has been wrong for days because there has been no singing; Séraphine refuses to open the door and tells them she is painting, a statement which the landlady maintains is a lie. "She can't be working right if she's not singing."

At the beginning, at least, there is in Séraphine more than a little of the "fool for Christ" character which we do not see much of in American film or fiction. Perhaps the best treatment I have seen in recent years is that of Father Anatoly in the profound Russian film "Ostrov", which I have written about previously. In that film, Father Anatoly is cursed by a sense of unending guilt and shame because of his past; at the same time his deep faith allows him to quite literally work wonders on God's behalf and to God's glory, even while he thinks of himself as utterly unworthy scum.

Yet there is a great deal of difference between a monk withdrawn from the world, and an artist who may have seemingly monastic tendencies due to mental illness and poverty. Séraphine's religious motives in her painting are called into question by the film as she begins to receive more attention and more money, and she grows increasingly materialistic and increasingly disturbed at the same time. Outwardly she remains a devout peasant Catholic, but inwardly she is beginning to see herself as more than just God's servant, but some sort of a catalyst.

At one point for example, despite her devotion to the Virgin Mary, it is implied that Séraphine has defaced a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes in the local church. In another scene, the Mother Superior of the convent where Séraphine used to work comes to see her gigantic, 6-foot tall canvases, and tellingly asks Séraphine whether it is still her guardian angel who is guiding her work. Séraphine responds that the angels are talking to her more loudly than ever, and that something big is about to happen for her. By having the Church ask this question through the Mother Superior, Provost not only puts the motivation of Séraphine's faith in doubt, bot also prepares us for what is about to happen when Séraphine has her final mental breakdown as a result of her plans being thwarted.

Unlike Father Anatoly in "Ostrov", Séraphine has, from the beginning and all the way through the film, always had a high opinion of herself. For example, she never thanks others for their charity except on one occasion when she is told that she ought to say, "Thank you"; when this happens she only acquiesces very curtly. She also puts out the votive candles and steals their wax from the altar of Our Lady in her parish church, when no one is looking. In an early exchange with Uhde, Séraphine openly accuses him of thinking he is better than she is because she has to clean houses for a living, a claim which he himself repeatedly denies.

Over the course of the film we come to appreciate that better living conditions, attention, and funds do not make Séraphine better: they in fact make her worse. One thinks of the old adage regarding giving a man a fish vs. teaching him how to fish, but here neither option is a good one. The supposedly humble Séraphine, it turns out, wants to become famous. When Uhde gives her a monthly stipend so she can paint and not have to clean houses or do laundry, she thinks nothing of sending him lavish bills for the purchase of sterling silver tableware, signing a purchase agreement for a mansion (bill to Mr. Uhde, natch), and asking what kind of luxury car he drives so that she can get one for herself.

Unfortunately Provost does not give us a fully satisfactory reckoning as to what happens next. In a sequence late in the film between Uhde, his sister, and Séraphine, for example, regarding Séraphine's problematic spending habits and the crash of the financial (and thereby art) market in 1929, we await a confrontation which is never fully realized, and which seems out of keeping with the kindness and frankness that had characterized the relationship between these three characters in the scenes leading up to it. Uhde upbraids his discovery for her spendthrift habits, but does a terrible job explaining why he cannot continue to maintain her, despite the aforementioned frankness which has characterized their relationship up to this point. It is a false note and leaves the viewer utterly confused.

When Séraphine finally goes off the deep end, her doctor advises Uhde that the best he can do for her is not to see her, but to try to make her life more comfortable. Yet as we have been shown, the more comfortable Séraphine became, the worse she became, and in the context of what has happened in the film by this point such advice seems a gaping hole in the plot. Provost leaves us in a kind of ambiguous, valium-clouded state, where the tormented artist is at last, seemingly at peace, but can no longer paint nor pray - she even ignores the crucifix over her bed.

In the end "Séraphine" as a film raises more questions than it answers, and though it is decidedly American and old-fashioned of me to state as much, I find it dissatisfying. That being said, it is a film to debate and discuss - if you are fortunate enough to have a group of friends willing to sit through the often torporific pacing - not only from a Catholic perspective but also as an exercise in understanding human motivations. Yet most importantly of all, the film is an introduction of the work of an extraordinary artist to a much wider audience: an artist whose staggering paintings are some of the best pictures to come out of the Modern Primitives.

The Tree of Life by Séraphine de Senlis

Musée Senlis

Some Lenten Friday Morsels

2011-03-11T09:05:00.001-05:00

Some items for you to chew on, gentle reader:

- Like the rest of the world I am following the news out of Japan and the Pacific Rim, and am hoping to have news from family and friends in Tokyo and elsewhere at some point telling us they are okay. Today would be a good time to ask for the intercession of Our Lady of Akita, whose shrine is about 100 miles from the epicenter of today's earthquake. In 1988 then-Cardinal Ratzinger approved the apparitions at Akita.

- Have you bought your ticket to the Dominican House of Studies' Spring Gala yet? It is coming up on March 26th, and I hope to see you there. After considering some of the very nice items up for silent auction, you may want to try some of the friars' homemade brew.

- Congratulations to my esteemed friend Jonathan Montagu over at Nimbus Discovery, a biotech startup, which just announced that Bill Gates is going to provide their fledgling company with seed money. Makes all that shuttling back and forth from Soho to Cambridge the more worth it, doesn't it, old bean?

- My deeply-held suspicions on Colonel Gadaffi's use of botox were apparently confirmed by Wikileaks - admittedly not my favorite organization - earlier this year, a revelation which I missed at the time. I knew it. Apparently the dainty colonel also has his medical procedures videotaped and reviewed later by independent doctors, presumably so that if the treating doctor did something wrong he can have the fellow arrested, beaten, and have his wrists broken during a mock execution.

- Long-overdue repair and restoration work is underway on O and P Streets in Georgetown, which are still cobblestoned and have old trolley tracks in bad repair running down them. Toward the end of this article by Constance Chatfield-Taylor in The Georgetown Dish which gives an overview of some of the issues facing the project is the very interesting fact that there will be archaeologists on site in case anything noteworthy is discovered. As Georgetown approaches its 300th birthday, one wonders what they might find?

- I was intrigued to learn recently that in the comic book world, Superman had stopped wearing his familiar red, blue, and yellow suit in favor of a black and silver one. Given the views of this blog's patron, Count Castiglione, on the virtues of wearing a palette such as black and silver over garish colors, I wondered whether the Man of Steel had been reading The Book of the Courtier recently. As I was reminded last evening in conversation with a friend who is a fellow sci-fi fan however, Marlon Brando (aka Superman's father) wears black and silver on the Planet Krypton.

- On this day in 1513, Giovanni de Medici was proclaimed Pope, and took the name Leo X. Like most of the Renaissance popes, he was not a very saintly man; his most famous quote, allegedly said to his brother Giuliano, was: "God has given us the papacy - let us enjoy it." Under his watch the Reformation ignited under Martin Luther, and we all know what happened subsequently. Being a Medici of course, Leo had superb taste, and commissioned beautiful art, including pushing forward the decoration of the famous Raphael Stanze that had begun under his predecessor Pope Julius II, and commissioning the legendary Raphael Tapestries made for the Sistine Chapel.

Cartoon for "The Miraculous Draught of Fishes" Tapestry by Raphael (1515)
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The Weird World of Giovanni Segantini

2011-03-10T08:47:00.002-05:00

The Swiss are generally not considered to be particularly strange with respect to their personality traits. If we are to come up with something approaching an acceptable stereotype, it would likely be one of an industrious, methodical people, living in an environment where basic survival is not easy. With plenty of time on their hands due to long periods of winter, notwithstanding Harry Lime's insult in "The Third Man", over the centuries have managed to come up with some pretty remarkable things, including complex and beautiful watches, sophisticated banking methods, and rich chocolates and cheeses.

So it is something of a surprise that a man who can only be described as very, very strange indeed would have found himself at home in their environment. The 19th century painter Giovanni Segantini (1858-1899) has been claimed by many countries as a native son, though because of the shifting map of Europe even in his own lifetime and with subsequent redrawing of that map as a result of World War I and World War II, the best that we can do is say that ethnically he was an Italian. However Segantini was not an Italian from the sunny shores of the Mediterranean, but rather one from the Alps, where the Germanic influence held greater sway.

As an artist, Segantini found the climate and inspiration of the Swiss Alps to be where he and his increasingly bizarre but captivating art often seemed most at home. An exhibition presently underway at the Beyeler Foundation in Basel, which runs through April 25th, examines the artist in juxtaposition with the work of his contemporaries. For those of my readers who should happen to find themselves in Switzerland it would seem worth the trip to view the work of this fascinating figure.

Segantini's work is just as difficult to categorize as his citizenship. We can see affinities in his work with artists as diverse as Millais, Seurat, Millet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and even Klimt. Yet his work is none of these, and even art experts do not seem to agree on what to call his style of painting. Sometimes he is called a "Divisionist" painter, other times a "Pointillist", and still others consider him a "Symbolist". His later paintings often feature a truly peculiar iconography that set them apart. On this latter point in particular it would not be too much of a stretch to say that, in his later paintings, Segantini in his subject matter in some respect prefigured the work of Frida Kahlo.

As a result of his having grown up in a Catholic peasant environment, Catholicism continued to inform Segatini's work throughout his life, although he himself was not a practicing Catholic. He had four children by his mistress, whom he never married, and studied the works of Nietzsche and Zola in a kind of awkward tandem with mystical monastic texts of the Middle Ages. His perpetually frail physical health, the death of his mother when he was a small child, and the subsequent problems he experienced with being shifted from household to household by his father and other relatives in what today we would probably consider some sort of child neglect, was a very recognizable formula for the creation of a clinical condition, perhaps an anxiety disorder or manic depression.

Not being a psychiatrist or psychologist, it is a bit unfair of me to try to diagnose Segantini of course, but even a basic understanding of psychology and family history will help us to understand some of his paintings which, without that context, would probably remain completely inscrutable. For example, towards the end of his life Segantini painted a series of works sometimes collectively referred to as the "Evil Mothers" series. One of these, "The Punishment of Lust" painted in 1891 and now in the Walker Gallery in Liverpool, shows dead women who either had abortions or neglected their children, being blown about by the wind in a frigid and barren Alpine landscape. Another, "Unnatural Mothers", exists in several variations painted at different times, and shows women who again, have either directly or indirectly killed their children. The children have been turned into trees; the women are then forced to go out looking for their dead babies, are caught up by the trees, and forced to suckle their children since they neglected to do so in life. Not exactly light-hearted stuff.

Yet weirdness aside, Segantini was capable of truly beautiful images. His best pictures of peasants with their livestock, and the landscapes in which they lived and worked, are feasts of light and color for the eye. For example, his "Girl Knitting in Savognin" of 1888, now in the collection of the Kunsthaus Zürich, features jewel-like colors and a gorgeous pastoral-village landscape. His "Afternoon in the Alps" of 1892, presently in a private collection, is in a similar vein, with a young lady enjoying the warm sunshine and green grass, surrounded by her flock of very friendly sheep.

Even in a near-monochromatic painting like "Return from the Woods" shown below, there is a wonderful sense of light. The woman has no doubt had a long, hard afternoon cutting wood, but as she approaches her village with its pretty church spire, there is a golden glow of lights in the homes of her neighbors. The fact that the snow is very thin on the ground but the days are getting longer means that spring is arriving soon.

While he is perhaps not a household name today around the world, in his day Segantini was celebrated throughout Europe. Despite his increasing ill health and isolation higher and higher up in the Alps with his family, his work led to his being garlanded with praise and awards. At the time of his death, it is fitting that his final words were that "I want to see my mountains." We are fortunate that he managed to preserve his view of those mountains in such a remarkable collection of works.

Return from the Woods by Giovanni Segantini (1890)
Segantini Museum, St. Mortiz

Thou Art Dust

2011-03-09T08:50:00.000-05:00

Today being Ash Wednesday many Catholics - and even non-Catholics - will head to church to receive a cross of ashes on their forehead. This morning at St. Yuppie's, Father Siranni gave me something that looks more like a Maori tribal stripe rather than a cross, but no matter. The point is, or so I would have thought, that the imposition of ashes is to remind us of our mortality as we enter this penitential season.

As he placed the ashes, Father used the traditional formula: "Remember that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return." You may of course hear a different formulation, which came into vogue after Vatican II: "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel." Of course, Lent does provide us a season in which to try and make a better job of doing so, but to my ear it does sound a bit too American of a choice when giving the sacramental ashes. As I discussed with some friends during a long and convivial afternoon over (perhaps too many) bottles on Sunday, there is a distinct aversion in this country to thinking about suffering, decay and death, which in other cultures people are far more accustomed to living with.

Yesterday in conversation with a woman who, while technically Catholic, long ago fell away from the Church and does not practice her faith, we had a bit of a discussion about Ash Wednesday which led to the subject of cremation. I mentioned that my intent, when the time comes, is that after my funeral mass my body will be cremated and shipped to the family tomb, located on the mountain of Montjuïc in Barcelona, which overlooks the Mediterranean Sea. She was surprised to learn that the Church permitted cremation, which it did not do when she was growing up in the 1950's.

Paragraph 2301 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, in relevant part: "The Church permits cremation, provided that it does not demonstrate a denial of faith in the resurrection of the body." This is, admittedly, something of a broad directive, and for those who want to read more about the practical development of the Church's view on the subject, a good starting point for further research is an article from St. Anthony Messenger. Except under a very specific set of circumstances, cremation if it is chosen as an option seems to be something which should take place AFTER the funeral, not before, but it is still permissible.

The practice of burying the dead in the United States is something I have always found obnoxious and wasteful. In Spain for example, and in many other countries, if you die on a Wednesday you are in the ground no later than Friday. In this country if you die on a Wednesday you will be lucky to be buried by the following week. We drag things out, incurring ridiculous expenses from embalming to limousines and receptions, and to an extent that many people in other parts of the world would find appalling if they would ever happen to attend a funeral mass in this country.

Why do we need, for example, to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a satin-lined, polished metal or hardwood box that looks something like a Cadillac from Boca Raton, which is ultimately going into the ground where no one will see it? Does it not strike you as being somehow pagan, or at the very least that the bereaved are missing the forest for the trees, that families go into debt in order to preserve a body in an almost Egyptian manner? Surely it is not a denial of the resurrection of the body to follow monastic example, providing Great Uncle Jim with a simple coffin and a funeral mass for those of immediate association with him, rather than something approaching a state funeral. If Great Uncle Jim was a prominent member of the community, the family can always schedule a memorial service later, where eulogies and tributes would be permitted.

This is part and parcel of the American view of aging, suffering, and death. For example, we shunt our actors off the screen when they get too saggy; we put our elderly away where no one can see them; we fill ourselves with botox and supplements and who-knows-what-else to forestall looking deathly for as long as we can afford to do so; we even put make-up on our corpses so that we are not too disturbed when we glance at them. This, to me, is more akin to denying the resurrection than simply having a body cremated.

In its way the attitude towards death and burial in the States is analogous to some extent of how ludicrous weddings have become in this country as well. The point of the event - i.e. the entry of the couple into the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony - is lost in a flood of things such as outrageously expensive floral arrangements, the selection of "favors" which are provided as some sort of recompense to guests for having given up their Saturday afternoon on the couch, or the ridiculous sight of 8 bridesmaids accompanying a woman who is neither the Queen of England nor even queen of the local dairy festival. In both cases, there seems to be an imbalance between the natural human desire to share a moment of sadness or joy with others and have that moment blessed by God, and the call of Mammon to spend pointlessly on things which ultimately do not matter nor make a whiff of difference sacramentally.

It is important for us, as we make our way through Lent, to repent and be faithful to the Gospel; indeed, we are challenged to do this every day, but Lent provides us with a great opportunity to focus on this challenge. However for my two cents, the reminder that I am dust and will return to that state is a far more powerful consideration to keep in mind during these 40 days. My hope is in the Lord and the resurrection on the last day, and chances are that I will have to go through a lot of nasty stuff before that happens.

My challenge to you, dear reader, is to be utterly un-American this Lent, and think about your own mortality. It is admittedly not something that we Americans like to do. Yet the apex of Lent commemorates one of the bloodiest, unpleasant, awful things that ever happened - and without that event none of us could live in hope.

Do not shy away from considering death, both that of Our Lord and your own, and reflecting upon it, even if it makes you uncomfortable - for my sincere desire is that it does.

Tomb in the cemetery of Montjuïc in Barcelona

The Man Needs a Manly Monument

2011-03-08T08:35:00.000-05:00

One sign of the health of a culture is the way in which it remembers its heroes, particularly in artistic ventures such as civic monuments. The appropriateness or inappropriateness of such a piece can tell us a great deal about how that culture sees itself and wants future generations to look at not only the subject of the memorial but also at those who erected it. Whether grandiose and pharaonic or intimate and reflective, these efforts ultimately serve as bellwethers for historians as much as they serve as gathering places for those who want to ponder the life and works of a particular person or recall a significant event.

The popular architect Frank Gehry recently won a competition to design a memorial to General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during World War II, and subsequently the two-term 34th President of the United States. It is a dismal effort, as I have obliquely commented on in a previous post, and does not do justice either to Eisenhower or his service to his country. It is a wimpy, flimsy thing, just as inappropriate to the man and his ideas as the martial, almost Stalinist memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King - a man whose life was spent advocating peace, non-violence, and equality in the face of terrible oppression- and which is nearing completion not far away from the proposed site for Eisenhower's monument.

Why was Mr. Gehry selected to design this? It is a difficult question to answer, for Washington is not a city known for the pursuit of trendy architecture. Mr. Gehry has had a crack at the D.C. market before, in his appallingly trite design for an extension to the beaux-arts splendor of the Corcoran which, mercifully, never came to pass due to funding issues. Crumpled bits of titanium are, I suppose, all very well if you are building them in places which lack any significant architectural fabric, but plunking down one of these things in one of the most historic neighborhoods of the capital would have been a disaster.

It has been brought to my attention that the National Civic Arts Society, an organization here in Washington which seeks to improve the nation's civic art and architecture, is sponsoring a competition to design a counter-proposal to Mr. Gehry's design. If you or someone you know is of an architectural or artistic persuasion, entries are being accepted through April 15th, and the Society provides some guidelines for those considering the project both in terms of the life and achievements of President Eisenhower himself, as well as the urban landscape in which the monument will be located. Whether the powers that be will consider the counter-proposal is, of course, an entirely separate question, but I suspect that by bringing attention to the issue it is hoped that what seems to be a fait accompli will in fact be sent back to the drawing board.

Eisenhower is admittedly not one of my favorite presidents, for various reasons which are not the proper subject of this post. However as one of the most important American figures of the 20th century in his efforts to defeat the Nazis, liberate and reconstruct Europe, and establish a bulwark against the spread of Communism during the Cold War, he is a man well-deserving of a fitting monument in the nation's capital. That his nation cannot come up with something better than a giant folding screen to honor his memory is a sad commentary on how the confidence of the country he once led has fallen. What is about to be built is more appropriate, if indeed it could be found appropriate at all, to celebrate the memory of a romantic poet, not a man of action and decision, who changed the course of world history.

To be sure, one hopes that the counter-proposal does not go in the opposite direction, in favor of something overly harsh like the World War II Memorial, which looks like an Albert Speyer construction or Leni Riefenstahl film set. Yet there are already memorials to Eisenhower which ought to be looked to for inspiration. For example, consider the monument to Eisenhower in Grosvenor Square in London, in front of the commanding American Embassy designed by Eero Saarinen, commemorating that this was where Ike had his headquarters during the war. So much was he associated with the spot that the square came to be referred to as "Eisenhower Platz", though sadly the American presence here is about to end as the embassy is being moved elsewhere for security reasons.

Robert Lee Dean, a graduate of West Point who subsequently became a sculptor, created a very simple, but commanding piece, evoking the confidence of Eisenhower and his generation. Copies of it have been placed at West Point and in other locations. The monument itself, a simple vote of thanks to the man who helped to secure the freedom of Britain, is a combination of sculpture, plinth, inlaid floor design, and surrounding wall, that is very effective.

Surely in the country of his birth, and in the city where he served as President for eight years, we can do something just as good if not better, that not only pays fitting tribute to General Eisenhower but also enhances, rather than clashes with, the city landscape.

Monument to Eisenhower by Robert Lee Dean
Grosvenor Square, London.

The Church in Spain: Lessons Unlearned

2011-03-07T09:33:00.000-05:00

I was deeply disturbed, though somehow not surprised, this morning to read about a mass celebrated yesterday in the town of Poio, in NE Spain, near the city of Pontevedra. It provides a very vivid example of why the Church has found itself in such a very dangerous and diminished state in formerly ultra Catholic Spain. You will find, gentle reader, no greater outspoken opponent of secularism, communism, and anti-clericalism than I - as you well-know if you read this blog on a regular basis - but you will also find that I get rather upset when members of the Church engage in behavior that is not going to accomplish anything constructive.

The conservative Partido Popular, or "People's Party", is a political descendant of the one-party rule of General Francisco Franco, dictator of Spain from 1938 until his death in 1975; it has distanced itself from its origins, but there remain certain elements within the party who exemplify the sort of odd Spanish version of ultramontanism that characterized at least the earlier decades of Franco's rule. The party organized a mass in one of the chapels of the Mercedarian Monastery of Saint John in Poio, ahead of campaigning in local elections which are to take place on May 22nd. This in and of itself is not the problem; lawmakers and their supporters who practice a particular faith or who wish to gather together to pray ought to be encouraged to do so, rather than otherwise. Here on our side of the pond for example, we have masses and prayer services before the March for Life, in which Pro-Life politicians and their supporters can gather and ask for God's Grace in attacking this issue.

The problem in this particular case however, is that the sanctuary of the chapel was decorated with campaign posters promoting the Partido Popular, on both sides of the altar and on front of the pulpit. Whoever greenlighted this absolutely idiotic idea at the Monastery ought to have his head examined, and then be sent to Rome to explain his actions to the Holy Father. It would be hard to believe that even the Jesuits at (Un)Holy Trinity in Georgetown would go so far as to festoon the sanctuary of their church with Obama "O's".

Throughout Spanish history the Church has played a critically important role in the development of the nation. During the Roman period the spread of Christianity through the efforts of St. James and the early martyrs brought Hispania into a closer contact with the Universal Church. In the Middle Ages the monastic orders created an explosion of culture and learning, while the bishops and preachers provided the ideological zeal to fight the Muslim invaders to take Spain back from Islamic rule. During the Renaissance and the Counter-Reformation, Spanish missionaries went all over the world, spreading the Church across the planet with a speed which other countries could only partially emulate.

In effect, the Church in Spain became so accustomed to being at the center of things, including having the ear of the sovereign whenever it wanted, that it came to presume that this was its inalienable right. So when the Civil War arrived and the Church was thrown down, only to be restored to favor by General Franco, it gave in to the temptation to become the lapdog of the state, a position which unfortunately it had held at many points in the past. When as was inevitable Franco himself went, and Spain transitioned into a rather Leftist-oriented democracy, the Church once again entered a wilderness period, in which to some extent it still wanders today.

During a very long and fruitful discussion yesterday with several Catholic gentlemen of my acquaintance, one of the issues which continued to re-emerge over the course of our conversation was a concern that there were many well-meaning Catholics who have been establishing a kind of bunker or fortress mentality, rather than engaging the culture of the world we happen to have been born into. At the same time that morally they are upright and devout, prayerful people, their level of education about the world around them has become woefully inadequate, to the detriment of the Church as a whole. As one of the company remarked, "Orthodoxy alone is not enough."

Spain unfortunately is just such an example of where orthodoxy has been thought to be enough, or indeed all that is required, and the Church lost its way by worrying too much about rules and regulations and not enough worrying about hearts and (even more importantly) minds. This is not an either-or task: otherwise we have the equally ridiculous result of Catholics who effectively make themselves their own popes through active dissent from Church teaching, which is the ultimate end of such thinking. In Spain, by allying herself to the preceding regime too closely, the Church reaped the benefits of political favor but failed to create a generation which actually understood the Faith. The Churches were full, but the minds in the pews were mostly empty. When that political power fell, as inevitably happened, the Church was so intertwined with the regime and had done such an effective job at raising sheep rather than men, that it proved unable to recover when those sheep went out among the wolves of contemporary society.

Thus it appears that despite the many lessons to be learned from their history, there are people in politics and in the Church in Spain who still have not learnt their lesson. Of course part of this has to do with the national character, and the Spanish are known for being a very stubborn people indeed, as everyone from Trajan to the Hapsburgs to Napoleon to Ernest Hemingway has remarked. And you will find few individuals more stubborn that a practicing Catholic Spanish conservative - except possibly an anticlerical Spanish liberal.

While that fortitude can be an admirable quality in many respects, the demonstrable inability to separate the Church, not just from the State, but from actual party politics, is doing a great disservice to both the Church and the Spanish people. There are many reasons, historical and otherwise, why the Church does not feel comfortable with the left-wing parties in Spain, whose membership often holds people who are radically opposed to the Church, and whose predecessors were responsible for the desecration of hundreds of churches and the murder of thousands of priests and religious in the 1930's. Yet there appears to be on the part of some in Spain, helped directly or indirectly by members of the clergy, a desire to try to reclaim what was lost in terms of the old Church-State relationship with respect to temporal power; yesterday's mass is a clear example of this.

Having World Youth Day in Madrid this summer is a wonderful thing, as was Pope Benedict's visit to Barcelona and Santiago de Compostela last year. Yet having the Pope come and visit should not be occasioned as a sort of administration of the Last Rites to a devout old lady. The Church in Spain needs to understand that it cannot continue to make blatant alliances with political parties, or it runs the risk of losing the remaining foothold that it has in Spanish society, and falling into further socio-political disfavor for yet another generation of Spaniards.

I hope that when His Holiness sits down to talk with the Spanish Episcopal Conference this summer, that he encourages them to wake up on this point and reign in this sort of regrettable display.

The Cathedral of Toledo, Seat of the Primate of Spain

Friday Musings

2011-03-04T09:03:00.000-05:00

In lieu of a full parure, The Courtier provides you today, most gentle reader, with some bijoux:

- The answer to the question, "May I bring anything?" is always "Yes" when you are invited to someone's home for the first time, even if they tell you "No."

- Today is the Feast Day of St. Casimir, one of the patron saints of Poland. There is a stunning painting of him by Carlo Dolci in the Pitti Palace (shown below) which I have always admired, part of a beautiful set Dolci did which includes St. Charles Borromeo, St. Cecilia, St. Matthew and others. Dolci's figures often have this amazing skin which seems almost surreally translucent and physically impossible, but for the fact that I have come across one or two people - typically in the UK - who have it.

- I wrote about the late Jane Russell this week, comparing her comedic talents to wisecracking gals like Betty Garrett from "On the Town" and other films. Somehow I missed the fact that Ms. Garrett passed away recently as well. She had an even longer and more varied career.

- Last evening I had dinner at a local restaurant with my friend Monsignor Filardi, pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes up in Bethesda. Apparently once I'd had a couple of glasses of Riesling in me I began saying things which were felt to be note-worthy, as he asked to quote me a couple of times and made some notes. My apologies in advance, Lourdes parishioners.

- I've decided that this year for Lent I am going to engage in a private devotion, rather than the usual give-ups, so do not expect feverish scribblings about my withdrawal from tobacco, caffeine, salt, or sugar.

St. Casimir by Carlo Dolci (c. 1750)

Palazzo Pitti, Florence

Christ and Clothing

2011-03-03T09:34:00.000-05:00

The fashion industry was born out of sin. Some people of course, would say that it has never left its birthplace, but from a Judeo-Christian perspective, the existence of the rag trade, from haute couture to bargain basement, stems from Eden. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate of the fruit of the Tree of Life, the first thing that happened was that they realized that they were naked. They immediately began to cover themselves, and thus clothing came to be.

Jesus Himself, interestingly enough, gives us an interesting lesson on clothes both in His words and in His personal example, and this is something that I have been thinking about recently. First in a piece which I wrote recently about not looking like a schlub, as Jesus Himself instructs us, I thought about what Christ's attitude toward what we wear is not a sort of all-or-nothing proposition completely rejecting concern for personal appearance. Yet also since this past Sunday's Gospel reading from St. Matthew, where Christ tells us not to worry about what we are to eat or what we are to wear, and in particular for our discussion the example of the lilies of the field, He gives those of us who do care about our appearance some food for thought.

In the context of the sermon of course, Jesus is telling us not to concern ourselves with material worries, but rather with putting our trust first in God, who ultimately will provide what we need. And given the "don't worry" message in this very affecting passage from Scripture, it somehow does not surprise me that so far it has turned up, albeit in different contexts, in several places so far this week, including in conversation with a friend worried about the U.S. Presidential race in 2012, and even in Sean McCarney's most recent podcast of "Just A Catholic Dad". There are many big questions we have which Jesus tries to allay for us by reminding us to keep our eyes fixed on the goal of Heaven, and not down here on things which are fleeting and temporary, whether good or bad.

However, I know many people, myself included, who sometimes find themselves in a quandary about what to wear; it is a natural human occurrence which hits some more frequently than others. The Gospel reading caused me to think about the question of what Christ Himself thought about the rag trade, an industry which has been in the news a great deal this week because of the Oscars this past Sunday, John Galliano going off the rails at Dior and into Hitler worship, and Paris Fashion Week being covered in the better news outlets. Vanity, of course, is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, but in some ways it is the least serious because it is ultimately ridiculous (just look at Lady Gaga.) Jesus does not want us to be dirty, weird, and unkempt, but at the same time He does not want us to obsess over what we look like, either; in what little we know of His own appearance, this bears out.

Despite the fact that we all think we know what Jesus looks like, because of the imagination of artists over the centuries, the truth is that we have absolutely no idea. There are no contemporary descriptions of Him, and no contemporary images of Him either. It is a reasonable assumption that He probably looked strikingly like His mother, because of the great mystery of the Immaculate Conception, but since we do not know what she looked like either this does not provide us with much of a clue. What we do know however is that, strange as this may sound, He had style.

One of the very few clues we have about Jesus' personal taste comes from the Gospel of St. John. All four Gospels describe how, at the Crucifixion, the soldiers divided up His clothing among them in a game of chance, thereby unwittingly fulfilling the words of Psalm 22: "They divide my garments among them; for my clothing they cast lots." But St. John gives us the added detail that when it came to His tunic, the soldiers decided to cast lots for that piece in particular. We are told that it was a seamless garment, woven in one piece. This may seem a small and insignificant detail, but in another context it was recently brought home to me that a seamless garment is quite a special thing indeed.

Some weeks ago I purchased a rather unusual scarf in cotton jersey from Spain, which is not shaped like a standard, open rectangle but rather a very wide tube. It allows the owner to wear it in different ways, such as looped tightly several times around the neck, covering the head and mouth in very cold weather or when robbing banks/fomenting revolutions, worn loosely draped about the neck and shoulders, etc. In a pinch one could even tie up the corners and use it as a sort of knapsack. A lady of my acquaintance who is an avid seamstress admired it greatly, telling me that a garment such as this was a very rare thing indeed, and that one would need a special machine to weave it.

In the fashion world seamless garments are not easy to come by, in part because of cheap manufacturing in Asia which now predominates in the off-the-peg market. There are examples of seamless garments one can find in ready-to-wear, though typically when one does so they are rare and rather expensive. The legendary Italian design house of Missoni, for example, is very famous for its vibrant and distinctive woven garments which are often seamless; however unless you are very fortunate to pick up one of their sweaters on sale, you are looking at paying something approaching $1,000.00 for a single item because of the enormous amount of specialty work involved in producing it.

In the time of Jesus, it was a custom for mothers to weave a seamless tunic for their sons and present it to them when they finally left home. It is possible that this is what Jesus was wearing at the time of the Crucifixion, and there is something to support the idea that this was a garment woven by the Blessed Mother, for not only was St. John there with the Virgin Mary at the Crucifixion, but the Virgin Mary was given into his care by Christ, and we are told that St. John took her into his home from that very day. It is not a stretch of the imagination for us to conclude that she told him that she herself had made the garment and that it was seamless, something which St. John himself might not have noticed otherwise.

In point of fact, St. John is the only one of the Four Evangelists who mentions the detail of the garment being seamless. Alternatively of course, the tunic may have been a gift from one of His disciples, since we know that many women helped to support Him and the Apostles financially as they moved about Judea and Samaria. Admittedly, I prefer the notion that Jesus' Mother made it for Him.

Even in Jesus' day, seamless garments were very rare things indeed as they required a great deal of work and were therefore pricey. The High Priest himself, from the days of the Exodus, was required to wear one as part of his office. And as it happens this is an important fact for us to keep in mind: there is another seamless garment which plays a part in Christ's Passion, but we often overlook this detail.

St. Matthew tells us, in his Gospel at 26:64-65, that the High Priest Caiphas tore his clothing in anger at what he perceived to be Jesus' blasphemy. This is a problem for Caiphas, because according to liturgical rules he needs to wear a seamless robe in order to enter the Temple of God and perform his priestly function. We can assume that he owned others of course, but ironically enough the rending of his own seamless garment could in and of itself be considered an act of blasphemy - which of course no one calls out Caiphas for doing. The Levitical garment is destroyed, whereas Jesus' remains whole. I do not need to point out to my Catholic readers, I hope, the great symbolic importance of this.

So here is Jesus, the itinerant Messiah, going about Israel preaching the Gospel and wearing a very distinctive, finely made tunic, almost certainly a gift from His Blessed Mother or the gift of one of the great ladies of the Early Church. (And as an aside, let us never forget that it is the ladies of the community who, more often than not, keep our parishes going on a day-to-day basis; that has not changed since the very first days of the Church.) He is not His Cousin, St. John the Baptist, wearing some sort of shift made out of camel's hair; nor is He King Herod in all of his finery. He is wearing something that was probably beautifully made, but also very simple, and something which the people of His day would have recognized. They would have owned one themselves at some point in their lives, made by their mother, grandmother, aunt, sister, etc., as a gift recognizing their manhood and independence.

Jesus certainly does not care about material possessions - He Himself tells us in St. Luke's Gospel that "Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head." But He does care about Christians going out and encouraging people to abandon their old ways of living and come into His Church. He does not ask us to do so by force of arms, but rather by strength of example. Indeed, many Catholics of my acquaintance could take a lesson from the well-dressed and polite young Mormons I often see in the mornings on my way to work, when I pass their center near my parish.

Is Jesus concerned then, about what brand of socks you wear or if your jacket is from last season? Absolutely not. However, unless you have a calling to be a mendicant or hermit - which most of us do not - you do have a calling as a Christian to take care of the body God has given you, and to remember that it is by your example that you will either draw people into or repel them from ever considering the Church.

Like it or not, we are creatures who respond to visual stimuli. Jesus Himself was fulfilling prophecy and creating a contrasting symbolism by wearing a seamless tunic, but it is worth considering that He did not eschew wearing such a nicely-made garment in favor of something coarser and cheaper. That should give us something to think about.

The Soldiers Casting Lots for Christ's Garments by William Blake (1800)
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge

The Skin of Her Teeth: On Keira Knightley

2011-03-02T09:12:00.002-05:00

The Courtier has often observed that one of the key differences between most men and women of his acquaintance is that men generally find British actress Keira Knightley rather attractive, whereas women generally do not. Perhaps this is indicative of the company he keeps. By no means is this a general rule of course: he is aware of one young lady in particular who loves Knightley's version of "Pride and Prejudice" more than the Colin Firth version, and has seen it numerous times. (Of course, most younger people have never seen or even heard of the interesting Merle Oberon/Lawrence Olivier version, but that is as may be.)

Recently through the magic of Netflix, this scrivener had the opportunity to screen two of Miss Knightley's recent films, "The Duchess", co-starring Ralph Fiennes, and "Atonement", co-starring James McAvoy. You will no doubt be commenting to yourself, dear reader, that The Courtier is coming to the dinner table rather late, after the dishes have been cleared away and the port is little more than a stain in the bottom of the glass. This is due in large part to the simple fact that he dislikes large crowds, and in most cases prefers to see films on the small screen where he can analyze them privately, without overhearing idiotic comments from fellow cinema patrons, or wondering what sort of mother would bring her child to see the abysmally violent and amoral McAvoy/Jolie flick "Wanted" - let alone why the theatre would allow a small child into the showing in the first place.

As a far better critic has observed, Miss Knightley has a habit of acting through her teeth; now that you are aware of this observation, you will never be able to see one of her performances again without noticing this tendency. Whether in "Pride and Prejudice" or the "Pirates" films, or indeed in the two aforementioned films recently viewed, the actress has a habit of putting her teeth together, and then speaking through them, as if she is trying to hold something back, or sticking out her upper plate when she is trying to be seductive or make an emphatic point. She has often been characterized as a "pouty" actress, and no doubt there are many examples of the curl of the lip in her work, but oftentimes she can't help but flash her teeth, like some sort of jungle cat about to pounce.

The earlier of the two films, "Atonement", received a fair amount of praise and many award nominations upon its release in 2007. Unfortunately, one does not see what all the fuss is about. In truth, it is rare that one has the chance to watch a film populated by a group of leading characters with little or no redeeming qualities whatsoever, which then wanders off into visual splendor coupled with sheer boredom. Even Miss Knightley seems to forget whom she is playing, as a careful viewer familiar with British accents will notice, for during the course of the film she slips in and out of RP ("Received Pronunciation", for readers unfamiliar with that term) for no apparent reason - sometimes in the middle of a sentence.

The supposed great romance of Miss Knightley and Mr. McAvoy's characters in the film is little more than an exercise of youthful lust which never matures into genuine, self-sacrificial love; it gives the filmmakers the excuse to put the two actors in a somewhat explicit sexual encounter, but it is a tawdry rather than a romantic one - a kind of ho-hum Upstairs-Downstairs sexual fantasy more typical of the grindingly repetitive work of Julian Fellowes. Neither of these characters appears to have any idea what they actually want, other than to pursue their own ends, whatever they may be. Mr. McAvoy does not go to war because he wants to fight for the freedom of his country; he goes to get out of prison. Miss Knightley's character does not flee her country home to work as a nurse in London because she is a compassionate, caring woman who is concerned for the welfare of the sick and dying, but because she wants to escape from the control of her parents.

And while the cinematic vision of the evacuation of Dunkirk is astonishing and almost Brechtian-Surrealist in its sweep and imagination, it is really a distraction to make us forget that there is little substance to this alleged love story. Even the supposed atonement which is the centerpiece of the film rings hollow. When Briony No. 3, as played by the great Vanessa Redgrave, explains that her final novel is the chance to bring the two star-crossed lovers back together in a way which was impossible in real life, this reviewer at least was unmoved by the gesture.

In 2008 Miss Knightley had the chance to get those famous teeth into what should have been a particularly juicy role, that of the great Georgian society figure Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire in the film "The Duchess". Without a doubt, visually it is the most sumptuous film she has done to date. The sets and the costumes are extraordinary, with silks rustling down corridors and carriages clattering along cobblestones into the forecourts of great, lavish houses. As a woman who led quite a remarkable and unusual life, Georgiana Cavendish (nee Spencer) provides an almost infinite amount of subject matter for the film industry, and it is somewhat surprising that there had not been a more complete bio-pic of her life made beforehand.

Unfortunately, despite the opportunities afforded an actress in playing the role of such an exasperatingly complicated woman, Miss Knightley once again failed to evoke much sympathy with this viewer. Even when she is forced to give up her bastard child, she seems to be more concerned with not dirtying her dress. Certainly, she wears her dresses beautifully, like the former model she is: when, that is, Ralph Fiennes - who, with his film choices and Buffalo Bob skin-suit persona is increasingly becoming one of the creepiest actors on screen - is not cutting or ripping said garment off her in one of his perverse attempts at seduction or even rape.

There are certainly some good moments in "The Duchess", and perhaps the best was the party scene in which a drunken Georgiana's wig catches on fire. Yet said moments are few and far between, and Miss Knightley does not seem to know what to do with herself other than be a clotheshorse. There is little or nothing maternal about her, despite the fact that Georgiana herself was known to be passionately in love with her children, and she comes off more as a pretty governess rather than a caring parent. Even the obligatory lesbian love scene, which seems de rigeur nowadays both to titillate film producers and critics and to ensure an award nomination from the Academy, falls rather flat. Aha, one thinks, as this scene begins, here come those teeth again.

One of the reasons that this viewer enjoyed the "Pirates" films, and Miss Knightley's performances in them, was their comic element. There were of course many dramatic, harrowing, and romantic moments as well, but one of their best aspects collectively when Miss Knightley was on-screen was Elizabeth Swann's willingness to poke fun at her own image of the pretty English lady of quality. For example, go back and look at the sequence in the first film where over the course of several minutes she becomes increasingly ill, and then faints and falls into the sea because her corset is too tight; or look at the second film when she grows enraged with the fighting going on over the Dead Man's Chest, like a spoilt child. As any actor will tell you, comedy is far more difficult a skill to master than pathos, and Miss Knightley clearly has that skill.

So the question is, why is she not doing more comedies instead of sticking almost exclusively of late to dramas? Miss Knightley clearly has real comic timing in addition to her beauty, in this respect having similarities to great 30's actresses such as Carole Lombard and Myrna Loy, who could be both stunningly beautiful yet laugh-out-loud funny at the same time, particularly when they sent-up their attractiveness or used it to manipulate men into getting what they want. This is not to say, of course, that Miss Knightley is lacking in dramatic ability, but it would seem that someone at this point ought to have found some more comedic roles for her to try out, in which she would not have to play against type, but rather use her natural advantages in unexpected ways.

The legendary actress Greta Garbo was a very beautiful woman who usually played a seductress or adulteress in dramas, costume or otherwise. Yet arguably her best work was in a role which made fun of her serious persona, in part due to Billy Wilder's brilliant script: 1939's "Ninotchka", for which Garbo was rightly nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress. Admittedly, there are few writers working today with the comic genius of Wilder, but surely someone should be on the lookout for such parts for Miss Knightley. And not of the "Let's throw in Vince Vaughn or one of the Wilson Brothers" variety either, but rather something actually intelligent, good to look at, and lacking in the sycophantic combination of peasant and bathroom humor which dooms virtually anyone acting with Jennifer Aniston to box office failure.

Miss Knightley has the chops for it; the question is, whether she has the guts to go for it.

Will someone let this woman be funny?

Bye Bye Baby: A Farewell to Jane Russell

2011-03-01T08:40:00.000-05:00

Unless you have completely avoided the newspapers this morning, gentle reader, you are aware that actress Jane Russell died today at the age of 89. With her passing we have lost yet another of the few remaining icons of Hollywood's Golden Age, from before the collapse of the studio system in the 1960's (along with everything else, frankly.) My readers may not be aware that despite her sex bomb image, she became an increasingly devout Christian as the years went on: moreover, beginning in the 1950's she dedicated herself to opposing the legalization of abortion, founded an international organization to aid in the adoption of unwanted children, and even campaigned for Republican political candidates. She was also a particular type of star which we are likely never to see again.

Russell rightly never considered herself to be a great actress. She was adept at comedy and musicals, but due to the influence of her Svengali, tissue-box-slipper-man Howard Hughes, she was often miscast as a kind of dramatic femme fatale due to her legendary curves, beginning with the infamous "The Outlaw", filmed in 1941 but because of censorship rules not issued in wide release for several years. Today the film seems unremarkable in this regard, particularly given that Russell did not take off her clothes in this or any other of her films, whereas other Hollywood beauties like Hedy Lamarr and Dolores del Rio had done so years earlier. During the course of filming Hughes fired the great director Howard Hawks from "The Outlaw", much to Russell's disappointment, and the resulting film was something of a mess - an infamous mess, to be sure, but a mess nonetheless.

More than a decade later however, Hawks directed Russell and Marilyn Monroe in what Russell always maintained was her favorite and best movie, 1953's "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes". The film is remembered now as the work which catapulted Monroe from budding actress to major film star, because of the iconic "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" musical sequence, which has been copied and parodied by numerous performers ever since - notably by Madonna in her music video for her equally iconic song (and subsequent sobriquet) "Material Girl". Yet much as the film is unquestionably Monroe's, Russell's performance is very much worth watching.

Unexpectedly, there was no cat fighting on the set, despite the fact that these two curvy stars were aiming for public adulation and had equal billing. In fact Russell and Monroe became life-long friends, probably in part due to the fact that apart from her sassy side, Russell seemed to have a very earth-mother quality about her. Russell later recounted that Monroe, whose legendary stage fright led in part to her later downfall, was sometimes so petrified she could not come onto the set. This problem was solved when Russell took it upon herself to go to Monroe's trailer every morning, take her by the hand, tell Monroe what fun they were going to have that day, and then walk her to the cameras. This kindness and professionalism is not only in keeping with what we know of Russell's personality, but interestingly it is also part of the "gal pal" characterization which is prevalent in all of her better films.

In her best work, including this picture, Russell plays a type which we do not often see in films anymore. She is "all woman", as the old film adverts used to say, or a "dame", to use an equally old parlance. Russell was at her best playing the type of girl to beat you at cards or softball, or drink you under the table, all the while making wisecracks and fast talk, and then feeling bad about it so she would allow you to take her dancing until dawn.

This type of part seemed to exist in a brief window of time, particularly from the late 30's through the 40's; examples are Rosalind Russell in "His Girl Friday", Betty Garrett in "On The Town", or Eve Arden in "Mildred Pierce". We occasionally see shadows of it in period films like "A League of Their Own", which look back to the women of that era, but really the archetype is no more. And "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" actually foresees the demise of this character.

If we watch the film closely, there are a number of sequences in which Russell and Monroe appear together, where Russell clearly steps back and lets Monroe have center stage. Part of this is, of course, the book of the musical itself. But Russell, as an exemplar of the 1940's, seems to recognize that Monroe (and types like her) are going to be the pinups of the 1950's. In the film itself Russell seems to appreciate instinctively that this is both the height and the beginning of the end of her career. By the 1960's her film career was effectively over, though she continued to pack them in performing her musical cabaret acts in Las Vegas and elsewhere.

Her connection to the pro-life movement is a sad one. Russell got pregnant when she was unmarried and only 19 years old, and underwent an abortion which left her sterile. Afterward she remained unflinchingly pro-life as a result of what happened to her as a teen. "People should never, ever have an abortion," she said not long ago in an interview with the British press. "Don't talk to me about it being a woman's right to choose what she does with her own body. The choice is between life and death."

Russell being Russell, she eventually put her money where her mouth was. Not being able to have children of her own, she went on to adopt several children, but was surprised at not only how difficult it was to legally adopt children, but also at what little support there was for unwed mothers or women seeking to give up their children for adoption. The effort to improve the adoption process and the lives of these women became her life's work, when she was not entertaining.

For example, Russell founded the World Adoption International Fund in 1952, a group which eventually placed thousands of children in adoptive homes. The next year she testified before Congress on a bill which allowed the foreign-born children of American military personnel to be more easily adopted by American parents. She then went back to testify before Congress in the 1980's, to pass legislation providing tax breaks to parents who adopt handicapped and special needs children, who might otherwise never get adopted.

If she will forgive me for saying so - and I suspect she would - Russell was quite a gal, and we will not see her like again. She was not one of Hollywood's greatest actresses, true, but in her best work, either with Monroe or in the two musical comedy films she made with Bob Hope, Russell showed she was a great entertainer and probably a lot of fun to hang out with. Here she is in a clip from "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes":

A Monument Restored

2011-02-28T08:43:00.000-05:00

Today the city of Barcelona dedicated a monument whose original, by one of Catalonia's most important architects, was destroyed by a Spanish dictator 82 years ago, marking one of the last elements of recovery of its urban heritage following decades of cultural repression by Madrid. As a 50% Catalan and an 100% architecture fan, it is great to see that the people of Barcelona can still find ways to recover some of what they have lost architecturally over the years. At the same time however, the rebuilding of this monument raises certain architectural issues with respect to landscape and planning, that are worth the reader's general consideration.

The "Four Columns" monument was designed by architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch, and erected in 1919. Puig i Cadafalch was one of what we might call the "big three" of Catalan Modernist architecture, alongside Antoni Gaudí i Cornet and Lluís Domènech i Montaner. Puig i Cadafalch is perhaps most famous for the Casa Martí, a building whose ground floor contains "Els Quatre Gats", the exuberantly decorated tavern near the city's Cathedral where the young Picasso and other artists would gather, and for the Casa Amatller, an equally elaborate structure on the luxurious Passeig de Gracia which stands alongside buildings by these other two legendary architects. The resulting juxtaposition is often referred to as the "Block of Discord" because of the way each building competes with the other to be the most over-the-top structure.

The "Four Columns" memorial refers in stone to the Catalan flag, which features four vertical stripes on a gold background; in this case, each pillar stands for one of the stripes. The monument was originally constructed not with stone, but brickwork coated with plaster, reflective of the love of Barcelona's innovative architects of the late 19th and early 20th centuries for taking humble materials and using them in unexpected ways. See for example Barcelona's Arch of Triumph located on the Passeig de Sant Joan, constructed in 1888, which is built of complicated brick, iron, and stone patterns and sculptural elements, rather than the usual marble; Domènech i Montaner's 1905 Palace of Catalan Music, which employs similar methods; or Gaudí's beloved serpentine park bench at the Park Güell, made of concrete and broken glass, tiles and porcelain.

Originally the "Four Columns" monument stood in a central location on the slopes of the mountain of Montjuïc, in the SW corner of the city, which my readers may know was the site of the Olympic Games in 1992. Puig i Caldfach envisioned a great hall on the top of the hill, with esplanades and boulevards leading down to a central plaza at the bottom. At the time the pillars were erected however, these structures had not yet been built, and the end result of the urbanization of the area was not exactly what the architect had intended.

The location for the monument was just below the site of the National Palace, the large domed exhibition hall which is now the National Museum of Catalan Art, and close to the site of Mies van der Rohe's highly influential Barcelona Pavilion, both of which were built for the World's Fair held in Barcelona in 1929. In the lead-up to the fair, the then-dictator of Spain, General Miguel Primo de Rivera, thought that the columns were too incendiary in encouraging Catalan nationalism, and had them dynamited and torn down. On the spot where they used to stand, a huge fountain basin was built, which is now a favorite excursion spot for tourists in the evenings; the "Magic Fountains", as they are known, dance and change colors while classical music is played.

Debate began a number of years ago on the reconstruction of this monument, and early this year new columns to Puig i Caldafach's original design - but made of more stable concrete rather than brick and plaster - were erected just above their original location. The hope of both the city government and the Catalan government is that the newly rebuilt monument will allow the vast open area around them to serve as a public gathering point for Catalan celebrations, particularly "La Diada", Catalonia's National Day, and provide better access and facilities for those who wish to attend such events than the more cramped location further up the hill where these events have been marked up to now. It was disappointing to read that the Spanish national conservative party, the Partido Popular, which originally voiced its support for the rebuilding of this monument, has now come out against it; as anyone familiar with the history of Catalan politics knows however, this kind of two-faced reaction is not to be wondered at.

The problem from a purely architectural perspective, however, is that the site has changed since the monument was originally put up. The surrounding buildings, completed in the 1920s, are now at least somewhat dependent visually on the fountain as a sort of wheel around which they rotate. Some architectural critics have pointed out - not entirely without cause - that the placement of these columns as close to their old position as possible has had a negative impact on the sweeping vistas of the place; the eye seems to halt at the columns rather than naturally following the stairs and terraces up to the museum on the top of the hill.

This raises the question of whether everything that is torn down should be rebuilt, even if it is possible to do so. There is obviously a very big difference between rebuilding four columns to look as they were and, say, rebuilding Canterbury Cathedral to look as it was. Cost is certainly one factor, but in this particular case the landscape has changed considerably since the monument was built, as well as since it was torn down.

That being said, taking into account the fact that I appreciate the landscape design of the present assemblage of buildings, fountains, terraces, and so on, I do think that the restoration of the monument does more good than harm. The "Magic Fountain" is little more than a giant concrete saucer, rather than a confection of statuary and architectural elements, and the fact that the surrounding landscape architecture features classical statuary, balustrades, and grand spaces for promenading leads to the conclusion that we do need some sort of a vanishing point for the space, rather than simply staring into the side of a hill.

What would be infinitely better, in my opinion, would be if the city would tear down the ridiculous pair of towers which stand at the entrance to this esplanade area, which are copies of the campanile of San Marco in Venice. They serve no purpose whatsoever, and the fact that they are such blatant copies of an existing structure, when Catalonia has never been at a loss for creative and talented architects, makes them seem a bit tawdry and more redolent of Las Vegas than the Veneto. But we shall leave that question for other armchair architects to consider.

The demolition of the original "Four Columns" monument,
on orders from Primo de Rivera, in 1928.

Put Your Best Foot Forward

2011-02-25T10:46:00.002-05:00

Reading press coverage this morning about Catherine Zeta-Jones receiving the CBE, I was struck by the fact that she always looks like a visitor from another, more glamorous age, when women enjoyed being well-dressed, rather than deforming themselves into some sort of infernal amalgamation of streetwalker and sideshow freak. I suspect that not only would she have felt perfectly at home in the Golden Age of Hollywood, but even in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is no stretch to imagine what a "Portrait of the Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, CBE" by John Singer Sargent might look like, or indeed, to stretch back even earlier and envision a portrait by the subject of today's blog post, the great but often sadly under-appreciated Sir Thomas Lawrence.

The Yale Center for British Art has just opened a new exhibition entitled "Thomas Lawrence: Regency Power and Brilliance", which will run through June 5th. Would that I might find myself among the ivy in order to enjoy this group of remarkable paintings by this equally remarkable painter. Though characterizing Lawrence as a painter of the Regency period, which gave us Jane Austen and John Keats among other notables, is a bit limiting with respect to understanding the sweep of his career.

Lawrence was born in Bristol in 1769 and died in London in 1830, which is important to keep in mind in looking at his art. Admittedly I write this often when discussing artists or architects, but when I provide correlations to general history my hope is to give my readers a general point of reference to the time in which the person lived. Too often art history tends to operate in some sort of vacuum, in which the viewer is not given an idea of what was taking place historically around the same time. Thus, when I point out that Lawrence was born roughly around the start of the American Revolution, was a young man when the French Revolution took place, was entering middle age when Napoleon reached his zenith, and died in the year that train travel between cities first became possible, it should give you some idea of the changes that he observed, first-hand, working during this age of tumult and great changes.

For someone so capable that he eventually rose to be President of the Royal Academy, back when that meant something, readers may be surprised to learn that Lawrence was basically a self-taught genius. Beginning as a child, his facility in capturing people's appearances using pastels on paper gained him increasing attention, and apparently his accompanying good manners and self-effacing nature charmed many of the society people with whom he gradually came into contact. They in turn would allow him to study the Old Master paintings, drawings and engravings in their private collections, so that Lawrence created his own home-schooled academic experience in studying the history and techniques of great artists.

Lawrence arrived in London when he was 17, and enrolled as a student at the Royal Academy, but later left it because he was not interested in drawing and studying classical sculpture. He received his first royal commission, to paint Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, when he was only 20 years old; she didn't like the picture, but the king did, as did the members of the Royal Academy. This launched his association with the royal family, which was to continue for the rest of his life, and brought him into close contact with many of the most famous and influential people of his day. In 1792, when the great Sir Joshua Reynolds died, he was made President of the Royal Academy when he was just 23 years old.

My Catholic readers may be particularly interested to know that in 1819, George IV commissioned Lawrence to paint a portrait of Pope Pius VII for the Waterloo Chamber at Windsor Castle. This may seem rather surprising at first, but King George wanted to honor all of the European leaders who had banded together to help defeat Napoleon. Erring on the side of fairness, he had to include the Pontiff, whose excommunication of Napoleon and subsequent imprisonment had inspired many Catholics to come to the aid of those allied against the little dictator.

Lawrence had a great talent for bringing out what was most attractive about his sitter, often managing to flatter them despite some of their worst features. This is what earns him the sobriquet of being a "society painter", but too often that term is bandied about by art critics who think that Gilbert & George are anything other than a pair of peasantly perverts. It must be said that Lawrence had his failings as a painter - in particular some of his images of children are not quite right - but when he is good, he is very good indeed. His combination of capturing the personality of his subject and at the same time incorporating elements of landscape painting and details such as the drape of fabric or the texture of a flower through rapid, almost Manet-like brushstrokes, make his images irresistible to all but the most black-hearted of patrons of the arts.

As this blog's patron Count Castiglione would certainly argue, it is a sign not only of personal self-respect but also of good manners to want to look one's best, whether when with intimate friends or out and about in public. There is of course a tipping point beyond which we should not go, but Catholics sometimes need to be reminded that even when we are suffering through penance, Christ tells us to look our best:

When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. They neglect their appearance, so that they may appear to others to be fasting. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.

But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not appear to be fasting, except to your Father who is hidden. And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.

(St. Matthew 6: 16-18)

I will freely admit that it is perhaps more than a bit of a stretch to turn from society portraiture to Christian thought, but when we are considering the purpose of art when at its best, I do not believe the connection is really so tenuous. Great portraiture can give us an insight into the character of the sitter, true, but it can also inspire us to be better than we may be at present. The painter who celebrates virtues such as heroism, grace, and intelligence in his art can, when he is good at what he does, cause the viewer to aspire to these virtues as well, even if there is some idealization going on.

And in celebrating these virtues in paint, Lawrence is not behaving in a way foreign to our natural instincts to put forth our best efforts. For example, are you a good cook? Then chances are, you make the food look attractive when you serve it to a guest, so that they will enjoy the meal more than if you simply slopped it out of a pot, even though it would taste the same either way. Because we are not creatures of pure spirit, presentation matters to us: it is a reason why iconoclasm never really makes sense in a full understanding of Christianity, and also why a simple but reverently celebrated mass is usually better at drawing our hearts and minds toward the Divine than either a slapdash "quickie" mass or some bacchanal of tambourines, drums, and hymns like "Rain Down".

Lawrence may have prettied up his sitters a bit, but in so doing he also showed the people of his day, and indeed shows us now, that whether you are tall or short, fat or thin, handsome or not-so-handsome, you can still be attractive. No one of us is perfect, but putting your best foot forward, whether you are fasting during Lent or receiving an award from your government, is something that can draw people to us and to follow our example. Those of my readers called to be ascetics like St. Mary of Egypt can certainly ignore such advice, but for the majority of us who are not detached from the world, young Catholics need to be aware that we attract others to ask about our way of life if we are not only attractive on the inside, but also on the outside: the former is infinitely more important, but the latter is an opportunity that we can and should take advantage of.

Charles William Vane-Stewart, Marquess of Londonderry
by Sir Thomas Lawrence (1812)
National Portrait Gallery, London

Time for Walkies

2011-02-24T09:13:00.000-05:00

Those of my readers who happen to live in larger cities are well-aware of the infinite number of opportunities available to get out and about and meet people after work. Here in Washington, for example, there are lectures, receptions, discussion panels, exhibitions, screenings, and so on, on a daily basis; one could easily have somewhere to go every night of the week, if so inclined. I attended such an event last evening, and will be attending another this evening.

Usually these events are somewhat disappointing apart from seeing old friends and making one or two new ones. We mill about at the cocktail hour before the talk, and exchange pleasantries or are introduced to people via mutual acquaintances, an exercise which is sometimes rather painful. As the unnamed, older preppy gentleman at the bar of JG Melon's explains in Whit Stillman's "Metropolitan", "The acid test is whether you take any pleasure in responding to the question 'What do you do?' I can't bear it."

At first I had declined the invitation to last evening's talk on Islam, since I was somewhat suspicious of the speaker's thesis. Although I eventually agreed to attend, due to my friendship with the organizers, I should otherwise have followed my first instinct given some of the content that was aired. (Let it never be assumed that bad manners are to be expected solely from those on the Left.) Yet that being said, such events are often a source of joy for the flâneur, for we find ourselves dropping in on a bit of conversation and then dropping out again, with no requirement that the conversation later be continued.

The flâneur of course, for my readers not familiar with the term, is not someone who particularly loves the Spanish custard known as "flan", or has a preference for flannel trousers (though this particular flâneur enjoys both.) Rather, he is an educated man who enjoys being out and about in his city, observing what is taking place, and commenting on it. While it is predominantly thought of as a 19th century concept, epitomized by figures such as Charles Baudelaire and others who went about in Paris strolling the boulevards and popping in here and there, I have always seen it as a more universal concept with respect to city life, even if not strictly adhering to either Baudelaire's (or later Walter Benjamin's) theories on the subject.

To that end, one can make the passing observation - which you are welcome to reject, of course - that in London both Samuel Peyps in the 17th century and the great Dr. Johnson in the 18th century were of this type, though of course neither was particularly interested in issues such as fashion or personal vanity. And Scott Schuman of The Sartorialist, with his ever-ready camera and keen eye as he wanders the streets of whatever city he happens to be in, is clearly one of the 21st century. None of these gentlemen would be caught dead taking a turtle for a walk, of course, but their pleasure in city life, in observing the people and places and how things change over time - sometimes in a matter of days or weeks - is something that urbanism encourages, at its best, in direct contrast to the kind of fortress mentality which characterizes suburbia.

We know from things such as census results and population studies that, in American cities like Washington which have experienced a renaissance of their downtown core, there has been a correlated resurgence in the number of people moving into town, rather than out of it. These people tend to be educated professionals in their 20's and 30's, most of whom actually grew up in the suburbs, who are turning their backs on lawn mowing and cul-de-sac hockey matches in order to benefit from the many amenities which urban centers have always offered, including events such as those I attend. They are willing to forgo square footage and acreage in order to live in a community where one cannot help but run into one's neighbors and interact with passersby on a daily basis, in order the reap the rewards of city life.

Of course, these people are comparatively young, in the scheme of things. A good percentage of them will probably find themselves constrained by their circumstances and the arrival of children to leave the city when they must choose between being a parent and being a hipster. Yet not all of them will leave, I wager, and it will be interesting to see what the net effect of Generations X and Y living the majority of their adult lives in urban centers will have on the appearance and functionality of cities in the future.

At the present time, most 20- and 30-somethings do not have either the political power or economic means to exercise serious control over the development of the cities where they live. For now, that power remains in the hands of the Baby Boomers, who turned the modest Levittowns of their parents' generation into the hideous suburban sprawl of McMansions and other atrocious architectural nightmares adding to the ruination of the countryside. Yet as more and more younger people reject the hypocrisy of the "me" generation which led to the decimation of the inner city, it is very exciting to contemplate what might happen as that older generation begins to slink off to Florida and Arizona, where they can mull over the mess they have made of things in their homes constructed of plastics manufactured in China.

For example: will there be a resurgence of the construction of entertainment venues such as concert halls and theatres? Anyone who has read of or seen images of early 20th century cities, including Washington, is well-aware that there were far more of such venues at the beginning of the last century than there are today, and if city populations continue to increase existing facilities cannot hope to accommodate all of the people who might like to attend a concert, play, or the like. Will trees finally come back to American cities after a many-decades-long absence, often blamed on Dutch Elm disease but in reality more due to inefficient planning designed to favor the automobile and not the human being? Take a look at an image of any major American city in about 1950 and you will see how much more pleasant a time the flâneur had in wandering his town before the attitude that "trees are our enemy" took hold - and it is an attitude which is still holding sway over city governments, no matter how supposedly "green" they are.

In any case, those of us who have the good fortune to live in the reviving American city, I would argue, have a duty not to hole ourselves up in our houses and flats as if we were still in suburbia but merely lacking a lawn. Going out to the numerous events offered of an evening allow us the opportunity to learn something and to meet people, but most of all to contribute to the fabric of a vibrant, urban life. There is nothing like the sense of comfort one feels in walking along a well-lit city street in the evening, looking at the people who are going to and fro on their way to an event, or meeting friends, running errands, and so on, particularly when compared to the almost funereal silence of suburbia - a place generally lacking the friendliness and simplicity of the countryside as well as the intellectual stimulation of the city.

Young women strolling the Gran Vía (1959)

by Francesc Català Roca
Col.legi d'Arquitectes, Barcelona

Apples and Oranges

2011-02-23T08:37:00.000-05:00

This morning I was listening to an old podcast of Just A Catholic Dad - which I once again recommend to my readers - and host Sean McCarney was discussing the rather large apple tree on his property outside Salisbury, England, which requires harvesting in the autumn before the massive quantities of fruit fall onto passersby and cars. Being a Newton, this put me in mind of distant relation Sir Issac Newton and the apocryphal story of his coming to understand gravity through the falling of an apple from a tree. In some versions of the story he is conked on the head, while in others he simply observes its descent.

Mine being a somewhat too-clever-by-half family, when I ran for President of the Student Council at the end of 7th grade, my father came up with the idea of "branding" my campaign with the image of an apple, because of its association with the name of Newton. We made dozens of apple-shaped buttons to hand out to supporters, and apples appeared on my campaign posters and fliers. Good an idea as it was, it rather over-presumed the cultural acuity of the electorate, many of whom did not make the association between the apple and the name. And what is worse, some saw it as an allusion to my being a sort of teacher's pet - an apple for the teacher, and all that - which, truth be told, I often was.

The election was a complete landslide for my opponent; it was not even close. Up until that time we had been very close friends for a number of years, but as often happens, bitterly-fought elections will lead to just plain bitterness. After 8th grade when we were to move up to the high school, I remained in private school and he went to the local high school, and from there our paths permanently diverged.

As it happened, however, even though I lost the election I ended up winning the war, for despite my loss I had somehow managed to gain the respect of my immediate peers in my year. They re-elected me to be one of the two representatives of our class, and I continued to hold this post all the way through 12th grade at the end of high school. I also managed to be made Editor-in-Chief of the school paper and held various other elected or appointed positions. I may have been teacher's pet, and certainly not the type of socially popular athlete who ruled the school, but there was at least some recognition that I could be useful in public service, a fact which I still appreciate to this day.

With my high school reunion coming up, which due to time commitments I will not be able to attend, reflection does cause me to look at myself and realized that I am more of an orange than an apple. An apple is a sweet fruit, universally liked and very easy to eat; it is hard to find someone who does not like it. An orange however, while it is often sweet, can at times be rather acidic, bitter, and difficult to consume. On this latter point, if you have not seen the brilliant BBC miniseries "Cranford", based on a series of early Victorian books by Mrs. Gaskell, there is an hilarious sequence in which Mary Smith, visiting the elderly Jenkins sisters in the small town of Cranford, has brought a crate of oranges as a gift; the way to consume the fruit creates certain problems of propriety, solemnly but hilariously resolved by Miss Deborah Jenkins.

I should hope that, while there is often an acidic note to my writing, that I am free from bitterness, and that if such a repellent flavor should creep into my musings that through the great gift of reader feedback I should be called to task. It is one thing to be opinionated, and there can be no escaping the fact that I am very opinionated indeed, particularly when I see a hay wain of bad judgment rolling its way along celebrating or endorsing a building, work of art, film, etc., which needs to be looked at more critically and with a different set of values. Yet as listening to Mr. McCarney's podcast reminded me this morning, it is precisely feedback - whether praise, criticism, or something inbetween - that helps to make us better at whatever it is we do.

The great boon of the internet, whether through blogging, podcasting, and the like, is that we allow our contemporaries the opportunity to consider our views, and to give us their response. We are able to find others who share our interests or concerns throughout the world, not just in the immediate area in which we happen to reside or move. For those of us who are Catholics, whether in big cities or small towns, such connections can help us to cement our faith, or find others who want to act in concert with our own interests. This is why new media provides such important tools for evangelization and apologetics, when used well, and why the community of those using these tools can often find unexpected and welcome means of support.

Our day-to-day, real life, and the life we have through electronic means are truly apples and oranges, at times. Yet these two can in fact compliment each other, and hopefully make us better people for producing these efforts, as well as providing some aid, information, or areas for reflection among those who read or listen to them. Supporting Catholics working in new media is a way to get involved in the ongoing dialogue about what it means to be Catholic in today's world, with all of its challenges and opportunities. So whether you are reading the American Papist and Fallible Blogma, or listening to The Journey Home and Catholic in A Small Town, remember that you are part of a far-flung community where your thoughts and ideas do matter very much indeed to those putting out this material for your consideration, and that they would love to hear from you.

Apples and Oranges by Paul Cézanne (c. 1899)
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Time to De-Fund PBS

2011-02-22T05:59:00.003-05:00

The various responsibilities which fall to this poor scribbler occasionally take him away from these virtual pages, gentle reader, and so it is that I return to you today, head bowed and cap mangled uneasily between my fingers, begging your pardon for my absence these last few days. I do hope that said absence was not too troubling to you in your quest to find something to fall asleep while reading. Your patronage is of great import to me, as well as your feedback.

And now let me explain why we should defund PBS.

I watch a great deal of PBS, as it happens. In fact, I watch more PBS than just about anyone else I know in their 20's-30's. I watch the science shows, dramas, cooking shows, comedies, mysteries, documentaries, and so on (though not their news coverage for reasons which, if you are a regular peruser of this site, should be obvious.) Indeed, I have watched PBS extensively for as long as I can remember, from Sesame Street and the original Electric Company onwards.

And because I have been watching PBS for three decades now, I can detect how it has changed, in a number of very important ways. I could, for example, describe the significant decline in the level of home-grown drama programming, with virtually everything now being imported from Britain and presumably your tax dollars being used to help pay for budgets at the BBC, ITV, and elsewhere. Or we could discuss the disappearance of challenging, intelligent programming such as "American Playhouse", and the significant reduction in broadcasts from Lincoln Center - not to mention the absolute dearth of representation of nearly any other venue for classical music other than during the holidays - in favor of MTV-Unplugged evenings spent with marginally talented cultural irrelevancies such as John Legend, the Shia Labeouf of the music world, or pledge drive weepies with stars from the 40's and 50's who should have retired with their remaining grace intact rather than wheeling their zimmerframes out on stage, or ageing hippies who never had any grace to begin with doing much the same thing.

No, no, the truth of the matter is, Public Television has moved away from what it once was, a venue for education, even of the Leftist variety, and instead is no longer public: it is commercial. And because it is now commercial, albeit without as many obvious commercials as, say, NBC or the Discovery Channel, it is time to remove its funding. It must stop lying to the American taxpayer and claiming it is a non-profit educational venture, and we must call it to account for not only its deliberate untruth, but also its incredibly poor financial management of our money.

Back in the day, if you turned on the Metropolitan Opera broadcast of that season's production of "Carmen", or watched "I, Claudius" or the like on Masterpiece Theatre, you knew that these programs were sponsored "in part" by large corporations such as the oil companies, investment banks, or the insurance industry. Perhaps their corporate logo would appear with a message of thanks to the corporation for their philanthropic gift, and that was all. Those subtle days are, for the most part, now gone.

Those who have not sat down and watched PBS for awhile may be surprised to see the number of actual commercials that are shown both at the beginning AND at the end of a program. The much-loved "Antiques Roadshow", for example, has advertisements for Subaru motorcars and Liberty Mutual insurance, among others, at the beginning and end of each show: not just a corporate sponsor thank-you message, but actual commercials. We also see commercials for American Airlines at the beginning and end of the ever-snide Rick Steves' travel programs; Union Bank runs commercials at the beginning and end of the BBC World News broadcasts. And the commercials on some of the cooking programs, from Cuisinart to Oxo to Robert Mondavi wines, boggle the mind - even on programs featuring the late Julia Child. These are but a few examples.

And what of the programming tie-ins themselves?

Where does all of the money from the children's shows - which are supposedly so much more wholesome than the other things our children could be watching on "commercial" television - going if not to PBS? Are they really that bad at managing the American taxpayer's money that they cannot negotiate decent royalties from the manufacturers for products featuring their zoo of characters licensing deals which should, in and of themselves, be able to perpetually fund PBS? And if they are not capable of negotiating such agreements, if the executives at PBS really are that inept - for there is no other term to sum up such a level of corporate irresponsibility - then why on earth should we continue to give them our money? If PBS was an average corporation that had failed to protect its shareholders' rights so spectacularly poorly, the leadership would all have been sacked by now.

All of the local PBS stations hereabouts have been running announcements, asking viewers to contact their representatives in Congress and "tell them how you feel" about PBS. I am more than happy to oblige, and am passing along this blog post to my representative. For in the smokescreen from the Tea Partiers about PBS having a Leftist news department - which it does - and from the Left about some Tea Partiers being narrow-minded and uneducated - which they are - there is a fundamental truth: PBS as it is currently run is a bad investment.

If it is a non-profit, then it should not be allowing outside corporations to profit from its products. If it is for-profit, then it should be held to the same standards of stakeholder responsibility as is any other corporation, and drop the myth that it is somehow an independent institution. Either way, without a significant shake-up to its management, it ought to go.

Nicolas Fouquet by Édouard Lacretelle (c. 1660)
Château de Versailles