Using Beefcake to Sell Milk

Over the weekend, I was reminded that some brilliant person decided to award the best television advertisements in the British isles with fama gloriaque.  The British Arrows celebrate the imagination, craft, and wit found in British ads, and the shortlist of the winners gets sent to various museums and art centers.

It’s basically like the Super Bowl, except without any American football being involved, and the ads themselves are better.

There were some surreal lager ads, poignant John Lewis (whatever that is) ads, even more surreal T-mobile ads, truly distressing anti-knife PSAs, and this beautiful (if utterly unrealistic) little gem that I figured y’all might appreciate:

Runner-up favorite: the Aldi shopper whose husband enjoys both the £3.99 and the £2.49 tea.  “But I don’t like tea,” she says.  “I like gin.”

 

Words, and Otherwords

I am doing some preliminary preparation for teaching a segment on poetry to my fifth graders.

The segment begins on Monday.

It will be a busy weekend.

But since my first goal is to teach them to enjoy poetry, I am scrambling to find a copy of Richard Wilbur’s Words Inside Words collection. Understandably – albeit sadly – no version is available online.

Instead, I did find a reading and animation of a few snippets, put forth by that eternally – entertaining TV station, PBS.

It is actually rather unnerving, but you can see what kind of fun things Wilbur did with words.  And poems.

 

 

 

 

Is your appetite whetted? For the sake of fostering Beauty and Truth, I give you . . . .

Richard Wilbur reading and commenting on “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World”!!!!!!

*swoons*

I pine.

I long.

My heart aches to find such expression of truth.

Travelogue: The Miraculous Staircase

As part of the Epic Father-Daughter Road Trip, my Dad an I made several carefully selected detours.

The first stop was Santa Fe, for the sole, select purpose of seeing the Miraculous Staircase.

This staircase is something I first read about in Willa Cather’s gorgeous novelization of the first Bishop and eventual Archbishop of Santa Fe, Death Comes for the Archbishop.

For all the fictionalization in Cather’s book, (albeit sensitive, beautiful and poignant fictionalization,) her history was pretty exact.

The Bishop requested that missionary Nuns come build a convent and a girl’s school in Santa Fe; in 1852 the Sisters of Loretto responded, and by the 1870s their school had grown to house, feed, and educate 300 girls.

In 1873 the Sisters commissioned their own chapel, modeled after the famous Sainte Chappell in Paris. When it was finished in 1878 it was the first Gothic architecture built west of the Mississippi River, but it had a problem.

The builder had neglected to an account for staircase into the choir loft twenty-two feet above.

The chapel was too small to build a traditional staircase without decreasing the amount pew space by a third.

And a ladder was not a feasible option for Nuns. (With the whole seeing up skirts modesty issue.)

No carpenter, not even those brought from France, could find a solution.

Finally the Sisters began a novena, (a nine-day long prayer,) to St. Joseph. St. Joseph, in addition to being the foster-father of Jesus, is the patron saint of carpenters.

On the last day of the novena, a man appeared leading a donkey burdened with only a saw, a T-square, and tubs in which to soak the wood. He told the sister that he could solve their staircase problem.

For three months he locked himself in the chapel, and then, with the staircase having been finished, mysteriously disappeared without seeking payment.

The stair he built was in a spiral with two complete 360 turns.

He had not used any nails.

But most amazingly, the staircase has no support. The full weight of it rests upon the last step into the choir loft.

 

 

Given the helix shape and lack of connection to anything other than the slim piece of wood attached to the choir loft, the whole staircae ought to spring like a slinky. But it does not.

The stair was originally built without a banister, which was, as a sign said, “a daily act of faith” for the sisters and students. Ten years after construction the sisters hired a local carpenter to add the handrail.

Later years also added the support of that metal coil attached to the pillar. Otherwise the stairs are untouched.

 

 

Seen it up close, it looks as though the spiral should be built around a pole; there is space for a pole at the center. But there is no pole.

The wood bent around the interior of the spiral is thought to be the main support, because of the tight radius. But no modern replica can be made.

It is a feat of both engineering and carpentry, particularly given the simple tools that the mysterious carpenter used.

 

 

Most modern evaluations are skeptical not simply of the staircase’s maker, but of the safety of such a construction. They claim that by definition the structure is unsound.

As they will attempt to prove otherwise, we must look at the historical usage of the stair.

 

 

Hmm. What say you all now, oh scientists of skepticism?

The staircase and chapel are very beautiful, even if sadly no longer in the possession of the Church. In the wake of Vatican II the chapel was sold to a private family, and is now simply a tourist attraction.

It was painful to watch the tourists meander in and snap photos without seeming to notice anything anomalous about the staircase.

Even if one is suspicious of the origin or “miraculousness” of the staircase, the marvel of its design and construction ought to elicit some awe.

So if you are ever near Santa Fe, it is certainly worth a detour!

Epic Meme Saturday: A Fairy-Tale Honeymoon

A book that I would bring on my honeymoon. Oye jehmoie! I don’t know if I would bring a book on my honeymoon. At least, not any of the books that changed or formed my life. Those books are so very important that I would either read them with my beloved before we married, or take longer over them than a honeymoon would give (for reading at least). Books of such importance should not be kept waiting.

If I ever get married any and all books on my honeymoon would have to be of the sort that are meant to be read by a fire and under the stars, so that would include …. Patrick McManus books!

Though those are not quite as romantic as I might want. So maybe not…maybe G.K Chesterton’s Fr. Brown mysteries, they are thrilling and enchanting; perfect for snuggling up before a fire! However, there is one drawback to those stories; they are never shallow (not the drawback, I am coming to that…) and some times they are quite deep! That is the draw back! Although it is a requirement to think deep thought and have deep discussions with my new spouse, I think not right before bed (which is when you have fires) because I would be too busy being comfy. So perhaps that would be a better travel-book.

Arra, this is harder than it seems!

Alright, last possibility is fairy-tales! But not just any fairy tales, because I can only listen to so many of Andrew Lang’s stories without going to sleep (though that might not be a bad thing), so they must be special and exciting! That leaves me with Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories! They are witty and charming, just right to right to read and giggle over and rambunctiously enjoy!

Perfect!

Mel’s Meme: Oh, Prisons of Finitude!

In my defence, I did not mean these memes to be quite as romantic as they sound. (Also, no one would help me make them up! You guys do it next time!)

Yes, I know, they sound ridiculously mushy. But I was trying to find specific, earthy examples of abstract, philosophical questions. And the questions that I do tend to lean on the side of are usually things like;

“Literature, the sharing of words, stories, and experience, presupposes a community in which to do the sharing. So, what role do books have in creating, fostering, and renewing community? What – if anything – do books have to do with being  Human? Being Human in a community? Love, or the need for another person, is the basic instinct that draws human being together into a community. Can books facilitate that function? How? Why? Which books?” ~Melpomene, Musings in the Witching Hour*

Ahem. Et cetera.

In this instance, what I was trying to question was not so much a problem of romantic love. Rather, I wanted to know if there were books so dear, so crucial, so formative to my own Being and understanding of the world that it would be impossible to share a life with another person without likewise sharing this work of literature.

Le sigh.

As usual, my scope is too wide and my example too narrow.

My sad choice of phrasing does place some practical limitations on this week’s challenge. I am quite sure there will be other things I will want to be doing on my Honeymoon. But as it is, I must carefully select a work that fosters this very select community of two, preferably with the opportunity for discussions, enjoyment of the words and story, and probably give some of the epic, sacramental scope of matrimonial love.

Heart of the World:
by Hans Urs Von Balthasar

This is a very beautiful, delicate, odd little book. (It is short, sweet, and can be picked up and put down easily. The reading it aloud only increases the delight. The perfect honeymoon book!) Von Balthasar is known as a theologian, but this book – even in translation! – marks him as a poet. Oh, it is written in prose form, but the exquisite sentences, graceful imagery, and meandering unfolding of ideas marks this a work of Poetry.

It feels like an old man musing on the nature of the world and the meaning of living (emphasis on the act of living, as well as the more abstract concept of life) and allowing his ideas to flow forth in the sweetest, most beautiful expressions possible. It is a work which invites the readers into contemplation, stillness, beauty, grace, and, (most deeply) love. This work has been describes as the ” pure serenity of a volcano under snow”. And as poetry, it shares the experience between souls, the most hidden and holy expressions of the Heart.

He begins by describing the drift in the River of Time, gently opening with the idea of the Self and the Other, the precious individuality that as yet leaves us each alone; ideas I have thought about, but for which I have never been able to find the proper articulation.

“Prisons of finitude!

Like every other being, man is born in many prison. Soul, body, thought, intuition, endeavor: everything about him has a limit, is itself tangible limitation; everything is a This and a That, different from other things and shunned by them. From  the grilled windows of the senses each person looks out to the alien things which he will never be . . .  How far it is from one being to its closest neighbor! And even if they love each other and wave to one another from island to island, even if they attempt to exchange solitudes and pretend they have unity, how much more painfully does disappointment then fall upon them when they touch invisible bars . . . Being are alien to one another, even if they do stand beautifully by one another and complement one another colors, like water and stone, like sun and fog: even if they do communally perfect the resounding harmony of the universe. Variegation pays the price of separation . . . The limpid mirror has been shattered . . . but every single splinter remains precious, and from each fragment there flashes a ray of the mystery of its origin.” ~ Chapter One: The Flowing Stream

And so he continues on, finding words fit to picture, at least in part, a mystery of the World. And the main image centering, (anchoring, cohering,) the book is the image of the cross as an embrace. The world as full of significance and meaning and tremendous splendor. The unity of beings is only possible in the Union of Christ to His bride, the Church. And this the example we have on which to model out marriages.

The second half of the book shifts slightly to address the church as the beloved bride, at the same time gracefully makes it clear that reader who has been addressed from the start of the book is the church, the bride. And despite all flaws, failures, mistakes and stumbles, is still greatly loved. The entire book is, essentially, a love letter from Christ to each person in the world. It is a wild, wild, love.

And so after all, it is a romantic book. It celebrates the highest Romance in the history of the World. Hopefully, it should remind this newly married couple of their place in echoing, entering, and living this Great Mystery.

“Everything hearkens back to your throbbing Heart. Time and the seasons still hammer away and create, and your Heart still drives the world and all its happenings forward with great, painful blows. It is the unrest of the clock and your Heart is restless until we rest in you, once time and eternity have become interfused. But: be at peace! I have overcome the world. The torment of sin had already been submerged in the stillness of love. The experience of what the world is has made love darker, more fiery, more ardent. The shallower abyss of rebellion has been swallowed up in unfathomable mercy, and throbbing majestically reigns serene the Heart of God.” ~ Chapter 13: Love – A Wilderness

Christ as Bridegroom

* “The Witching Hour” is three in the morning, when daimons prefer to visit their mortal instruments.

Epic Meme Saturday: In a Land Far, Far Away

Well, in my most learned and delectable mind, I think that a favorite setting means a place where I would want to live. (Please note how I conveniently twist it to mean something that I want!) Oh, of all the places I would love to live! Narnia, the Enchanted Forest, Middle-Earth, Prydain, Al-Amarna, The Old-Kingdom…. Actually, not the old kingdom, too many undead there!

There are so many beautiful and wonderful worlds that would be a joy to see. Yet the one I have read that is the most beautifully described is a place called Mistawis. It is a land of mystery and enchantment, where raised eyebrows mean the end of the world (though occasionally the world keeps on spinning despite the eyebrows), cardinal flowers lighten the swamp like ribbons of flame, and islands appear as amethysts. Here a mysterious man is found with crocked eyebrows and a dark past.

Ooh, the possibility gives me the shivers! But this land of deep magic has dangers, evil men who would kidnap the fair maiden from her first dance, a cruel mother whose petty tasks might cause her daughter much suffering… oh, all the traits of a true fairy tale!

But it isn’t. The Mistawis is a real place, in Ontario Canada. Sounds prosaic, right?! (Well, don’t google it for images, I did and I was very disappointed. They had only a few of actual scenery!) But the Mistawis, as seen through the eyes of Valency Jane Stirling Snaith from L.M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle is that Land of Enchantment where strange and wonderful beauty lies just ahead and ever under her fingertips. If you have the eyes to see it.

Yes, there are many places described by books that I would like to see, but only here would I want to live.

Epic Meme Saturday: Supercailfragilistucexpialidosious

Literary references that would win my heart…oh goodness, Thalia is right there are many ways that would be interpreted.

Well, there are so many books or idea that are quite lovely and would convince me that the person who knew them is someone I would love to get to know better. there are a few though that would assure me that the employer of them is not only well-educated and has a wonderful sense of humor, but also has great strength of character.

First there is that ever fateful and ever quote line from The Virginian “When you call me that… SMILE.” It may be very simple and maybe a tad too recognizable for common usage, but the ideas behind it are wonderful. for who would not admire someone who would righteously stand up for his own honor! After all, it is a sin to calumniate another’s name, so I think it is wrong to let other abuse you, either to you face as Trampas did the Virginian, or behind their back, as the Virginian stopped the same from doing to Molly. Besides, someone who could say that in a right context and not look like a fool would be a very rare thing indeed, with the ability to maintain this own dignity and the strength to not be cowed by another.

Another reference that I would love to hear some one use would be Blake’s poem Tyger, Tyger! Not the first stanza, but the middle (third)

What the shoulder, what the art

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat

What dread hand and what dread feet!

Ooooo, it makes me shiver! Though I have no idea how such a quote could even be used in a normal conversation, the person who could pull it off well would be admirable indeed and I would be most desirous to make their further acquainted.

Also, any one who managed to use the word “supercalifragilisticexpialidosious” in a sentence would be my every lasting hero.

So far, all these quotes are things that would raise a person in my estimation, but to truly captures my heart as only the one for whom measures up to my silver yard stick and who will fit me as  the falcon’s feathers fit the falcon, I reserve two references.

The first is “This isn’t Spaghetti, its army noodles with ketchup!” oh, you who know what this is from will know why I love it so much. It also ties back to one of my earlier posts.

The second is very corny, but very beautiful all the same. it is Farm Boy’s humble “As you wish” to his beloved Buttercup. Though I have no wish to be likened to that quintessential blonde, that one phrase has a lot of meaning behind it. Probably a great deal more that the author thought. that one sentiment expresses true love, and I am not talking about the sad impression of true love that one gets from the movie and the book The Princess Bride. It is a reflection of the love that we are meant to have for God. God, as all loving, all good and all-knowing, loves us perfectly and wants only what would make us happy, truly happy, which usually is not what we think would make us happy. (strange how that works out…) and so by saying to God, “not my will but yours be done” we are submitting to His perfect wisdom and love in perfect confidence and love. And that is what I would desire, (not to be god, ug that would be awful!!!), but for my spouse to have love and confidence enough in me to trust that I would do only what was best.

So I am a sentimental sod, but I like it!

Thursday Dances: Words With Which to Woo

I once heard of a couple girls (A and B, shall we say) who spent a day picking out what manner of engagement rings they wanted from a jeweler’s website: an exercise in aesthetics, perhaps.  This done, B told A’s boyfriend all about it so he could get exactly what A wanted without tipping her off.  On one hand, it seemed nice that he would trouble to learn her opinion – but on the other, it struck me that it should have been unnecessary.  Surely if he knew her well enough, he’d be able to discern whether she preferred antique or modern styles, round or square cuts, white or yellow gold.  Surely her character and personality would indicate what would suit her.

This post feels similar: picking out the things that seem shiny or seem to fit.  Any enterprising fellow who likes may feel free to use them, should he find opportunity.  But surely anyone interested in winning my heart would be able to find his own words.

…or perhaps not; “Sihaya” was the nickname an old boyfriend gave me, and I include it now though it has lost most of its power.

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
- W. Shakespeare, Sonnet 29

“Joanna,” he said, “y’ ’ave saved my life, and I have saved yours; and we have seen blood flow, and been friends and enemies—ay, and I took my belt to thrash you; and all that time I thought ye were a boy.  But now death has me, and my time’s out, and before I die I must say this: Y’ are the best maid and the bravest under heaven, and, if only I could live, I would marry you blithely; and, live or die, I love you.”

“And, dear Dick—good Dick—but that ye can get me forth of this house before the morning, we must even kiss and say good-bye.”
“Nay,” said Dick, “not I; I will never say that word.  ’Tis like despair; but while there’s life, Joanna, there is hope.  Yet will I hope.  Ay, by the mass, and triumph!  Look ye, now, when ye were but a name to me, did I not follow—did I not rouse good men—did I not stake my life upon the quarrel?  And now that I have seen you for what ye are—the fairest maid and stateliest of England—think ye I would turn?—if the deep sea were there, I would straight through it; if the way were full of lions, I would scatter them like mice.”
“Ay,” she said, dryly, “ye make a great ado about a sky-blue robe!”
“Nay, Joan,” protested Dick, “’tis not alone the robe.”
- R. L. Stevenson, The Black Arrow

I had a thought for no one’s but your ears:
that you were beautiful, and that I strove
to love you in the old high way of love…
- W. B. Yeats, “Adam’s Curse”

O go you onward; where you are Shall honor and laughter be,
Past purpled forest and pearled foam, God’s winged pavilion free to roam,
Your face, that is a wandering home, A flying home for me.
- G. K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
…
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
- E. E. Cummings, “somewhere i have never traveled,gladly beyond”

“Miss Vane – I admired you for speaking as you did tonight. Detachment is a rare virtue, and very few people find it lovable, either in themselves or in others. If you ever find a person who likes you in spite of it – still more, because of it – that liking has very great value, because it is perfectly sincere and because, with that person, you will never need to be anything but sincere yourself.”

“Just exercise your devastating talent for keeping to the point and speaking the truth.”
“That sounds easy.”
“It is – for you. That’s what I love you for. Didn’t you know?

She had often wondered, in a detached kind of way, what it was that Peter valued in her and had apparently valued from that first day when she had stood in the dock and spoken for her own life. Now that she knew, she thought that a more unattractive pair of qualities could seldom have been put forward as an excuse for devotion.

“Placetne, magistra?”
- Lord Peter Wimsey, D. Sayers, Gaudy Night

“I am beginning to understand,” said the little prince. “There is a flower… I think that she has tamed me…”

To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you– the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or ever sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Le Petit Prince

“You are Sihaya, the desert spring.”
- Paul Muad’dib, Frank Herbert, Dune

“Dying would have been the easy way never to have to answer your question,” he said, “or any questions, and if there is one thing that has always been true about you, it’s that you make me question myself — and questioning myself inevitably proves to me how little of myself exists to sustain that sort of interrogation. I know you, my dear, better than I know myself. You are whole and entire — loyal and honest and stupidly, amazingly stubborn and beautiful as you are — and I’m shadows and the ghost of old lies held together by good intentions and hope.”
- Not telling.  Muahah.