In the bleak midwinter

Not so bleak here, though the house is down to 65 degrees. But this Christmas carol is just the thing for frozen Northerners contemplating the advent of hope. That Holst can really write a harmony.

Oh, You Big-Mouthed Woman!

Johnny Cash and June Carter, singing a song a friend wrote just for them.

Shepherds redux

Here goes again with "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night," a/k/a "Sherburne" in the Sacred Harp songbook, minus the tinny buzzing (headphones!  no feedback!), and this time with the benefit of the alto part, somehow dropped out last time.  Also, I learned how to embed:



This one is from the Episcopal hymnbook, called "They Cast Their Nets in Galilee":

Adieu, C.T.O.U.S.

Today being Boxing Day, we turned our Fists of Righteous Harmony to the task of dismantling the Christmas Tree of Unusual Size and regaining the use of our dining room.  I tried something new this year:  we bought the tree fairly early but left it standing in a pail of water for some weeks after.  Then we brought it in and trimmed it only about three weeks before Christmas, and took it down today before it could become desperately dry.  In other years, I felt an urge to have it up for a long time, but somehow this year it was enough to enjoy it briefly and then let it go.

The job's not over by a long shot, though the tree is in pieces and staged on its way to the area where we're piling brush to compost.  There remains the task of dismantling the stacking bookcase that blocks the hidden Christmas closet upstairs, bringing down all the boxes, stashing the fragile ornaments carefully, humping the boxes back upstairs into the hidden closet, and re-assembling the bookcase.  But at not quite noon the day after Christmas, I feel we've knocked a great big hole in the undertaking.  In fact, I may take the rest of the day for Righteous Harmony and tackle the ornaments tomorrow.  About a dozen overripe bananas, the result of exuberant fruit-basket giving, are calling us from the kitchen, urging banana-bread baking on us.

When do you dismantle Christmas deckings?

While shepherds watched their flocks by night

My husband bought me a "Garage Band" program ages ago, but I only recently figured out that it's possible to record voice tracks on the computer's native microphone, if a little tinnily.  I've spent many a happy hour this week laying down all four tracks of a series of Shape Note tunes, including this Christmas carol.

Even when it's just me singing with myself, it's surprising how hard it is to get all the voices to blend.  I'm going to be practicing for a long time laying down the tracks, trying to keep all the parts together and on the beat.  What could be more fun?  And I'll need a better microphone at some point.  But there are only 45 minutes of Christmas left, so this carol has to upload in its current state.

The Feast of Stephen

You may wonder why Saint Stephen's day is the very day after Christmas. Saint Stephen was a martyr killed quite shortly after Jesus himself was put to death, by stoning and for the same sort of blasphemy against the Jewish tradition that occasioned Jesus' execution. You can read a version of the story here. St. Paul mentions Stephen's murder, having been a witness before his own conversion.

When I had returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance and saw him saying to me, ‘Make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about me.’ And I said, ‘Lord, they themselves know that in one synagogue after another I imprisoned and beat those who believed in you. And when the blood of Stephen your witness was being shed, I myself was standing by and approving and watching over the garments of those who killed him.’ And he said to me, ‘Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’” (Acts 22:17-22)

We know him best from two songs that have nothing to do with his life or death, but which pertain to his feast day. The more famous is "Good King Wenceslas," which takes place on the Feast of Stephen.



My favorite, though, is the Clancy Brothers' rendition of a song built around an Irish tradition called Wren Day. You can hear their retelling of the tradition starting at about 07:05, followed by a very cheerful song about the sacrificial tradition of wren killings and funerals.

Merry Christmas

Many things attend the feast.

The Second Council of Tours... proclaims, in 566 or 567, the sanctity of the "twelve days" from Christmas to Epiphany, and the duty of Advent fast; that of Agde... orders a universal communion, and that of Braga (563) forbids fasting on Christmas Day. Popular merry-making, however, so increased that the "Laws of King Cnut", fabricated c. 1110, order a fast from Christmas to Epiphany....

Only with great caution should the mysterious benefactor of Christmas night — Knecht Ruprecht, Pelzmärtel on a wooden horse, St. Martin on a white charger, St. Nicholas and his "reformed" equivalent, Father Christmas — be ascribed to the stepping of a saint into the shoes of Woden, who, with his wife Berchta, descended on the nights between 25 December and 6 January, on a white horse to bless earth and men. Fires and blazing wheels starred the hills, houses were adorned, trials suspended and feasts celebrated.... Knecht Ruprecht, at any rate (first found in a mystery of 1668 and condemned in 1680 as a devil) was only a servant of the Holy Child.

The rest of the history is just as interesting: mystery plays and carols, feasts and fires. Through it all, in every generation, we struggle to remember what it was really all about. Sometimes, some of those artists and customs help us see.

Christmas Eve in the DPRK

A rather less enchanted kingdom is a sad reality for millions.

Spare a thought on Christmas Eve for Christians who live in countries where practicing their faith is an act of courage. Nowhere is that more true than in North Korea, where religion is banned....

..."the arrest, torture and possible execution" of Christians, Buddhists and others conducting clandestine religious activity....

23 Christians were arrested in 2010 for belonging to an underground Protestant church. Three were executed and the rest were jailed. The commission estimates there are thousands of Christians among the 150,000 to 200,000 North Koreans incarcerated in the regime's infamous political prison camps.

Yet:

[D]espite this repression, something is happening that many characterize as nothing short of a miracle: Christianity appears to be growing in North Korea. Open Doors International, which tracks the persecution of Christians world-wide, puts the number of Christians in North Korea at between 200,000 and 400,000.

The courage of the old martyrs still lives with us today. Remember them.

Christmas Eve

Once, Sir Gawain quested through harsh country for a long time. It was on this night he found rest and hospitality:

Many cliffs he over-clambered in countries strange,
far flying from his friends forsaken he rides.
at every twist of the water where the way passed
he found a foe before him, or freakish it were,
and so foul and fell he was beholden to fight.
So many marvels by mountain there the man finds,
it would be tortuous to tell a tenth of the tale.
Sometimes with dragons he wars, and wolves also,
sometimes with wild woodsmen haunting the crags,
with bulls and bears both, and boar other times,
and giants that chased after him on the high fells....
Thus in peril and pain, and plights full hard
covers the country this knight till Christmas Eve
alone....

Now he had signed himself times but three,
when he was aware in the wood of a wall in a moat,
above a level, on high land locked under boughs
of many broad set boles about by the ditches:
a castle the comeliest that ever knight owned,
perched on a plain, a park all about,
with a pointed palisade, planted full thick,
encircling many trees in more than two miles.
The hold on the one side the knight assessed,
as it shimmered and shone through the shining oaks.
Then humbly has off with his helm, highly he thanks
Jesus and Saint Julian, that gentle are both,
that courtesy had him shown, and his cry hearkened.
‘Now hospitality,’ he said, ‘I beseech you grant!’...

A chair before the chimney, where charcoal burned,
graciously set for Gawain, was gracefully adorned,
coverings on quilted cushions, cunningly crafted both.
And then a mighty mantle was on that man cast
of a brown silk, embroidered full rich,
and fair furred within with pelts of the best –
the finest ermine on earth – his hood of the same.
And he sat on that settle seemly and rich,
and chafed himself closely, and then his cheer mended.
Straightway a table on trestles was set up full fair,
clad with a clean cloth that clear white showed,
the salt-cellars, napkins and silvered spoons.
The knight washed at his will, and went to his meat.
Servants him served seemly enough
with several soups, seasoned of the best,
double bowlfuls, as fitting, and all kinds of fish,
some baked in bread, some browned on the coals,
some seethed, some in stews savoured with spices,
and sauces ever so subtle that the knight liked.

May you all find good cheer, and warm shelter, this Christmas.

Solstice

And while they were all standing round them, Merlin came up to them and said, "Now try your forces, young men, and see whether strength or art can do the most towards taking down these stones." At this word they all set to their engines with one accord, and attempted the removing of the Giant's Dance. Some prepared cables, others small ropes, others ladders for the work, but all to no purpose. Merlin laughed at their vain efforts, and then began his own contrivances. When he had placed in order the engines that were necessary, he took down the stones with an incredible facility, and gave directions for carrying them to the ships, and placing them therein. This done, they with joy set sail again, to return to Britain; where they arrived with a fair gale, and repaired to the burying-place with the stones. When Aurelius had notice of it, he sent messengers to all parts of Britain, to summon the clergy and people together to the mount of Ambrius, in order to celebrate with joy and honour the erection of the monument. Upon this summons appeared the bishops, abbats, and people of all other orders and qualities; and upon the day and place appointed for their general meeting, Aurelius placed the crown sepulchre upon his head, and with royal pomp celebrated the feast of Pentecost, the solemnity whereof he continued the three following days.

It's interesting that the old story revolves around Pentecost, almost the right hour for the summer solstice. The winter has begun, and the time of fire now begins its height. It'll be cold tonight. Keep your loved ones close.

On Remarks at the Funeral of Sen. Inouye, Medal of Honor Recipient

It's a sad thing when you don't get much attention at your own funeral.

Someone needs to tell Barack Obama—it must get particularly confusing this time of year—that his own birth is not Year One, the date around which all other events are understood. His much-noted, self-referential tic was on cringe-worthy display Friday when the president gave his eulogy for the late Sen. Daniel Inouye....

Inouye was a Japanese-American war hero (he lost an arm in World War II, destroying his dream of becoming a surgeon), and as a senator he served on the Watergate committee, helped rewrite our intelligence charter after scandals, and was chairman of the Senate committee that investigated the Iran-Contra affair.

Apparently we did learn a lot about the experience of one Barack Obama, however.

Odd Couple

I remember catching this duet on TV about 35 years ago.  It wasn't two guys I expected to see singing together.  The video was recorded only about a month before Mr. Crosby's death, and aired after.

Christmas cheer

I never get tired of these.  This is what crowds are for.



Synchronized dancing in the school-of-fish style makes me happy, too.

Spherical TEOTWAWKI

Today would be a good day to spend $2.99 and read Heinlein's short story "The Year of the Jackpot," about a statistician who notices that all kinds of cycles are aligning and will trough or crest together in a few weeks.

For those without Kindles or the like, it appears to be available for PDF download for a minor fee here.

Personally, I'm planning the usual solstice preparations to encourage the sun to come back out of the cave into which it has retreated.  It's disappointing that so many people are neglecting this duty in the frenzy of the approaching Mayan apocalypse.

The Season's Upon Us

Locally the kids got out of school today, not to return until the end of the holiday season. That means that we are within the holiday time.

Brigadoon

We watched the old Gene Kelly film, set in the Scottish Highlands in a mysterious vanishing village.



It's based on an old fairy tale, but this version -- in deference to mid-20th century American culture -- has been carefully Christianized. Strangely, maybe, that ends up making the story less plausible. I, at least, find it far easier to believe you might meet a fairy lady in a glen than to believe that God would send a village into a kind of timeless mist, under the conditions that they sacrifice their only priest and that, if anyone should leave the village, the whole population would be destroyed. Those wild conditions sound like the Faerie way more than it sounds like God.

On the other hand, Chesterton makes a great deal out of the similarity between fairy stories and the practical facts of reality. Wild conditions do seem to proliferate in both: cross this bridge, and the village vanishes forever; eat this small red berry, and you die.

VDH on Debt Relief

From a column drawing contrasts and parallels between ancient and modern thought:

was thinking of the class strife in Sallust’s Conspiracy of Cataline the other day as well; I used to teach it and the Jugurthine War in third-year Latin. In my thirties I never quite understood the standard hackneyed redistributionist call of the late Roman republic for “cancellation of debts and redistribution of property!” But recently I reread Sallust with a new awareness — in the context of all the talk of mortgage forgiveness, credit card forgiveness, student loan forgiveness, wealth taxes, and new estates taxes.

Perhaps there are some useful lessons to be found there, for those favoring such tactics today. Certainly there are for those opposing them.

"False security is more dangerous than none"

Megan McArdle opposes practically every policy that's being proposed to "prevent another Newtown," quoting Dr. Johnson:

How small, of all that human hearts endure
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!

She makes one sensible proposal, I think, which is to try to  train people to rush a gunman rather than obeying the natural instinct to run and hide.  Everyone should make like a white blood cell.  (And if many of them are armed, so much the better.  The last place groups of vulnerable children should be is in "gun free zones.")

Tact or cowardice?

Is this man teaching his son the right thing?

Faux fox

My niece's dog, who doesn't normally have black foxlike points on her nose or paws.  She looks pleased with herself, doesn't she?  That was some thick black mud she got herself into.  Obviously she doesn't live anywhere near here, where we have neither black dirt nor, lately, water.

Against all expectations, our monster of a black lab, now almost three years old, has not tried to eat any Christmas tree ornaments or presents.  Maybe she's finally settling down, ready to become a good girl.