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It's time to sit on the porch and enjoy our favorite time of the year. Patum Peperium will be on vacation for the next two weeks. Until then, enjoy yourselves and remain polite. Oh, and check in from time to time as Mr. P is planning on sending you postcards.
Madame's Nightshirt
Mrs. Peperium
Part II
Last spring I was at home minding my own business when the phone rang. I answered it and the speaker was in mid-sentence.
My mother: I've found out what happened to us.
Me: What happened to us?
My mother: The witch finally got us!
Me: Which witch? (And my mind immediately began running over the names of possible contenders)
My mother: Mercy!
Me: Oh Mom, Mercy has been pushing up daises for nearly 20 years now. Besides, she was a nice labrador.
My mother: Not that Mercy. Mercy Disbrow!
Me: Who is Mercy Disbrow?
My mother: The only woman the State of Connecticut ever found guilty of withcraft.
Me: Huh? When?
My mother: In 1692.
Me: Oh. So how did Mercy Disbrow finally get us?
My mother: She got us because after she was found guilty of withcraft, your grandfather and mine went to visit her in jail with another man to have her name the names of other witches. She didn't. She just said if she was going to hang, others would hang with her. She put a curse on your grandfather. Why did he have to go and visit her?
Me: Probably because he was an unstanding man who took his faith seriously and was concerned for the safety of the people. Witches are scary.
My mother: I know that. But why did he have to do it?
Me: So, how did Mercy finally get us?
My mother: Mercy was never put to death. The Governor gave her a reprieve. She had a son, Thomas. Thomas had children. And his children had children. By the time the Revolutionary War came along, there was a Disbrow son who was a Tory. He enlisted with a British regiment. He fought with them and was captured at Yorktown. The colonists imprisoned him. Now, I'm fuzzy on all of this but he either escaped or was released. He fled to Nova Scotia. On his way to Nova Scotia, he stopped in his hometown to marry the woman he loved. Then, they fled to Nova Scotia together.
Me: And how does this relate to us?
My mother: Mercy Disbrow is your grandmother on your father's side. His mother is descended from these Disbrows in Nova Scotia. Your father's and my marriage was the first reunion of our two families since 1692 when my grandfather visited your grandmother in jail to have her name names. And she put her curse on him. Then nearly 300 years later, in 1963, we move to the very town where it all took place. Mercy the witch was still waiting there to exact her revenge on our grandfather. I'm the final descendent from a male in his family. After me, the line dies out. More than that, I return to the town married to Mercy's grandson. Mercy had waited a long time for her revenge. And she finally got it. She blew up our marriage.
Me: Wow! Now that is a great story.
My mother : Isn't it? I just have to get all the bloodlines worked out to make sure you're really related to her.
Me: Cool. You start getting the bloodlines in order and I'll start getting the storyline in order. We'll make a fortune. A sort of historical commercial fiction novel.
My mother: Cool.
Me: One condition we must have up front.
My mother : What?
Me: No going on Oprah. Ever.
My mother : OK.
Since that day, my mind occasionally wanders over to Mercy Disbrow. Frankly considering the family I am from, it came as little surprise to learn I was related to a witch. Truly the only surprising thing was that by awarding the death penalty to my grandmother, and then staying her execution, the State of Connecticut had officially recognized I was related to a witch. Strangely that official recognition came as a an enormous relief. Talk about a load off your back. One just never expects vindication on such a high level in one's lifetime. So, I've been studying a bit about Mercy Disbrow. Here is the proclamation of Mercy Disbrow's guilt. The State of Connecticut, holding true form to hereditary form, didn't even get her name right. :
Mary Disbrow is complained of and accused as guilty of witchcraft, for that on the 29th of April, 1692 and in
the 4th Y're of their Majesties (William and Mary) Reign, and at sundrie other times, she hath, by the instigation and help of the devill in a preternatural way, afflicted and done harme to the bodies and the estates of sundrie of their Majesties subjects, or to some of them, contrary to the Law of God, the peace of our souveraigne Lord and Lady, King William and Queen Mary, their Crowne and Dignity.
Not bad, huh? Upon reading this I wanted to learn more about how Mercy had affected the peace, Crowne and Diginity of King William and Queen Mary. Who wouldn't? Between you and I, I'm glad someone upset the peace Crowne and Dignity of those pretenders to the throne. And I found out how Mercy did it. (Longtime readers may be amused).
Mercy Disbrow:
* caused oxen to behave in a frisky manner.
* caused a canoe to travel upstream by itself
* caused high tide to become low
* bewitched children and cart horses
*could not read the Bible but could read other books easily
* invited guests to dinner and brought a roasted pig to table that looked delicious but could not be eaten
If that wasn't enough hot stuff, Mercy Disbrow was known to
* tickle and pinch men's toes in bed at night. And those men were not her husband...
According to records, on September 15th, 1692 Mercy Disbrow, who had already been found guilty of witchcraft along with another woman who was accused of witchcraft were bound and tossed into the water. According to witnesses, both "swam like corks" Mercy was agian found guilty again of witchcraft. The Governor sentenced to her to death. At that point, two men, Joseph Eliot and Timothy Woodbridge made a statement on Mercy's behalf.
...the evidence stands on slender and uncertain grounds, some of the statements and some of the witnesses being quite untrustworthy. From the easy deception of her senses and the subtle devices of the Devill, do not think one of the witnesses competent.
On May 12th 1693, Mercy was still alive. A Samuel Wills, William Pitkin and Nathan Stanley requested a reprieve for her as there wasn't much evidence against her. She was still alive in 1707 and received a mention in the will of her husband Thomas Disbrow which was probated that year by the State of Connecticut. There is no record of her being put to death.
Now these days witches have become very popular among the feminists. This is because feminists, rightly or wrongly--you need to ask the Pope-- believe these witches of olden days were one of them. Merely outspoken women who would not go along with the traditional roles for women of their day. I was most surprised (and after reading it highly amused) to learn that the *history* of my grandmother Mercy Disbrow is now being taught in the public schools of Connecticut. Here's the suggested history quiz on Mercy Disbrow :
1. How was Mercy Disbrow different from the type of person usually accused of being a witch?
2. How was Disbrow treated by her stepfather?
3. Why did her beauty become a source of difficulty for her?
4. Outline four of the steps that led to Disbrow's being accused of being a witch.
5. How did she respond to the charges against her?
6. How did the events in Massachusetts help her?
7. Why do you think Disbrow continued to live in the town after the governor found a way to set her free? What do you think her life was like from then on? If you had been in her place, what would you have done? Explain your answer.
Feel free to take a whack at the answers yourself. I might include them in the book.
It goes without saying that witchcraft is really no laughing matter. It is an offense against God that can and will cast you into outer darkness. Do not engage in it. I am being silly here because when life gives you lemons, you've got to make lemonade. Or go crazy.
Madame's Nightshirt
Mrs. Peperium
Today I promised to explain why some of the women in my family dine on broken glass. However yesterday, something happened to me that has never happened to me in my 44 years. I was summoned to the principal's office. Considering all the school years pranks and larks with my thumbprints all over them this was rather a landmark occasion to be finally caught. Leave it to a Catholic headmaster for finally catching up with me.
The beauty of the summons was that I held in my hand of cards a smoking gun against one of her teachers. A teacher she had actually hired that I know many parents are unhappy with. So, I was a lamb being led to the slaughter. Never did I imagine the tables would be turned on me. And boy did they get turned. Instead of discussing her teacher's infractions, we discussed mine. And until yesterday, I had no idea what a threat to society I have been. Wow. Lock me up and throw away the key.
Even Mr. P was shocked to learn what a slattern he was married to. And he had to pay top Catholic school dollar to learn this too. (Our school is more expensive than Catholic schools in NYC) The children took the news with great humour. The three of us have pledged to get through Catholic school together -- the sleeping psychopathic highlanders from within are being awaken.
Anyhoo, my mind was so distracted by yesterday's woodshed moment that I never got around to writing my post. Besides, I couldn't sit down at my desk to write anyway. Why this morning I still required the assistance of a pillow. Now I must shower and put my game face on for lunchroom duty. With my luck some trustfund kid will choke on string cheese.
Tomorrow then.
My new drink. You just don't want to awaken the psychopathic highlander from within...
Update: One of my friends just called. She takes being the model Catholic school mother so seriously she once pancaked a squirrel rather than be late for pickup. She got the woodshed too. Obviously, there is a plot afoot to destroy our group... You see, we are the untrackable mothers. The ones that don't care about social connections. Nor sport fake girl parts and do all the fundraising. In fact, we cause the fundraising mothers with fake girl parts to cry because we refuse to jump much less say how high when they order us to jump... This is going to be a very exciting school year.
Last Saturday, when night had fallen, Mr. P looking, as debonair as one could wish, took me, his beloved ball and chain, out to celebrate 17 years of common cause. Naturally, this meant he had sprayed WD-40 on the fold of his billfold to be in fighting form for procuring the finest oysters our town had to offer. Though, the finest oysters are not always the oysters I want. For sentimental reasons, I almost always want bluepoints. Bluepoints are considered to be quite common among the nouveau oyster fanciers. But Long Island bluepoints taste of the sea I swam in as a child; the Long Island Sound. They are most delightfully uncommon to my tastebuds.
The oyster bar we settled upon is an institution in our town as most clientele are on a permanent outpatient status at several of the finer homes for the mentally-unbalanced in America. As a result, Mr. P. does not reserve a table for two, he parks me at the bar so I can have a ringside seat to view all the crazies. Since the staff behind the bar employs the same thickly-starched white hotel napkins, Sheffield plate and heavy china that the Alquonquin Club in Boston used to in back in my day, I am most pleased to sit there, to say the least. Unfortunately for Mr. P's oiled wallet, the oyster bar's bluepoints that night hailed from New Jersey. Hailing from New Jersey is not terrible since I myself hail from there, technically. I arrived a month early at Overlook Hopsital in Summit, after my dad employed a bumpy shortcut home from a Chinese restaurant. I did most seriously consider ordering the New Jersey bluepoints. But, the memory of I the weekends getaways I spent in Spring Lake, New Jersey as a mother's helper came to mind. The family had a magnificent old family house right on Ocean Avenue. It was all quite glamourous, as in serious New York City-turn-of-the-Twentieth-Century- glamourous. I spent the better part of my weekends riding my young charges up and down the boardwalk on the Dad's ancient British racing green Raleigh 3-speed and teaching them how to jump the rollers (waves for you mid-westerners) on the beach. As my mind delightfully wandered through the neighborhoods of Spring Lake in the late 1970's, I recalled how we would travel down from Connecticut to there. It was the late 1970's and drinking and driving is not the no-no it is today. Imagine a large Mercedes sedan manuevering its way through late afternoon Friday New York City rush hour traffic from metropolitan Connecticut down to Spring Lake with a very well-dressed dad behind the wheel and his equally well-dressed wife riding shotgun, sipping martinis from crystal glasses. The refills were ready at a second's notice from a sterling shaker and jar of olives neatly held in the small tartan cooler resting on the mother's lap. Their 2 picture perfect toddler girls in the backseat strapped in with just ordinary seatbelts, not carseats, and me riding in between them in the suicide seat keeping them amused. Now you begin to have a deeper appreciation how very lucky I am to be alive today. Much less able to celebrate 17 years of domestic bliss not bound in a wheelchair.
Anyhoo, that memory caused my eye to wander down the list of available oysters to a variety from Virginia. I was so hoping to find some of the ones our Father M. enjoys at his D.C. club, but alas, the oyster bar was fresh out. Though they did have one from Assateague. The Assateague Channel to be more precise and that oyster did capture my imagination immediately. "What is the Assateague Channel?" asked Mr. P when I told him I was considering a few of those. Now admittedly, Mr. P admitting he does not know something that I do, is a splendid anniversary gift. We could have called it a night right there and then and I would have left the oyster bar a most pleased wife. But I am not a foolish wife so we did not leave. Instead I savoured the moment because geography has never been a strong suit. And Mr. P has never let me live down the fact that I believed Detroit to be in Ohio when I first came out here. Nevermind that he has never been able to make a case as to why Detroit should not be in Ohio as no one in Michigan would miss it if it were to leave, but I'll let that rest for now. "Why, Assateague Channel is the channel the ponies have to swim across every summer during the round-up." I replied. "What ponies?" he asked. Oh, could it get more splendid than this? This was sheer wedded bliss. "What ponies? Why the descendents of a Spanish galleon that got shipwrecked a couple of hundred years ago. You know, where Misty of Chincoteague came from." I said. "Oh, those ponies." responded Mr. P and he went back to stiring his cocktail. But my triumph of knowledge over Mr. P was very short-lived. Short-lived because his questioning got me to thinking about a couple of hundred ponies swimming across the Assateague Channel earlier this summer and about oysters being bottom feeders. Suddenly, I lost all desire for oysters from the Assateague Channel.
As Hillary Clinton likes to say, I moved on. Or up, to considering oysters from Canada. That night, the oyster bar was offering 3 different choices from Canada. As I pondered over their names, my grandfather's bestfriend came to mind. He was Scottish and had an old family home (probably) through his Scottish wife's family on Prince Edward Island. The two of them were great fun. One night in the 1930's, my grandparents and this couple got all glammed up for a night out on the town. This would be Boston. As the evening wore on, someone, probably the one of the ladies, had suggested they do something daring. She wanted to go to Scully Square and take in a show. Back before the urban planners of post-WWII America raised Scully Square, it was the red light district of Boston filled with theaters, showgirls and flophouses. By raising it, the post-WWII urban planners believed they would rid the city of the blight. Not so, it just moved over a few blocks, but I digress. Now my grandmother maintained the show the ladies wanted to see featured the Flora-Dora girls. But her math must have been off. The Flora Dora girls were the big show in Scully Square before WWI and their schtick was to wear hoop skirts with lots of petticoats. As they performed, they swung their hoops and petticoats to display their ankles. But this was the 1930's and my grandmother herself had been a bit of a flapper in the '20's -- I've seen the photographic proof. So petticoats and ankles would not have been daring to her. But for the sake of family unity, we'll accept my grandmother's word that the ladies wanted to see 'the Flora Dora girls', wink, wink, nudge, nudge. My grandfather's friend protested loudly against the idea. You see, he was a teacher at a posh boys' school in the Boston area. He believed if it was ever found out that he had taken in a show featuring wink, wink, nudge, nudge, the Flora Dora girls of 1912 in the mid-1930's, his school would have given him the raspberry. Well, persistance is a family trait and eventually the two ladies wore him down. He finally conceeded to go with the condition they must sneak up into the balcony to watch the show. So they did. My grandfather secured front row seats for the balcony, while he made himself scarce in the lobby. I think he hid behind the cigarette girl. Then with his wife's evening wrap firmly over his head, they snuck upstairs. Imagine his reaction after they had seated themselves in the darkened balcony and his eyes casually gazed down below to see lit by the footlights of the stage the headmaster of his posh boys' school attired in black tie, puffing on a cigar and seated in the front row?
I gave Mr. P my order. Northumberland oysters from Prince Edward Island. And they did not disappoint one bit. They were marvelous. As I savoured the faint taste of the Northumberland Strait contained in the shells, my mind recall how much of me hails from that part of the world. A little more than 100 years ago, 50% of the blood coarsing through my veins resided in Nova Scotia. To be more precise, 50% of the blood that coarses through my veins is from pyschopathic Highlanders who resided in Nova Scotia. As I thought of those insane men and women with webbed toes in homespun wool from which I am descended, I had to smile. After a few hundred years in those part of the world, human toes, like the native Labrador dog, become webbed to help the natives better scale the rocky coast. Thankfully, I did not draw the webbed toes of my Scottish Canadian ancestors, nor did I draw the slave toes of my UK ancestors who were Roman slaves. Slave toes display a large space in between your big toe and your second toe as the foot adapted over time to accomodate the Roman-issue slave sandal. Further proof, if needed, that sandals are no good, but again I digress. My Scottish Canadian ancestors were considered citizens of very good stature. Not in moral stature as they were all psychopathic highlanders but stature as in height. They were the tallest citizens in town.
Now, none of them emigrated to Canada for good reasons. They all emigrated there for bad reasons. One who emigrated there with the love of his life, was the offspring* of the only woman the State of Connecticut ever found quilty of witchcraft. So if you've ever wondered why some of the women in my family dine on broken glass for lunch, I'm about to tell why.
Tomorrow...
*The absolute blood link has yet to be proven but as I've said before it doesn't really matter because the blood has been off in my family for centuries.
Madame's Nightshirt
Mrs. Peperium
Today I picked Little Bertie up from school and took him to his first economics class. Ours is a conservative home meaning we raise our children to not live in the pockets of others. So economics begin in kindergarten. Longtime readers know the Peperiums reside in a leafy green hamlet of lush lawns, labradors, Lacoste shirts, and until recently, high property values, which borders the greatest example of how well unbridled Liberal Democrat economic and social engineering policies actually work, the ghetto formerly called the city of Detroit. I told Little Bertie we were going a place called Solidarity House. He asked why. I said to show them our lack of solidarity with the striking UAW.
Before we reached Solidarity House we managed to find a GM plant. I pulled off the highway and told Little Bertie to watch closely as this may be something we never see again. That something would be UAW members, striking or non-striking. It was about 15 minutes before noon and the local media was there ready to roll film for the noon news. The police chiefette from the ghetto formerly called the city of Detroit (who has seen an 11% percent raise in crime last year alone) was there as well. She came in a normal police car (naturally) to show her solidairity with the workers. Realising I was on very safe ground, I slowed our car down to about 5 mph to carefully observe what a picket line looks like.
The first thing that struck me was the age of the strikers. They looked like retirees. Not one was under 45 years of age. Their enthusiasm, or, shall we say lack of enthusiasm, was the second most striking thing. Then I saw perhaps the reason for this. Next to the picket line of maybe 15 strikers was a cooler and a stack of pizza boxes as well as several large boxes of Tim Horton doughnuts. Not doughnut holes, or Timbits as they are called in these parts, but full-sized doughnuts.
Then one old geezer in a black t-shirt and biker wallet attached to his blue jeans looked over his shoulder and saw me looking at him. It was obvious, by his immediate reaction, in me saw in me a fellow commrade. He turned around, looked straight at me, (with the police chiefette and the local media looking on from afar) and raised his arms up and forward in a V- shaped, did the rebel yell while shaking his head up and down in a yes-yes fashion. When he stopped, he kept his eyes on me intently waiting for my response. The eyes of his commrades were now resting on me as well.
I shook my head head right back at them with knobs on in a no-no fashion and said "You are losers!"
Little Bertie yelled from the back seat, "Mommy, you just called those people losers." "That's what they will be if they don't wake up and go back to work." Then I said, "Hey Little Bertie, look at the car in front of us." He said, "What is it?" "Something else you don't see every day." I responded.
It was a Mercury sedan from the '70's attached to a tow truck. The trunk was open and it held the Mercury's engine and steering wheel. We followed the car until we turned onto the turnpike. As we were going doing the entrance ramp, Little Bertie said "Spongebob went on strike once." He did? Why" I asked. "Squidward told him to. Maybe those guys saw that movie and thought they could do the same thing." he responded.
Out of the mouth of babes...
It Reads Even Better After A Campari
James Panero, invited guest
Editor's note: Yesterday Mr. Panero very kindly sent me a copy of his latest Wall Street Journal piece. Before I was able to negoiate for an exclusive 2nd run of his piece in this space, he posted it over at Armavirumque and at his own blog. So, technically, this is the 4th run of his Wall Street Journal piece. Well, those are the breaks when you're a midwestern housewife going up against Big Publishing for top talent and employing coconut macaroons for remuneration instead of happy cabbage. Nonetheless, the fourth time is the real charm. Just ask Richard Burton. While you're at it, ask him to pour you a Campari too. Enjoy.
From The Wall Street Journal:
The Venetian painter Tintoretto (c. 1518-1594) never commanded the sculptural vocabulary of Leonardo or Michelangelo. He did not luxuriate in the warmth of Giorgione or Titian. He displayed neither the draftsmanship (disegno) of Florentine art nor the affection for coloring (colorito) that was the legacy of his native city.
But through a synthesis of each tradition, "il disegno di Michelangelo e il colorito di Tiziano," as one Venetian writer identified it, Tintoretto may just have painted the single best work of religious art in the Italian Renaissance. His "Crucifixion" of 1565 comes as both a concluding statement to the art of the high Renaissance and also something wildly new.
To see it, you have to visit Venice. Tintoretto's "Crucifixion" continues to fill the back wall of the boardroom (albergo) of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, where he left it. Tintoretto dedicated his artistic and spiritual life to this confraternity, a charitable organization of Christian laymen dedicated to the plague-healer St. Roch. Surrounded by over 50 other religious images that Tintoretto painted for the Scuola Grande for the cost of materials, the "Crucifixion" forms the centerpiece of one of the largest intact cycles of religious work by a single artist in history.
Unlike Michelangelo, who initially fled Rome rather than finish the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Tintoretto never hesitated to apply his vision to paint. He persevered even as he was rejected by the Venetian establishment -- a situation that may explain the manic, expressive urgency of his compositions.
Consider how he first made his way into the Scuola. Since Tintoretto was the son of a silk dyer (tintore), the profession of a quarter of the Scuola's membership, his acceptance by the confraternity might have been a given. But in 1564, when he entered the artistic competition to supply the first ceiling painting to the newly completed albergo, the odds were not on his side. A young man with an evangelical zeal, Tintoretto had already been rejected for membership. In the conservative Scuola, resentment ran high against his brash personality and unorthodox paint handling -- "the thunderbolt of his brush," as one 17th-century painter called it. One member of the Scuola even pledged to contribute 15 ducats if Tintoretto was not chosen for the commission.
Meanwhile Titian, the ruling monarch of Venetian painting, who supposedly once expelled Tintoretto from his workshop after recognizing the young student's great talent, backed his protégé Veronese as heir apparent to the colorito legacy. (Their three-way rivalry will be examined in a show at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in spring 2009.)
Giorgio Vasari, the great Florentine chronicler of Renaissance art, recounts how "the little dyer" overcame the odds. (They had their differences, but Vasari still saw fit to call Tintoretto "swift, resolute, fantastic and extravagant, and the most extraordinary brain that the art of painting has ever produced.") Rather than submit a drawing of his ceiling plan, Tintoretto secretly measured the open space and "sketched a great canvas and painted it with his usual rapidity, without any one knowing about it, and then placed it where it was to stand."
When the confraternity protested, Tintoretto made an offer: "If they would not pay him for the work and for his labor, he would make them a present of it." It was a clever move. Since no donation to St. Roch may be turned away, through this gift "he so contrived that the work is still in the same place." (It didn't hurt that the painting's subject was the Scuola's patron saint.)
Within a year, Tintoretto overcame the Scuola's lingering resentment; he was accepted for membership and allowed to attempt his great "Crucifixion."
The layout of the room posed several challenges. Three different architects worked on the Scuola's design. When it was finished by Scarpagnino in 1549, the building's small, elevated windows provided only minimal interior light. The albergo was also wider than it was long, so that any painting covering the back wall would have to be viewed from close proximity and below.
Tintoretto conceived of a revolutionary program. Rather than keep his design locked in strict perspective, which would have been distorted by the room's oblique points of view (think of the front row of a movie theater), Tintoretto folded his narrative around the central figure of Christ on the cross. He then depicted Christ bending down -- to address the good thief, the figures in mourning at the foot of the cross, and our gaze from below. The fixity of the cross provides an anchor within an undulating sea of dark details that seems to extend beyond the picture plane out into our own space. With blank faces, the mundane figures surrounding Christ stir up the awful scene. A crowd of onlookers, carpenters, soldiers and even a dog make up "a centrifugal energy that charges the entire picture," as the art historian David Rosand wrote in his survey of 16th-century Venetian painting.
The ominous tones, curved landscape and artistic urgency that underlie Tintoretto's color choice, composition and paint handling make this work a point of departure. Rather than look back to the neo-Platonic ideals of classical sculpture -- brilliantly embodied at the start of the 16th century in the ceiling frescoes of the Sistine Chapel -- Tintoretto's "Crucifixion" anticipates the fallen angels of our modern era.
Like a thunderbolt from the brush, Tintoretto's "Crucifixion" can stop you in your tracks. The Victorian writer and artist John Ruskin certainly thought so. "I have been quite overwhelmed today by a man I have never dreamed of -- Tintoret," he wrote to his father on his first visit to Venice. "I always thought of him a good and clever and forcible painter, but I had not the smallest notion of his enormous powers. . . . And then to see his touch of quiet thought in his awful crucifixion -- there is an ass in the distance, feeding on the remains of strewed palm leaves. If that isn't a master's stroke, I don't know what is."
From 1565 to 1588, Tintoretto expanded his swirling cycle of religious art in the Scuola out and down from the cross of the "Crucifixion": to canvases on the facing wall of the albergo ("Ecce Homo," "Christ Before Pilate" and "The Way to Calvary"); to a monumental series of images from the New and Old Testaments covering the walls and ceiling of the Scuola's central upper room (sala superiore); to episodes from the life of the Virgin Mary on the walls of the ground floor (sala terrena).
Tintoretto's work at the Scuola, executed over more than 20 years, became a perfect union of form, content, application and artistic intention. In Tintoretto's lifelong dedication to the Scuola, "the act of painting thus becomes a gesture of piety," writes the academic Rosand.
Earlier this year, the Prado Museum in Madrid hosted the first major survey since 1937 of Tintoretto's work. The museum also published an excellent catalog, in English, on the artist. No museum exhibition will ever do justice to Tintoretto, since his largest work never travels, but the Prado show came close, shedding light even on San Rocco: "the most personal and intensely felt of his works, conveying a powerful sense of the artist's own deeply held faith," writes Frederick Ilchman, a curator at the Museum of Fine Arts and an essayist for the catalog.
The Scuola Grande di San Rocco, which remains active as a confraternity, long ago opened its doors to the public. It now also maintains an excellent Web site, www.scuolagrandesanrocco.it, which includes interactive pictures of the rooms.
But there's no substitute for the real thing. The artist El Greco once called Tintoretto's "Crucifixion" the greatest painting in the world. Next time you are in Venice, make a visit to the Scuola your own act of piety, and experience a work of art that reaches across the centuries to our own time and place.
Mr. Panero is the managing editor of the New Criterion.
Madame's Nightshirt
Mrs. Peperium
As everyone is pretty much aware, I am a mother. More than that, I am a Catholic mother. A practicing Catholic mother to be more precise. From what I've been able to determine in my seven short years of being Catholic, living the Catholic life is all about proper formation.
Yesterday was an interesting day in the life of the proper formation of our children. First, before the Catholic school uniforms go on, RKFDIL (Roger Kimball's future daughter-in-law) is doused with vanilla-scented talcum powder because I hold the firm belief that little girls should smell like bakery cake. Little Bertie is doused with Clubman talc as I strongly believe men should have a faint citrus scent about them to ward off scurvy. Except yesterday, Little Bertie was resisting his dousing. He was hiding under the bed in fact. I was poised to pull him out by his ankles when his sister shouted out from her room, " Little Bertie, Mom's just trying to make you smell like a boy." For some reason known only to Little Bertie, those words worked and he wiggled out from beneath his bed and allowed me to powder him up.
Then on the way to school the subject of conversation was RKFDIL's upcoming birthday. She announced that what she would like most for her birthday would be a battery-powered red Mustang. Upon pressing her for more information, it appears she wants the battery-powered red Mustang so that she can drive herself to school. Imagine an 8 year-old girl in her plaid Catholic school jumper with a big matching bow in her chestnut hair, smelling faintly of bakery cake happily tooling down the sidewalk on her way to school in a battery-powered red Mustang.
Now keep on imagining because it is not going to happen.
After I had processed that one, it was time for lunchroom duty. Two of my good friends are lunchroom mothers at the same time. One is married to as much of a kook as Mr. P. Last week, one of her sons ( a first grader) came running up to her to inform her she had put the wrong chill-pak in his lunchbox. She had mistakenly put his twin brother's basketball-shaped chill-pak in his lunchbox. She leaned over to tell him she was sorry. He, a future 3 term president of the RCBfA, saw opportunity spread out before him in a nano second. He stuck the basketball-shaped chill-pak down her shirt. She almost committed infanticide right there in the lunchroom of a Catholic school. After he went back to his table with his tail tucked firmly between his legs, she turned and looked at me. We both said, simultaneously, "He got that from his father." Then we laughed. Hard too.
Never ever do that as the all the future RCBfA are looking. More than that, they're taking notes.
Yesterday, the vice principal, who normally roams the cafeteria keeping all the children in line was away at a conference. So my friend and I and a few other mothers were in charge of keeping all the young skulls full of mush in line. And the young skulls full of mush know we are no match as far as extracting obedience from them as the former nun vice-principal is. To top that off, yesterday was the day the all the future members of RCBfA realised how efficient a cafeteria- issued plastic spoon is as a catapult. My friend and I quickly became targets. Well, more precisley, a certain part of us became targets. And those future members of the RCBfA learned very fast how to connect their Pepperdge Farm cheddar goldfish crackers to their targets. I took the first hit. And I was shocked. Then when I saw who it was who nailed me I was even more shocked. I have known this boy since he was 4. He knows me and my baked goods very well. I just looked at him and he was laughing so hard he was almost crying. So were all his cohorts. Plus, they had all their catapults fully loaded and ready to launch. I must say, in that moment, I acquired a much deeper understanding of the hard-wired nature of the RCBfA then I had ever previously understood.
So, now that all of you understand how well I doing with the proper formation of the children I actually interact with on a daily basis, I thought today would be a great day for all of you to learn more about the younger bloggers who come to Patum Peperium on a daily basis seeking to be entertained and, yes, even formed by all the writers of mature years of Patum Peperium.
First there is Lorraine. Close readers have a very good understanding of who she is. And frankly, the way she has become comfortable with Uncle Basil's pecadillos does impress me. When she's not here, she can be found at Ha Jolly Ha.
Another commentor close readers would be fairly familiar with is twm. twm, or professor Travis McDade can be found at Upward Departure. And for the younger available ladies amongst us, here are twm's vital stats.
Then there's Andrew Cusack. But I've talked enough about Andrew over the years that there is no need to plug him today.
I have recently found a fellow from Up North who I must admit, cracks me up. It appears from the comment section of his blog, that he's got an entirely all-female readership. No doubt appealing to the homemaking skills of his readership, he's taken to posting recipes. For drinks. Now the ladies are requesting that he mix them one or maybe three tiny triples. According to the proportions he's listed, they'd be consumed by alcohol poisoning if they actually consumed one of his gin and tonics. Killing your readership off. Nice blog work if you can get it, I guess. Meet Jeremy, The Classic Canadian, eh.
And last but not least is a blog/bloggers that has/have very recently come to my attention. They appear to be serious T.S. Eliot fanciers. And serious Catholics with serious senses of humour. Meet the The Three White Leopards.
Please visit their blogs, light candles, and say the occasional Rosary for them. If they hang around here, they need it. Don't they Father M.?
Update: After reading this and looking closely at all of the photos, maybe we're not doing such a bad job here afterall. Those Windsors do not even possess an IQ that can proof yeast - to the non-cooks yeast is proofed at 96. Good thing they're royalty because they'd never make it as exotic dancers...
American Incognitum
Irish Elk
When PBS aired the miniseries version of Tom Sharpe's Porterhouse Blue in 1991, Montreal Gazette reviewer Mike Boone wrote:
The funniest lines in prime time tonight are delivered in Latin. This is a television first.
At approximately 9:20 p.m., an elderly university professor will open huge oak doors, declaim "Quisnam nos appelat?" and viewers will fall off their couches in hysterics.
Indeed, this four-part satire of English university life, recently released on DVD, is quite funny. Imagine Oxbridge dons from the Vanity Fair Spy prints come to life, and chasing gas-filled prophylactics across the grounds of Andrew Cusack's alma mater.
From the Wellington Post comes this synopsis:
Set at Cambridge University, Porterhouse Blue centres around fictional Porterhouse College, where genially eccentric fellows are the proud guardians of six centuries of tradition in which oar-pulling prowess and gourmet over-indulgence have taken prowess over academic achievement. Its rich and cholesterol-laden excesses have become a way of life, where eating and drinking have become a decadent art form. Porterhouse is also the domain of the irascible head porter, Skullion (David Jason). His family have occupied menial positions there since the Elizabethan era ("the first!"), and like generations of Skullions before him, he has spent 45 years in proprietorial subservience to fellows and students alike. Indeed, it may be whispered that many an intellectually impoverished old Porterhusian has risen to public prominence from the launch pad of a successful degree engineered by Skullion.
When the master of the college succumbs to a Porterhouse Blue – a stroke brought on by over-indulgence, he dies without naming a successor, leaving the Government to make the new appointment.
In comes Sir Godber Evans (Ian Richardson), failed politician and old Porterhusian, who brings with him the formidable and zealous progressive lobbyist Lady Mary. As the new master, he chooses the occasion of the annual great feast - complete with whole, roasted, feathered swans stuffed with widgeon - to announce a major break with 600 years of tradition.
The real-life master of Pembroke College, Cambridge, where Sharpe was an undergraduate, took a dim view of the show when it originally aired on British television in June 1987, the Times' Charles Oulton wrote:
Lord Adrian, who is also vice-chancellor of the university, said: "We do a great deal of important research here and wish we would get a bit more credit for that."
Adrian is worried what the public perception of Cambridge will be. Porterhouse Blue does the opposite for Cambridge of what Brideshead Revisited did for Oxford; the dreaming spires of Waugh's creation become instead, for Sharpe, a battle-ground for snobs, dunces and bores.
In real-life Cambridge last week, the university was at its most romantic, with gilded youths throwing off their exam gowns and heading for the river and the May balls. But for viewers of Porterhouse Blue, the only romance attached to the place was the obsession of one graduate for his "bedder" and the chaplain's sexual fantasies about the check-out girls at Woolies.
This has, naturally, been highly popular with the undergraduates themselves…
The high-table feast with the swans stuffed with widgeons is colorfully described in an excerpt from the novel itself at Google Books.
Certainly Porterhouse Blue's humor is not for everyone. You will not like it if, for example, you are someone who finds even Wodehouse a near occasion of sin. And the spectacle of Mrs Biggs is indeed alarming, to say the least.
But on the positive side, those vehement in opposition to contraception will have fresh ammunition as to its life-threatening nature. And the chaplain with the bull-horn for confession and a feel for the female form in classical sculpture appears to have been founding muse of the ACB for A, the Anglo-Catholic Boys for Art, and would fit right in at Sir Basil's. Meantime, I have been humming the title song, "Dives in Omnia," all week.
This is an opportune occasion to toast the memory of the late Ian Richardson, who plays the reform-minded master with the Hillary Clinton-like wife, Sir Godber Evans. The Baltimore Sun's Mary Carole McCauley writes:
In one telling moment, the new master, played by Ian Richardson, is presented with a roast swan for inspection.
As Richardson looks down his long, beak-like nose, we see him wondering which of the two is really being served up for consumption on a platter.
Richardson, who passed away in February, was a wonderful actor, famed for his portrayal of Francis Urquhart in "House of Cards" (and for asking for the Grey Poupon in commercials). RIP.
Poet's Coroner
Mr. Peperium
Pastoral is one of the 'kinds' of poetry, like Epic, Tragedy and Satire. We still know what these ‘kinds’ are, though we probably attach less importance to them than earlier readers did. To an Elizabethan critic they were natural; men had discovered, not devised, them. A poet who wrote in some novel form not recognized as a ‘kind’ was liable to be called to account, and accused of a breach of decorum, which is an offense against nature.
Frank Kermode, English Pastoral Poetry (1952)
Imagine poetry being more than a forum for unbridled self-expression. Imagine poets being called to account for breaches of decorum. Imagine a society that assumed that decorum was more than just a man-made contrivance created for the oppression of woman and minorities. Imagine critics who upheld the idea that writing well had something to do with being in sympathy with nature and therefore with God’s intentions and designs.
Ok, you can stop imagining now. Back to reality. Back to open mic poetry “slams” where the only thing slammed is, well, decorum. But it was nice while it lasted, wasn’t it? That little vacation back to a time where, while admittedly it was tough being Catholic, enough of the Catholic underpinnings of the culture were still in place so that ideas like decorum weren’t considered, at best, mildly quaint and at worst totally subversive.
Take heart, because those days are not over. In fact, Pastoral as a form or “kind” is alive and well. Don’t believe me? Turn on your local Country Music station and listen.
Oh I know. Daphnis and Chloris have been replaced by Kyle and Trish. Instead of friendly singing competitions among rustic swains vying to praise the local shepherdess you'll hear Loved-Me-And-Lost-Me ballads, paeans to whiskey or beer and Lets-Get-Dirty sing-a-longs. But at the bottom of even some of the raunchiest Country tunes there abides an assumption that is—or rather was—at the heart of Pastoral poetry:
“Pastoral,” according to Professor Kermode, “depends upon an opposition between the simple, or natural, and the cultivated. Although this opposition can be complex, the bulk of pastoral poetry treats it quite simply, and assumes that natural men are purer and less vicious than cultivated men, and that there exists between them and Nature a special sympathy. The natural man is wise and gifted in a different way from the cultivated man. By reason of his simplicity he is a useful subject for cultivated study, since his emotions and virtues are not complicated by deterioration and artificiality.”
True, your average Country Music fan is probably not capable of much "cultivated study". Still, his life is most likely more complicated, more technically sophisticated, than the lives of the characters who inhabit the music he listens to every day on the way to his job. And, chances are that job has little to do with tractors, hay bales or rain forecasts. No matter. Its just another example of Country Music carrying on the Pastoral tradition: "sophisticated" people writing about "unsophisticated" people with admiration and even envy. Don't believe they're "sophisticated"? Spend some time with session musicians in a Nashville studio.
And at its best—those songs that celebrate family, faith and hard work—Country Music really is Pastoral in modern, albeit Country-Western, garb. Take Tim McGraw’s classic, “Where the Green Grass Grows”. Having described driving home in heavy traffic while eating “Another supper from a sack / A 99-cent heart attack”, the character in the song uses the refrain to draw a picture of what he really wants for himself and his family:
I’m going to live where the green grass grows,
Watch my corn pop up in rows,
Every night be tucked in close
to you;
Raise our kids where the good Lord’s blessed,
Point our rocking chairs toward the west
And plant our dreams where the peaceful river flows
Where the green grass grows
Declaring he hails from “a map dot / A stop sign on a black top”, he explains how he came to the city for a better life but now finds “all this glitter is getting dark / There's concrete growing in the city park / I don't know who my neighbors are / There are bars on the corner and bars on the heart”. This alienation—sorry, I don’t mean to sound so faux-academic, but there is no other word for it—is yet another integral aspect of Pastoral. Again, Professor Kermode:
“The idea that the world has been a better place and that men have degenerated is remarkably widespread, and a regular feature of pastoral poetry. We have abused Nature, by breaking its laws and falling into sin, and we are therefore steadily deteriorating so that our only hope is for a fresh start, after some kind of redemption. The restoration of the Golden Age is a theme of Virgilian Pastoral, and was naturally taken over in the Pastoral of the Christian era.”
What else is McGraw's refrain if not a perfect expression of our yearning for a redemptive, fresh start?
I’m not going to go on parsing the lyrics of other of my favorite tunes. I leave that to you. I’m sure we can all add more than a few songs that answer the criteria for Pastoral verse. But I do take great pleasure when I see, marooned as I am in an age that truly believes itself the inheritor of nothing and the creator of everything, that the most popular form of popular music draws on age-old expectations and forms. Which may, of course, explain its popularity.
Madame's Nightshirt
Mrs. Peperium
I still recall the first time I saw them. I was 23 years old and shopping with a good mate on our lunch hour. We had gone into Shreve, Crump, and Lowe to browse around and pick up some stationary. Then we wandered into the store just a few doors over. I cannot for the life of me recall the name of the shop but I can recall my first glimspe of them. They were in a glass display case on top of one of the counters. I went directly over to them. Upon my request, the sales lady opened the case and let me marvel at the collection. They were perfectly gorgeous and I wanted one. Badly. My mate said, "Get one." I looked at them and said "No." You see, I had decided right there and then, without telling a soul, that I didn't want to buy myself one. I wanted to be given one. And the guy I wanted to be given one by, was the guy I was go to feed out of the same crib for life. And more than that, he was going to give it to me when he popped the question. So, I said thank you to the sales lady and we left the store with visions dancing in my head of me being totally surprised when the smiling Mr. Right, at the conclusion of a splendid dinner at one of Boston's finer dining establishments, sweetly asked for my hand in marriage while handing me a hand painted Limoges snuff box with a honking engagement ring hidden inside.
Hand painted Limoges boxes have been around for a few hundred years. Back in the old days, fashionable men used them as snuff containers. In more recent years, fashionable ladies used them to hold perfume or their children's baby teeth. There are several manufacturers of the boxes. The finest ones are marked Paint Main and include the artist's name or initials. The very finest boxes are painted by the best Limoges' artists will have a small hand painted ladybug, bee or butterfly somewhere on the box. These boxes are so well executed they will easily stand out to the discerning eye in in a collection of 25 boxes or more.
As I recently shared with all of you, my wedding proposal did not go down the way I had imagined it would. What's far worse than that, one can make a very strong case that it was me who actually popped the question. How perfectly dreadful. Anyway, during that visit to Mr. P's parents, Mr. P and I did manage to stumble across a store that had a very nice collection of hand painted Limoges boxes. Since I had already blown my chances at receiving one during my proposal by popping the question myself, I did try to recoup matters by steering Mr. P over to the display case and telling Mr. P how much I adored them. I was hoping he would put 2 and 2 together and buy one for when he presented me the ring. Mr. P put 1 and 1 together and bought me one when I wasn't looking and gave it to me on the way back to the house. *Sigh* However, I chose to look on the bright side of things. The man I had agreed to feed out of the same crib for life had given me a hand-painted Limoges snuff box within hours of me asking him to marry me.
So fast forward about 10 months and I was standing before the chapel altar with Mr. P, who was resplendent in tweeds. I had a broad-brimmed hat on with a veil that wrapped around my chin. We had reached the point in the ceremony where the priestess said, "The rings please." The rings did not come forth. There was a snaffoo. If you are aware of anything regarding our wedding weekend, it was all about snaffoos. So my attitude was, what's one more at this point? I remained calm but, then it was still taking too much time for the rings to be presented. I thought they were lost. I casually peeked the large brim of my hat around Mr. P's tweed back to see what was wrong. Our best man had his pocket inside out and was trying to untangle something caught in the lining. By now, Mr. P was assisting him. At first I could not get a good look at what it was they were untangling. Then I saw it. My mouth dropped open and I quickly snapped back into bride position. Our now very pink Best Man handed the priestess a pear-shaped hand-painted Limoges snuff box. The priestess smiled and looked the box over before opening it to bless our wedding rings which were inside. Meanwhile, I seriously contemplated fainting. I had never, ever told Mr. P about my dream of being presented a box with the ring inside when he asked me to marry him. Then, I had gone and ruined my chances of ever having my dream come true by popping the question myself. But Mr. P had saved the day, or dream, plus improved upon it by presenting a Limoges box with both of our weddings rings inside at the altar. Talk about hot stuff. After our wedding portraits were taken outside the Church, I finally got to examine my box. I can still recall turning it around and getting my first glimpse of the hand-painted bee. Mr. P had no idea what the bee signified when he had bought it. He just selected what he believed to be the best painted one in the case. Which, to those in the know, the bee indicated it was.
So that wedding day surprise began the tradition of Mr. presenting me with a hand-painted Limoges snuff box every wedding anniversary after. Before children we always were on holiday in Maine for our anniversary. My most favorite store is in Northeast Harbor and they always had a nice selection for Mr. P to choose one from. After a few years, the sales ladies there even got to know him and our tradition. On the afternoon of our anniversary, Mr. P would nip over there while I was busy in the kitchen preparing our dinner. He'd make his selection and the ladies would wrap it up for him. Then he'd stop at the liquor store to pick up a bottle of vintage Port. A quick pause at the cheesemonger's for some Seal CoveFarm goat cheese, a wedge of Stilton, nuts, and water crackers. He'd arrive home, put on Oscar Peterson, start a fire, assemble his cheese plate and crack open the Port. I'd take a break from the kitchen and join him in the living room. It was perfectly marvelous.
Perfectly marvelous until Home Shopping Network went and ruined it all. Back in the days our home had cable, Mr. P and I were settling down to watch something. He was blowing through the channels and on Home Shopping Network they were selling hand painted Limoges snuff boxes. He blew past it. I ordered him to stop and back up. He did. I watched the sales ladies hawk my beloved hand painted Limoges snuff boxes at a some obscene rate of 250 boxes per hour, discounted too. I wanted to cry. I didn't. Instead, I told Mr. P that I no longer wanted or needed another hand painted Limoges snuff box. He understood but did think I'd rally around by the next anniversary. I never did. I have 11 pre-Home Shopping Network Limoges snuff boxes and those are enough.
What happened with Limoges is not unusual. In fact it's all too common* these days. My perfume recently has gone under a similar treatment. I've always worked on the signature scent concept. That means instead of having a wardrobe of scents for all different occasions, I wear the same scent all the time. Mr. P like the scent I wore when we met, but then the fellow responsible for it died soon after. The people who took over his branding were bent on changing his image so I thought it was time for me to change scents. Since I was now dressing for an audience of one, Mr. P was charged with going out and selecting my new scent. The instructions were something classic but no Chanel or Shalimar. He went with a Guerlain scent that pleased him enormously. Since it was a scent created by a member of the Guerlain family, I was pleased as it meant it was here to stay. Then in the late '90's the Guerlain family sold the family business they had owned for a hundred and fifty years or more. Now the new owners have recently discontiuned my scent. A Guerlain-created scent was recently discontinued. That statement in the old days --as in pre-NBA days-- of the world of fashion would have been a breathtaking statement. Now it's just a matter of spreadsheets. Most perfumes today are no longer made from real extracts of flowers and spices. They are made from chemical extracts and being sold at the same prices to a far less discerning audience. Apparently, my perfume could not be recreated well from chemical extracts. So the new owners decided to shelve it. I can still buy it over the internet but an intrinsic part of buying your perfume is the visit to the perfume counter. Buying over the internet does not cut it.
So Mr. P, and now with the rest of my audience in tow - the children, recently went off to the perfume counter to select a new scent for me. They picked a lovely one. This past weekend they presented it along some matching body lotion (to get the layered effect of scent that I prefer) for 17 years of feeding at the same trough. Though we were not in Maine, and Mr. P was still recovering from the stomach flu his offspring had so thoughtfully brought home from school, we still managed to meet up in the living room for some Oscar Peterson, goat cheese, nuts, and wine. Mr. P's weakened stomach could not tolerate vintage Port. It was marvelous.
For his anniversary dinner this year Mr. P's, requested this. But this recipe has been another longtime favorite for our day. I think you'll like it too.
Pork Loin with Port and Leek Sauce from Marmotte in Telluride, Colorado
(serves 4)
2 cups chicken broth, low salt
1 cup beef broth, low salt
1 1/2 lbs russet potatoes, peeled and cut inot 1-inch pieces
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 /2 cup heavy cream
pinch of ground nutmeg
1 tbspn olive oil
1 pound boneless pork loin
1 large leek (white and pale green parts only), sliced
3 shallots, finely chopped
1 cup Port
1. Boil both stocks in medium saucepan until reduced to 2/3 cup, about 25 minutes. Set aside.
2. Cook potatoes in large saucepan of boiling salted water until tender. Drain. Return to pan and mash with potato masher. Add butter and cream and bring to simmer, stiring frequently. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and nutmeg. (Can be prepared 2 hours ahead. Cover stock mixture and potatoes separately and let stand at room temp.)
3. Preheat oven to 425. Heat oil in large ovenproof skillet over high heat. Season pork with salt and pepper. Add to skillet and brown on all sides, about 5 minutes. Transfer skillet to oven and roast pork until just cooked through, about 20 minutes. CAREFUL : REMOVE SKILLET FROM OVEN USING OVEN PADS. Transfer pork to plate and tent with foil to keep warm; do not clean skillet.
4. Add leeks and shallots to same skillet and cook over medium heat until tender, about 8 minutes. Add reduced stock mixture and port and boil until reduced by half, about 4 minutes.
5. Meanwhile rewarm mashed potatoes in saucepan over medium heat, stirring frequently. Divide among plates. Cut pork into slices and arrange around potatoes. Spoon Port sauce over pork.
*Please read.
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