The Coventry Carol

Lully Lullay

Lully, lullay, thou little tiny child, bye, bye, lully lullay. O sisters too, how may we do, for to preserve this day, this poor youngling for whom we sing, bye, bye lully lullay. Herod the king in his raging, charged he hath this day, his men of night, in his own sight, all young children to slay. Then woe is me, poor child, for thee! And every morn and day, for thy parting not say nor sing bye, bye, lully lullay. Lully, lullay, thou little tiny child, bye, bye, lully lullay.

Here is a MIDI link to the song. It is not the best, but it does have a nice organ sound.

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"Let there be no traitors in our ranks!"

The Governor General's Coat of Arms


Its been several months since the Governor General, our representative of the Queen, was "inaugurated". Amid months of controversy over videos of her with Quebec’s separatists, she still got the post.

But, here is an even more insidious sign. Her coat of arms displays a deep-rooted inability to conform to Canadian traditions.

It shows voodoo female gods on either side, broken chains and conches referring to a Haitian national symbols (a runaway slave), an incongruent palm tree at the bottome left, and an ambiguous sand dollar in the middle.

The only indication (hard pressed even to see that) that we’re in Canada is a diminutive pine tree (bottom right), and an equally inconspicuous Royal Crown.

But this "tradition" of personal representation at the expense of the general culture has been building up for quite a while.

Romeo Lablanc’s coat of arms celebrates his "French" heritage for this very English of Canada’s appointments (representative of the Queen!).

And Adrienne Clarkson was all about Chinese.

But Jean is the most dangerous of them all. She has not only kept out any clear traditional Canadian elements, we are forced to look at a voodoo incantation of two female gods.

No sign of a cross to counterbalance that.

"Let there be no traitors in our ranks!" An apt line from the Haitian national anthem.

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Vogue Cover Illustrations

The Legacy of Aubrey Beardsley




Aubrey Beardsley lived a short life of twenty five years. His drawings, many used to illustrate books and posters, had a sense of foreboding about them, often with androgynous figures with cruel expressions. Kenneth Clark, the art critic and writer says that Beardsley knew about Evil.

(Left, Aubrey Beardsley, The Black Cape)
(Right, Condé Nast Vogue Cover, 1920s)




His many illustrated books included: Oscar Wilde’s play “Salomé”, an art an literary magazine called “The Yellow Book” of which he was the art editor, and Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock”.

( Left: Aubrey Beardsley's Cover design for Smithers catalogue of rare books)

(Left: Condé Naste Vogue Cover, 1920s) 

(Right Aubrey Beardsley, Isolde)

Close to his death (due to tuberculosis) he converted to Catholicism and died at the very end of the nineteenth century.

These Condé Nast Publications for Vogue Magazine reminded me of Beardsley’s illustrations. Most of the Vogue illustrations are from the turn of the twentieth century (1912-15). Beardsley’s beautiful (but disturbing) images have found their true place. Decorating the women he tried so much to put in a favorable light.

(Left: Aubrey Beardsley: La Dame aux Camelias)
(Right: Condé Nast Vogue Cover, 1920s)

(Aubrey Beardsley: The Peacock Skirt)

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On The Twelve Days of Christmas

One of my Favorite Carols (too many to choose from)

On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me A Partridge in a Pear Tree On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree On the third day of Christmas my true love sent to me Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree On the fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me Four Calling Birds Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree On the fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me Five Golden Rings Four Calling Birds Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree On the sixth day of Christmas my true love sent to me Six Geese a Laying Five Golden Rings Four Calling Birds Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree On the seventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me Seven Swans a Swimming Six Geese a Laying Five Golden Rings Four Calling Birds Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree On the eighth day of Christmas my true love sent to me Eight Maids a Milking Seven Swans a Swimming Six Geese a Laying Five Golden Rings Four Calling Birds Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree On the ninth day of Christmas my true love sent to me Nine Ladies Dancing Eight Maids a Milking Seven Swans a Swimming Six Geese a Laying Five Golden Rings Four Calling Birds Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree On the tenth day of Christmas my true love sent to me Ten Lords a Leaping Nine Ladies Dancing Eight Maids a Milking Seven Swans a Swimming Six Geese a Laying Five Golden Rings Four Calling Birds Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me Eleven Pipers Piping Ten Lords a Leaping Nine Ladies Dancing Eight Maids a Milking Seven Swans a Swimming Six Geese a Laying Five Golden Rings Four Calling Birds Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me 12 Drummers Drumming Eleven Pipers Piping Ten Lords a Leaping Nine Ladies Dancing Eight Maids a Milking Seven Swans a Swimming Six Geese a Laying Five Golden Rings Four Calling Birds Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

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Diversity in Writers

Will the Real Jeeves Please Stand?

England has witnessed several years of non-English authors who keep winning literary prizes, or just literary acclaim. Zadie Smith was recently in the headlines, Salman Rushdie has managed to outlive his fatwa, and another less famous but prolific writer, Kazuo Ishiguro, has written yet another book from those fair British Isles.

I’ve read books by all three, even tried more than one of each. And all leave me less than enthralled, slightly confused, and struck by a lack of authenticity. I find their characters to be caricatures. Both Rushdie and Smith go for hyperbole, while Ishiguro goes for exactly the opposite.

I’m beginning to wonder if non-British writers, however much they were born on the Island, can really capture the spirit of the land.

“Remains of the Day” by Ishiguro has a gloomy, undecipherable, remorseful butler try to recapture something of what he’s lost during all those years of selfless service. Actually, I recant my observation about Ishiguro’s understatement. What could be more of a hyperbole than this?

Then there is P.G. Wodehouse, with the inimitable Jeeves. His adroit butler who really always does save the day, after a lot of scampers and near-disasters along the way. And he does get to have his day at the sea-side also, and quite frequently.

I think Wodehouse captured his character with affection as a butler who certainly is not going to be bossed around by any Lord! No remains for him to collect.

Sometimes I wonder; if you don’t have your full emotions invested in a place, how can you write positive things about it? Like Rushdie, Smith and Ishiguro, who seem to deny a possibility for a future in their books, and press on with their circular exaggerations trying to find meanings for themselves.

Ishiguro’s 2001 book “When we were orphans” is about an Englishman who mysteriously lost his parents as a young boy in Shanghai. He returns as a professional detective to solve that ultimate mystery. It reminds me of these writers, trying to find clues about their past by digging into words.

Ishiguro’s latest book forfeited the unapproachable Far East, and his ancestral home, for something even more alien. It seems like he’s completely given up on ‘his’ England. “Never let me go” is about a Utopia (or a dystopia) on cloning. No more real people, real places or real stories for Ishiguro in the advent of the 21st century.

Why doesn’t this progression of his thoughts and stories not surprise me?

Quote from an interview with Ishiguro on "When we were Orphans":

There's a certain kind of branded, packaged atmosphere of Shanghai: this exotic, mysterious, decadent place. The same in Remains of the Day. It was a case of manipulating certain stereotypical images of a certain kind of classical England. Butlers and tea and scones: it's not really about describing a world that you know well and firsthand. It's about describing stereotypes that exist in people's heads all around the world and manipulating them engagingly.

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America’s Top Portraits

Reality Model Show Displays the Classics

Any reference to High Art by the Lower Arts has to be a good thing.

Tyra Banks’ America’s Next Top Model (ANTM – as the website calls it) made each of her (remaining) five contestants pose as subjects in a classic painting.

The snobbism these days associated with ‘Art’ is really a recent phenomenon. Art has always been for the public. Notice Michelangelo’s ceiling frescoes, his town center David, and Bach’s choral compositions, all for the public.

In fact, some ‘classic’ works have become so popular even in our postmodern days, that they have been mimicked, copied, parodied, satirized and made into any number of greeting cards by the public.

There’s Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, who is just as well know with her mustache as without.

And she figures again in Tyra’s enthusiastic show, although I’m not so sure how Leonardo would feel about his latest copy.

Click on each painting to see the Next Top Model’s rendition. They don’t live up to the originals, but I’m optimistic that they’ll keep the tradition going.







Top row:
Botticelli The Birth of Venus 1445-1510
Leonardo Da Vinci Mona Lisa 1503-1507

Middle Row:
Vermeer Girl with a Pearl Earring - 1665
Whistler Arrangement in Black and Grey, Portrait of the Painter's Mother
1871

Bottom Row:
Leonardo Da Vinci Vitruvian Man 1492

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Crimes vs. Values

Martha’s Designs and Conrad’s Prints

Much has been said about Martha’s ‘sins’, which probably resulted in the biased jury that convicted her.

Black’s crimes are equally nefarious – that is to the few, and powerful, who wish to indict him.

Both in their own way managed to cloud over “Though shalt not steal”.

Yet, finally, question of their criminality is not how many legal (or illegal) barriers they jumped, but what are their values.

Martha’s values may indeed be what kept her company going for so long, enriching us with ideas and products. Her television show was a mixture of do-it-yourself crafts (which really can be done if taken the time) and a pristine set with pleasant colors and good design.

Black’s, well I’m not entirely sure what they brought us since many of his original newspapers have now been sold, and Canada’s National Post no longer maintains the vision he once had of it.

Courts, it seems, are not designed to judge based on values. It is life (or a higher order) that eventually decides that.

Martha’s sin – i.e. lack of values - (not crime) may have been her arrogance. But without it, how could she have run her mega-empire?

Black’s is probably his lustfulness (more so than his arrogance). But how could he satisfy his wife without that?

If I were to judge, I would say that Martha’s sin is the lesser of the two. A leader needs a certain amount of arrogance to run the show.

Black’s was all about himself – and his wife. All about money. And unlike Martha, he eventually had to sell the majority of his newspapers to other parties. At least Martha still has her magazine, and her visions intact.

Arguments that don’t take ‘values’ into account end up defending any one and anything in the name of legal technicalities.

Michael Jackson becomes just as defendable (even though he’s now in enemy territory in the Middle East apparently hooked on drugs), as Conrad Black who renounced his Canadian Citizenship to become an English Lord. The latest news is he wants it back to avoid American prisons!

The most Martha has done to defy her country and values is to sell her beautiful Connecticut home, and to go start her version of the “The Apprentice”. At least that one failed too – she couldn’t summon up the courage to be arrogant! And she’s back on her pristine sets under a new program “Martha”.

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Words

And Reason

The Evengelical Outpost has a great post on hyperbole, exaggeration and metaphor. It is worth the read.

I think the View From the Right is addressing a similar concept when talking about highly emotional feelings which cloud a reasoned or reasonable argument. The example used here is: “I hate Islam… these people are a bunch of savages” deflects from the reasonable “Islam is our mortal enemy and we must defend ourselves from it”.

The Evengelical Outpost does the same deciphering. He quotes a writer who’s views on George Bush resort to “ George Busy is the worst President of the United States of America, ever. Hands down.”

When hyperbole, exaggeration and weak metaphors get in the way of the message, they seem to indicate a personal belligerence. Why should anyone listen to such violent language? As these writers point out, it personalizes the issues, putting the person (and his demons) at the center of the attention.

I’ve found that such style, if it is to be called such, is the language of liberal and female writers. For example, Ann Coulter has many points worth listening to, yet her anger is so palpable in every sentence she writes, that it is difficult to concentrate on her message.

I think most people are willing to listen to reasoned arguments from passionate speakers, not impassioned speakers who belie reasonableness.

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