(no subject)
Dec. 7th, 2004 11:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
malsperanzaWell, it's certainly been an exciting week, and not entirely in a good way, what with upheaval in the Ukraine and felony burgleries in Brooklyn and whatnot. Also, the Repuglicans seem still to be in power, which is disheartening.
At dinner the other night I insulted the religion of someone perfectly nice and interesting, whom I had just met. Alls I said was that Christianity seemed to be obsessed with bodily torture, citing the corpus of German and Italian Renaissance and Baroque painting, Irenaeus, Jacobus de Voragine, Torquemada, and the colonial history of Peru and Mexico. The names Carolyn Walker Bynum, Margaret Miles, and Leo Steinberg also came up.
Not to mention that small matter of being the only religion whose central icon is an image of hideous torture.
What'd I say? What? *looks around, puzzled*
Was sitting next to her and she stayed in an affronted huff from the soup (carrot and ginger) through the entree (roast pork) and well into the salad. However, by the chocolate cake a happy reference to the dubious ethnobotany of Wade Davis led to a lively discussion of the scholarship of Zombification, Post-Zombification, and Neo-Post-Zombification. Whereupon she noted that Zombies as a class ought really not to be called Zombies in our enlightened day and age, but Living Impaired.
All's well that ends well.
On a happier note, just in time for caroling season, I have learned today that Samuel Pepys owned a theorbo. A theorbo! (that big long-necked thing which these folks are calling a chitarrone.) My favorite instrument! (Well, my favorite to say out loud anyhow.) I knew I loved Pepys, but now I know why.
Can you imagine having one of those around the house? A whacking great massive megalute that almost no one can play. Still, better than this, perhaps: it seems to be scratching its head. Well, I would too . Or any of these, really. Or these sad-looking woobies.
Now if I can only discover that Jane Austen owned a crumhorn, my happiness will be complete.
Had enough yet? No? Well then, what odds that Marlowe played the cornamuse, whereas Shakespeare was a bladder pipe man?
At dinner the other night I insulted the religion of someone perfectly nice and interesting, whom I had just met. Alls I said was that Christianity seemed to be obsessed with bodily torture, citing the corpus of German and Italian Renaissance and Baroque painting, Irenaeus, Jacobus de Voragine, Torquemada, and the colonial history of Peru and Mexico. The names Carolyn Walker Bynum, Margaret Miles, and Leo Steinberg also came up.
Not to mention that small matter of being the only religion whose central icon is an image of hideous torture.
What'd I say? What? *looks around, puzzled*
Was sitting next to her and she stayed in an affronted huff from the soup (carrot and ginger) through the entree (roast pork) and well into the salad. However, by the chocolate cake a happy reference to the dubious ethnobotany of Wade Davis led to a lively discussion of the scholarship of Zombification, Post-Zombification, and Neo-Post-Zombification. Whereupon she noted that Zombies as a class ought really not to be called Zombies in our enlightened day and age, but Living Impaired.
All's well that ends well.
On a happier note, just in time for caroling season, I have learned today that Samuel Pepys owned a theorbo. A theorbo! (that big long-necked thing which these folks are calling a chitarrone.) My favorite instrument! (Well, my favorite to say out loud anyhow.) I knew I loved Pepys, but now I know why.
Can you imagine having one of those around the house? A whacking great massive megalute that almost no one can play. Still, better than this, perhaps: it seems to be scratching its head. Well, I would too . Or any of these, really. Or these sad-looking woobies.
Now if I can only discover that Jane Austen owned a crumhorn, my happiness will be complete.
Had enough yet? No? Well then, what odds that Marlowe played the cornamuse, whereas Shakespeare was a bladder pipe man?
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-08 07:26 am (UTC)Bwah! You'd fit right in with my dinner-party crowd. They might even discuss jurassic instrumentation with you.
I think I'm partial to the bladder pipe, myself.