Liz Shaw from Dr Who — Audiobook Bible! Free!

Liz Shaw, the iconic no-nonsense UNIT scientific adviser who worked with the Third Doctor on Dr Who, was played by Caroline John, a very good actress with a very good voice. I’ve always been sorry we haven’t seen more of her work over here.

Now, in an amazing project for charity, Caroline John has recorded a complete audiobook version of the Gospel of Mark, and a good chunk of the Gospel of Matthew (currently, Chapters 1-11 have been posted). I think it’s the King James version; and it was professionally recorded over in London.

The Lambs Audio Bible is being put together by longtime US Dr Who fan Jeri Massi, who has been running the Conference of the Lambs, a group for documenting abuse of members of independent Fundamentalist churches (mostly a small denomination called IFB), and helping the survivors heal. The idea here is that people have sometimes been misled by selective quoting of the Gospels, and that hearing them as a whole will help people reorient themselves.

But anybody can use this. It’s free to download and may be freely distributed, too. (Details on the first chapter of Mark.)

Oh, such a lovely English voice. Even if you’re not religious or Christian, this is a real treat for any audiobook listener or Who fan. Obviously, Caroline John should be hired immediately by audiobook companies everywhere.

Here’s a Facebook page for just the Gospel of Mark.

Caroline John has also read bits of scripture previously for various series of talks on Jeri’s podcast All of Grace. (About which I don’t know much, and obviously Jeri’s theology isn’t Catholic; but there you are.)

UPDATE: See comment below from Jeri Massi. Apparently three out of the four Gospels were finished and are good, but the Gospel of John had audio problems. So posting is ongoing, but production is at the Argh! What to do?!? stage.

Review: The Honorable Marksley, by Sherry Lynn Ferguson

The first question one must answer in reviewing any book, in these benighted days, is whether the prose is readable. I am glad to tell you that Ferguson’s prose is not just acceptable, but pleasant. Since this is a historical romance, one then passes to the question of its credibility. Do these people talk and think in a way compatible with their time period, or are they making the reader’s eyes roll too much for comfortable perusal of the text? Again, I am glad to report that Ferguson’s characters are not jarring.

This taken care of, what about the novel? The Honorable Marksley is disappointing. Not because it’s a bad book; because it ought to be better.

It presents us with a hero who founded a literary journal and a heroine who writes good poetry — under a male pseudonym and a veil of mystery. It also presents us with a heroine’s family that is determined to see her wed to the man who didn’t compromise her, and a hero’s family that constantly relies on him to pull them out of the fire. Misunderstandings occur from the start and continue, and eventually there’s a happy ending. So far, pretty good.

The problem is that Ferguson seems undecided as to whether she is writing a sprightly romance to make the reader laugh, a good old Heyeresque story with plenty of comedy and angst and a few Gothic touches, a tale that focuses on the heroine’s male pseudonym and flirts with being queer in the modern or academic sense, or a serious short novel about two interesting characters. So the book constantly wriggles shapelessly and awkwardly, never totally committing to anything. There are a few scenes which are totally realized, unifying theme, characters and plot. But the others just flail about, wasting their force.

There is also a great deal of time wasted on characters thinking about their plight, which might have been spent having things happen. Many minor characters were introduced, developed, given plot hooks — and then never seen again. The heroine apparently was quite proactive before the book began, but you couldn’t tell that from what happened during the book. At least one pivotal scene (for the hero) occurred offstage. In fact, just when you thought the heroine was going to get us in on it, the writer struck the heroine unconscious. (This is not necessarily a flaw in a Regency, given the literary conventions of the 1800′s. But those literary conventions demand that the reader be let in later, and we never really are.)

Finally, the ending line was more than a tad creepy. I hate to have to point this out, but one reads a romance between two heterosexual persons with the expectation that the ending will have them engaging in heterosexual behavior together. “I didn’t show any of this in the novel, but now I want to make sure that the heroine knows that the hero would have kissed her even if she’d been a homosexual man”? No. That’s not a good ending.

On the good side, the game of quoting poetry was nicely done. The writer managed the difficult feat of providing someone who’s supposed to be a really good poet with enough solid poetic lines to make her status believable. The literary journal idea was also carried out well. The minor character Archibald Cavendish was realistically appalling in the quote scene. (Though I was disappointed in his later appearances.) Whenever the writer quit being so self-conscious or over-explanatory and let her characters speak for themselves, they were quite interesting.

What I would like to have seen was more plot, more letters from “Mr. Beecham” to help with plot structure, and revelations that didn’t require dishonorable behavior from a character supposed to be defined by honor. In fact, I’d think Ferguson would have leaned on the concept of honor in this book: fiduciary, literary, family, military. There’s a rich vein there left unmined, which might have helped plot construction no end. If both “Mr. Beecham” the poet and Hallie the lady were accused of dishonorable behavior, shouldn’t they both have been trying harder to clear their names? With a fishy poet and an impressionable poetry-loving girl around, shouldn’t plagiarism have happened, or a medieval poem been faked? And oh, it would have been awesome if “Mr. Beecham” had been called out! But I don’t insist on any specifics. The same plot could have worked better, given a little more unification or a better editor.

Finally, one minor nitpick: there was no “linguist” (in the linguistics sense) in England just after Napoleon. I don’t think there were any professors of etymology, either, although certainly it was a field of study. But the word back then was “philologist”, and etymology just one part of “philology”. (I would not make so big a point of this, had the author not named her minor character of this profession “Partridge” and based him on the author of Lavengro. If she knew that much, she should have known more. She also should have let us spend some time with the man, instead of inventing him, dangling him before us, making us wait for him to arrive — and then making us miss out on every bit of drama in which he participates! What a waste!)

None of this is crippling, oddly enough. Ferguson is still better than 80% of the Regency writers one encounters. But I do expect better from her. She is capable of it. When she provides something that’s more unified, I’m sure readers will respond with joy — and money.

A brief search reveals that Ferguson’s previous books were: Headline Romance, Raise a Tiger, and The Other Brother. The first two were contemporary romances, I believe. She doesn’t seem to have a website.

Free Novel Writing/Organization Software

I wanted to let folks know that I’ve found a very good piece of freeware called yWriter. It was created by a programmer who’s also a published writer, and it seems very useful. (And probably for more than just writing novels or books.)

The idea is that you want to be able to organize novel writing, like software programming, into modules that are easy to tackle individually. In the case of a novel, this would be scenes within chapters. Every conceivable tab is provided for each individual module: a description so you can tell it apart from other scenes (or use the description as a placeholder till you write the thing), what the scene is supposed to accomplish, what kind of conflict is occurring, what characters are involved, what items show up in it (so you can keep track of who has the murder weapon or whatever), notes, and of course the actual scene that you write. You can track POV for each scene. It automatically tracks things like word count, and there are tons of other features and reports and logs you can generate or fill in or use. It will even estimate how much more time it will take you to finish the bits you have left.

Basically, the idea is that every single part of your book is at your fingertips, without having to spend too much time rooting around in a big long file. You can work on the bits you want to work on, but be reminded of which parts you haven’t done. You can move scenes around, or decide not to use them without deleting them. You can see what’s going on with your pacing, and which characters are getting what amount of screen time.

And obviously, you could also use it as organizational software for complex projects other than writing, if you plan out each mini-task as a “scene”; so this software is even more useful than advertised.

Hymn Tunes for Liturgy of the Hours Hymns

The Topmost Apple has been doing yeoman work to find tunes and .mp3s for all the Office hymns. Yay!

Sacred Harp Singing/Shape Note Singing TV Show

I just watched a really good documentary on PBS called Awake My Soul. (And don’t click on that link unless you want your speakers to flood with music!)

It’s all about shape note singing, which people doing it apparently call “Sacred Harp” after the famous songbook. It is really good stuff, and educational too. You get to hear a good sampling of the typical sounds of the style, meet people of various ages and backgrounds who sing, and learn the typical way that ‘all day singings’ are set up: how song leading is done and who does it, where the parts sit and how they’re divvied up, and what individual singers are supposed to do.

The thing which struck me was how much the Sacred Harp singers, as a tradition, shared things in common with the people I know who maintain other small musical traditions. The wholehearted love of the style that comes upon one, the eager determination to learn everything, the unexpectedly strong and detailed memories of long-ago events — and the admission that for some, life was planned around the singing, not the singing around life! Naturally, this extended to the documentary. It was apparently done by folks who were either in the tradition or rapidly were being sucked in. So at certain points, it became a Sacred Harp recruiting video. I feel this is entirely proper, and I’m just sad that we don’t have anything like this for filk. Or Gregorian chant, for that matter.

The things I found very tempting:

1.) emphasis on teaching sightsinging. Geez, I cannot tell you how tired I am of _not_ being able to sightsing fluently. Reducing seven notes to four shapes would make this sooooooo much easier to learn.

2) sing real loud! A wall of vocals sounds darned good to me. I don’t mind working hard at dynamics in choir, or learning to listen to others and blend. But it would be so freeing just to sing as comes naturally to me. Also, given the large number of elderly singers on this show, it’s obviously good for vocal health!

3) interesting harmonic sound. Holy cow, is that sound odd and neat! There’s a lot of similarities to certain of the English folk hymns and to early music (and I wonder if certain of the early American folksongs I know are using shape note tunes — “Logan’s Lament” sure sounds like it would fit in). But it’s definitely out there doing its own thing. Also, the lyrics sound pretty cool. (Although I’m sure there’s quite a few with theology that I’d disagree with, as a Catholic!) Also, it’s a continuing songwriting tradition, which I was very glad to learn. A tradition with no source of new songs (new to you, anyway) is counting down to death.

4) pretty much everybody learns to lead (direct) and gets a chance to do it — even the little kids. They take it in turns.

5) no accompaniment. (In your face, instrumentalists! Mwahahaha!)

6) good spirit of singing and fellowship.

(It also turns out that Justin Morgan, of Morgan horse fame, taught Sacred Harp among his other schoolmaster skillz. And now that I see it written, I do seem to remember dimly something like that from Justin Morgan Had a Horse.)

If you’re interested, the show website points us to http://fasola.org, a hub of info on Sacred Harp and the singings people hold. It turns out — there’s a three-hour singing every month only a couple of miles from me! Mwahahaha!

You can fill your mp3 player with free recordings at Voices of America.

Anyway, the whole thing was very enjoyable and interesting, and you should watch the show if you get a chance. Also, Time apparently has an article scheduled to come out next week, so keep an eye out.

Leif the Lucky… Lay Missionary?

Yesterday I listened to the Librivox public domain audiobook of the saga of Eric the Red’s settlement of Greenland, and the luck that Leif the Lucky and his friends had in Vinland. I highly recommend this eye-opening translation and reading. It is amazing stuff.

Anyway, cool as it was to hear about the Norse seeress prophesying in Greenland and the feuds of various families, or what the Inuit thought of the men of the longships, or that pagan poet sacrificing to Thor somewhere in Newfoundland… the really interesting bit was learning about the motivations of Leif the Lucky. I did a report on Leif back in 3rd or 4th grade, and thought I knew a lot about him. But once again, the primary source material is much better than the derivative material.

There were a few Christians on Greenland in the early days; the beautiful young Gudrid was one of them. But Eirik the Red and his family, and most of the other settlers, were pagan. Leif apparently converted while out seeking his fortune.

Leif had sailed to Norway, and was there with King Olaf Tryggvason… He joined the body-guard of King Olaf Tryggvason, and the king formed an excellent opinion of him, and it appeared to him that Leif was a well-bred man. Once upon a time the king entered into conversation with Leif, and asked him, “Dost thou purpose sailing to Greenland in summer?” Leif answered, “I should wish so to do, if it is your will.” The king replied, “I think it may well be so; thou shalt go my errand, and preach Christianity in Greenland.” Leif said that he was willing to undertake it, but that, for himself, he considered that message a difficult one to proclaim in Greenland. But the king said that he knew no man who was better fitted for the work than he. “And thou shalt carry,” said he, “good luck with thee in it.” “That can only be,” said Leif, “if I carry yours with me.”

Leif set sail as soon as he was ready. He was tossed about a long time out at sea, and lighted upon lands of which before he had no expectation. There were fields of wild wheat, and the vine-tree in full growth. There were also the trees which were called maples; and they gathered of all this certain tokens; some trunks so large that they were used in house-building.

Leif came upon men who had been shipwrecked, and took them home with him, and gave them sustenance during the winter. Thus did he show his great munificence and his graciousness when he brought Christianity to the land, and saved the shipwrecked crew. He was called Leif the Lucky. Leif reached land in Eiriksfjordr, and proceeded home to Brattahlid. The people received him gladly. He soon after preached Christianity and Catholic truth throughout the land, making known to the people the message of King Olaf Tryggvason; and declaring how many renowned deeds and what great glory accompanied this faith.

Eirik took coldly to the proposal to forsake his religion, but his wife, Thjodhild, promptly yielded, and caused a church to be built not very near the houses. The building was called Thjodhild’s Church; in that spot she offered her prayers, and so did those men who received Christ, and they were many.

After she accepted the faith, Thjodhild would have no intercourse with Eirik, and this was a great trial to his temper.

(I had to include the last part, because it’s funny! And it ties in, a little later, to why Eirik didn’t end up going to Vinland even though he wanted to go — lack of communication between husband and wife.)

So now you know. Leif discovered America while on his way home to preach the faith to pagan Greenland as a lay missionary. Did you learn this in school? Did you see this on the History Channel? No?

Also, Leif wasn’t the only missionary whom King Olaf sent out. He also sent some examples of muscular Christianity!

Now, before this, when Leif was with King Olaf Tryggvason, and the king had requested him to preach Christianity in Greenland, he gave him two Scotch people: the man called Haki, and the woman called Hækja. The king requested Leif to have recourse to these people if ever he should want fleetness, because they were swifter than wild beasts. Eirik and Leif had got these people to go with Karlsefni. Now, when they had sailed by Furdustrandir, they put the Scotch people on land, and requested them to run into the southern regions, seek for choice land, and come back after three half-days were passed.

They were dressed in such wise that they had on the garment which they called biafal. It was made with a hood at the top, open at the sides, without sleeves, and was fastened between the legs. A button and a loop held it together there; and elsewhere they were without clothing.

Then did they cast anchors from the ships, and lay there to wait for them. And when three days were expired the Scotch people leapt down from the land, and one of them had in his hand a bunch of grapes, and the other an ear of wild wheat. They said to Karlsefni that they considered they had found good and choice land. Then they received them into their ship, and proceeded on their journey to where the shore was cut into by a firth.

I’ll leave the land of the Monopods, for you to discover! But it’s a very medieval and Christian saga, I’m telling you.

The Honorable Judge Bao, Presiding

I love the Judge Dee detective stories by Robert Van Gulik. Like any rightminded, obsessed person, I have also read his translation of Dee Goong An, a Ming Dynasty detective novel from China, and Parallel Cases Under the Pear-Tree, his translation of T’ang Yin Pi Shih, a “13th Century Manual of Jurisprudence and Detection”.

But alas, one lacks the motion and visuals. One occasionally sees magistrates and other court officials in martial arts flicks with a Chinese background, but it’s just not the same. Sigh.

However, if one is willing to look a bit further afield, it turns out that among all the Judge Lo’s, Judge Pan’s, and so forth, there’s actually a good amount of media presence for Judge Bao!

Like Judge Dee and the rest, he’s a real historical person who has also become the hero of innumerable stories, anecdotes, novels, Chinese operas, and now movies and TV shows. Of course he is a great detective, absolutely incorruptible, and served by incorruptible officials who are also great swordsmen. His distinguishing marks are that he was said to have a white crescent-shaped scar on his forehead (paging J.K. Rowling), a black face (symbolizing his devotion to justice, the color of which is black), and employed special machines for executing royals, nobles and commoners. (The dragon-head decorated one is for royalty. Gets lots of use in the operas.) His popularity is such that he is worshipped by some as god of justice. (This is highly ironic, since there’s a fairly good chance that the historical Judge Bao was a Yutai — a Chinese Jew.)

He’s also god of the star Wen Qu, aka Megrez in the Big Dipper. “Wen Qu” means “literary pursuits” or “scholars”. (I trust that Barry Hughart fans see why Master Li was destined to become the god of a star, now. This star was also supposedly the domain of Bi Gan, another historical figure, who apparently cut out his heart; Wen Chang Di Chun, worshipped as god of scholars; and one of the nine emperor gods. Confused yet?)

Anyway, his hometown, the old capital city Kaifeng, makes a big thing of him. They’ve got his memorial temple, his house, a tablet with his picture, statues, his name on a stone listing all Kaifeng’s “mayors”, a historical amusement park featuring him, some kind of local delicacy buns named after him, and a daily performance of a play of one of his many cases. (Sounds like a fun trip for mystery fans, doesn’t it?)

Another fun thing about Judge Bao is that his loyal, brave, handsome, and skilled officers of the tribunal come from a 17th century crossover novel. Zhao Zhan and Co. used to have their own heroic adventures, you see. But the crossover was so successful that they’ve stuck with the judge ever since.

Unfortunately, I haven’t found any online source yet which provides subtitles for any of the TV shows, except ones with subtitles in Vietnamese or Korean. The 1995 series’ opening credits look very spiffy, though, and features a spunky swordswoman who apparently spends a good deal of time disguising herself as a young man. (And I think there’s supposed to be a love interest between her and Zhao Zhan, or one of the swordsmen, anyway. This is apparently a change from romance with the judge’s niece, romance with princesses, widows needing help, wandering swordswomen, etc.) There’s also some opening credits from Young Justice Bao. Here are reviews of various Judge Bao TV series.

Anyway, here are some search terms to use: “Judge Bao” “Judge Pao” “Young Justice Bao”, and “Kaifeng”.

China Today article, including brief descriptions of some famous cases, a picture of the Peking Opera makeup of the judge, and some famous Kaifeng sites.

Museum of Kaifeng website, including some info on the judge in English and New Year’s woodcuts, mostly of the Judge and his faithful followers, but also a few Immortals and a chi-lin/ki-rin/Chinese unicorn bringing babies. (The front page takes a long time to load, but has wonderful traditional music.)

Museum recreation of Judge Bao’s court.

Judge Bao’s Memorial Temple in day and night: His seated statue, with offerings. His standing statue. Judge Bao Lake nearby.

Judge Bao’s grave, and the case of “Ghosts Build a Bridge”.

Henan opera plot summary: Judge Bao’s Mistake. How a Dead Cat Was Substituted for a Newborn Prince: Parts 1 (no Bao) & 2 (with Bao). The webpage’s banner features a Judge Bao opera.

A visit to Kaifeng during a heatwave. Famous local dishes: peanut cakes, guan tang bao (steamed soup dumplings), bai ji mo (cake with meat), Kaifeng chicken, five-spice bread, sesame soup, chrysanthemum tea. Discussion of Kaifeng and soup dumplings.

Women’s Hat Advice! (Veil-Wearers, Pay Attention, Too!)

I’m not exactly Miss Fashion Queen, as anyone who knows me is well aware. So I know it looks silly whenever I decide to write a fashion post. But if women are going to wear something to cover their heads in front of God and everybody, they need to think about more than how princessy or devout it makes them feel. For God’s sake, and on the principle of the parable of the wedding garments, they should take a step back and check the whole package in the mirror. I mean, geez, you’re going to church!

Hairstyles, hats, headdresses, and veils all work on the same principles. You pick them based on the shape of your face. Also, headgear should not clash with your hairstyle, hair color, skin tone, or clothing. (It doesn’t have to match; in fact, contrast is good if it all pulls together. But it shouldn’t clash.)

For example, if you’ve got a round face or a face with broad cheekbones, it’s a bit silly to wear a short, broad hat; or a short chapel veil that ends at the cheekbones. (If you’ve got short hair, blonde or white hair, and pale or rosy skin as well, and then you add a short white veil, you’re gonna look like your neck ends in a cottonball.)

Similarly, a long skinny little face doesn’t need a tall skinny hat or a long drapey veil, and especially not one in dark colors. (You don’t want to give the impression that your head is a broomstick!

OTOH, if you’re tiny, you don’t want a huge hat that looks like Godzilla is devouring your head, and a big lady probably doesn’t want a teensy-tiny hat or veil. Your headgear should fit to scale.

Also, white does go with everything, but not all whites are created equal. Matte white is different from ivory is different from off-white. Silk is different from lace is different from cotton crochet.

Btw, if you have a plain hat and a scarf that goes with an outfit, you can always tie the scarf around the hat just for that day. (If it doesn’t look stupid on the hat.) This will help tie the outfit together.

Here’s a good milliner’s company with tips on how to choose a hat, picking hats according to basic face shapes, pictures of hat dos and don’ts, miscellaneous handy hints, hat fit and securing hats on your head, and other interesting info. (If you don’t know your face shape, the old advice was to trace your facial lines in a mirror with a bar of soap. Oh, and “fringe” is the British way of saying “bangs”.) They even have clips from their hat videos!
(This page doesn’t so much sell hats as hatmaking equipment and materials, btw. All you crafty types can go wild.)

Here’s a page with more great tips and more on face shapes/hats. Also from a hat and bridal veil company, natch. But the face shape illustration is gorgeous.

Obviously, all this stuff is optional. If you want to go with the Ugly Babushka Test, who’s to stop you? But hey, my mom wouldn’t have let me leave the house — much less go to Mass! — in an Ugly Babushka, and neither would any of her olden days female kinsfolk. Ugly clothing that you know is ugly, and wear even though you have an alternative that’s not ugly, is just as much disrespecting the Lord as falling out of a skimpy blouse.

(And with all due respect to saints, I learned early in my house that “saints did it” isn’t a good argument. If a saint ran around naked in the desert and ate bugs, that’s between her, God, and her spiritual director. But as for us, we can mortify ourselves just as well by just getting up, putting on our church clothes and going to church. If you think you can’t, call your mom and get some mortification and chore suggestions. I’m sure she’ll have some for you.)

So I’m sure it’s totally unintentional that women leave the house in some of the chapel veils I see women wearing when they pan the crowd at some EWTN event. It’s not that the veils are ugly, or that the ladies are ugly. It’s that the two specific models so often do not go together — or at least, do each other no favors. And if the veils fit the woman’s face shape, they often are wrong for her clothing. (They look weird with her dress fabric or neckline, or with the color of the dress, etc.)

I’m a nerd, and if I don’t think about it in the morning, I’ll just slap on whatever comes to hand and only worry about clashing colors when it gets light. But the rest of you are not super-nerdy people who live alone, and you actually care about putting on the dog for the man in your life and giving a good fashion example to your daughters. There are plenty of times when we have to look like a clown for the love of God, but going to God’s house is not one of those times.

So think about integrating what you put on your head with what the rest of your head and body looks like on a given day. If you are trying to promote traditional practices, it’s logical that a nice total look makes you a better silent argument as well as being worshipful. And if being feminine is part of your female Catholic spirituality, you should do what it takes, not just slap on a long skirt and a lace table runner.

Otherwise, my mom is likely to set up on EWTN as some kind of fashion version of the Knights of Columbus protecting the Eucharist from women with bad outfits, and that would be super scary. Brrrrrr.

Breviary Online!

If you want to check out an older edition of the Breviary (in Latin), books.google.com has the Breviarum Romanum from 1861. It’s pretty nice; it’s got all those accent marks for chanting and stuff, and the font is very readable. (Once you get beyond all the forewords and tables, anyway.)

The only bad thing about books.google.com is the lousy job usually done of scanning. I don’t know who they employed, but they weren’t particularly concerned with keeping things aligned. And yes, I know not everyone is as picky as me; but in the work world, I guarantee they don’t want you sending out crookedly aligned stuff to customers. Work done for scholars and the future should be done with due care.

Edu-Manga: Mother Teresa

Yes, it’s true. Marvel’s not the only major comics company to make Catholic saint comics. Even more oddly, the Edu-Manga series is technically an Astroboy crossover. (Remember how they used to have educational comics introduced by Batman or Spidey? Like that, except that Astroboy and his friends are learning about Mother Teresa, Beethoven, Einstein, Helen Keller, and similar figures, from the wise old professor who built the boy robot. The same company is bringing out an adult bio-comic about the inventor of instant ramen.)

Astroboy aside, it’s a pretty straightforward biographical comic. Since it came out relatively recently, the comic is able to include some info about her mystical experiences. (Although you might want to explain to kids that the drifting angel feathers are artistic shorthand and not historically documented!) The comic also does a good job of explaining the Missionaries of Charity to kids and eliciting empathy for the poor, sick, and lonely. Dramatic moments in Mother Teresa’s story are brought out, and there’s unusual emphasis on her times of discernment. Very effective stuff, and one of the most beautiful educational comics I’ve ever seen.

However, it’s fairly obvious that either the Japanese writer or the American translator had problems explaining Catholicism accurately. There are no huge errors, but there is over- and under-explanation, as well as some oddities: St. Francis is called St. Francisco (direct translation from common Japanese usage, I think) in the explanation of his influence on her (which is practically a mini-Francis comic). It’s repeatedly said at one point that nuns can never see their families again. It’s explained that “Christians often pray and ask God which path to take.” One of the times when Teresa prays, she says to Mary, “Please grant my wish.” (I’m pretty sure that’s under-translating a formal Japanese expression.) At one point, a typo: “Let me ask pope about this matter.” The most serious translation problem: the description of the Missionaries of Charity’s training. Apparently, our American translator didn’t believe in looking up the words “novitiate” or “postulant”. Similarly, the sisters’ habit is described as including “a small cross called the rosary to wear on the left shoulder”. Heh.

One very nice thing about this manga is that it also talks about Mother Teresa’s experiences in Japan. I hadn’t heard these stories before. Another is that, at the end of the comic, there’s a fairly long prose Q&A section giving kids more info than could be included in the comic, and providing a review. There are a few illustrations included, one of which is an incredibly cute picture of a character putting up signs marked “Poverty”, “Chastity” and “Obedience”. (But the definition of Mass during this section is really unclueful, even though it starts very well.)

So basically, it’s good stuff, but Catholic kids will probably realize right away that there are some misunderstandings of Catholicism included.  I think parents could find this very valuable, as they can gently expose kids to the idea that not everybody understands this stuff without exposing the kids to anything hateful. You might ask kids to find and explain the mistakes, for instance.

A School That’s Not a Waste of Time.

Time Magazine has a story on how intellectually gifted kids get treated by the school system in the US. There’s special focus on the long reluctance of schools to let smart kids skip grades and take classes on their learning level. (While kids who are good at sports get tons of special enrichment and opportunity to have their skills challenged.) There’s also a droolworthy description of a special school which only accepts the most gifted, and gives them a chance to work up to their limits alongside other kids as smart or smarter.

I think the author exaggerates in comparing life as a high-testing kid forced to hang with normal kids as being like a normal kid in a class full of the developmentally retarded. For one thing, it’s fairly pleasant to hang with the “slow” kids, as they aren’t usually concerned about social hierarchy and so don’t feel obliged to treat others like dirt. (I know that sounds like a snarky comment, but alas, it’s true.) But the main objection is that we’re talking apples and oranges.  Still, it’s a good arresting metaphor for convincing people of the plight of the smart kids, and I suppose has some artistic or psychological truth to it. But I can’t take it seriously. It smacks of “marching morons” paranoia against the mundane.

(OTOH, one of Michael Flynn’s less well-written books from earlier in his career is being played out.)

But the central thesis of the academy idea is sound — that smart kids are better off spending more time around other equally smart kids, and that it will only help them to get a chance to learn as fast as they are capable of learning. Now, I was lucky enough to have very smart siblings who were also very different from me, and many of my peers in junior high and high school were also quite intelligent. But even so, it was a great relief to go to a gifted camp or summer program every once in a while. For once, I didn’t have to live in isolation, or censor what I said to the level of my audience. It was great! I didn’t experience anything like it until I went to college, and even then, my peer group in college wasn’t quite as smart as my summer camp peer group. (Though by that point, a lot of the differences have smoothed out.)

The story also mentions the joys of finding out you’re not the smartest person on earth. Heh. A lot of smart kids smack up hard against this in college, or on the job; though nowadays, I imagine they learn better on the Internet. It’s a lesson that must be learned, however, because nobody is the smartest and the best at everything he cares about. In many fields, too, “best” is simply meaningless. People have to quit vesting all their self-esteem in the magic fact that they have a high IQ, if they ever wish to use that IQ to best advantage. It’s not the tools; it’s what you do with them.

Of course the normal sort of factions emerged. But they were based on normal things. And yes, many of us tend to be lone wolves by nature; my brothers and I sometimes played together, but often pursued our own interests. (But that’s not lonely. It’s efficient, and then later you have the fun of hearing what other people have worked on.)

This is a darned good story, with many insightful comments.  Good for its writer, Mr. John Cloud!

Claim Your Territory

Emma Bull is one of the authors on my buy-on-sight list. She has been there since… oh, thirty pages into her first published novel, War for the Oaks. Her books and stories are an exceedingly mixed but good-to-read bag (as befits a veteran of Liavek, Bordertown, and the Scribblies school, who helped co-write The World’s Only Hegelian Fantasy, Freedom and Necessity). If that weren’t enough, she’s a gifted musician, singer, and songwriter whose bands and albums have been great favorites of mine; and she’s been immortalized in at least two comic books. Finally, she’s been married for a gazillion years to Will Shetterly, who’s not a bad writer (plus other stuff) himself.

Her latest novel is a fantasy Western called Territory. Even if you don’t like fantasies or Westerns, I think you will enjoy this book.  It tells a great deal of truth about history, humans, family, friends, and ambition.  (It is also the furthest possible thing from Extruded Fantasy Product. No, this is handcrafted fantasy, tooled with care.)

In Territory, Bull retells the historical events leading up to the Gunfight at the OK Corral, sticking close to what really happened while inserting fantasy factors here and there. She also performs the difficult task of creating characters whose thoughts and beliefs are those of their time period, but also individual and original. (The characters are never “me and my friends in period clothing” or “typical ignorant people from the past”. It’s a nice change from the stuff I keep running across…..) The dialogue is fun and interesting, the writing style is easy and graceful, and both the action and quiet scenes keep you turning the pages and worrying about the people involved.

It will also brighten your day and possibly your teeth. Seriously. It is that good. (And I don’t much like Westerns, so there you go.)

So buy Territory! Help support my favorite authors, so they’ll write more!

(And pre-order Robin McKinley’s Dragonhaven!)

Timothy O’Sullivan’s Pious Miscellany

Tadhg Gaelach O Sulleabhain, aka Timothy O’Sullivan (1715-1795), had a day job as a wandering spalpeen (farmhand hired for the season). But he was also a famous poet. Apparently, his life was not all it should be, however. At one point in his life, he spent all his time singing and drinking at the Yellow House Inn!

However, Blessed Edmund Rice (founder of the Christian Brothers) lived in the neighborhood and became a close friend and patron of the poet. Eventually, Rice persuaded Tadhg to see a priest and go to Confession. This opened the floodgates. O Sulleabhain repented big time. In fact, he became a highly religious and evangelistic Catholic poet as part of his (apparently self-imposed) penance. This gained him a lot of respect from the people. When he died, he was buried under a long Latin epitaph, as befit a great man of art.

After his death, his religious poems were gathered together and published in 1802, under the title of Timothy O’Sullivan’s Pious Miscellany. The book was apparently very popular; the books.google.com edition is from the tenth of over forty editions! (This copy was digitized from Oxford. Heh.) This book includes an appendix of other popular, uncredited religious works in both Irish and English, apparently as a lagniappe. In this edition, Denn adds a few works of his own as well. (The publisher, John O’Connor of Cork, adds a powerful woodcut frontispiece of the Crucifixion, drawn somewhat as if it were taking place in contemporary Ireland.You have to download the book as a .pdf to copy pictures, alas.)

Tadhg’s poem “Gile Mo Chroi” (Chroidhe in the old spelling) is used today in Ireland as a hymn, because composer Sean O Riada set it to his own tune as part of his famous Irish Mass setting. You can also check out translations of Tadhg’s poetry in the chapbook Furnace of Love, or look for the 1903 Dinneen-edited volume of his works. (Good luck with that.)

As several Irish tunebooks mention in passing and the Pious Miscellany affirms, hymns in Irish were often set to popular tunes. There was no reason not to do so; hymns were not used in Mass at that time. (Heck, Mass was said in secret at that time.) Of course, a lot depends on what tunes you pick, and what version.

Tadhg’s favorite hymn tunes (or his editor Padraig Denn‘s) were apparently “Sean O’Dwyer of the Glen” (aka “Sean O Duibhir a’Gleanna”), “Flowers of Edinburgh” (aka “Blaith Dun Laidir”), “Carolan’s Devotion” (aka “Miss Fetherston”), “Ur Mhic na Croinne”, and “Eamonn an Chnoic”. In the editor’s appendix, Denn includes songs of his own to the tune “Nora Ni Aille”, “Cois Leasa”, and some of those above.

Irish Love-Songs, Selected by Katherine Tynan

I’ve talked here before about Katherine Tynan, the Irish novelist who actually made money and was snubbed thereafter by the Irish literati (boo!). Here’s an anthology edited by her: Irish Love-Songs, Selected by Katherine Tynan. Not only is it full of goodies, it really is an anthology of great Irish love songs, with all the lyrics (in English translation or original English) that you could ask for. Also includes biographical info in the back. A wonderful selection — which includes, by the way, works even by people who snubbed her.

If you scroll up a few pages before the title page, you’ll find a wonderfully eerie death portrait of Mangan. I’ve never seen it before, and think it is great. (Creepy, but great.)