McNeil's Li'l Bible Bits

I guess we're assuming that McNeil has abandoned that 700-hundred-page biography of Humphrey Bogart by which he erstwhile so enchantingly sprinkled our humble undertaking with gossamer fancies. As you know, he's reading the Bible now instead - specifically, the New Testament. His thoughts on the matter, while jaunty, are certainly not blasphemous! "The New Testament is a lot different after a library full of literature and UFO videos," he remarks, for example. "It's funny if you read it the right way," he goes on. Now, before you make an objection, cut McNeil some slack! You'll recall that the lofty scholar Diarmaid MacCulloch pointed out some good jokes and zingers from Jesus and friends in his massive history of Christianity. Certainly you'll recall that! And though I have nothing to back this up, because I don't care, I recall reading a Kurt Vonnegut essay, oh, about 40 years ago, in which Mr. Vonnegut praises what he considers a good joke made by Jesus. But let's get back to McNeil, according to whose observations, Jesus "barely puts up with these dumb-ass disciples he's saddled with." McNeil claims also that Jesus sighs a lot. This is my own extrapolation, but in McNeil's portrait of Jesus, the Savior comes off somewhat like Charlie Brown in the PEANUTS comics. And we all remember, don't we, that Charles Schulz was a famous Christian? I rest my case. In conclusion, I must admit that McNeil and I exchanged heated words - maybe even with some light cussing! - over my preference for the King James Version versus McNeil's special all-time fave the NIV. Who would have ever thought the Bible could cause people to fight with each other? Now I've heard everything! McNeil charmingly refers to the NIV as "The Hep Cat's Old Testament." Somehow I doubt this is the last we've heard from McNeil about the Good Book!

In the Land of Richard Dix

Let me tell you about my Tuesday. First, I saw Cher. Then I walked into a room and immediately started acting in a scene with Anne Heche. Finally I sang a song with Joey Lauren Adams and Mr. Belding from SAVED BY THE BELL. Tuesday! Yes, I went on a little trip and believe or not I didn't jot anything at first. I was like, "I am going to be too busy to jot down anything for the folks back home!" Such was my hubris! I did not jot for more than 24 hours! Twenty-four jot-free hours! But then I was sitting in the Starbucks where I once saw the guy from Tenacious D who is not Jack Black, and I was reading the New York Times, and I came across this first sentence of an article: "Forty five minutes of monkey impersonations?" A rhetorical question, I suppose, but one requiring a single answer: a resounding, Joycean YES! And that made me recall something I read in my new book about kings before I left on my little trip: "every chariot had a fierce great mastiff on a leash standing in a cart or walking behind it, and every sumpter beast had a long-tailed monkey on its back..." That's about a procession in 1158, and when I first read it I thought it was about monkeys riding dogs, a subject we have contemplated at some length on the "blog," but rereading it just now, never mind. Then (back to the New York Times) I read an article containing Robert Mitchum's pick-up line to Edna O'Brien (which totally worked): "I bet you wish I was Robert Taylor, and I bet you never tasted white peaches." Mitchum! What a smoothie! And that's when I started feeling bad for not jotting anything. I remembered something from the day before which I had not jotted, for example: we were driving down the street and Kent yelled, "It's the diner where Larry Crowne worked in LARRY CROWNE!" And so it was. We drove by it again a day or two later and Kent suggested that we stop and get a picture of me in front of it and at first I resisted, and Kent said "WHAT!!!!!" and stopped the car and took the photo anyway (below) and right he was to do so. I saw Kent eat a lot of chicken, as usual. He loves chicken! But I also saw him eat a pork chop and a steak. We ate big steaks at a restaurant where Bob Hope used to eat! Taking a stroll after one chicken luncheon, Kent and I observed a young woman communing with two tame rats, which were sitting on top of a Los Angeles Times vending machine. "Don't freak out," she was saying calmly and sweetly to the rats. As this actually very charming person put forth to us the argument that rats are among the most misunderstood of God's creatures, she was engaged in some sort of handiwork - she seemed to be, possibly, knitting some clothes for the rats. Let's see what else I jotted. I ate at a restaurant where they give you a coconut with a straw in it to drink! I guess this is a pretty common thing, but somehow this was my first time. I had previously seen such a way of drinking a coconut only on GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. (Coincidence: upon my return home, I found an email from McNeil about the fact that Ida Lupino directed several episodes of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. McNeil seemed ashamed for not knowing this before!) One of the people at lunch was Ako Castuera, who used to sell coconuts for a living, and she regaled me with lots of amazing coconut lore, including something about coconut water and its use in blood transfusions during World War II, which led to a discussion somehow of the immortal jellyfish (or maybe that came up when we were debating the preferable place to visit: outer space or the bottom of the sea), and Ako - entirely different subject - told about a vacation she took on a cruise ship when she was a little kid and she spent all her time in the library. There was a library! Ako first discovered Edgar Allan Poe on that cruise ship, which put the endearing image in my mind of little Ako in the dark ship's library reading Poe while everybody else was up on the deck playing shuffleboard in the sun. Jottings! I saw my old friend Tom Bissell. He lives directly over the Hollywood Walk of Fame! In fact, he lives almost directly over Richard Dix's star. Oh, Richard Dix! Can I not get away from you? Your inexplicable stardom continues to haunt me. (Pictured, above, Richard Dix.) Tom and I talked about CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS and walked down the block to get a Mexican dinner and on the way back we witnessed a car crash! Everybody was okay, but the cars were smashed up. Okay! Now we are back to the fateful Tuesday. I was sitting in my hotel lobby when Cher walked through! I mostly saw the back of her head. Then my ride came and I went off to act with Anne Heche. FOR REAL! In what project, I am not at liberty to say. YOU'LL FIND OUT SOON ENOUGH. Anne Heche was more beautiful in person than you can possibly imagine! She was not "done up" in any fancy Hollywood makeup and finery. You got the feeling she just walks down the sidewalk being all radiant. After we acted in a couple of scenes together she gave me a big hug and discovered, I am certain, that I was covered in flop sweat like Albert Brooks in BROADCAST NEWS. Like Harrison Ford and Johnny Depp before me (a phrase I type with astonishing regularity) I played Anne Heche's love interest. Okay, and then a bunch of us went out to sing karaoke (including Natasha Allegri, the nicest person in the world!) and Mr. Belding showed up and everybody was like, "Oh my God! It's Mr. Belding!" and somehow the last thing I did was sing "Jolene" with Mr. Belding and Joey Lauren Adams. Before that, I saw Joey Lauren Adams and Pendleton Ward do Elvis's "American Trilogy" together, and I thought to myself, well, that is probably the most surreal thing I will see tonight, but I was wrong.

Big Book For Big Boy

Going around checking my bookmarks like a guy checking lobster traps (does that simile really hold up? Oh, who cares?) I see that I have so far made it a scant 283 pages into SABBATAI SEVI: THE MYSTICAL MESSIAH by Gershom Scholem (total 929 pages) and who are we kidding? I'm never going back to CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS by Diarmaid MacCulloch. That bookmark is stuck forever at page 635 of 1,016. See, what happens is I always start a big giant enormous important book and suddenly I have to start "teaching classes" again and I put it aside for when I have more time to "concentrate" on "my own reading." Ha ha, what a jerk. So now I have a little time and I guess I'm going to pick up this awful hurting brick called THE YEARS OF LYNDON JOHNSON: THE PASSAGE OF POWER. I think that's what it's called. I'm too tired to get up and look. So how am I going to read it? Great question! I remember when there was a documentary about some guy walking across the United States of America and my friend from Hubcap City liked to jest that somebody should make a documentary about HIM trying to read MOBY-DICK. That struck me as a magnificent idea and I kept saying things like "Let's do it!" and "Come on, let's do it!" and "Come on, let's really do it!" and "I borrowed a camera and I'm coming over on Saturday" until my friend patiently explained, "Sometimes it's more fun to talk about things than to do them." Now I get it.

Literary Matters

WARNING! This edition of our hated regular feature "Literary Matters" contains material of a graphic nature about the sex life of seahorses. I think! I am not kidding! DO NOT READ if you feel that would upset you. And now, a number of literary matters. 1) I was at Square Books today laughing at a book called POSEIDON'S STEED, because it seemed like such a hilariously overblown title for a nonfiction book about seahorses, which is what it was. Then I noticed that it was written by someone named Helen Scales! That made me laugh too. (The blurb on the back from THE ECONOMIST called her "an aptly named marine biologist." The blurb from NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC referred to the volume as "A compelling book about seahorses," which also tickled me with its aggressive mildness.) I noticed that POSEIDON'S STEED had a "prelude" rather than an introduction, which again I found humorous in its pretension. And then I looked in the index for Aquaman, because he used to ride a giant seahorse. He was not in there... BUT! (bawdiness alert) "aquasperm" was. WHAT IS THAT? I DON'T KNOW! Finally I recalled that I had a sort of coupon for Square Books in my wallet... so, reader, I bought that seahorse book! Laughter at some point had turned to wonder. I will let you know any interesting seahorse information I find. 2) Another book with an owl in it! "a bannerman holding Ingtar's Gray Owl banner": what can that be from but one of those crazy Robert Jordan novels? WHY am I reading another one? Can it have anything to do with my supposed "sprawling fantasy epic," or is that a sad joke doomed to failure... LIKE MY LIFE? It's none of your beeswax. Leave me alone! Are you trying to make me cry? Because MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! 3) Speaking of Square Books, 22 books have now sold from my famous recommendation shelf! That includes, most recently, the great Bill Mauldin's post WW II cartoons WILLIE AND JOE BACK HOME and a Lynda Barry book, which, once it sold, I replaced with the SAME Lynda Barry book, a practice which is COMPLETELY against my strict recommendation shelf rules, but who cares? Because EVERYBODY SHOULD READ LYNDA BARRY ALL THE TIME. 4) Also speaking of Square Books, guess what Michael Bible is reading? That's right! CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS. Good guess! He is the only person other than I who has taken a stab at that book. So expect some enlightening discussions between fascinating idiots! 5) The other night I dreamed that Gore Vidal came over to the house to talk to me about a new book he had written called THE PEPTIDE DIARIES.

Flying Saucers Everywhere

You thought I was kidding about the UFOs, didn't you? First check this previous incontrovertible evidence. Now dig this! They even pop up in my book club book. For some reason that I can't quite wrap my head around, Joe E. Lewis writes his biographer a long letter that is entirely composed of one-liners. "The newspapers are still making a fuss about Communists and flying saucers," he writes. Then he makes some wisecracks about Communists and flying saucers. You know, stuff like, "If you want to see flying saucers, just pinch a waitress." That's his letter to his biographer! Here, by way of contrast, is how his biographer writes: "The biographer is a hunter, and the spoor led me to Las Vegas." And: "The gardens were peaceful and sweet-scented in the moonlight." Also: "Within him the coil of fear unwound." Anyway, I finished the book. So, did I go back to CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS and pick up where I left off at page 623? Ha ha ha! You're hilarious. No, before retiring, I read the first chapter of I OWE RUSSIA $1200 by Bob Hope. Then, when I turned the page to Chapter Two, there was an illustration of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in SPACESUITS! Coincidence? Well, yes. In today's New York Times, there is a sad and touching article about the son of crooner Billy Eckstine. He (the son) has become a street person whose "life's calling," he says, is "photographing alien spacecraft above Manhattan." I don't mean to make light of his predicament in any way. But I was already writing this "post," so I thought I ought to mention it. (The illustration is what popped up when I did a "Google Image Search" for "bing crosby bob hope astronauts." Who am I to argue?)

Literary Matters

Time for everyone's least favorite thing in the world: "Literary Matters"! Usually I start off by warning you about how many horrible literary matters you will be forced to endure this time. But today's literary matters are all smashed up into one lump, which is either a good thing or a bad thing. To begin with, yes, you are right, it has been a long time since I have read any of CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS by Diarmaid MacCulloch. And I'm right at the Reformation, which is a big deal with lots of action! So I have no excuse. But I am "teaching" again, and for that purpose rereading the Toni Morrison novel BELOVED (which has some owls in it, once again proving my theory that all great books have owls in them), which requires a certain seriousness of attention. Who is to say that when I am able to read at pure leisure again Mr. MacCulloch will hold sufficient temptation? It would not be his fault were I to abandon him! For you see, there is the prospect of a tantalizing new book club. I can't say much until membership is nailed down - there is an apparent holdout! - and the club gives me permission to speak more. But I can give you some clues which you will never use to solve the puzzle because you don't care and even if you did care, the puzzle is too hard. All I can say is that the book is out of print, and according to its flap it is the true life story of a man who "knew plenty of mugs and could talk their language. At 25 he was... one of the few entertainers who could make Al Capone laugh. Yet Machine Gun Jack McGurn nearly succeeded in having him killed. He lost his voice... Gradually his confidence returned, his voice became audible again, and... he reached his peak as the gay, gregarious vagabond his audiences have loved ever since." That's what the 1955 book flap says! And I accidentally opened to a photograph of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, a kind of photograph I do not enjoy, but I believe you can see how the communal pleasures of this sort of book club might lure me away from my lonely pursuit of CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS.

There are things on the "internet" you shouldn't "click." Innocent things, seemingly! But you know in your heart they are but two or three "clicks" away from a fog-enshrouded part of the "internet" from which NO ONE HAS EVER RETURNED. Oh, we have danced around such things here at the "blog," flirted with them, but always with caution and warning. What leaps to mind? Let's see, just off the top of my head: the people who think President Kennedy is George W. Bush's father, the Emin, the boy from Mars, the women who believe their thoughts are controlled by Bob Hope, the guy who is hunting the Lizard Man, the underground civilizations, the man who wants you to put a green light at your house, Lady Gaga as part of a Masonic plot, the bigfoot convention and so many more. Oh, "internet"! And oh readers! How often I have tempted you down the path to destruction. So imagine my anxiety - and titillation! - when I was reading CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS last night and came across a passing reference to the APOCALYPSIS NOVA, an "'Amadeist' manuscript" from 1502, "which still has its devotees, especially in the wilder corners of the internet." Am I going to look it up? Am I going to "click" on something about it? I am not! I might! I don't know! I won't! Will I? No! Get thee behind me, Google.

Nebulous Wabenlotnee Precedent

As I have mentioned, CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS gets its subtitle from the fact that it begins by exploring the centuries leading up to the founding of the religion. In that spirit, I plan to write a book called THE "BLOG": THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS, because surely many historic forces have combined to culminate in the mighty edifice of learning and knowledge you see before you. For example, ask any sane person to list the "blog's" three main preoccupations and that person will say 1) Unicorns 2) AUTHOR! AUTHOR! 3) the "Mr. Wabenlotnee" gag from the Jerry Lewis film THE ERRAND BOY. Now I would ask you to thoroughly examine the clip from that old bit of programming I used to work on with Mr. Ward, Kent, and Mike Mitchell. Yes, examine it again and again with an archaeological eye! You will be alarmed and amazed to discover that even then, in the 1990s, an era that is shrouded in mystery, back before anyone knew what a "blog" was, the images and notions that were later to become "blog" staples remarkably existed in nebulous form. Observe! At the :37 mark, the actress Jennifer Grant is mentioned. She is the daughter of AUTHOR! AUTHOR! star Dyan Cannon (and father Cary Grant). At 1:46, Clint Eastwood is described riding a unicorn. And finally, at 2:32, Kent and his puppet friend do a variation on the classic Wabenlotnee bit. The roots of the "blog" reach far, far back into the misty mists of time. Have fun discovering your own exciting facts about the "blog's" incredible pre-history. You don't have anything else to do! Look at you!

Nominalists and Lollards and Hussites, Oh My

CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS by Diarmaid MacCulloch. Reading a section called "Nominalists, Lollards, and Hussites." Wow! Those nominalists and Lollards are something else, let me tell you! They're like the Sex Pistols and Ramones of 14th-century Catholicism, respectively. I haven't really thought out that comparison, but it feels solid, doesn't it? It really does. "Lollards" was a "contemptuous nickname" meaning "mumblers who talked nonsense." That was "the man" trying to get the Lollards down because they were so punk rock. "The man" even dug up the Lollards' founder's bones SEVERAL DECADES after his death and burned them! Well, I suppose if you have to be burned for heresy, that's the best way to do it. I can't compare the Hussites to a band yet, haven't read enough about them. Don't worry, I'll get back to you.

Apart From His Outsize Head

Today in CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS by Diarmaid MacCulloch, we meet "Big Cap," a "holy fool" of the Russian church "whose specialty apart from his outsize head was apparently intimidating people with gnomic innuendoes." Gnomic innuendoes! In my opinion, the phrase "gnomic innuendoes" is IN ITSELF a gnomic innuendo! Am I blowing your mind?

Suddenly Vikings

I am exactly one half of the way through CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS by Diarmaid MacCulloch. I know, I know, it's taking me forever. So many colorful distractions! Such as the abusive pierogi! In any case, we find ourselves in Kiev, the year 1015, with a saint named Gleb, which would add up nicely had the book been called CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST TWO THOUSAND YEARS (by the way, it starts many centuries before Christianity and builds up to it, in case you were wondering about the title). But as I have mentioned, the book jumps around in time a lot. For example, just a few pages ago I was in the 17th century, enjoying "the first cup of coffee ever witnessed in the University of Oxford." And then, suddenly, back to the ninth century for Vikings! What a bunch of nogoodniks. We took care of the Vikings in like two pages.

Extra Bissell

Do you like the video games, with the noises and lights and the video stick and the red button you push and the monsters and ghosts and the cha cha cha? I don't understand them because I am an old man with a lot of physical and mental problems. New experiences frighten and upset me! I'm like the people who screamed and fainted during THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY (1903) when the guy (spoiler alert!) shot his gun right at the audience. But I will read EXTRA LIVES, the new book by "Blog" Buddy Tom Bissell, which gets a great review in the New York Times. I didn't know anything about Uzbekistan either, before I read Tom's masterpiece CHASING THE SEA. Trust Tom Bissell, people! Put yourself in his hands. The whole Bissell thing is that you start by saying, "Now, why would I care about _____?" And then at the end you are like, "Thanks to Tom Bissell, I care very much about ______!" Besides, the "blog" feels proprietary about EXTRA LIVES, having "published" an early reflection on the video game Marvel Ultimate Alliance by Mr. Bissell. Still, I have to admit that for me the video game book will be but a mere (though surely delectable!) sorbet to tide me over until his book about the burial places of the twelve apostles comes out (from the writing of which - ironically? - I think Mr. Bissell was playing hooky in his Roman quarters as he indulged in Marvel Ultimate Alliance!). I read in an interview that he has 1,500 pages of the apostle book, and I guess the implication is that he's in the process of whittling it down, to which I reply: DON'T! I'm in training with CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS, and it's just warming me up, so I can take whatever you dish out, Tom Bissell!

Pacino Fixes His Hair: A Remembrance

I won't lie to you, my reading of CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS by Diarmaid MacCulloch is slowing down a little bit because I spend all my time now thinking about the 1982 Al Pacino vehicle AUTHOR! AUTHOR! Just look at this supplemental material from "Blog" Buddy Mr. Ward, who reports, "I was going to NYU while they were shooting 'Author! Author!' in the area. One day I watched for 2 hours as they filmed Al walking up to a building and fixing his hair in the window's reflection. I stayed for 12 takes then got bored. Al seemed really agitated or maybe he was just 'in character.'" Thanks, Mr. Ward! In conclusion, sorry for the piece of velcro or whatever it is partially obscuring Dyan Cannon. Turns out there are not a lot of images from AUTHOR! AUTHOR! to choose from on the "internet."

Glagol-rific!

Do you wish you could see the Glagolitic alphabet? If you are reading CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS, you wish it so much! According to Diarmaid MacCulloch, that is one crazy alphabet! Or as he puts it, "to say the least idiosyncratic, with only surreal resemblances to any other alphabetic form in existence." Okay, MacCulloch! You're setting us up to be disappointed, but let's take an eager look at this wild Glagolitic alphabet of yours. One letter looks like an owl! I don't know! That's what I think! I am not a semiotician!

The Racy Way He Refers to the Empress

WARNING! This "blog" "post" will contain racy language and is not for the faint of heart! First of all, Diarmaid MacCulloch has tricked me with his CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS! Remember when I was bragging that I had finally reached 1100, and the quadruple-digit years? Smooth sailing from here on out, I thought! But no! Suddenly we have jumped back to the year 527. None of this is the racy part! Just wait! Here it comes! You won't believe it, but MacCulloch refers to the Byzantine Empress Theodora as "a former circus artist of dauntingly gymnastic sexual prowess." He does not go into detail! But he directs the reader to court historian Procopius's "gossipy account... THE SECRET HISTORY, whose rediscovery by the pope's Vatican librarian in the seventeenth century much enhanced historical enjoyment of the period." Diarmaid MacCulloch, you scamp! Is that a nice way to talk about an empress? (Hey, she was married to Justinian, who caused me so much trouble that time.) The thing is I picked up a copy of the Procopius at a yard sale a few years ago, though I haven't cracked it open yet. I feel positive it was the same yard sale where I got the Arthur Waley book I told you about a while back, and at the same low price! That was some yard sale! Next time you see a book at a yard sale and wonder if you should buy it, the answer is of course you should! It's probably just fifty cents! Is it going to kill you?

Know Your Friars!

Yes, yes, I am still reading CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS by Diarmaid MacCulloch. You needn't have worried yourself about it! Lately it's all friars all the time. You've got your Blackfriars, your Greyfriars, and your Whitefriars. FUN FACT: Greyfriars actually wear brown!

Everybody Loves Evagrius

I know you are worried because you haven't heard much from me lately on the subject of CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS by Diarmaid MacCulloch. I'm still reading it, so put your mind at ease! I'm all the way up to the year 1100, so there. Oh yeah! We're in the quadruple digit years now, baby! Feels like a milestone. I have a feeling it's smooth sailing for Christianity from here on out. But let's turn back the clock a little bit, just for a minute. One of the most captivating characters I have encountered in the book is Evagrius, a fourth-century Egyptian monk. Well, he was born in Pontus, wherever that is, but he moved to Egypt, where all the best monk action was happening. It's like when bands used to move to Austin, I guess. I like him so much - from MacCulloch's description - that I special-ordered a volume of his works (the one edited by Augustine Casiday, recommended in a MacCulloch footnote), which I picked up yesterday from Square Books. And it struck me as I stared at the cover that his name seemed oddly familiar to me, from somewhere else. Then I remembered that Theresa's kind and wise mentor at Emory University, Dr. Kevin Corrigan, had signed one of his books for us a while back, and sure enough, when I got it out and looked at the title, what do you think I saw? EVAGRIUS AND GREGORY: MIND, SOUL AND BODY IN THE FOURTH CENTURY. Yeah! Now I've got the Evagrius and somebody nice to explain the Evagrius! It's going to be all Evagrius all the time around here! Party! ("Hey, Pendarvis, what's with the person in the tiger mask standing in front of the aquarium? Have you gone back to random illustrations again?" No, but thanks for the question! For some reason, that's one of the things that popped up when I did a "Google Image Search" for Evagrius Ponticus.) I read FRANNY AND ZOOEY right after Salinger passed away, and I believe that some of the theories and practices of Evagrius are highly influential on an important subplot of that book, but I do not know whether Salinger got them from Evagrius directly or if his inspiration comes from some later follower (in the novel, they are attributed to "some Russian peasant" who "never gives his name... He just tells you he's a peasant and that he's thirty-three years old and that he's got a withered arm.")

Their Swag of Bones

Grave-robbing monks! Oh yeah! Jaunty times continue in CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS by Diarmaid MacCulloch. So these seventh-century French monks steal the bones of St. Benedict from an Italian monastery - "plus the corpse of his even more shadowy sister" Scholastica. Scholastica! Only the greatest name ever. But the main thing is: grave-robbing monks! On a heist to steal a saint! Action packed! And what happened to (as MacCulloch puts it) "their swag of bones"? Dig this: "Benedictine monks STILL tend them in a crypt in their great church, to the continuing mortification of the Benedictines of Monte Cassino." Caps mine! For emphasis! I want to see the sequel! (When I was looking for a "link" to use for the word "Italian," I came across this picture of Marcello Mastroianni in DIVORCE, ITALIAN STYLE, which I got in an improper way, back before I knew what "stealing bandwidth" was. That problem has now been corrected. If only the monks of Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire would follow suit!)

And Woden Lost His Beer

Forget what I said earlier. Things have taken a positively giddy turn in CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS by Diarmaid MacCulloch. I am sure you recall Apollonius of Tyana, who could see really far like Superman. In the "post" about Apollonius of Tyana, I happened to mention that one of Superman's other powers is blowing really hard (look, here he is as a boy, blowing on a tiger). Well, that brings us to the Irish missionary Columbanus, who was running around near Switzerland in the 580s or so, spreading the word. According to legend, he saw these dudes about to sacrifice a barrel of beer to "their fierce god Woden." MacCulloch goes on, "Columbanus had nothing against alcohol, but he did not want to see all that beer wasted on a false god, so he made a preemptive strike by blowing hard on the giant barrel. It exploded and Woden lost his beer."

Your Daily Downer

Has the cheeriest of "blogs" - this one - become a repository for downers? What is going on? I was reading some interesting material about the mother of Augustine's son in CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS. What a good and interesting person! We don't know her name because Augustine didn't tell us. A footnote in MacCulloch directed me to some comments in Peter Brown's biography of Augustine. I happen to have a copy, so I flipped through it, looking for the reference to which I had been directed. My edition of the Brown differs from MacCulloch's, so the page numbers included with the footnote didn't help me. It took a long time to find this honorable woman in Brown's index, because here is how she is listed: "concubine." That's it! That's all she gets: generic concubinage. Thanks for nothing, Saint Augustine. (I would illustrate this "post" with an image of her, but as far as I can tell there's not one! You can find plenty of his Mom, who said [I'm paraphrasing] "Get rid of this concubine who has been faithful to you for fifteen years so you can marry a NICE LADY.") I should credit Brown's index for introducing me to the word "concubinage," which is just above "concubine." So that is one good thing. It's fun to learn your word for the day! See? Not everything is horrible. I'm glad to help.