The Lion in Winter (1968)

My life, when it is written, will read better than it lived. Henry Fitz-Empress, first Plantagenet, a king at twenty-one, the ablest soldier of an able time. He led men well, he cared for justice when he could and ruled, for thirty years, a state as great as Charlemagne's. He married out of love, a woman out of legend. Not in Alexandria, or Rome, or Camelot has there been such a queen....
~ The Lion in Winter (1968)

Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122-1204) is one of those historical personages about whom there are many wild stories. In Eleanor's case, most of the stories are probably true, although it is highly unlikely that she poisoned her husband's mistress, Fair Rosamund. Fair Rosamund was idealized at Eleanor's expense by later generations, especially the Victorians, for reasons surpassing comprehension. No doubt Rosamund was sweet and lovely, but Eleanor is immensely more interesting, or at least modern people have found her so.

Perhaps part of the contemporary fascination with Eleanor is that she is seen as being a feminist before her time. I doubt that Eleanor saw her actions in terms of being a liberated woman, asserting herself on behalf of the freedom and dignity of women everywhere. Eleanor's motives were usually part of a larger political maneuver which as a queen, a mother and a duchess she found necessary for retaining her power and influence. For a lady of rank, especially rank as exalted as Eleanor's, the loss of power and influence could mean imprisonment or death. Scheming was a matter of expediency; there is no question that she played the game well.

The film The Lion in Winter captures the spirit of the tempestuous relationship between Eleanor and her unfaithful husband, Henry II of England, and their perpetual attempts to outwit each other. Alison Weir's biography of Eleanor sifts through the legends and plumbs the truths. Eleanor left Henry after many years and many children, the murder of St. Thomas Becket being the last straw. She returned to France and became the catalyst for the development of the courts of love. Courtly love was not so much about sex as it was about music, Arthurian legend, chivalry, charming repartee, and showing respect for ladies.

Eleanor eventually found herself imprisoned by her husband for making war against him. He would let her rejoin the family at Christmas and Easter. Their daughters were accomplished and lovely; their sons were mostly wretches, and caused no end of trouble. Eleanor was a generous benefactress of the Church and the poor. She retired at last to the abbey of Fontevrault where she made religious vows before she died. A wonderful book for young readers about Queen Eleanor is E.L. Konigsburg's A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver. 

Below is the scene of Queen Eleanor's arrival for the Christmas court at Chinon in France.

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Communism: Evil as Ever

 From Daniel McCarthy:

Communism didn’t win the Cold War, but it’s doing surprisingly well in the 21st century, including in America. Elsewhere, especially in East Asia, communism is the tyrannical creed of a ruling class that stays in power by jailing its opponents — or rolling tanks over them. Here, especially on college campuses, communism is a status marker and a way to make murder seem cool. Fascism isn’t the totalitarian ideology having a moment in America right now. It’s communism whose chief theoretical work — or Bible, really — has just been published in a new translation by Princeton University Press. Karl Marx’s “Capital” still confers prestige on students and professors who aspire to be revolutionaries without risking their lives. (Read more.)

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Cubist Prague

Personally, I detest cubism. Strange that it thrived in Prague. From Architizer:

To live in a Cubist building in Prague is to immerse oneself in an environment where everyday function meets a kind of geometric experimentation. Unlike traditional homes, these spaces feel slightly disorienting at first glance — walls are angled, surfaces are faceted, and the light behaves differently as it hits sharp corners and fractured surfaces — yet they work as traditional homes, no different to any other.

It is emotionally that Cubist spaces had and still have the most profound effect. They create an entirely different atmosphere from Prague’s Baroque or Gothic interiors. There’s a sense of intentional tension; a feeling that, with its tight angles and bold lines, the space is shifting, revealing more of itself in each experience, becoming a space that invites curiosity and engagement. For many, living within these fractured forms prompts a fresh appreciation of space itself, as each room subtly nudges the occupant to move, observe, and interact with its architecture in a way that is quite theatrical. (Read more.)

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Marie-Antoinette's Sleigh Rides

One of Marie-Antoinette's favorite youthful pastimes was sleigh-riding, which she made popular after she became Queen. What was a perfectly innocent amusement was twisted into something sordid by those who liked to see dirt. It was during the winter of 1775-1776 that the Queen befriended the unfortunate Princesse de Lamballe. According to Madame Campan's Memoirs:

The winter following the confinement of the Comtesse d’Artois [1775-76] was very severe; the recollections of the pleasure which sleighing-parties had given the Queen in her childhood made her wish to introduce similar ones in France.

This amusement had already been known in that Court, as was proven by sleighs found in the stables, which had been used by the Dauphin, the father of Louis XVI. Some were made for the Queen in a more modern style. The Princes also ordered several; and in a few days there was a fair number of these vehicles around. They were driven by the princes and noblemen of the Court. The noise of the bells and pompoms with which the horses’ harnesses were decorated, the elegance and whiteness of their plumes, the varied shapes of the carriages, the gold with which they were all trimmed, made these parties a delight for the eye. The winter was very favorable to them, the snow remaining on the ground nearly six weeks; the drives in the park afforded a pleasure shared by the spectators.

No one imagined that any blame could attach to so innocent an amusement. But the party was tempted to extend its drives as far as the Champs-Elysées; a few sleighs even crossed the boulevards; the ladies being masked, the Queen’s enemies took the opportunity of saying that she had traveled through the streets of Paris in a sleigh.

This became a momentous issue. The public discovered in it a predilection for the habits of Vienna; but all that Marie Antoinette did was criticized. Sleigh-driving, smacking of the Northern Courts, found no favor among the Parisians. The Queen was informed of this; and although all the sleighs were kept, and several subsequent winters lent themselves to the amusement, she would not resume it.

It was at the time of the sleighing-parties that the Queen became intimately acquainted with the Princesse de Lamballe, who made her appearance in them wrapped in fur, with all the brilliancy and freshness of the age of twenty, the image of spring, peeping from under sable and ermine.

To quote from a wonderful post by Catherine Delors:

The Queen introduced sleighing parties, which were organised like this: the Queen invited the women she wanted to be there. When she invited the princesses, she sent a page to convey her personal invitation to those of the princesses’ ladies-in-waiting it pleased her to choose; usually she only asked one at a time. Everyone met at the Queen’s at midday for luncheon; all the men dined together in another room. The Queen never ate in the company of men when the King was not present. The Queen had all the ladies seated at her table. We had quite a long lunch-dinner; then, we went into a salon where we rejoined all the men. Then, as one had to be escorted by lords, as people said in those days, the Queen and the princesses named those who would escort them, and all the ladies relied on chance and drew lots; a very prudent custom which avoided the inconveniences of favouritism and malicious gossip. We went from Versailles to country houses, to La Muette, to Meudon, etc. There, we descended from the sleighs, went into a salon, got warm, chatted for three-quarters of an hour or an hour; after that, we got back into the sledges and returned to Versailles.

(Artwork: "Winter" by François Boucher, 1755)
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Human Fertility is Collapsing

 From Global Guerillas:

Human fertility is collapsing. It’s a tangible collapse. You can see its impact in your personal life — on your kids, extended family, neighbors, and coworkers — and if you dig into the news flow, you can see its impact on the world.

Yet, except for an occasional outburst from Musk, nobody is focused on it. I suspect the reason this collapse isn’t the most critical issue of our time is that we wrongly assume it’s;

• a temporary problem.

• only a problem for wealthy countries.

• solvable with the right mix of policies and cultural tweaks.

However, since the collapse isn’t going away and its effects continuously accumulate, we’ll eventually need to face it. So, let’s get started. (Read more.)

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Realism vs Reality

 From Andrew Klavan at The New Jerusalem:

The other day, you and your mother and I went to see the new movie, The Return. Those who wisely listen to your Young Heretics podcast can hear your full review, so I’ll be brief here. The film is about Odysseus’s return to Ithaca to reclaim his wife and kingdom after the Trojan War. In Homer’s magisterial epic The Odyssey, the story is one of struggle with the gods, personal heroism and joyful triumph. But this slow, lugubrious version was “realistic.” No gods. No joy. No triumph. Just a lot of maundering angst about wicked war and personal failure

“Why did you not come home after the war?”

“Sometimes war becomes your home…”

Place rolling eye emoji here. (Read more.)

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A Former Nunnery

From Country Life:

 The property — technically No.1 – 3 Barrow Court — is a former Benedictine nunnery, and now a nine-bedroom house with a floorplan larger than the map of some entire villages. There’s nearly 12,000sq ft of space on offer in the main house, with a couple of cellars, an annexe and garage taking the total over 13,000sq ft. As you might have guessed from the name of the place, the house has actually been divided into three — back in the 1970s — but the three parts of the main house are for sale as one, potentially opening up the possibility of making it one enormous house once more. That said, you’d have to get the right permissions in place: this is a Grade II*-listed building that dates back to the 12th century, and as well as planning and conservation officers you’ll also have to bear in mind that it’s offered not as freehold, but with a 972-year lease. There is precedent for it being one home again, naturally. Though it started out as a religious house, it became a wealthy merchant’s house following the Dissolution of the Monasteries. (Read more.)

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Rand Paul: Speaker Mike Johnson Needs to Grow a Spine

 From The Rand Paul Review:

If the US budget is not reined in, we risk a total collapse of the US dollar. The US cannot continue printing money to pay off its exorbitant debts. Congress is punishing hard-working Americans as well as children who aren't even born yet.

No one should come into this world already owing the government money.

That is a form of indentured servitude.

It's a racket.

A system better suited for the mafioso than a constitutional republic.

Yet, cowards like Speaker Johnson continue to be too weak and pathetic to stand up for regular Americans.

America has given Johnson many chances to redeem himself and every time he has failed miserably.

Johnson kowtows to everyone under the sun except for the people he's meant to serve.

Even Democrats see him as weak, which is why they constantly push him around.

Why is hurricane relief included in this bill? That should be a completely separate issue.

(Read more.)

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Christmases with Richard Plantagenet, 1482-1485

 From Order of the White Boar:

By Yuletide 1484, tragedy has struck the royal couple, with the death of their young son Edward in the spring. But in December as the twelve days of Christmas began, it was again time for the conspicuous consumption that was required of a King. The court must impress with lavish feasting, gifts, entertainments, largesse, charitable donations, a display that would show all was well in the kingdom – whatever personal tragedy might befall its premier family, or whatever threat might be lurking abroad. For it is said that King Richard was brought news of Henry Tudor’s planned invasion during the Twelfth Night festivities.

It was also a time when a chronicler castigated the King for the opulence of the festivities, and in particular the ‘vain changes of dress – similar in colour and design’ of Queen Anne and her niece, Elizabeth of York, illegitimate daughter of the old king, saying ‘At this people began to talk, and the lords and prelates were horrified.’ This chronicler (based at Crowland abbey) held an unfavourable view of King Richard, and his aim appears to be to link this occurrence with the later rumour that surfaced the following spring, that Richard was considering marrying his niece. Yet, in truth it had long been a tradition in medieval courts, both in England and elsewhere, that the entire household would dress in the same colour on certain feast days: during the lengthy Christmas revelries, they might alternate colours on different days, with the ladies wearing colours to complement the men’s outfits (which may have led to the enormous mercer’s bill mentioned above). And Richard had pledged to ensure Elizabeth married well, despite her illegitimacy, and by the spring was in negotiations for her to wed Duke Manuel of Beja, later King Manuel I of Portugal. (Read more.)

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Christmas is Coming

 From Debra Esolen at Word and Song:

As I have mentioned before, Sometimes a Song is written by that most prolific of composers, Anonymous. Most of what we know as folk tunes were written by that same fellow (also known by his nickname, “Anon”). When it comes to bringing together poems (or in the case of this week’s song lyrics, nursery rhymes) and music and then passing those along through the generations not by recordings but by general knowledge, the result may be many variations on a single song.

We call it folk music when a song seems to have sprung from a time so distant no one can really trace it and yet has become known widely in an area, a nation, and perhaps even around the world. Word & Song readers of a certain age will undoubtedly recognize my choice for this week as a carol once commonly sung at Christmastime in all English-speaking lands. I believe I first learned the song as a school child, in music classes I look back on with great fondness now, so culturally and socially formative they were. And it wasn’t that we merely learned carols and anthems and folk songs in school, either. For “Christmas is Coming” is not just a folk song like any other: it is a special kind of folk song called a round, and a round is a subset of what in formal music is called a canon.

I hope that in our times little children are still taught to sing rounds in school, but my experience (and this may be only my experience) tells me otherwise. How many of you remember singing rounds in school? Raise your hand if you do! Yes, in the classroom — not just in a school choir — we sang what most folks haven’t heard in decades and decades, a special kind of musical canon simple enough for children to master but enjoyable for people of all ages even with no formal training. A canon is a composition wherein a tune is repeated over and over with different singers or instruments or sections of performers coming in a different times like an echo, and yet blending harmoniously. And that’s why teaching children to sing in rounds is such a wonderful way to introduce them to harmony and choral singing together in parts. (Read more.)

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Lying About Spying

 From Sharyl's Substack:

As President Trump and his picks to head federal agencies contemplate their first steps, it’s helpful to recall one of the most serious abuses by FBI agents I uncovered as an investigative reporter.

FBI agents framed a Chinese man named Wen Ho Lee for spying.

The government misconduct included, as I reported at CBS News in 2000, claiming Lee failed a lie detector test when he’d actually passed it with flying colors.

Eventually, after I exposed the fraud, Judge James Parker released Lee from prison. He apologed for granting the Justice Department’s request to deny Lee bail and keep him in solitary confinement for a year.

The judge also lit up the government for its misconduct and misrepresentations to the court.

"I feel I was led astray last December by the executive branch of the government through the Department of Justice, through the FBI, and through the US attorney for New Mexico,” said Judge Parker. ”They did not embarrass me alone, but they embarrassed this entire nation and everyone who is a citizen of it.”

There is no public record of anybody being held accountable.

In 2006, the federal government settled a lawsuit filed by Lee over the misconduct. Lee received a settlement of $1.6 million from the government (US taxpayers) and five news organizations that Lee had sued for defamation. (Read more.)

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Stolen Treasures

 From The Royal Observer:

Among the stolen treasures were two historically significant snuffboxes linked to the King's immediate ancestors. One, gifted to his great-grandfather, King George V, on his 55th birthday in 1920, was described as a "gold and lapis lazuli snuff box" with a stunning onyx cameo depicting the Birth of Venus.

The Royal Collection Trust highlights its intricate details, stating, "In the center, the goddess stands on a dolphin and holds a length of billowing drapery."

The second snuffbox, purchased by his wife, and the current King's great-grandmother, Queen Mary, in 1932, for 1,000 pounds (approximately $75,000 dollars today), is an opulent bloodstone piece encrusted with nearly 3,000 diamonds. The Royal Collection Trust describes it as "one of the finest of the series of boxes made in the Fabrique Royale in Berlin and associated with Frederick II ('the Great') of Prussia." (Read more.)

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Pamela Harriman: Of Vice and Men

 I recently listened to the new biography of Pamela Digby Churchill Harriman by Sonia Purnell on Audible. Pamela has found her way into so many stories; I have learned about her in bits and pieces. At last we have as much of the whole story as is possible, although there are aspects of Pamela's life which will no doubt remain shrouded in mystery until the end of time. She came from one of the oldest families in England, the Digbys being able to trace their ancestral line back to the Vikings. They saw the Churchills as upstarts; a Digby daughter marrying Winston Churchill's son was coming down in the world. That a Digby daughter would prove herself to be an adept wartime spy and political mastermind were things no one could have foreseen. Neither could her family have foreseen her conversion to Catholicism. Like the city of Paris she so loved, Pamela would have a love/hate relationship with the Catholic Church, even as she found her way to being the US ambassador to France. For anyone interested in 20th century history, or in how scoundrels like Bill Clinton came to power, Purnell's book cannot be missed. Prepare to be surprised and to find yourself hating old Joe Kennedy more than you thought possible. From The Rake:

There aren’t many people whose lives have such an epic, eventful sweep that they seem to combine the rumbustious picaresque of the 18th-century novel and the slightly more salacious demands of its late 20th-century equivalent. But Pamela Harriman’s was one such life. She was born in England in 1920, into an old aristocratic milieu that the likes of Samuel Richardson (the author of Pamela, lest we forget) may still have just about recognised; by the end of her life, 77 years later, she was an Hon. of a different stripe, a U.S. ambassador to France with three marriages and innumerable affairs with powerful men behind her, and a starring role in Truman Capote’s Answered Prayers, his unfinished tell-all swansong in which he gleefully stripped bare the lives of all his barely disguised socialite friends (not so much a roman à clef as a roman à trousseau de clefs). 

In the novel, Lady Ina Coolbirth (a.k.a. Harriman) takes Jonesy (a.k.a. Capote) to lunch at La Cote Basque, where she swigs Cristal and holds forth on various (undisguised) Alpha women, from Princess Margaret (“she’s such a drone”) to Jackie Kennedy and sister Lee Radziwill: “They’re perfect with men,” she says, “a pair of Western geisha girls. They know how to keep a man’s secrets and how to make him feel important.” Capote’s eyebrow was arched to breaking point here, as Lady Coolbirth’s coolly admiring assessment of the sisters was the generally accepted view of Harriman herself; one of her lovers, Baron Elie de Rothschild, called her a ‘European Geisha’, and she was referred to more than once as The Last Courtesan. 

She was born Pamela Digby into a gilded but straitened life in Dorset. Her father was the 11th Baron Digby and her mother was the daughter of the 2nd Baron Aberdare. Money was tight — she was able to make her ‘debut’ only after her father placed a lucky bet on the Grand National — and her horizons seemingly tighter. “I was born in a world where a woman was totally controlled by men,” she once said. “The boys were allowed to go off to school. The girls were kept home, educated by governesses. That was the way things were.” (Read more.)

On the Harriman's New York residence. From Daytonian in Manhattan:

The son of railroad tycoon Edward Henry Harriman, William (better known as Averell) was highly visible in politics and extremely popular.  He would go on to be Governor of New York, Secretary of Commerce under Harry S. Truman, Ambassador to the United Kingdom and to the Soviet Union.  Entertainments in the 81^st Street house were at times more like White House receptions.

On July 2, 1953 the Harrimans’ dinner guests were former President Harry S. Truman and his wife, Bess.  On September 23, 1954 Franklin Roosevelt, Jr. was a luncheon guest; and on February 5, 1955, when son Gordon Stevenson came home on leave from the U. S. Army, luncheon guests included Adlai Stevenson, the Shah of Iran and Queen Soroya, and Margaret Truman.

In April 1955 the Italian Prime Minister, Mario Scelba, visited New York and on April 2 the Harrimans hosted a “private luncheon” for the diplomat.  At the table were Cardinal Spellman, Clare Boothe Luce, Italian Ambassador to the United States Manlio Bresio, “and leading members of the Italian-American colony in New York,” according to The Times.

Harriman had taken office as Governor on January 1 that year.  Seemingly more comfortable in the 81^st Street house than in the Governor’s mansion in Albany, he routinely signed state proclamations from here.

The Governor underwent a minor operation in 1956 and recuperated in the New York mansion.  On June 7 former Kimg Michael of Rumania dropped by the house to pay his respects.  Later that year, in December, Golda Meir and Abba Eban were guests for luncheon.

Harriman was sensitive to the growing civil rights movement.  In the 81st Street mansion, on December 31, 1957, he inducted Harold A. Stevens as the first African American to be appointed to the Court of Appeals, New York State’s highest court.  (Read more.)

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Trump Says Biden’s Border Wall Sale Is ‘Almost A Criminal Act,’ Will Seek Restraining Order

 From The Daily Wire:

President-elect Donald Trump tore into the Biden Administration for selling off parts of the border wall following an exclusive Daily Wire investigation, charging that it is “almost a criminal act” and also that he intends to seek a restraining order.

Trump made the statement after a Daily Wire investigation revealed that the Biden administration was selling off portions of the border wall in public auctions, with a goal of unloading the border wall before Trump takes office in January. One Republican Senator found that the administration was recouping just 0.2% of the original cost of the wall material to taxpayers.

“The administration is trying to sell it for five cents on the dollar knowing that we’re getting ready to put it up,” Trump said in a press conference. “What they’re doing … It’s almost a criminal act. They know that we’re going to use it and if we don’t have it we’re going to have to rebuild it and it will cost double what it cost years ago and that’s hundreds of millions of dollars.”

“I spoke with the Attorney General of Texas, I spoke with the Senators of Texas, I spoke to a lot of people and hopefully they’ll be able to stop it. We’re going to be having a restraining order,” Trump added. “I am asking Joe Biden today to please stop selling the wall.” (Read more.)

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The Old Story of Defeated Empires

 From EL PAÍS:

Two very wise gentlemen sat at a table to reflect, with a century-and-a-half of experience between them. They have at their disposal enormous amounts of knowledge, data, arguments and nuances regarding major issues of continental history and the life of the ancients: as in, those who lived in what is now called the Americas, before the arrival of the Spanish.

On one side is the Peruvian Luis Millones, one of the most renowned anthropologists of the Southern Cone. Millones has analyzed the life of the Inca people with devotion and ease. On the other side is the Mexican Eduardo Matos, an eminence of Mesoamerican archaeology. He’s responsible for the rescue of the remains of the old Aztec capital, from the depths of modern Mexico City. (Read more.)

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The Nutcracker

 

 In the hundred years or so since its debut, Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker has become a delightful aspect of modern Christmas celebrations. Composed during the "Silver Age" of Russian ballet, The Nutcracker is based upon a fairy tale by the German romantic writer E.T.A. Hoffman, whose stories also inspired Delibes' Coppelia and Offenbach's Tales of Hoffman. It is one of the few ballets that is not a love story, although later stagings have tried to make it into one. The music, however, is powerful enough for any story of a great romance. In college, I helped my sister Andrea, who was still in high school, with a project; we were listening to the "Pas de Deux" of the Sugar Plum Fairy and her cavalier. Andrea said, "That must be from a really great love story." "No, it's just from The Nutcracker," I replied. It is a simple story, full of childhood's innocent, but very real, hopes and fears. To watch or listen to The Nutcracker is to enter into a dream, a dream which comes to life even after so many years, and all wars and revolutions which have tormented the world.

From Victoria:

For many, Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker was their first introduction to dancing wooden figures that resemble toy soldiers, but the history of these carved collectibles dates back centuries before the show’s 1892 debut. Seventeenth-century German craftsmen sculpted similar models that often were seen as good luck symbols in their homeland. Eventually, the popularity of these miniature military men spread beyond Germany’s borders and, somewhere along the way, they became associated with Christmas, a connection that is still celebrated today. Bernardaud’s sophisticated Grenadiers dinnerware, shown here, is a classic example of the whimsical nutcracker’s enduring association with the holiday. (Read more.)

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Modernity’s Self-Destruct Button

 From Louise Perry at First Things:

Put bluntly: The people on whom modernity depends are failing to reproduce themselves, which means that modernity itself is failing to reproduce itself. Most voters have no idea that this is happening. Nor do most politicians. But it is happening nonetheless, and we are experiencing its early ­stages in the form of diverse political crises across the modern world.

We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters” is the phrase coined by Peter Thiel to describe the nature of twenty-first century innovation, or the lack of it. Digital technology gives us the impression of explosive growth, but it is a false impression. As Thiel wrote in these pages in March 2020 (before the recent spate of Boeing failures, which have further underlined his point):

When Boeing introduced its flagship 707 jet airliner in 1958, the power to cruise at 977 kilometers per hour did more than enable routine transcontinental commercial flights. It fed the optimistic self-­understanding of a society proud to have entered the Jet Age. More than sixty years later, we are not moving any faster. Boeing’s latest plane, the 737 MAX, has a cruising speed of just 839 kilometers per hour—to say nothing of its more catastrophic limitations.

As a civilization, we are running on the fumes of the accomplishments of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. They gave us electricity, sanitary engineering, antibiotics, antisepsis, vaccination, rail transport, the airplane, the computer, and the theory of evolution by natural selection. We haven’t been back to the moon in fifty-two years. (Read more.)

From Steam Calliope Scherzos:

Let me try to explain what distinguishes proper art from “bad art.” Art snobs share Kant’s aesthetic views in a couple key ways. For one, they separate beauty from utility. For another, they share the belief that the aesthetic experience contemplates the object as a standalone item, often ignoring the role that perceptual context plays. But they differ immensely from Kant in one important way, and it’s in his idea that the aesthetic experience is essentially non-cognitive. For art snobs, the aesthetic is purely rooted in cognition — rudderless, wandering cognition — and it extracts value from an artwork mainly as a discursive task. If the work looks pleasing to the eye, we can call that a nice bonus, but that really isn’t the point. The point is that a good artwork doesn’t manipulate the emotions or compel an aesthetic response without eliciting some cognitive effort from the viewer. And, as it happens, our society has designated the museum to be the place in which this allegedly superior mode of art appreciation must take place. The museum is the refuge we’ve collectively designated for this type of art appreciation. The museum is itself a kind of medium, and here it’s the one through which an artwork attains its true meaning. Only through the museum can the full significance of a true, non-kitsch creation come into relief.

Of course, there are other places where art goes. There are small private galleries; and there are public art installations, sculptures, and unusual architectural works in/of state-funded buildings and various public outdoor areas; and the ultra-rich now spend more money on paintings than museums themselves do. But the idea of the museum always remains within the highbrow art appreciator’s mind — if only as a memory, or a target, or just a vague notion. When some dullard billionaire decides to purchase an ultra-expensive abstract expressionist painting, the idea of the museum lurks in the shadows of his thought process. The same goes for when an educated person assigns aesthetic value to a sculpture, like those supposedly bad ones above. The unstated question that always informs the assessment is, “Would it belong in a museum?”

And, well…? Would it…? Well, let’s consider a few situations in which it would. If the work is historical, then of course the answer is yes. There’s no utility in the historic. The “pastness” of the past belongs to its own distinct category of human understanding, and the museum’s role is to house the various objects that contain this feeling of “pastness,” which then further renders the feeling official. Of course everything from “the past” is still with us here in the present; an object’s “pastness” is essentially an illusion, even though it really was made in such-and-such a year. But much like church during the medieval period, the museum’s role is to take us to a place outside of normal worldly time, a realm wherein the past can be channeled through the present. (Read more.)

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Inside Stanley Tucci

 From The Washington Examiner:

If the daily cycles of pasta and marinara sauce and savory pastries and orecchiette with sausage and broccoli leave a lasting impact on his audience, it might be motivation to actually cook. And to cook often enough to develop an intuition for it. In the Tucci household, meals often start with leftover vegetables or frozen sauces but may evolve into something beautiful.

The results are not uniform, to be fair. Tucci and his wife seem nearly distraught when they make scallops with a skillet too cool to properly sear. He berates himself for inadequately pureeing vegetables in his soup. His reviews of disappointing restaurants are even more scathing, dripping with resentment at money (and, more importantly, time) wasted. Even then, his sense of propriety imposes restraint. Restaurants and chefs he loves are praised, loudly and by name. Subpar establishments are brutalized, but without proper nouns and with descriptions too vague to Google or cancel. 

Despite the breezy tone of pasta lunches and celebrity dinner parties, Tucci’s restless inner monologue never permits the weeks to turn glib. As with Marcus Aurelius, a Roman long before the time of pasta, human mortality weighs heavily on Tucci. Living in London, he can estimate the number of times he will see American friends again before they pass. He is 64 but has young children. He is building a life in England with his wife of 12 years, but he can never fully escape his New York home where he raised a family and where cancer claimed the life of his first wife. He won his own battle with cancer, although it left him with deprived saliva production that limits his ability to enjoy rich meats. (Read more.)

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Royal Escape from Falmouth

Henrietta Maria by Van Dyck

As a dynasty the Royal Stuarts are known for harrowing escapes, with the family of Charles I and Henrietta Maria having more than their share. As I am discovering as I write the second novel of the Henrietta of France trilogy, the Queen, on more than one occasion, found herself fleeing for her life. From The National Maritime Museum:

The Queen who had been suffering with pains in her limbs throughout the previous winter was now extremely ill which prompted the King to beg his elderly physican ‘Mayerne, for the love of me, go to my wife’, to attend her in Exeter.² Help was sent also from the Queen’s sister in law the Queen Regent in France and it is probable there were negotiations underway at this time for Henrietta Maria’s eventual flight to France. The Queen gave birth to a healthy baby on 16 June but her symptoms persisted causing serious concern for her life. With the Parliamentary forces advancing on Exeter, just a fortnight after giving birth and still suffering severe ill health, Henrietta Maria set out for Cornwall. Her newly born daughter had been left behind in Exeter probably considered as being too frail for the journey and entrusted by the Queen to the care of her lady in waiting and friend Anne Villiers, Lady Dalkeith.³

The Queen’s party were making for Falmouth.  ‘The Queen is this day gone towards Falmouth, intending to embark herself for France’  her secretary Henry Jermyn had written to George Digby on 30 June.⁴ Cornwall was in royalist hands and Falmouth was one of the most valuable royalist ports supplying arms and munitions for the cause and allowing trade and passage to and from the continent. It had the important anchorage of the Carrick Roads in the deep estuary at the mouth of the river Fal and was protected by the garrisons of Pendennis and St Mawes castles. The castles had been built in the reign of Henry VIII as artillery forts to protect the Carrick Roads. Pendennis, the larger of the two, on its rocky headland with an elevated position overlooking Falmouth was perfect for defence both from the land and the sea and the manor of Arwenack, seat of the Royalist Killigrew family, was nearby. Falmouth offered an ideal point of departure for the Queen’s escape. (Read more.)

 

Volume 1 of the Henrietta of France trilogy is available HERE.

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The People Are Wide Awake

 Mel K and Kash Patel.

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Cleopatra’s Sole Surviving Handwriting

 From The Greek Reporter:

The sole surviving sample of Queen Cleopatra’s handwriting, found on an ancient papyrus, reveals a single Greek word, “ginesthoi” (Greek: γίνεσθοι), meaning “make it happen” or ” so be it”.

This remarkable document is a royal decree dated back to 33 BC. It granted tax exemption to Publius Canidius, a Roman officer closely associated with Mark Antony. According to the papyrus, Canidius was permitted to annually export ten thousand bags of wheat and import five thousand amphorae of wine without taxation. However, what captured the imagination was a Greek postscript, which could be translated as “make it so.” Believed to be Cleopatra’s handwriting, it hinted at her direct involvement.

Notably, this paper was signed two years before the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. In that prominent fight, Mark Antony and Cleopatra faced defeat against Roman Emperor Octavian Augustus. (Read more.)

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Catherine of Braganza: the Lost Stuart Queen

Catherine of Braganza as St. Catherine of Alexandra

I just listened to a marvelous biography of Catherine of Braganza, Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland, wife of Charles II. It is Sophie Shorland's The Lost Queen: The Surprising Life of Catherine of Braganza―the Forgotten Queen Who Bridged Two Worlds.The exploration of the portraits of Queen Catherine I found quite interesting and so had to go in search of them. From ArtUK:

 While Huysmans painted traditional portraits of the queen, he also made two outstanding two portraits of her, both in the Royal Collection. The first was painted shortly after Catherine's marriage to Charles II, and in stark contrast to her unfashionable dress on her arrival to England, this portrait transformed her into a stylish and sensual woman. The portrait depicts the queen as a shepherdess with orange blossom in her long, flowing hair, a shepherd's crook behind her. It was designed to show off Catherine's innocence and fertility with the optimism that she would bear many children for the king in the early years of her marriage. This version is a copy in the collection of Queen's College, Oxford.

Huysmans' other remarkable portrait depicts her as the Catholic saint Catherine of Alexandria, the patron saint of learning. Saint Catherine was not only the queen's namesake, but her birthday fell on the saint's holy day (25th November), so Catherine undoubtedly felt some affinity with her. It is a virtuous depiction, but also one which demonstrates that Catherine wanted to emulate the independence and the strength of the saint.

What is more, Catherine was not a reclusive queen. Although she primarily lived with her household in Somerset House on the Strand in London, she still participated in royal functions alongside her husband. (Read more.) 

 

From The Wrong Side of the Blanket:

While Charles’ reputation for debauchery and a licentious court only grew throughout his reign, Catherine, renowned for her piety, good nature and morality, became a respected and admired figure. In the face of Charles’ countless affairs and ever-growing number of illegitimate children, Catherine remained loyal to her husband and to her role as the English queen consort.

But, sadly for Catherine, she simply could never match the sexual, fertile and political prowess of some of her rivals. The mistresses were the bane of her life, and her inability to produce heirs caused great sorrow and strain in her marriage and beyond. If Charles and Catherine had been able to have children together, the dramatic events of the late-seventeenth century, and the lineage of the British royal family would have been very different indeed. (Read more.)

Catherine of Braganza

 

My novel of Catherine's mother-in-law is HERE.

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'Drones' Swarm New Jersey and New York

Some have been seen in Maryland as well. From Live Science:

The past several weeks have seen surging reports of strange unidentified aircraft — some allegedly as large as a car — over parts of the Garden State. Eyewitnesses and videos suggest that some are rotorcraft and others are fixed-wing. Some purportedly fly solo and erratically, while others seem to operate in an orderly formation. All, however, seem to show no signs of stealth; they've been described as conspicuously bright lights. And, according to a Dec. 5 social media post by New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, the spate of sightings is being seriously investigated — but "there is no known threat to the public at this time."

Many of the reports initially clustered in New Jersey's Morris County — where strange objects were seen apparently maneuvering over major waterways, municipal reservoirs and even sensitive military facilities such as the U.S. Army's Picatinny Arsenal — but some of the latest sightings are from other surrounding counties and stretch as far south as the outskirts of Philadelphia. The activity comes amid fresh reports of alarming drone activity elsewhere, including at four U.S.-used military bases in the U.K. in recent weeks, and around Langley Air Force Base in Virginia in December 2023.

The uptick in reports in New Jersey has spurred a patchwork of responses from local, state and national authorities. About 20 elected officials in Morris County signed and sent a letter to relevant federal agencies, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) temporarily banned drone flights over Picatinny Arsenal and the Bedminster, New Jersey golf club owned by President-elect Donald Trump. Last week, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced it was probing the matter, issuing a statement alongside the New Jersey State Police and the state's Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, seeking information related to the drone sightings. In its advisory, the FBI asked that eyewitnesses submit their reports via the "Call FBI" hotline (1-800-225-5324) or an agency website. (Read more.)

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Filming Truman Capote’s ‘A Christmas Memory’ in Alabama in 1966

 I have been reading Gerald Clarke's biography of Capote so found this article to be of interest. From Al.com:

The film locale was chosen for its resemblance to Monroeville, which Perry said had become too modernized to fit the Depression-era timeline. The farmhouse was supposed to be a stand-in for the one owned by Capote’s Faulk cousins but the rambling house with dilapidated back steps was not like the Faulk home. The Faulks were not poor and lived well even during the Depression. Jenny Faulk, the main breadwinner of the family, was a merchant and the family never lacked for money, although Sook and young Truman would not have had money of their own and it is possible they scrimped for pennies and for ingredients, as in the story, to make Sook’s famous fruitcakes.

The film shows the duo gathering pecans for cakes, a scene filmed in a pecan grove in the community of Ramer, according to the article in The Montgomery Advertiser.

The character of “Buddy” was played by child actor Donnie Melvin. The film was narrated by Capote.

According to The Alabama Journal, a Montgomery woman who acted locally was chosen to portray one of the Faulk cousins in the movie. “Lavinia Cassels will make her nationwide debut on TV. The only Montgomerian in the cast, Lavinia plays on of the old maid aunts,” the article said. Although she is identified in the cast only as “aunt,” she is clearly portraying Capote’s elderly cousin, Jenny Faulk. (Read more.)

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Victorian Christmas Decorating

From Mimi Matthews:

There’s nothing more quintessentially Christmas than a Victorian Christmas, complete with mistletoe, tinsel, and candles on the tree. But there was more to Victorian holiday decorating than tinsel and candles. Just like us, many Victorians had a fondness for glitter and gold. In my new Victorian Christmas romance A Holiday By Gaslight, there’s a scene in which the guests at a country house party decorate for Christmas by gilding acorns and artificially frosting the tips of holly and ivy leaves with crystals. These Victorian decorating ideas didn’t originate in my fevered authorial brain. They were actual methods used to create glittering, gold-flaked, holiday cheer. 

An issue of the Delineator from 1900 declares that “one of the handsomest effects” for the Christmas tree was “having the tips of the green boughs glittering with crystals and reflecting the lights in many brilliant colors.” It goes on to state that: “One would suppose, at first sight of the glittering display, that some expensive method was necessary to produce the effect, but the process of covering the green twigs with crystals is very cheap and simple.” 

At this juncture, I feel it necessary to warn you that you should definitely NOT try this at home. Many recipes the Victorians employed for decorating were highly toxic and not at all safe for use. The information provided below is purely for your historical edification. (Read more.)

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Pharma Companies Panic

 From the Rand Paul Review:

The DNC and media are in panic mode right now, trying to convince everyone that RFK Jr. is crazy and spewing misinformation. In reality, RFK Jr. has a stellar track record in politics and environmental law and is poised to shake the foundations of the corrupt structures that have harmed the American public for decades. He is a massive threat to a corrupt system that has been left unchecked for decades.

Pharmaceutical companies have had a stellar few years at the expense of public health, but this exploitation will end on day one of Trump’s presidency. The MAHA movement will tear down corrupt federal agencies and corporate actions, ensuring Americans are in their best possible health.

Pharmaceutical companies are beginning to panic due to the upcoming appointment of RFK Jr. as the country’s HHS Director.

Shares of leading pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca fell on Friday on the news of RFK Jr.’s appointment to this position. RFK Jr. has decades of experience tackling corporate corruption and is well-positioned to take on corruption in the F&B and pharmaceutical industries. These companies have colluded with government entities, like the FDA, and profited from deceiving the public for far too long. RFK Jr. has a stellar track record of suing fraudulent companies, and these pharma giants should be very afraid about what is coming in the next four years.

Pharmaceutical companies have a long track record of marketing fraud over the past few decades, but deception in this industry recently took a new high during the Covid pandemic. Sadly, companies were granted immunity for these mRNA vaccines, so they were able to dodge accountability after deceiving the public about the effectiveness and safety of these products. (Read more.)

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How Mesopotamians Experienced Emotions

 From Phys.org:

A multidisciplinary team of researchers studied a large body of texts to find out how people in the ancient Mesopotamian region (within modern day Iraq) experienced emotions in their bodies thousands of years ago, analyzing one million words of the ancient Akkadian language from 934–612 BC in the form of cuneiform scripts on clay tablets.

The results of the research were published in the iScience journal on 4 December.

"Even in ancient Mesopotamia, there was a rough understanding of anatomy, for example the importance of the heart, liver and lungs," says Professor Saana Svärd of the University of Helsinki, an Assyriologist who is leading the research project. One of the most intriguing findings relates to where the ancients felt happiness, which was often expressed through words related to feeling 'open,' 'shining' or being 'full'––in the liver.

"If you compare the ancient Mesopotamian bodily map of happiness with modern bodily maps [published by fellow Finnish scientist, Lauri Nummenmaa and colleagues a decade ago], it is largely similar, with the exception of a notable glow in the liver," says cognitive neuroscientist Juha Lahnakoski, a visiting researcher at Aalto University. (Read more.)

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James I’s Love Affair with Apethorpe

 

 From Country Life:

Whatever the case, Sir Walter remained a loyal, hard-working servant of Elizabeth I. He sat in judgement on Mary, Queen of Scots at Fotheringhay and was a noted orator in Parliament, where, by admiring family report, he delivered the first ever speech to last for more than two hours. He founded Emmanuel College, Cambridge, too, which he received a royal licence to establish on January 11, 1584. The Queen is reputed to have asked if he had established ‘a Puritan foundation’, to which he evasively replied: ‘No, madam, far be it from me to countenance anything contrary to your established laws; but I have set an acorn which, when it becomes an oak, God alone knows what will be the fruit thereof.’

Sir Anthony Mildmay succeeded to his father’s estate in 1589 and, considering the connections he enjoyed, had a disappointing public career, including a disastrous embassy to Henry IV of France. On one occasion, he delivered a message so maladroitly that the King threatened to strike him and ordered him out of the room.

Happily, relations with his own sovereigns were easier. James I visited Apethorpe on his journey south from Scotland in April 1603 to claim the English throne. After his entertainment, which included dainties prepared by Lady Mildmay, who had a reputation as a ‘confectioner’, the King graciously accepted Sir Anthony’s gift of a ‘gallant barbary horse and a very rich saddle’. Thereafter, he was a regular visitor to the house on his summer progresses, drawn by the excellent hunting that was his abiding passion.

These visits were magnificent occasions and the Venetian ambassador, Antonio Foscarini, was dazzled when he joined a progress that passed through Apethorpe in August 1612. ‘His Majesty’s charges,’ he wrote, ‘are borne by the owners of the houses where he lodges; their splendour, both on account of the number of servants and of the table with its decorations and its plate… surpass all belief. The sumptuous food and the abundance of comfits which they consume is amazing.’ It may reflect the degree to which the Court took over houses that in the same letter he mentioned the ‘palace called Aptorpe’ and mistook it for a property of the Earl of Exeter, the courtier — actually a neighbour of the Mildmays — who was charged with looking after him. (Read more.)

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Breaking Free from Washington Elites

Dr. Kevin Roberts joins Joshua Treviño of the Texas Public Policy Foundation to discuss his new book, Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America.

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Distracting Yourself to Death

 From Culturcidal:

It’s kind of like “channel surfing” used to be on TV before we got Amazon Prime, Netflix, and all these other services that gave us more control over what we watch. You’d sit there, kind of bored, and say “Friends” would come on. You weren’t really a huge fan of “Friends,” but the couch was comfortable, and it was tolerable. Then, “Oh look, it’s ‘Seinfeld.’ I’ve seen this episode, it’s okay, but I don’t have anything else to do.” At least when you binge on “Game of Thrones” or “Breaking Bad,” there’s an endpoint. You immerse yourself in it and you can’t wait to see the next episode, but then it’s over.

Is binging on a show like that a bad thing? Generally, I’d say, “no.” Sure, you may spend way too much time on it and it’s probably not going to be one of your lifetime highlights, but typically people really enjoy doing it and since it does have an endpoint, you can only spend so much time doing it. If it disrupted a week or two of your life, but you were able to relax, let go, and have fun, it’s not so bad. This differentiates it from channel surfing, which is only mildly entertaining, but it never had to end. Is that good for you? No, because it can suck up large amounts of your life without really adding anything of value, even a good time.

You may say, “Binging on a show, channel surfing, whatever. What difference does it really make?”

Well, it actually makes a big difference because, in the modern era, we increasingly have something called an “attention economy.” We now have a variety of social media sites and even games that make more money by keeping you on their sites for as long as possible. It would be perfect for them if you slept, then got up, got on their site, and used it all day long, even when you were eating dinner or on the toilet. Rinse and repeat, FOREVER. (Read more.)

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