Gioachino Rossini
The composer who linked Beethoven's age with Wagner's, and who made Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi possible.

Boola Boola
Alma mater won her Ivy opener today decisively over Cornell, 50-23.


Incidentally, watching the Oklahoma game tonight, I am reminded that the Sooners stole one of our fight songs.

Saint Matthew's Day
Yesterday was the feast of my patron saint, Saint Matthew the Evangelist, and to mark the occasion I commend to you Caravaggio's sublime Saint Matthew Cycle. The trilogy -- consisting of the Calling, Inspiration, and Martyrdom of Saint Matthew -- adorns a side chapel in the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi, the French national church in Rome. Of the three, the Calling of Saint Matthew is the most dramatic and theologically insightful, but the Inspiration, which is the altarpiece, has the most interesting story surrounding its creation. The painting now above the altar is actually Caravaggio's second effort, his first having been rejected by his patron who thought it insufficiently reverential towards the apostle. That original piece, a remarkable effort despite its rejection, found its way to a museum in Berlin where it was sadly destroyed during the Second World War.


I have linked to good web reproductions, but none can replicate the effect of seeing the paintings in situ. But if you go, be sure to bring small change to plunk into the old coin boxes that operate the chapel lights. (The machines are probably still denominated in lire.)


I intend this post to be the first in an occasional series devoted to various stops on the Caravaggio Tour in Rome. The next will feature the Galleria Borghese, home to my favorite of the artist's works.

Wake Up the Echoes
On the strength of an amazing touchdown in the last two minutes, Notre Dame came back to beat Michigan State this afternoon, breaking its five year losing streak to the Spartans. With today's victory the Irish remain undefeated, moving to 4-0.


Notre Dame 21
Michigan State 17

Down the Field
The Yale Eleven opened its season today with a convincing non-conference victory. The countdown to November 23rd has begun.


San Diego 14
Yale 49

Sobran on the Iliad and the Odyssey
Here we have an excellent short essay on the foundational epics of the Western literary tradition by a political columnist with a graduate education in English. Interestingly, Sobran (who has made something of a name for himself arguing that Shakespeare was really the Earl of Oxford) believes that a single poet called Homer did indeed write both of the great poems the Greeks attributed to him. His admiration of the thoughtful Robert Fagles is also well placed; the translator and Princeton professor is every inch a classical scholar in the traditional mold.


We would be well advised never to doubt that the Greeks -- from Homer and Sophocles to Herodotus and Thucydides -- have important lessons to teach us, in the present cultural and geopolitical climate more than ever.

Thomas Eakins and The Simpsons
Tonight the local Fox affiliate here in D.C. re-ran an episode of The Simpsons titled "The Mansion Family". Regular viewers of the show will recognize this as the one in which the Simpson family house-sits for the billionaire miser Mr Burns while he is away at the Mayo Clinic for a physical. I have seen this episode several times, but I only first noticed this evening a delightful detail so fleeting I had to rewind the tape (I record the shows for viewing with my restorative cup of tea after work) to make sure I saw correctly. I did. Towards the end of the episode, as Burns is leaving the doctor's office, if one looks carefully, one will notice in the background, hanging on the office wall, none other than "The Gross Clinic" by Thomas Eakins.


This is just one example of how The Simpsons is quite possibly the most subtly intelligent program on network television.

Shake Down the Thunder
Michigan 23
Notre Dame 25