Matthew Alexander

2003-04-21T11:10:00.000-04:00

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

2002-09-28T20:25:00.000-04:00

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.

2002-09-22T23:48:00.000-04:00

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.

2002-09-21T21:25:00.000-04:00

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

2002-09-21T17:42:00.000-04:00

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

2002-09-18T09:21:00.000-04:00

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.

2002-09-17T21:40:00.000-04:00

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.

2002-09-15T09:38:00.000-04:00

Shake Down the Thunder
Michigan 23
Notre Dame 25

2002-09-11T13:58:00.000-04:00

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
--John 15:13

"And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
--Matthew 16:18

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.

In memoriam September 11th, anno Domini 2001.

2002-09-10T09:53:00.000-04:00

Empress Sisi
Today is the anniversary of a sad event in Austrian history. On 10 September 1898, Empress Elisabeth of Bavaria was stabbed to death by an Italian anarchist while on holiday at Lake Geneva. The beautiful but unhappy empress (better known by her affectionate nickname "Sisi") was dear to the Austrian people and remains so today, more than a century after her assassination.

For Emperor Franz Josef, who loved his wife deeply, this was the third violent death in his immediate family during his reign. First his charismatic younger brother, Archduke Maximilian, the Emperor of Mexico, had been shot by rebels under Benito Juarez in 1867. Then, most painful of all for the imperial family, there was the incident at Mayerling. In the winter of 1889, Archduke Rudolf -- the only son of Franz Josef and Elisabeth and heir to the throne -- died under mysterious circumstances alongside his young mistress at the imperial hunting lodge at Mayerling. Although it was officially declared a suicide, some -- including the last empress, Zita of Bourbon-Parma -- believed it to have been the fruit of a conspiracy against the Hapsburg family. Whatever the truth of the matter, Elisabeth never recovered from her son's death, and, like Queen Victoria after the death of her consort, Albert, wore mourning clothes and largely secluded herself for the rest of her life. (The emperor, for his part, demolished the hunting lodge and built a Carmelite convent on its site.)

Although Franz Josef and his Austrian subjects could not know it at the time, their beloved empress would not be the last member of the imperial family to meet a violent end. The most fateful assassination of them of all, of course, was yet to come.

2002-08-25T22:58:00.000-04:00

Some personal news
Tomorrow morning I move to Alexandria, Virginia to take up my new position as an assistant editor at The American Conservative, a start-up magazine of politics and culture. I am afraid, therefore, that while I settle into my new rooms and await the connection of my telephone line and the delivery of my new Dell computer, I shan't be able to post as frequently as I have become accustomed to. I shall try to drop in from time to time from friends' machines, and I invite you to continue checking this page regularly, as I intend to resume blogging regularly just as soon as I can.

If any Washington-area readers have any suggestions, recommendations, warnings, or other tips for a new neighbor, I should be thankful if you would communicate them to me by e-mail. My memories of living in Northern Virginia are those of a child in the '80s, and I am confident that at least a few things have changed since then. I know my priorities and living requirements certainly have.

2002-08-23T16:50:00.000-04:00

Italy mortgages her heritage to finance a government program
No kidding. Shares in archeological and historic sites, including the Emperor Tiberius' villa on Capri, will become collateral for loans to pay for an enormous public-works project. Should the state-owned company involved not repay the money (this is Italy), the properties could be sold. According to The Telegraph, "The move is part of a scheme which critics see as threatening Italy's entire artistic heritage."

2002-08-23T16:11:00.000-04:00

Catholic soccer captain retires after death threats
Neil Lennon, the Catholic captain of Northern Ireland's national soccer team, announced his retirement yesterday after receiving a second death threat from Loyalist terrorists. He has a 10-year-old daughter.

2002-08-22T22:50:00.000-04:00

Not the 100 Greatest Britons
The BBC, by the highly dubious method of a viewer poll, has compiled a list of what it calls the 100 Greatest Britons. This is truly a bizarre creature, in which, for example, Queen Victoria shares space with the lead singer of the Sex Pistols. Several on the list unquestionably deserve the accolade, and there are some pleasant surprises along the way (e.g., Elgar), which give one hope that consciousness of history and high culture has not yet been completely extinguished in the Isles. Still, the list includes all too many trivial pop icons -- whom few will remember in five years, let alone 500 -- and excludes all too many of the genuinely great for it to be taken seriously. The bias in favor of the present day is pronounced.

In an excellent commentary on the list in The Daily Telegraph, Daniel Johnson inquires into the dearth of saints, composers, poets, painters, and statesmen; in short, the ones who really define British greatness. "Part of the trouble," he suggests, "is that the contemporary notion of 'celebrity' seems to have left people genuinely confused about what greatness is. Many perhaps suppose that to be great is the same as to be famous." The list of omitted names he adduces in passing, indeed, makes the BBC's look childish.

My old college debating society has been known to debate the motion "Resolved, Democracy fosters mediocrity." I believe I see here a speech in the affirmative. Even so, such a list, perhaps, can be a salutary reminder of the transience of the things of this world.

2002-08-22T11:00:00.000-04:00

A Time for Kings?
NR's David Pryce-Jones suggests restoring the Hashemite dynasty to the thrones of Iraq and "Saudi" Arabia.

2002-08-21T13:46:00.000-04:00

Bronze Age brain surgery
A skull fragment found on a Thames riverbank apparently belonged to a rare survivor of trepanning, a primitive form of brain surgery once thought to cure headaches and epilepsy.

Supplementing its report of this news, The Times has two interesting articles: one on the London of 4,000 years ago (in which the patient might have lived) and another on the history of the procedure itself.

2002-08-21T13:23:00.000-04:00

"Look what they pray to! May Allah bring it all down. It will all come down."
Today's Telegraph publishes quotes from bugged conversations involving the men arrested for plotting to destroy Bologna's San Petronio Basilica. Charming.

2002-08-21T12:18:00.000-04:00

Mrs O'Neill has posted a breathtaking photograph of the Tall Ships parade at Portsmouth this past Sunday.

2002-08-21T11:46:00.000-04:00

Catholic campaigners save church treasures
Catholics in Liverpool scored a victory yesterday when the city council denied the archdiocese permission to remove and redistribute antique decorations from the historic Church of St Mary of the Angels, which was recently closed. Built in 1907 by Amy Imrie, a Poor Clare sister and the heiress to the White Star shipping fortune, St Mary's, with its Italian Renaissance interior, was designed to give English congregants a “glimpse of Rome". Indeed, St Mary's took the Franciscan church of Santa Maria d’Ara Coeli in Rome as its model.

The campaigners hope ultimately to prevail upon the archdiocese to reopen the church.

2002-08-20T18:08:00.000-04:00

Italy arrests five men over church bomb plot
We have here a heartening update to this story, which broke in late June. At that time, I wrote a draft of the following commentary:

This is chilling. The AP is reporting that the Carabinieri have uncovered and disrupted (thank God!) a planned attack by Islamic terrorists on the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna. For you see, that church contains a Renaissance fresco depicting Muhammad in Hell.

While the plot and the plotters will be roundly denounced, what will perhaps go unremarked is the arrogance of the supposedly mainstream Italian Moslems who dared to petition the Vatican to have the fresco effaced. That Italy has been Catholic for 1700 years (longer by centuries than Islam has even existed) apparently matters nothing to them. Preserving an irreplaceable product of the greatest age of Western art, if it be at the expense of their dogmatic sensibilities, apparently matters even less.

In the case of the would-be terrorists we see yet another example of fundamentalist Islam's frightening impulse (so strikingly realized in Afghanistan, the Indian Subcontinent, & elsewhere) to destroy, rather than incorporate, the previous cultures of the lands to which it succeeds. This is the cultural equivalent of what Mark Steyn, when describing political revolutions, has called the "Year Zero approach." And if present demographic trends continue, we can expect to hear of more such plots, not just in Italy, but in France, Spain, & England as well.

The approach of the soi-disant moderates, if slower, is nonetheless dangerous, especially when it plays upon contemporary Western multiculturalism. For the multiculturalists, of course, all religions are equal, being "offensive" is the only mortal sin, and minority victims are the noblest of men. The newly controversial fresco is a figurative depiction (Do these Moslems have no understanding of the nature of art? Being iconoclasts, perhaps some do not.) of an article of Catholic belief: that Muhammad was a false prophet, whose followers, with a few notable medieval exceptions, have been a menace to Christendom from the beginning. Naturally, this is offensive to those Moslems, and, while the Vatican may always refuse them permission to whitewash it, in a future Bologna composed of aging Italian multiculturalists and more Moslem immigrants, Stalin's mocking question -- "How many divisions has the Pope?" -- might again become relevant.

(Not that I should want to give them any ideas, but the next logical step for the Union of Muslims in Italy would be to petition for the removal of Dante from Italian schools. Surely it was offensive of him to consign the Prophet to the Inferno's circle of the schismatics.)

All this ought to confirm the common-sense proposition that it is impossible to integrate into an existing culture more than a small number of persons (legitimate refugees, for example) whose basic values and beliefs are at variance with it. Such is the case between Islam and the historic cultures of Europe. Today's Islamic immigrants do not want to be assimilated into Europe; on the contrary, they want to assimilate Europe. To say so, and vigorously to oppose the process, is not xenophobia but self-preservation.* The people, and now at last some of their leaders, understand what is at stake. Let us hope they take appropriate action.

*On this point, see the second and following articles here.

2002-08-20T12:56:00.000-04:00

Sacred music threatened in England
Without question, England's greatest contribution to the history of music has been her fine tradition of sacred music. It is ancient one and ranges widely from the chant of Old Sarum to the sublime polyphony of the Renaissance to the quintessentially English homophony of the collegiate boys choirs to the nonpareil collection of hymns now embraced by nearly all anglophone Christians. The leading names in English composition, from 16C Catholic masters like Taverner, Byrd, and Tallis to the post-Reformation roster of Purcell, Handel, Parry, Vaughan Williams, Elgar (a Catholic), Stanford, Britten, Walton, & Howells, have all distinguished themselves as composers or performers (and, in many cases, both) of church music. Indeed, it may justly be said that Anglicanism's greatest contribution to Christendom -- aside from furnishing converts like Cardinal Newman -- has been aesthetic, in particular its upkeep and development of this English musical tradition.

This is why it is so disturbing that English cathedrals are mulling ruinous funding cuts for their music programs. Lincoln Cathedral, for example, has proposed to merge the position of organist and choirmaster into a new post that would also oversee music at Lincoln Minster School. Sir David Willcocks, former director of the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, has suggested that such a combination of responsibilities would be untenable, and other eminent church musicians have called the plan "monstrous" and "devious". It is apparently part of a wider confrontation between deans and organists that has flared up at Westminster Abbey and elsewhere. According to the article, while standards remain high at present, many believe the cutbacks -- accompanied by predictable calls for more music "outside the Western tradition" -- can only erode that quality.

This matter is of concern not only to Anglicans but indeed to all who cherish art rendered to God's service or even merely appreciate the cultural value of England's musical heritage. In 1971, dozens of Britons prominent in the arts, culture, scholarship, and religion -- many non-Catholic, including the Anglican archbishops of Exeter and Ripon -- signed a letter imploring Pope Paul VI to preserve the Traditional Latin Mass for its immeasurable cultural significance. Due in large part to this letter, the Pope granted the English Indult. While in no way equating in importance the state of English cathedral music with the immemorial Roman Mass, we might still consider returning the favor by marshaling equivalent signatories for a letter on the question to the appropriate Anglican authorities.

As Dr David Hill, the former organist at Winchester Cathedral and soon to hold the same office at St John's College, Cambridge, has rightly said, "When it comes to being squeezed it is the music departments which get looked at first every time. But what is the point of a cathedral if it is not the daily worship and music?"

2002-08-19T20:06:00.000-04:00

Creating jobs, and Tall Ships
The region of Devonport, England, home to the largest naval base in Western Europe, will attempt to recover some of the ship building jobs it lost in cutbacks earlier this year by building replicas of famous 19C vessels. The first will be HMS Beagle, which is best known for taking Charles Darwin to the Galapagos.

Speaking of Tall Ships, a parade of 58 of them left Portsmouth yesterday to conclude The Cutty Sark Tall Ships Race. The festival had begun last Thursday with a 600 mile race to Portsmouth from Santander, Spain. Among the crews of the ships were young people, some disabled, from around the world.

It is always encouraging to read of such constructive, character-building activities for children today.

2002-08-19T10:49:00.000-04:00

Town at war over historic battle
Was there really a Battle of Aylesbury in 1642, during the English Civil War? The Aylesbury Vale district council says there wasn't and is proposing to build a housing development and shopping center on its supposed site. Residents opposed to the project, however, accuse the council of revising history. As readers of this blog know, I yield to no man where historical preservation is concerned and find the idea of spoiling the English countryside by sprawl distasteful, but it would seem that scholarly consensus is on the council's side, with most historians now believing that the recorded victory was little more than Roundhead propaganda. Besides, my Cavalier sensibilities bristle at the thought of such an humiliation going unrefuted. I do, however, wish the development's opponents well in assembling a stronger argument.

2002-08-18T22:04:00.000-04:00

Guédelon
This is one of the neatest stories I've read in a while: a French group is building a medieval castle in the Burgundian woods using only 13C tools and techniques. Guédelon will take 25 years to complete, but its builders hope it will stand for 1000.

2002-08-18T13:30:00.000-04:00

Roman villas found beneath school soccer fields
In one of England's most significant archeological finds since the 1960s, the ruins of two fourth century AD Roman aristocratic villas have been discovered under the soccer fields of a school in Wiltshire. Within the complex is an exquisitely preserved mosaic floor probably designed by the leading workshop of the period.

2002-08-17T19:38:00.000-04:00

Tiny Medieval Books of Huge Importance
Hilton Kramer reviews Illuminated Manuscripts and the Dawn of Printing, a new exhibition at the New York Public Library.

2002-08-17T11:51:00.000-04:00

South Australia declares end of Second World War
After 57 years, the premier of one Australian state yesterday officially proclaimed peace. He took this amusingly anachronistic step because his government had recently discovered that no one had ever formally done so and that, consequently, wartime legislation was still technically in effect.

2002-08-17T11:30:00.000-04:00

Who's buried in Napoleon's tomb?
Well, perhaps his butler. A French author has argued that the British, in collusion with the French, switched the bodies to cover up evidence of neglect or foul play. (The body of the real Napoleon, in this account, was then hidden in the crypt of Westminster Abbey.) The French Ministry of Defense, however, has refused permission for DNA tests, claiming the theory lacks sufficient evidence.

2002-08-16T15:23:00.000-04:00

Officials blocked Wodehouse knighthood
According to newly released documents, the British Foreign Office opposed knighting P.G. Wodehouse, creator of Jeeves and Wooster, for years on account of some controversial radio broadcasts the author made while a German prisoner during the Second World War. Wodehouse ultimately did receive the honor in 1975.

2002-08-16T13:33:00.000-04:00

The Benes decress: a spectre over Central Europe
In 1945, Czech President Edvard Benes issued these eponymous decrees, which legalized the expulsion of nearly all ethnic Germans from his country and stripped them of their property and citizenship. The Czechs blamed the Sudeten Germans, as they were called, for supporting the Nazis. (Recall that Hitler had claimed for the Sudeten Germans the right of self-determination in the events leading up to the Munich Pact of 1938.) Nearly 60 years on, the Benes decrees continue to influence European politics. In the linked article, The Economist details their history and manifold implications for the present day.

2002-08-16T10:43:00.000-04:00

Rebuild the Towers
Delroy Murdock over at NRO says it's the American thing to do.

P.S. If you haven't seen my most recent entry on this topic, which got buried in a late flurry of posts yesterday, you can read it here.

2002-08-16T10:10:00.000-04:00

Art saved from European floods
"We had to move at the last minute when the water started coming in . . . Everyone was running through knee-high water with torches, passing works of art to each other. The vaults are ruined. They will take a long time to restore."
-- Martin Roth, Dresden art director

According to the BBC, however, "Most of the historic works of art and cultural landmarks in Prague and Dresden appear to have been saved from the floodwaters that have devastated the cities."

2002-08-15T17:24:00.000-04:00

The fatal truce
The Spectator reviews Geoffrey Moorhouse's book on the Pilgrimage of Grace, the unfortunate defeat of which helped to spell "the destruction of an ancient religion and society" in England.

2002-08-15T17:10:00.000-04:00

Playing Antigone . . . and her fiancé
Inspired by Stoppard's Coast of Utopia, which deploys 30 actors for 70 parts, Peter Jones this week takes us on an illuminating tour behind the curtain of ancient Athenian drama, which also required actors to play multiple parts in a single performance.

2002-08-15T16:48:00.000-04:00

Eakins's glimpses of 19C medicine
The New York Times ran a good article earlier this week about the two magnificent centerpiece canvases of the Met's Thomas Eakins exhibit: "The Gross Clinic" (1876) and "The Agnew Clinic" (1889). Although esteemed today as the great works they are, when they were first shown, their realistic -- and, therefore, graphic -- depictions of the surgical process ran afoul of Victorian standards of propriety. For just as they offer us a wonderful and revealing view onto the state of 19C medicine -- as well as onto how it developed in the decade between the two paintings -- they were for many contemporaries, also, their first windows into the operating room.

The two paintings are not only valuable for their documentary quality. Aesthetically, they display on a monumental scale Eakins's famous ability to imbue figures with a thoughtful interiority. Also in evidence are his almost Caravaggesque gifts for freezing time and contrasting light and dark. The supporting elements add an extra layer of delight, particularly in "The Agnew Clinic". Although this Times piece briefly mentions in this regard "snoozing medical students," what is most interesting is the subtle range of reactions the students exhibit to the spectacle before their eyes. Some are engrossed (no pun intended), others bored, and still others, yes, asleep, although even among these there is variety. Some are rather discreet about it, simply letting their heads drop to the side or propping them on their neighbors' shoulders, while one fellow in the back (we know the type) lies flat on his side, as if on a dorm room couch.

As for the Gross painting, the presence of the blood is part of what makes the piece so vivid and compelling, and it is essential to any faithful true-to-life rendering of surgical conditions in the 1870s. Eakins's belief in the ancient artistic mission to depict things as they are, and his talent in fulfilling it, are essential elements of his greatness. He lived the archetypal artist's life: misunderstood and unappreciated in his own lifetime but acclaimed by posterity. Even so, he is still perhaps not as well known as he should be, and the present retrospective affords an excellent opportunity to correct that. The show continues in New York until 15 September, after which it will close, having already been to Philadelphia and Paris. I commend it enthusiastically to all can make it to the city, but for those out of town there is also the beautifully produced catalogue published by Yale University Press.

2002-08-15T16:39:00.000-04:00

Ground Zero design process extended
After underwhelming the public with its first six proposals for rebuilding the WTC site, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation is now soliciting additional ideas from architects around the world.

I have expressed my opinion on this subject here and here. I also very much like this idea for a Memorial Arch, even if the author's conception of Christian charity is somewhat problematic.

2002-08-14T21:48:00.000-04:00

UPDATE: Germany, Slovakia Flood as Waters Ebb Elsewhere
The latest victim of the great European flood is Dresden, where the surging Elbe has inundated historic districts, deluging the lower levels of the Zwinger Palace and Semper's Opera House. Next to the palace is an art museum that houses a fine collection of Old Master paintings, including Raphael's Sistine Madonna. It appears, however, that gallery workers succesfully transferred all of the artwork to higher floors before the waters came.

The Slovakian military has erected defenses around the central medieval district of Bratislava, which confronts a threat from the swelling Danube. (At a time like this, the Viennese surely must be happy they diverted the main course of that river to the east of town in the 19C.)

Now, the good news: Prague, whose situation I have been following closely, seems to have emerged relatively unscathed. The ad hoc defenses protecting the Old Town held up, and I have read no reports that the Charles Bridge sustained any serious damage. Indications are that the Vltava River overflow has begun to subside, although it will still be days before many residents can return to their homes.

2002-08-14T19:07:00.000-04:00

The Saint Gregory Society
Over at Ad Orientem today, Mark Sullivan writes in justified praise of New Haven's Saint Gregory Society. I have been blessed to be a part of this organization since 1998, first as a congregant and later as an acolyte, and it has been an incalcuable aid to my spiritual development. The Society is run by some of the most faithful, learned, and talented men, both clerical and lay, I have ever had the privilege to meet. I recommend a visit to all who find themselves in Southern Connecticut on a Sunday afternoon (Mass is at 2pm). The anniversary votive Mass to Saint Gregory each February is an occasion of particular liturgical splendor.

And while you are over at Mr. Sullivan's site, see his post on the book In Defense of Elitism. Although I have not (yet) read it, it has come highly recommended to me by trusted friends, and its thesis sounds most congenial.

2002-08-14T17:51:00.000-04:00

The Coast of Utopia
The Economist reviews Sir Tom Stoppard's latest work, a complex trilogy about a circle of Russian radicals (the best known of whom is the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin) in Europe during the tumultuous mid-19C.

2002-08-14T12:44:00.000-04:00

Charles Bridge teeters under flood pressures
The London Times correspondent calls the Prague landmark, which is lined with statues of saints, "the 14th-century epicentre of Central European culture," and suggests that "The collapse of the Charles Bridge would be akin to the ground opening up under Westminster Abbey and erasing a millennium of collective memory from the city’s history." She asks with deep concern,"Surely this could not be about to be washed away?" We passionately hope not.

2002-08-14T12:41:00.000-04:00

Prague battles to save treasures

2002-08-14T12:34:00.000-04:00

China holds dissidents in Soviet-style asylums
It seems that the Chinese Communists have equaled their Soviet predecessors in the practice of one of totalitarianism's more frightening tactics: sending political dissidents to psychiatric wards.

2002-08-13T19:58:00.000-04:00

"Symbols of love and of worship"
This paragraph toward the end of Reagan's Brandenburg Gate speech is especially beautiful, but too infrequently quoted:

Perhaps this gets to the root of the matter, to the most fundamental distinction of all between East and West. The totalitarian world produces backwardness because it does such violence to the spirit, thwarting the human impulse to create, to enjoy, to worship. The totalitarian world finds even symbols of love and of worship an affront. Years ago, before the East Germans began rebuilding their churches, they erected a secular structure: the television tower at Alexander Platz. Virtually ever since, the authorities have been working to correct what they view as the tower's one major flaw, treating the glass sphere at the top with paints and chemicals of every kind. Yet even today when the sun strikes that sphere - that sphere that towers over all Berlin - the light makes the sign of the cross. There in Berlin, like the city itself, symbols of love, symbols of worship, cannot be suppressed.

The following paragraph, the penultimate one, concludes with this related line: "Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom."

In the bowels of the Communist East, the American President gave voice to the greatness of the West.

2002-08-13T18:45:00.000-04:00

Berlin Wall stirs emotions
Today is the 41st anniversary of the construction of the Wall, which John Lewis Gaddis has rightly called a "moral obscenity" (although, in his view, perhaps a necessary one). To mark the occasion, the city held a memorial service for the victims who died trying to cross into West Berlin (1000 in total, 230 of whom were shot by East German border guards) at a chapel built on the site of a church the East German Communists demolished.

According to this article, some Berliners are angry that the Party of Democratic Socialism (the successor to the East German Communist Party), which has taken responsibility for building the Wall, has entered into a governing coalition with the Social Democrats. Their anger is justified, and refreshing.

On this dark anniversary, it is well to read again this great speech by a great President, who, two years before it would fall at the hands of the people it divided, expressed his moral opposition to it with this famous exhortation to his Soviet counterpart: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

2002-08-13T16:34:00.000-04:00

Blairite propaganda in The Washington Post
I have been going back and forth about whether to blog this article from yesterday's Post but have decided that it deserves a comment. The title of the piece is "Britannia Waives Old Social Rules," and it describes in a satisfied tone how celebrities and big businessmen, rather than titled aristocrats, occupy the commanding heights of social status in 21C Cool Britannia.

Alas, this is truly a demotic age. How anyone can think that the exaltation of the mediocre and vulgar is progess escapes me. Is it really more virtuous to respect someone because of the heft of his checkbook (or because he can kick a ball or perform rock music) than because his family helped to shape and defend the nation over centuries?

Coming away from this article, one could be forgiven for thinking that Britain was at last crawling out from under some sort of 18C-Prussian-style feudalism, but such is far from the case. Among the many things not mentioned are how remarkably flexible and unoppressive, by European standards, the English class system has historically been and how English aristocrats have traditionally been the least legally privileged and, on the whole, most socially responsible of any in Europe. Also omitted is how the aristocracy suffered a disproportionate large number of deaths in the Great War. Besides, sanctimonious statements about rewarding achievement notwithstanding, there is evidence that real meritocracy and social mobility in Britain, after increasing in the post-war era, have actually diminished in the last 30 years (at least in part because Labour wrecked the education system).

The article's only redeeming quality is that it at least concedes that the foxhunting Tories are no longer The Establishment. Despite Labour's class-warfare rhetoric, they haven't been for the better part of half a century.

And now, if you will excuse me, my Earl Grey tea is getting cold.

2002-08-13T14:58:00.000-04:00

Josh Kleinfeld, a friend and college classmate, has a thoughtful essay on NRO today that argues that the Middle East Peace Process failed because it was predicated on flawed first principles.

2002-08-13T13:17:00.000-04:00

Floods threaten Prague's "symphony in stone"
The worst flooding in a century, which has already killed dozens across Central and Eastern Europe, now endangers Prague's many historic landmarks and cultural institutions, which date from the Middle Ages to the 20C. The high waters threaten other historic European cities, including Salzburg, as well.

2002-08-13T12:13:00.000-04:00

Recovering Kaliningrad's German history
The Russian enclave of Kaliningrad has been much in the news this summer as the focus of a row between Russia and the European Union. Within the next few years, the region will be surrounded on all sides either by EU members or aspirants, and the Russians of Kaliningrad, as things now stand, will require visas to travel back and forth to "mainland" Russia. The political and diplomatic ramifications of this coming isolation aside, Kaliningraders have in recent times begun to wonder whether their identity lies more with Western Europe than with Russia. Given the history of the place, this is not surprising.

Before the Potsdam Conference of 1945, Kaliningrad was for centuries the German territory of Konigsberg, East Prussia. Its favorite son was Immanuel Kant, who was born there (and never left) and, so it is said, kept to such a regular schedule that his fellow Konigsbergers could set their clocks by his afternoon walk. When the Soviets took over, they tried their best to eliminate all remnants of the region's German past. They expelled the Germans and replaced them with Russians, renamed the area after a late Soviet higher-up, and demolished monuments like the 13C castle. (The New York Times article relates an old joke on this point about Kaliningrad having no history "between Adam and Potsdam".) Now, however, as the same article describes, a concerted effort is underway to recover and preserve what is left of the region's pre-war culture (including excavations on the site of the ruined castle), with some even suggesting the return of its original German name.

The project is a testament to the remarkable survivability of culture -- that even after such a determined attempt to destory it, it can still so powerfully influence even those with no organic connection to its roots. We should wish them well.

2002-08-13T10:21:00.000-04:00

The 'Bounty Island' murder
Another famous 18C British ship makes the news today. It seems that Norfolk Island in the South Pacific, which is populated by descendants of the Bounty mutineers, has reported its first murder in 150 years. Australia, Norfolk's mother country since 1914, has sent over detectives to supplement the island's regular three-man police force, and it is hoped that finger-printing every adult resident will unmask the killer.

The Bounty descendants, who speak an interesting amalgam of 18C English and Tahitian, moved in 1856 from tiny Pitcairn Island, where their ancestors had settled, to Norfolk Island, a gift from Queen Victoria.

2002-08-13T10:04:00.000-04:00

Carving furniture from Nelson's ship
Craftsmen across Britain are making furniture from wood and copper removed from HMS Victory in the course of her ongoing restoration. The world's oldest commissioned warship, the Victory was Lord Nelson's flagship in the fleet that decisively defeated the Napoleonic navy in the Battle of Trafalgar. Proceeds from the sale of the furniture, which will first go on display, will help finance the 200th anniversary commemoration of Trafalgar in 2005.

2002-08-12T14:02:00.000-04:00

Church of England gets first floating chapel in 450 years
A Dutch barge -- to be re-christened St Peter's, after a local parish destroyed in the Second World War -- will offer church services and classes to London businessmen at lunch-hour.

2002-08-12T12:53:00.000-04:00

"When the King Enjoys His Own Again"
A friend has called to my attention this beautiful Cavalier (and later, Jacobite) folk song.

2002-08-12T11:04:00.000-04:00

Gulag humor
Over in The Corner, John Derbyshire and Andrew Stuttaford have been trading old Soviet-era jokes. Here are two examples:

1. Stuttaford (quoting a London Observer article): "Three prisoners are discussing their cases. The first explains that he has been jailed for criticizing Radek (one of Stalin's colleagues). The second says that he was arrested for praising Radek. They then ask the third prisoner what he had done.

'I am Radek', he replies."

2. Derbyshire (quoting Solzhenitsyn): "Two zeks [political prisoners] strike up a conversation in the cattle wagon going to Siberia. First zek: 'How long are you down for?' Second zek: '25 years.' First zek: 'What did you do?' Second zek: 'Nothing!' First zek: 'Liar! Everybody knows that for nothing, the sentence is only 10 years!'"

Other entries in this exchange, amusing in a very dark way, can be found here, here, and here.

2002-08-12T10:10:00.000-04:00

London goes Venetian
An authentic gondola, complete with a traditionally dressed gondolier, is now available for charter on an English lake.

2002-08-12T09:57:00.000-04:00

Literary Scandal
Two authors have confessed to writing rave reviews of their own books on Amazon.

2002-08-12T09:36:00.000-04:00

Dresden, Still and Again
A New York Times travel writer visits the once great German city, formerly the seat of the Elector of Saxony, to see what remains, and what has been rebuilt, after the savage Allied firebombing of 1945.

2002-08-11T21:53:00.000-04:00

"Britain is losing Britain"
The Times of London last week ran a powerful essay -- written by a man who is both an immigrant's son and a Labour Party member -- about the profound cultural consequences of sustained mass immigration to Britain. Peter Hitchens, too, addresses this matter in his column this week. Here is a news article on the report that prompted both pieces.

2002-08-11T21:52:00.000-04:00

Through Europe's Fractures
In a new memoir, literary critic Victor Brombert tells of his youth in 1930s Paris, his escape to America after the fall of France, and his return to Europe as an American soldier in 1944.

2002-08-11T17:28:00.000-04:00

Re-evaluating Lewis Carroll's photographs
Did the Victorian author's pictures reflect an unhealthy interest in children? A new exhibition and some recent scholarship aim to challenge that assumption.

2002-08-10T22:44:00.000-04:00

The excellent Telegraph obituary for Mr. Campbell suggests that he might have been the last Gallipoli survivor of any nationality.

2002-08-10T22:10:00.000-04:00

Alec Campbell, RIP
While visiting The Economist's website, I found this earlier article I must have previously missed. Last May, Alec William Campbell died at the age of 103. He was Australia's last survivng veteran of the notorious failure that was the Dardanelles Campaign of 1915.

It is always amazing to read the obituary of a man his age, not only because of his war experiences, but also because of the dramatic transformations in technology and culture through which he lived. (At the time of Campbell's birth, for example, Queen Victoria was on the British throne and Australia had yet to see her first automobile.) Truly, with his death, the era which he came to personify advances very much further toward becoming "merely history". It is only too bad that The Economist had to mar an otherwise fine tribute by momentarily turning Campbell's death, with only the slightest subtlety, to the service of one of its favorite political causes: the abolition of the monarchy.

Incidentally, Masterpiece Theatre showed a wonderful film this past season about Gallipoli and pre-war culture called All The King's Men. (No relation to the Robert Penn Warren novel of the same title.) Co-starring Dame Maggie Smith as the dowager queen Alexandra, it is worth watching should it turn up again on PBS.

2002-08-10T17:59:00.000-04:00

Copycat
Police in Rome yesterday arrested a lady for wading into the Trevi Fountain and harvesting its coins, in imitation of the transient apprehended for the same offense earlier this week.

2002-08-09T10:46:00.000-04:00

Nazi commandant must serve another decade
A German court has ruled today that, his advanced age notwithstanding, Josef Schwammberger, 90, must serve another ten years of his life sentence. Schwammberger was convicted in 1992 of murdering hundreds of Jews on his own initiative from 1942 to 1944, when he was commandant of several forced labor camps in Poland.

2002-08-09T10:36:00.000-04:00

More turmoil in the British arts world
The dancers of London's Royal Ballet are on the verge of mutiny.

2002-08-08T17:13:00.000-04:00

Black Hannibal Revisited
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Hollywood's plans to film Hannibal's life story as a tale of blacks beating up on whites. It was my point that -- pace the Afrocentrists -- Hannibal was not black, a view supported by British classicist Peter Jones in the current issue of The Spectator.

2002-08-08T16:50:00.000-04:00

A business approach to opera
An article in this week's Spectator comments on the firing of the English National Opera's director and what that augurs for the company's future.

2002-08-08T15:23:00.000-04:00

Why did Stalin execute the heroes of Leningrad?
When the Germans laid siege to Leningrad in the summer of 1941, it fell to two men -- Andrei Zhdanov and Alexei Kuznetsov -- to lead the beleagured city until the Soviet army relieved it in early 1944. After that, however, history records nothing more of Zhdanov and Kuznetsov. Documents recently made available to the BBC reveal why: both men (and four others as well) were purged and executed on Stalin's orders. Zhdanov, whose health was failing, was sent off to a state hospital, where he was given a lethal prescription. Kuznetsov and the rest received the familiar Stalin treatment: arrest, torture, forced confession, and execution. In addition to these executions, Uncle Joe had 4000 Leningraders purged from the Communist Party and arrested.

Kuznetsov's son suggests a possible motive for Stalin's brutal treatment of his father: "For Stalin... [making] an independent decision was a terrible crime against the state."

2002-08-08T14:40:00.000-04:00

Modern technology put to good use
Scientists will employ radar in an effort to determine whether the formal 17C water gardens of Bramham Park ("The Versailles of the North") can be restored. As this article notes, an 1828 fire at the estate, which caused the owners to abandon it, perhaps saved the garden by preserving it from redevelopment according to 19C fads.

This story calls to mind one of the strangest and yet most delightful sights I visited in Europe. The early 17C Wasserspiele of Hellbrunn Palace in Salzburg is less a formal water garden than a whimsical expression of Prince-Archbishop Markus Sittikus's mischevious wit. One word of advice: when invited to the archbishop's garden table, watch where you sit!

2002-08-08T11:21:00.000-04:00

Battle of Hastings painting restored and remounted, 140 years later
An enormous 19C painting of the Battle of Hastings, taken down nearly a century and half ago because of its size and stored in a soggy basement, has been carefully restored and returned to display. It hangs once again in its intended location: Battle Abbey (now a school), which stands on the site of the great 1066 conflict.

2002-08-08T09:55:00.000-04:00

Stolen Rubens found in Ireland
Authorities in Dublin have found a Rubens that an Irish gang had lifted in a famous 1986 art heist.

2002-08-08T09:43:00.000-04:00

Three coins in . . . his pocket
Prompted by the Italian press, the Roman police have finally arrested a vagrant known for wading into the Fontana di Trevi and taking for himself the many coins thrown therein. The money is officially set aside for various charities.

2002-08-07T17:15:00.000-04:00

No WorldComs in medieval Italy
Down here in Washington I came upon a report about a most interesting exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery of Art: "Art and Economics: Sienese Paintings From the Dawn of the Modern Financial Age". It seems that the authorities in medieval Siena took public fiduciary responsibility very seriously, even considering their ledgers of such importance as to merit cover paintings by great artists like Ambrogio Lorenzetti. (A selection of these books, and related items, comprise the Corcoran display, the scheduling of which had nothing to do with the recent rash of American corporate accounting scandals.) The Washington Post's explanation of the painstaking system the Sienese devised to ensure probity reminds one that this is the same city whose town hall holds Lorenzetti's masterpiece frescoes, Allegories of Good and Bad Government.

The era was not entirely devoid of high-profile bankruptcies, however. As the article points out, it was the English king Edward III's default in 1342 that helped bring down the Sienese banking system.

2002-08-07T16:10:00.000-04:00

War veterans denied medals
The British government has angered hundreds of veterans by forbidding them to receive Russian medals. The Russians want to decorate the men for their part in the Second World War's Arctic convoys, which helped supply the Russian war effort on the Eastern Front. London states that its policy is not to allow British soldiers to receive foreign medals for events more than five years in the past.

2002-08-07T09:34:00.000-04:00

The Pilgrimage of Grace
Britain's Observer has a sympathetic review of a new history of The Pilgrimage of Grace, the virtuous and loyal, but sadly failed, 1536 rebellion against Henry VIII's religious schism and violation of the monasteries.

2002-08-06T18:02:00.000-04:00

Paving over national treasures, again
This time the culprit is Italy, where officials want to build a freeway through a stretch of virgin Tuscan countryside dotted with vineyards and archeological sites. As one might suspect, behind this plan lurks the EU.

2002-08-06T17:04:00.000-04:00

A landmark anniversary
On August 6, 1806, Francis II dissolved the Holy Roman Empire under pressure from Napoleon. Having foreseen this, Francis had earlier declared himself the first Emperor of Austria, in which capacity he and his successors reigned until 1918. Because he did so, there is a statue of Francis II/I in Vienna with the inscription Pater Patriae, the Father of his Country.

I had been looking forward to writing a more substantial blog on the demise and legacy of the Holy Roman Empire, but unfortuately I am out of town at the moment and rather pressed for time. I intend to post it when I return home next week, but in the interim, enjoy these pictures of the magnificent Imperial Crown and coronation regalia, which are displayed in the Imperial Treasury in Vienna, and this primer on the nobility and constituent states of the Empire.

2002-08-06T16:16:00.000-04:00

Alpine chic
Lederhosen are back in style.

2002-08-06T08:05:00.000-04:00

The dying art of royal portraiture
According to the Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, modern artists no longer understand how to paint kings and queens.

2002-08-05T13:04:00.000-04:00

Endangered: The Great Wall of China
I was not aware that this great wonder of the world had fallen into such a pitiful condition, but I really can't claim surprise. Nor am I terribly surprised that the Chinese Communists made a mess of things the last time they launched a Great Wall preservation effort. We should hope, however, that this one turns out better.

2002-08-04T13:43:00.000-04:00

Today is Percy Shelley's birthday
Or would be, if he were still alive. This sonnet may not be his best work, but, as a blogable example, it has the advantage of being short (which many of Shelley's greater pieces are not), and it is an arresting, intricate, and richly ironic critique of pride.

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

2002-08-04T12:03:00.000-04:00

"The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."
--Sir Edward Grey, Foreign Secretary of Great Britain, 4 August 1914
As her deadline for German confirmation of Belgian neutrality passed, Britain declared war on Germany. The New York Times had this report on the opening of hostilities and with it the dramatic escalation of the World War.

2002-08-03T20:14:00.000-04:00

Kings in the North: The House of Percy in British History
Cambridge Fellow John Adamson reviews a new book on one of England's oldest aristocratic families for The Telegraph. After following William the Conqueror from Normandy, the Percys -- who would become the Earls and Dukes of Northumberland -- participated in several of the more important events of medieval and early modern English history. They also provided a Shakespearean character or two along the way.

2002-08-03T18:54:00.000-04:00

New investment for Stonehenge
The commission that operates one of England's most famous cultural landmarks has announced a multi-million pound plan to preserve and restore the site, improve the transportation infrastructure around it, and build a new education center to give visitors a broader view not just of the stones themselves but of the lesser-known processional routes and burial mounds as well.

2002-08-03T14:39:00.000-04:00

Brevity is the soul of wit
The Encyclopaedia Britannica returns to print today (after four years of publishing only on CD-ROM) with its first ever one-volume edition.

Speaking of Britannica, I have noticed that, as with the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, someone has put the celebrated 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica online, although not all of the article links appear to work. The 29-volume 11th edition, much sought-after in rare book shops, has, for its entries, scholarly articles by some of the leading authorities of the day.

2002-08-03T13:38:00.000-04:00

The horror in Flanders fields
Winston Groom, the author of Forest Gump, has written a non-fiction book about the Great War's battles in Belgium, where over a million men went down to death in conditions almost too wretched to contemplate. It was in Ypres, formerly "a small, quaint medieval city, once the center of Europe's cloth trade, graced by the cathedral of St. Martin and the magnificent Cloth Hall, completed in 1260" that mustard gas and flamethrowers, trenchfoot and shell shock first entered the Western experience.

2002-08-03T12:40:00.000-04:00

Blogger glitch
Because of Blogger gremlins, the entry from last night on Europe's memory of the Great War got posted while it was still rough. I have since edited and polished it somewhat. I would link to it directly, but another Blogger gremlin is preventing that from working at the moment.

2002-08-03T12:07:00.000-04:00

"Happy families are all alike . . ."
100 members of Count Leo Tolstoy's family, which scattered around the world after the Bolshevik revolution, returned yesterday to their ancestral seat, Yasnaya Polyana, where the Russian author wrote many of his great novels. What is particularly interesting about this story is the way the local villagers, despite both Communism and the transition to liberal democracy, continue to regard the family with manorial deference and respect.

2002-08-03T09:44:00.000-04:00

The Old Kingdom Beer
A Japanese brewery has brewed a beer based on a recipe found in 4400-year-old ancient Egyptian wall paintings. It is rather different from what one finds on tap at the local pub.

2002-08-02T22:12:00.000-04:00

Fading Away, indeed
A 1999 article in The Atlantic Monthly on the Great War opens with this moving description of the war's continuing immediacy for Europeans:

"AMERICANS scarcely marked the eightieth Armistice Day, this past November 11. But standing with stricken faces before the Cenotaph at Whitehall and the Ossuaire at Verdun, and tolling bells in the gloomy villages of Lancashire and the Pas-de-Calais, the British and the French, our erstwhile co-belligerents, mourned as if freshly wounded. For them the Great War is not yet merely history."

Recent reports, however, would seem to indicate that, even in the nations most devastated by it, the Great War is now gradually becoming just that, "merely history." John Derbyshire, who understands that words mean things, noted a generational break: his contemporaries in England are the first to refer to the conflict by the distanced and less awe-inspiring name "The First World War." Then there was the French plan to build an airport on the site of the Battle of the Somme. Now comes word that Belgium wants to extend a highway across the Ypres Salient, overtop the bones of the dead. International protest caused the French to scuttle the so-called Somme airport, and there is growing dismay, both in Belgium and Britain, over the Ypres road. But that such plans are floated at all reveals the direction of the momentum: deference to an ever more remote past is giving place to the practical concerns of the present. It is likely that similar proposals will grow more common in the years ahead as the power of the memory fades like the echo of the guns. The BBC mentions a movement to have Ypres declared a World Heritage Site. Let us hope it succeeds. Despite the natural passing of time, Ypres, like the Somme, deserves silence and reverential attention, not the roaring noise of engines speeding travelers obliviously by.

2002-08-02T16:53:00.000-04:00

The 1936 Berlin Olympics
Yesterday marked the anniversary of the commencement of Hitler's games. On 2nd August, The New York Times ran this disturbing front-page description of the Opening Ceremonies, at which the American delegation acquitted itself honorably. Although German athletes ultimately took the most medals, Jesse Owens ruined the Nazis' intended demonstration of Aryan superiority by winning gold in several Track & Field events.

2002-08-02T15:55:00.000-04:00

Hungarian Prime Minister defends his covert past

Peter Medgyessy, who led the Socialist Party (the successor to Hungary's Communist Party) to electoral victory a few months ago, is facing a scandal over his work as a counter-espionage agent in the Communist-era secret service. According to the BBC, he "said he had simply done his job and denied writing incriminating reports about individuals." He subsequently served as finance minister in the last Communist administration.

On a related note, see John O'Sullivan's good column from last April on Right & Left, and Fascism & Communism, in the Hungarian election.

2002-08-02T13:18:00.000-04:00

"Dr Livingstone, I presume"
A wonderful array of possessions relating to the Victorian adventurer Sir Henry Morton Stanley's African expeditions will soon go up for auction in London. Among the items are a rifle, annotated maps, photographs, native dresses, spears, and war axes. Stanley undertook his best known journey into Africa in 1871 to find British missionary David Livingstone, whom he eventually met near Lake Tanganyika, prompting the famous quotation.

2002-08-02T13:04:00.000-04:00

Rychlak on Goldhagen's Pius XII
In the June-July issue of First Things, Professor Ronald Rychlak (author of Hitler, the War, and the Pope) writes a long and meticulously detailed demolition of Daniel Goldhagen's irresponsible and outrageous charges -- even beyond the usual -- against Pope Pius XII, which recently ran in The New Republic. His last section, on The New Republic's obligation to its readers, is especially worth reading, in particular this devastating closing paragraph:

"Why did the New Republic choose to pass off to its readers this fabrication as scholarly history? The only apparent answer is that the editors were so anxious to vilify Catholics, their Church, and Pope Pius XII—so willing to join in Goldhagen’s vicious attacks—that they did not want to learn the truth: Goldhagen’s thesis is based upon selective sources, doctored quotations, sloppy inaccuracies, half–truths, and outright falsehoods. People of good will, regardless of their faith, are right to reject it."

2002-08-02T11:43:00.000-04:00

Soviet atrocity unearthed in Ukraine
Visitng monks recently happened upon the remains of a particularly appalling Soviet massacre in the basement of a Ukrainian monastery, which the secret police had occupied after the Second World War. This long Washington Post story on this discovery and the Soviet legacy is excellent. Thanks to LewRockwell.com for the link.

2002-08-02T00:31:00.000-04:00

2,500-year-old Greek sculpture stolen
The British Museum's woes continue. In a real-life Thomas Crown Affair, a thief entered the museum last Tuesday and walked out undiscovered with an ancient Greek marble head. One wonders whether the lack of adequate security was due to the institution's budget crisis, which, sad to say, is now even calling into question its ability properly to conserve its signature antiquities, including the Elgin Marbles.

2002-08-01T22:59:00.000-04:00

The Great War
In his column today, John Derbyshire wistfully remarks that his is the first generation of Englishmen to call the 1914-1918 war the "First World War" rather than "The Great War." Because of what Oxford historian J.M. Roberts calls the conflict's "unprecedented psychological and cultural effects," I prefer the older title.

2002-07-31T14:11:00.000-04:00

Going away for a few days

I am departing presently for a business trip to Our Nation's Capital, which will leave something of a lacuna in this blog until late tomorrow evening or, more likely, Friday morning. I shouldn't wish to leave you empty-handed, however, and therefore offer a couple of parting gifts.

1. Those of a monarchist bent might enjoy exploring the many interesting things to be found on the official web site of the revived Almanach de Gotha.

2. Of a more general interest, I present the essay I mentioned in this post, which makes a cultural argument for rebuilding the Twin Towers essentially as they were before September 11th. I wrote it last year in the weeks following the attacks (with some minor edits since), but it was never published before now.

PS -- If you haven't seen it yet, there is also my post from earlier this morning on the Cunard Line's Queen Mary 2.

Restoring the World Trade Center and the American Spirit
By Matthew Alexander

Larry Silverstein, who holds the lease on the World Trade Center property, has vowed to rebuild the site, but sadly his proposed design of four fifty story office buildings cannot do justice to his noble sentiment. The World Trade Center was not special because it was an office complex but because of what it symbolized. To heal the neighborhood and the country, then, requires not just that the property perform its former function again; it most also revive and embody the same intangible spirit. Mayor Giuliani has promised to make “the skyline whole again,” and for that to happen both physically and psychologically, the Twin Towers themselves must return.

What did the Twin Towers represent? Since September 11th, the common interpretation has been that they were symbols of capitalism and that the terrorists chose to attack them for that reason, but this is all too reductive. The terrorists wanted was to kill many people
visibly and to do so in a symbolically meaningful way; and being Islamic fundamentalists, not Marxists, they were concerned with something larger and less abstract than the capitalist system: America and American culture. It was these for which the Towers stood.

Those Towers, built within living memory of many Americans, were expressions and realizations of American prosperity and potential, spirit and soul, as all cultures' monuments are. They seemed as givens, like any mountain or island. They were our marks upon the landscape and we thought them immovable. Our children learned to revere them as icons, the way those who grew up beneath majestic temples and pyramids must once have done. Breathtaking feats of engineering, imagination, and technological innovation, the Towers soared with grandeur and noble simplicity. Their beauty came from their balance and their symmetry and because they carried the rest of the skyline up to the heights with them. There were aesthetic criticisms of them at first, but in the years that followed, the surrounding area was redeveloped to depend on, reflect, and highlight those Twin Towers. This is in part why the skyline looks so empty and wounded without them. And the extent to which they were misfits has been overstated anyway: if one looked down University Place off Union Square, for example, the Towers stood exquisitely framed at the end. That empty frame is what makes photographs taken from there of the September 11th events so poignant. Then there was the harbor view of the Statue of Liberty lined up between the Towers, drawing the eye upward along the perfect vertical axis.

Looking now across the river at New York now from New Jersey there is nothing at its entrance to define the space, and the Empire State Building, located in midtown, is too small and ill-placed to do the job. The great City, the world's cultural and financial capital, lays low. The sky has collapsed on it without the Towers to push it back. No skyline was more triumphant or more closely associated with its city in the mind of the world than New York’s. The Trade Center defined that skyline, and, as in an army, when the general is killed the soldiers lose their nerve, so it is with New York's other buildings: they no longer assert their order, magnificence, and glory. The
landscape is entirely different and without identity; it cannot be what it was before the Trade Center, because the Trade Center has changed it, and us.

Terrible as the loss of so many lives is, a part of what unsettles so many New Yorkers is the idea that the Towers are no longer there. They should be there, and the mind recoils from contemplating their absence. Seeing that they can vanish in an hour reminds one that, as the ancient Greeks were so anxiously aware, chaos lurks just beyond the fragile boundary of man-made order, an order that, like cast iron, appears unquestionably hard and solid but, when hit with too much force, shatters.

The Towers should be rebuilt because they should still be there. Their destruction at the hands of a few enemies was a deep collective wound to our culture and to our people, and it was an insult. Both must be redressed. We were robbed and are owed restitution. The Trade Center should stand again, and this time with 111 stories as a gesture of defiance and endurance, but also as a memorial of the dead.

Although well intentioned, Mr. Silverstein’s new design would fail symbolically. Four fifty story office buildings, twice as many but half as tall as the giants they would replace, would in their modesty and anonymity represent a negation of nearly everything special about the Trade Center. As they hid themselves among the buildings their predecessors once commanded, they would signal capitulation to fear, the death of ideals, and the futility of aspirations. And whatever plaque or memorial there would be to the dead, the message sent would be that their killers had won the victory by weakening the country’s resolve and changing its life.

A fitting historical role model for New York in its passionate need to rebuild lost monuments is post-war Vienna. When World War II ended, the first thing the Viennese chose to rebuild, and into which they poured all of their resources, was the Vienna State Opera, which
Allied bombs had left in ruins. Like the World Trade Center, the State Opera had met its share of aesthetic criticism. When it first opened in the 19th Century, its design and position in relation to the street were very controversial. Even Emperor Franz Josef voiced his objections, and within months both architects were dead, one by suicide, the other from a stroke, both as a result of the criticism. Yet it was beautiful and symbolic, and the Viennese rebuilt it according to the original plans, a project that lasted until the mid-1950s and met with great acclaim.

By all means wait until after the war is won and our defenses are fortified, but when those are achieved restore the Towers. Businesses will stay in New York; there is still benefit and cache to locating there, despite improvements in technology and globalization. Office space is dear, and as time passes and the terror fades, companies and people will fill brand new Towers, if they are offered to them. New Yorkers, as the mayor has reminded the world, are a proud people. Their monuments should proclaim that anew.

2002-07-31T10:16:00.000-04:00

The Queen Mary 2

Cunard, the classic transatlantic steamship line, is building an elegant new flagship, the Queen Mary 2, which will make her debut in 2004. Yesterday, Cunard unveiled an impressive new website devoted to the great lady. Although she will be the largest passenger liner ever built, Cunard is not making the mistake of its onetime rival, White Star, by claiming she will be unsinkable. What the company does promise, though, and would seem to fulfill, is to perpetuate the traditions and standards of the golden age of ocean travel.

After a rather annoying registration page, the Queen Mary 2 site opens with a majestic flash presentation featuring many of the great Cunard liners of the past two centuries (although, conspicuously, not the Lusitania). Following that, one can view a portfolio of artist's renderings of the ship's accomodations and public spaces (including a virtual tour), details of her first voyages, and updates on the progress of her construction.

For those planning marriage, and have the means, I should think that a New York to Southampton voyage on such a liner followed by a rail journey from Paris to Constantinople on the Orient Express would make a splendid honeymoon.

2002-07-30T17:47:00.000-04:00

Proofreading Blogs

Father Tucker asks whether he is the only one who appreciates the services of Nihil Obstat, the self-appointed (I assume) editor of Catholic blogs. Well, I certainly do. Although it may not appear so from my posts (which I frequently compose in unbecoming haste), I am as picky as anyone where grammar and usage are concerned.

The weblog medium is a wonderful catalyst for intellectual exchange, as it enables both the quick dissemination of ideas to a wide audience and feedback on them to the author. The downside to it, though, is that it is easy for bloggers to get lazy, because, for most of us, blogging is a way of expressing scattered ideas and insights (albeit united by a common outlook) rather than an outlet for formal writing. (The speed with which one can put up and alter posts also promotes carelessness.) Such sloppy writing can lead to sloppy thinking (and vice versa), which diminishes the worth and effectiveness of the blog. And to the eye of the reader, typos and solecisms are noticeably distracting. (See N.O.'s own comments on this point here.) Nihil Obstat, therefore, does not simply amuse us with pedantry, he also helps ensure (through a little healthy ridicule) that Nothing Stands In The Way of our thoughts being understood.

PS -- I am not Nihil Obstat.

2002-07-30T15:15:00.000-04:00

Is the Vinland Map a forgery?
A map in the collections of Yale University, which purports to show that the Vikings landed in North America before Columbus, may be a fraud. A British scientific team claims to have found a chemical in the ink that didn't exist until the 1920s. An American team counters, however, that Carbon-14 tests date the map to 1434.