Gotta keep going

Though what I have to keep at seems suddenly so trivial as to be insulting to the people who unknowingly ran into an explosion in a crowded square in a peaceful city.

Lord have mercy.

And may those who are left hear someone say the right thing, whatever it may be for them.

Chant

With all the posts flying around about Some Traditionalists, I'm reminded that I once had my own Bruising Online Encounter With A Trad. But I'm not getting into it here and now. I'm only going to react to the memory by parodying Jonathan Coulton's song "Shop Vac".

But that's all right
'Cause I'll be mostly 
At Novus Ordo
Call me neo and I prob'ly won't hear you
Because it's loud with the tambourines. 

Yesterday, early troubles seemed not far away

I had a long, emphatic post going about a "new" book now called How to Drink Like a Mad Man. Not a book of cocktail recipes from the 60's, but a reissue of something from the year I was born, The 24-Hour Drink Book: A Guide to Executive Survival, which tells you how to be a functioning alcoholic. As we said back then, more fun than a barrel of monkeys. 

My own insights were personal, bitter, and all around an occasion of sin, so I'm leaving them out. Mostly.

Line of the Day

"I argued aloud with the radio, television, and newspaper, but for some strange reason, nobody thought to call me and ask for my opinion." 

-- Monica Perry

Tweak

It's bad enough (in an entertaining way, but still) when readers who are probably nice, reasonable, intelligent people think a fake story is real.

But today I had to edit a review of a non-fiction book by a  nice, reasonable, intelligent person who thought it was a novel.

Striving to be a nice, reasonable person myself (I can't do anything about the intelligence), I decided I had no need to fire off an email saying, "Hey, that's a true story!!"

But the review needed some tweaking. Oh well, that's what I'm there for.

"On the front porch, all year long"

Was going to post on Easter vs. Christmas in the eyes of the world, having heard a good point about it at the Vigil, but I ended up just commenting on Charlotte's post about it. C'mon. I can't be expected to comment and post, can I?

But I'll add, on the subject of leaving Christmas lights up late -- somewhere I have a folder full of photos of Christmas decorations that's called "signs of spring".

Background check

Our Lord and an Angel

See those two tiny people in the background near Jesus's left elbow?

Adriano and Cariola de Armada

No?

Look:

This is Adriano de Armada and his wife Cariola, donors of the painting, and they were not very happy about being so obscurely included in it.

I just made that up. I don' t know who paid for this painting. I don't even know who painted it. April Fool. There, that's over with for another year.

Which is also how I feel about Holy Week and Easter at this point.