That does sound moderately interesting.
Mencken's book on Nietzsche is one of my least favorite books. You'd think that the irony and wit would multiply, but they just cancel each other out, leaving awfulness behind.
I'm not going back to grad school, not matter how many dissertation topic neb puts up.
you mean "no matter how much dissertation topic".
From the introduction by Chaz. Bufe in the first link: Mencken was only married for five of his 75 years, and then to a woman with severe health problems, whose early demise was foreseeable
So, that worked out well for everyone then, didn't it?
That particular catechism is very soothing in having short and definite answers for all the big questions. Are other catechisms like that?
- What is property?
- Well, it's complicated, and it really depends. To a rough approximation, it's the kind of stuff that when we say one owns it, one has any of these various bundles of Hohfeldian jural relations with other citizens and the state. [Then you spell out the bundles.] But then we have to look at the historical development of the various concepts of property and the socioeconomic conditions that fostered them...
Are other catechisms like that?
Isn't that kind of the idea behind most catechisms? You could have a catechism that wasn't like that, but my guess would be that almost all actually existing catechisms offer definitive and likely short answers to every question in them.
But yeah, someday I will have to get to SF and London for their respective @ist book fairs. We are building a grand new tradition here in MPLS, of course, but I would still be interested to see how it works in other climes.
And the Montreal one too! Those kids are ORGANIZED!
This book fair was suprisingly small! Outside there was a quartet performing on acoustic bass guitar, violin, accordion and washboard.
having short and definite answers for all the big questions
What should be the chief concern of man?
Man's chief concern should be to seek after the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.
How do we obtain righteousness?
We obtain righteousness through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we are saved.
What must we do to be saved?
We must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
(From memory, folks! I can also recite the order of all the books of the Old Testament. I was actually examined by the church council on these things.)
That sounds awfully euphonious and mainstream for an anarchist gathering.
15 to 13 or 14, take your pick.
We must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
Believe on? Not "in"? That sounds really weird to me.
I can also recite the order of all the books of the Old Testament.
Which order?
The order in which they are ordered by the faith of Blume's childhood, obviously—which is to say, the right order (and with the right books included in the first place).
I'm ashamed to say that I didn't know until it was mentioned in a class taught by the great and all-worthy J.Z. Smith that different denominations order the books differently.
Wait, which book fair was this? I didn't realize it was the NYC book fair this weekend too, until I saw an NYC friend's FB status just now. TCABF was 2 national speakers, a dozen workshops, 25 tables and 500 attendees last year. We're hoping for 2 or 3 speakers, couple dozen workshops, 30ish tables, and maybe 750 or 1,000 people coming through.
Joyce has two catechisms in Ulysses, personal in "Nestor" and impersonal in "Ithaca." 2nd section and penultimate. Joyce said the order of the first three and last three were consecutive, not reversed, which means Ulysses is not chiastic.
The Socialist catechism looks to be a Larger, or Impersonal Catechism.
If your "personal relationship with Jesus" isn't communal, then it really isn't personal, but impersonal.
It was definitely 'on', and this did not go unremarked by my confirmation class. The minister made up some bullshit reason why it was that particular preposition there.
I think I had a vague idea in high school of different OTs, but probably didn't solidify that knowledge until learning about canon formation in Intro to Christianity in college.
Hard googling on the catechisms
This looks interesting.
"In areas of both the content of the Faith and its transmission, no opposition should be set up between the personal and the propositional."
Which is maybe something of what Joyce was saying in "Ithaca."
That is a very fine poster.
I think neb does a good job, too.
Ulysses could go like this
Narrative(young), Personal Catechism, Monologue (male)
Journey
Narrative(old), Impersonal Catechism, Monologue(female)
Maybe Story - Interrogation - Prayer for the intro and outro
Maybe...this reminds me of the confessional
25: Yeah, I'm a little worried about what kind of poster we're going to end up with. The discussion around it was politically okay, but aesthetically problematic.
Ron Rosenbaum had a piece in Slate this week about one of the Ulysses catechisms, which like all of his pieces was interesting but three times the necessary length.
There's been a lot of stuff on the the quasi religious aspects of communism, including catechisms. My favorite use of religious symbolism was in an early fifties anthology of poems dedicated to the UB, the Polish version of the NKVD. Lots of famous poets, all of whom later really wished to forget those poems. In any case, one was done in the format of early modern poems on those fallen fighting the Turkish infidels, complete with Feliks Dzierzynski appearing to the dying secret police officer in the role of the Virgin, promising that his sacrifice will lead to Paradise (on earth rather than heaven). Can't remember whether it was by Adam Wazyk or Wiktor Woroszylski.
The locus classicus for catechism outside the Church is of course Myles na gCopaleen, who used the form to i. make money, ii. entertain, iii. bitch about life in mid twentieth century Ireland. Not a socialist, but certainly deserving a full chapter in neb's study.
34: Woody Allen offered a comparable catechism of cliché for the Patrick Ewing's-latter-days-era Knicks, in the New York Observer, with items like "Q: What are you going to take? A: Our game. Q. Where are you going to take it? A: To another level. ... Q: What about your aging star? A: He's a warrior."
Am I misremembering something that I once read or does "na Gopaleen" mean something like "of the ponies/little horses"? I can't remember what the joke of the pseudonym was supposed to be for F.O'B.
35. According to the pedia thing, he nicked the name from a character by Boucicault. It does apparently mean "of the ponies".
A quick search on other catechisms turned up this reprehensible "Lincoln Catechism" [warning: the cover is quite offensive]. The source I found says it was first published in the Southern Illustrated News in Richmond in 1863, but the pamphlet shown was published in New York.
It starts:
What is the Constitution?
A compact with hell--now obsolete.
By whom hath the the Constitution been made obsolete?
By Abraham Africanus the First.
To what end?
That his days may be made long in office--and that he may make himself and his people the equal of the negroes.
What is a President?
A general agent for negroes.
You get the drift (although later it complains about debt etc.).
In any case, one was done in the format of early modern poems on those fallen fighting the Turkish infidels, complete with Feliks Dzierzynski appearing to the dying secret police officer in the role of the Virgin, promising that his sacrifice will lead to Paradise (on earth rather than heaven).
Wow. That is ... unimaginatively blasphemous.
Wow. That is ... unimaginatively blasphemous.
But hilarious.
OT: I have little time for Doctor Who, after the guy with the crazy scarf, but I love Peanuts and this cartoon: "You're the last of the Time Lords, Charlie Brown."
Not surprising that 37 was published in NYC, since there was a strong movement for the city to secede from the Union and become a "free city" so that Wall Street could keep selling cotton. NYC Democrats: Not always awesome.
NYC Democrats: Not always awesome.
Or, say, competent. Cough five consecutive white Republican mayoral election victories cough.
Actually, thinking about it, 41 should really read "almost never awesome".
There's a kiddie tune about gathering 'round at the ladybug's picnic. To that tune, I can't stop with the earworm of and they all gathered 'round, at the anarchist book fair.
43: FDR came from Hyde Park, but maybe one could make a case for Robert F. Kennedy's city residency.
five consecutive white Republican mayoral election victories
Probably the result of the same forces listed in this poll.
46: Indeed.
We got very close on the last election. My mother blames Obama personally for not campaigning for Thompson.
44: If you want it stuck in your head more thoroughly.
I don't even remember hearing about the Dem candidate, and it was still a close election. Goddamn is Bloomberg an asshole.
He's done a lot of straightforward bribery of community organizations, IIRC, which at the amount of money he has to throw around is very politically effective -- there just aren't many organizational nuclei that aren't in Bloomberg's pocket.
41: Yes, the catechism was apparently originally published in May 1863 in the original southern magazine, just a few months before the infamous draft riots in NYC.
Reading the debt part now, and not to belabor the obvious point, but the themes of the Republi-Tea-Particans align very well (as is also true of much of the racial stuff, slightly toned down in presentation).
How do the Republicans propose to prevent repudiation? [following a bunch of entries on debt]
By a standing army of negroes, to force the people to pay at the point of bayonet.
Today they'd substitute "army of community organizers".
49:Thompson at least sort of appeared to be trying to run. The election that really pissed me off was the Ruth Messenger/Giuliani election -- there literally appeared to be no coverage of the fact that anyone was running against him. Come to think, Mark Green rolling over and exposing his soft underbelly in total surrender to Giuliani's move to extend his term in 2001 (it didn't happen, but the idea got floated) was also a huge pissoff. I hate them all.
51: Louie Gohmert on the floor of Congress*.
But then when you find out we're being sent to Libya to use our treasure and American lives there, maybe there's intention to so deplete the military that we're going to need that presidential reserve officer commissioned corps and non-commissioned corps that the president can call up on a moment's notice involuntarily, according to the Obamacare bill.
52: to Giuliani's move to extend his term in 2001
That was one of the aftermath events that really piled unreality onto an already unreal situation. When I heard it at first it almost seemed to make sense for a moment and then, "Wait, what?"
There's a kiddie tune about gathering 'round at the ladybug's picnic. To that tune, I can't stop with the earworm of and they all gathered 'round, at the anarchist book fair.
You reminded me of the Teddy Bear's Picnic and now my brain won't stop singing Today's the day the anarchist have their boooook fair!
Has Bloomberg or Giuliani made any recent ripples on running for president? Locally, the Trump-is-second-only-to-Romney buzz has temporarily drowned out all other horse-race news. Plus I didn't read the paper all weekend.
53: Domine salve nos from the jackbooted legions of medical residents! Nice to see such paranoia has so long a train of antecedents.
So, Nietzsche is not entirely blameless for the misuse of his works. If George Orwell's dictum is correct--that political (and by extension philosophical) writing should be as clear as a pane of glass--then Nietzsche's writing fails the test in many places. If his writing were clearer, there would be no need for the numerous exegetic Nietzsche texts, no need for books such as What Nietzsche Really Said.
Well, is Orwell's dictum correct? Nietzsche surely didn't think so.
You reminded me of the Teddy Bear's Picnic and now my brain won't stop singing Today's the day the anarchist have their boooook fair!
This drove me to look up the ladybug song, to make sure I wasn't confusing things. But nope! It's every bit as cute as I'd hoped.
They talk about the high price of furniture and rugs
and fire insurance for lady bugs...
It is. And now I have the seven alligators song stuck in my head as well.
Well, is Orwell's dictum correct? Nietzsche surely didn't think so.
Chaos, within, thriving of the superior man upon; dancing star, birth of.
(Mit einer sehr lauten Stimme im Halse, ist man fast außer Stande, feine Sachen zu denken.)
I'm only 28 years old and I remember, not exactly the 1987 Trump for President nonsense 24 years ago, but talk show hosts in 1991-2 making fun of the 1987 Trump for President nonsense. And that was when he was just a public figure from the world of business, like a Lee Iacocca but stupider, not a joke figure from reality TV. Why is this even vaguely perceived as something other than a publicity stunt?
Because we no longer have faith that there is an anti-insanity governor on our public discourse and politics.
68, 69: Because we have abandoned the faculties that would perceive anything but publicity and publicity stunts.
Because SPY magazine is no longer around to remind us all that Trump can only properly be referred to as "Short-fingered vulgarian Donald Trump". If SPY returned and brought cargo, everything would be beautiful again, the way it was in the late eighties.
[E]verything would be beautiful again, the way it was in the late eighties.
When the streets were paved with Hammer pants and every soul knew the bliss that cometh only in mock turtlenecks from the Gap. Selah.
68-71: Because we're trying to fulfill Mencken's prophecy that "On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron," and the younger Bush wasn't crass enough.
68: Reporters covering politics needed a story to compete with Charlie Sheen.
Where's the FAQ on what "catechism" means?
Where's the FAQ on what "catechism" means?
That's even funnier double-posted.