Monday, November 10, 2003

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's Dr. Omed purchased these four roman bronze coins at a yard sale (I already had the dime).  I bought them glued to a backing of crushed velvet and mounted in little gilded frames.  The seller had no more idea of their value than he had taste. My best guess after alot of googling is that these "pennies" date back to the reigns of the emperors Constans or Constantius in the 4 century A.D.  I wonder how many hands have held them over the centuries.   10:57:42 PM    comment []

INFERNO TEST RESULTS UPDATE   Newly damned in italics   Purgatory (Repenting Believers):  Jonah  (1 sinner) Circle 1—Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers): (None, zip, zero, nada) Circle 2—(Lustful): Mike K., Amanda G., Woody, Chris Key, M. L. Foster, Dick (6 sinners) Circle 3—(Gluttonous): Mark (?),  Dr. Omed (2 sinners) Circle 4—(Prodigal and Avaricious): (None) Circle 5—(Wrathful and Gloomy): Elspeth, Brother Merle, Spike, M. Helmet, Big Daddy Mike (5 sinners) Circle 6—The City of Dis (Heretics)  Harald, Randy F., Leila, David, Jennifer, Dave P., Kate (7 sinners) Circle 7—(Violent): Marijoc, Christina, Christopher (aka filchyboy) (3 sinners) Circle 8—the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers): Sam (Ms. Candide), Rayne, Philip (3 sinners) Circle 9—Cocytus (Treacherous):  Fiona (1 sinner)   Total of sinners reporting: 28   All the best people go to Hell. Take Dante's Inferno Test, and find out which circle of Hell has your reservation.     10:13:56 PM    comment []

Grendel’s Laundry List:  Readings for Monday, November 10     “Night is falling.  Ever since the “united three”—Herakles, Dionysos, and Christ—have left the world, the evening of the world’s age has been declining toward its night.  The world’s night is spreading its darkness. The era is defined by the god’s failure to arrive, by the “default of God.”   “The default of God means that no god any longer gathers men and things unto himself, visibly and unequivocally, and by such gathering disposes the world’s history and man’s sojourn in it.  The default of God forebodes something even grimmer, however. Not only have the gods and the god fled, but the divine radiance has become extinguished in the world’s history. The time of the world’s night is the destitute time, because it becomes ever more destitute. It has already grown so destitute, it can no longer discern the default of God as a default.”   “Dionysos the wine-god brings this trace down to the godless amidst the darkness of their world’s night. For in the vine and in its fruit, the god of wine guards the being toward one another of earth and sky as the site of the wedding feast of men and gods. Only within the reach of this site, if anywhere, can traces of the fugitive gods still remain for god-less men.”             “…and what are poets for in a destitute time?                                                                   Holderin   Poets are mortals who, singing earnestly of the wine-god, sense the trace of the fugitive gods, stay on the gods’ tracks, and so trace for their kindred mortals the way toward the turning.”   “But who has the power to sense, to trace such a track? Traces are often inconspicuous, and are always the legacy of a directive that is barely divined. To be a poet in a destitute time means: to attend, singing, to the trace of the fugitive gods.  This is why the poet in the time of the world’s night utters the holy. This is why, in Holderin’s language, the world’s night is the holy night.”   “The time remains destitute not only because God is dead, but because mortals are hardly aware and capable of their own mortality. Mortals have not yet come into the ownership of their own nature. Death withdraws into the enigmatic. The mystery of pain remains veiled. Love has not been learned. But the mortals are. They are, in that there is language. Song still lingers over their destitute land. The singer’s word still keeps to the trace of the holy.”   Martin Heidegger, What Are Poets For?     7:06:55 PM    comment []

THERE IS NO ESCAPE FROM THE NUN OF THE WEEK! Note to Pilgrims: Dr. Omed's internet connection failed just as he was posting the NotW Sunday evening.  XueMotL, Lord of Blogs was merciful, and we are now back "on the air." Forgive us? 6:20:28 PM    comment []