Non-fiction

Madame Guillotine

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Delancey’s Place has an excerpt today about olden France and a certain deadly icon:

Guillotin’s motive was to introduce a more humanitarian form of capital punishment, and his success in that was evident from the very first use of the guillotine when “the crowds, accustomed to bloody bouts with the ax and sword, thundered in disappointment, ‘Bring back the block!’ ” Yet almost immediately, guillotine executions became Paris’s favorite form of entertainment, with families bringing picnic lunches and reveling in the carnival atmosphere that surrounded them.

The guillotine was used until the 1950s, and in a public execution in 1939 of a hated German criminal, the crowd acted as if they were at a coronation festival or maybe a rock concert. “[E]legant ladies, avid for souvenirs, rushed to dip their handkerchiefs in the blood” of the man whom they had just watched lose his head. This comes from Stanley Karnow’s Paris in the Fifties.

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Ancient Chariot Unearthed

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Here’s a bit more from our archeology desk. Archeologist Daniela Agre and her team have found a complete, well-preserved chariot in Borisovo, a village in southeast Bulgaria. Several interesting things were found in the Thracian tomb, dated 1,900 years old.

Authors

Site of first Shakespeare theater found in London

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Shakespeare acted himself, and staged his first plays, at a London site which is now being excavated.

The remains of a London theatre where William Shakespeare’s early plays including “Romeo And Juliet” were first performed have been discovered by archaeologists, a museum said Wednesday.

Shakespeare appeared at The Theatre in Shoreditch, east London, as an actor with a troupe called The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, which also performed his efforts as a playwright there.

Full story here.

Non-fiction, Reviews

Finding Atlantis, by David King

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People always seem surprised to discover that institutions of higher learning tend to be raging battlegrounds of clashing egos on an epic scale.

The common stereotype of the professor is of a vague, mild-mannered oldster in an incorrectly buttoned sweater, blinking vaguely as he searches for the glasses that sit perched atop his forehead. In fact, scholars tend to be people who have all their lives been the smartest people in the room, suddenly thrust together into a single institution with a bunch of other people who’ve also always been the smartest people in the room, and resenting it. Add to this the fact that really smart people tend to grow up too busy with their interior worlds to bother with mundane exercises of basic interpersonal skills, and you’ve got the ingredients of gunpowder.

Finding Atlantis: A True Story of Genius, Madness, and an Extraordinary Quest for a Lost World tells the story of a man of extraordinary intellect and achievement who grew so enamored of his revolutionary theories that he failed in humility, university politics, and the judgment of posterity.

Olof Rudbeck (1630-1702) was a Swede, the son of Gustavus Adolphus’ personal chaplain. As a young medical student he dissected a calf, in order to discover the source of a milky substance he saw in the carcass. The result was the discovery of the lymphatic system (although there is controversy as to who identified it first), and Rudbeck became a scientific celebrity. Appointed to the University of Uppsala, he oversaw the construction of a large dissection theater and a botanical garden (botany was another of his specialties). He was also much admired as a musician and singer. Continue reading Finding Atlantis, by David King →

Goofing

In the News

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Perhaps you are fed up with silly or at least slightly amusing news articles, but I feel compelled to share a few links to funny stories this afternoon.

1. A recent Pew poll found 48% of the roughly 1000 people surveyed are tired of hearing about Mr. Obama. A third of the Democrats polled said the same.

2. “Burgeoning jellyfish populations in coastal waters around the world is proof oceans are being impacted by global warming and overfishing, Spanish experts say.”

3. Jay Leno reportedly said, “Obama’s supporters got him his usual birthday gift of gold, frankincense and myrrh.” But maybe you’re tired of hearing about that.

4. Newspaper companies are suffering “in large measure to a marked reduction” in want ads. The Classifieds just aren’t classy anymore.

5. Tips for encouraging childhood reading (or should that be “underage reading”): “Give them books to use in their play, such as car manuals with toy cars, recipe books with a toy cooker . . .”

6. In a Knoxville, Tennessee Barnes & Noble, you can get rolled or TPed if you stand still too long.

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The Great Library of Timbuktu

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Some used to say, “The treasures of wisdom are only to be found in Timbuktu.” Now researchers and scholars are rushing to preserve those treasures. “The French are developing a database, while the United States has donated a device to digitize the damaged documents. The Norwegian cities of Oslo and Bergen are training locals to become conservators.” They hope to capture the ancient wisdom before the ink recording them fades completely.

Fiction, Reviews

Repost: Damnation Street, by Andrew Klavan

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(Tonight, another reposted Klavan review.)

One-line review of Andrew Klavan’s Damnation Street: “Woo-hoo!”

I got a Barnes & Noble gift certificate for Christmas, and Damnation Street was one of the books I chose to get with it. I don’t generally buy hardbacks, but I felt this was a special case.

It was, in fact, a more special case than I knew. Because it appears that Klavan’s Weiss and Bishop books (the previous ones are Dynamite Road and Shotgun Alley) are not going to be an ongoing series, but a trilogy (unless I read the ending wrong). Continue reading Repost: Damnation Street, by Andrew Klavan →

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Pauline Baynes, 1922-2008

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Thanks once again to reader Dale, who alerted me to the recent death of Pauline Baynes, illustrator for both C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. He also sent this link to an entry on her from Brian Sibley: The Blog.

Religion

Can Protestants Do Good Art?

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Harrison Scott Key says, “I’m just not convinced that the Protestant Evangelical Church can do art.” He lists several problems.

On this subject, I came across this passage in Les Miserables last night, which I believe gets to the heart of the matter.

We must say, by the way, that the hatred of luxury is not an intelligent hatred. It implies a hatred of the arts. Nevertheless, among churchmen, beyond their rites and ceremonies, luxury is a crime. It seems to disclose habits which are not truly charitable. A wealthy priest is a contradiction. He ought to keep himself near the poor. But, who can be in contact continually, by night as well as day, with all distresses, all misfortunes, all privations, without taking upon himself a little of that holy poverty, like the dust of a journey? Can you imagine a man near a fire, who does not feel warm? . . . The first proof of charity in a priest, and especially a bishop, is poverty.

Book Reviews, Creative Culture