This week I finished St Hildegard of Bingen's Scivias. St Hildegard was a Benedictine abbess and mystic, and Scivias is a series of her visions and their interpretations. This was originally a gorgeously illustrated manuscript which was, unfortunately, destroyed in the Second World War. I was careful not to read any of the introductory matter or discussions of St Hildegard, as she has been somewhat appropriated as part of feminist Christianity, and I wanted to meet her on her own terms. It's very clear why she would be an appealing figure for a feminist interpretation, though her life challenges a conventional post-Enlightenment feminist narrative. Her complex and layered visions are populated by symbolic characters who are nearly all female, with the notable exception of the Devil, and a somewhat abstract Christ, who is inevitably referred to in terms of his birth of the Virgin. The Church is seen as deeply feminine and maternal, with the male clergy referred to only briefly, and then chiefly to be excoriated for corruption. Hildegarde sees virginity as fundamentally liberating and the surest source of spiritual strength and purity. She was a strong, intelligent, gifted woman who founded monasteries, wrote music, and had profound mystical experiences; contrary to the myth of linear progress of women's rights, in her time and place she was able to achieve these things without any real challenge from male secular powers or hierarchy, but rather was respected in her lifetime for her position and abilities. ----------------------------------------- But the fifth [divine virtue] was armed and arrayed with a helmet on her head, and a breastplate and greaves, and iron gloves; a shield hung from her left shoulder; she was girded with a sword and she held a spear in her right hand. And under her feet a lion lay, its mouth open and its tongue hanging out, and some people also stood; some were blowing trumpets, some fooling with instruments used in shows, and some playing different games. And that figure trampled the lion under her feet, and at the same time pierced these people with the spear she held in her right hand. And she said, "I conquer the strong Devil, and you also, Hate and Envy and Filth, with your deceptive jesters." -Book 3, Vision 3: The Tower of Anticipation of God's Will

Can't put up the image on my iPad, but this is pretty much the mindset: http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/United%20States%20of%20Texas.jpg

Right, road trip to Stacia's house! It's clear yet again that Texas is not really part of the south. You order iced tea here; pronounced "Ah'll have a ice tea."* And if you want sugar in it, you say "with sugar please." Otherwise it will come brewed plain with a wedge of lemon. A few years ago waiters started asking "sweet or unsweet?" which is a foreign affectation and no part of Texan culture. I never heard the word "unsweet" west of the Big Thicket until about ten or so years ago. *My children have, each in turn, wrestled with the bizarre spelling rule that "a" must have "n" written after it when it precedes a vowel. I swear I say "an."

Y'all have convinced me, what with all the discussion of Feminism: What It Is and Isn't. My reading only two women writers last year was disgraceful. This year I assign myself The Distaff Challenge. St Hildegard has me off to a good start (and also doubling as a Chunkster; and if someone starts a Timothy Leary Challenge, I'll have a trifecta). There was a $1 Colette at the used book store yesterday; today I'll swing by and pick it up. Never read any Colette.

Eliana, my thoughts and prayers are with your daughter and grandbaby. And you. In my region, the tea is high because after you put the Lipton teabags and a couple gallons of water in your jar, you put it up on the cab of your pickup in the sun to brew.

AMC 10, amicae! https://amc-reg.maa.org/amc_generalfiles/2014-HSAB-RegForm.pdf Middle Girl rocked. Family celebrations ensued.

Great Girl lives at home and has no car. She takes her bike or bus where she needs to go, or I drive her if necessary. She works during the semesters and the summers, but her work is always research or TAing that's expected of the kids in her degree program and pays little; what she does earn, she puts mostly toward tuition. Her books are crazy expensive and we pay for them as well as for the greater part of her tuition. She eats at home and brown-bags it for lunch. (I will confess that I pack her lunch for her, just because I like to.) She went to college two years early, so her situation has felt a little different, since she hasn't been a legal adult.

Ooh, I don't think I could disagree more! :) But my experience is as a human steeped in superstition and religious conditioning who would nevertheless rather like to have a vote. And I've lived enough of my life among academics to be dubious about giving the intellectual elite any special sovereignty over the lives of ordinary people. Google "Colorado philosophy department" for this week's set of reasons. Democracy for me, please!

Read, in my youth: The Handmaid's Tale. Found it offensive. The Second Sex. It irritated me. Having It All. Caused me to swear off reading anything off my mom's bookshelf. Backlash. Bored. I think there must be something wrong with me. On the other hand, I'm really, really liking St Hildegarde's Scivias....

Looking over my last year's books (nearly 50), only two were by women - Eudora Welty and Nancy Mitford. Oh dear. I'd never even thought about the sex of the writers as I went.

Blackadder: Don't say 'Beshrew me', Percy. Only stupid actors say 'Beshrew me'. Percy: Oh, how I would love to be an actor! I had a great talent for it in my youth; I was the Man of a Thousand Faces! Blackadder: How'd you come to choose the ugly mug you've got now, then? Percy: Tush, my lord! Blackadder: And don't say 'Tush', either. It's only a short step from 'Tush' to 'Hey nonny nonny', and then I'm afraid I shall have to call the police.

Just in under the wire for completed January reads. I threw in some Shakespeare that Middle Girl and her friend are studying, so we can be all ready for this summer's performance in the park by our local troupe. 6. Shakespeare, As You Like It 5. Maupassant, "Le Horla" 4. Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories 3. Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables 2. Frederick Rolfe, Hadrian VII 1. Mann, Death in Venice & Other Stories ------------------ It was a lover and his lass, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonny-no, That o'er the green cornfield did pass, In spring-time, The only pretty ring-time, When birds do sing; Hey ding-a-ding, ding Sweet lovers love the spring. -As You Like It --------------------- Back to St Hildegarde.

Middle Girl couldn't get all the way through Little Women, but recently found Alcott's Hospital Sketches and liked it very much. It's a fictionalized account of her experiences as an army nurse during the Civil War.

Thank God for the fifth amendment.

Everything around here closes (or should) for Weather Incompetence. Last week, when the city warned of temps in the twenties, the Dept of Transportation panicked and dumped de-icing ... stuff ... all over a major flyover, and cars were skidding out of control long before the temperature dropped below freezing. The PD was very annoyed. This week, the two ISDs dithered about whether to cancel for the possibility of Monday morning ice, and so Big State University decided not to cancel classes. Dd had an 8 a.m. class, but it was too icy to bike and dh had to drive her in. Then when there were 300+ accidents between 8 and 9, several involving school buses, the city announced everyone should stay off the roads, and the ISDs and university canceled the rest of classes. So parents (including me) had to crowd back on the icy roads again and pick up their kids. Dd told me students were falling all over the campus sidewalks. An Irish classmate the next day was mocking the paralyzation of the city for so-called "ice." But he admitted that he'd passed out from heat exhaustion on campus a few months earlier, having not yet learned to constantly hydrate; so I suppose it's all about what kind of intense weather you're used to.

I know, right? Why were we being made to read "Le Collier" in high school when Maupassant's tale of descent into unspeakable madness was available?

Must keep it up if I'm to help Middle Girl with her French homework! Besides, what if President Hollande needs to warn the world that a dread eldritch being from beyond the stars is coming to spread insanity and disembowel his prey? I wouldn't want to have to stop to look up "déventrer" then.

I've been reading St Hildegarde's Scivias for the 12th-century challenge. Also Maupassant's "Le Horla," which, while a short story, I will beg Robin to let me count as a book because my French is so poor that it takes me at least five minutes to read a page. What do you say, Robin? Dh tells me "Le Horla" was a significant influence on H.P. Lovecraft, which certainly comes through. My Google Translate history is now full of new-to-me French vocabulary like "dread," "prey," "disembowel," "insanity," and five or six synonyms for "to fear."

The WSJ article says "So Amazon says it may box and ship products it expects customers in a specific area will want." Which suggests that they're not preparing to ship to specific addresses, but using their data-mining to store the right approximate number of units in the right local distribution centers. Which sounds a lot like they just invented the book store. And that makes me wonder why Amazon hasn't been doing this already. Would storing units at local "hubs" have made them liable for state taxes? And are they now doing this because many states are requiring Amazon to pay state taxes anyhow?

Eliana, you asked me something in a post some time back and I was going to reply but have been distracted by life, and now can't remember nor find the post.

4. Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories This was a read-aloud to Middle Girl, consisting of a dozen of Irving's more junior-pleasing stories, mostly from The Sketchbook and The Alhambra. Most of them not new to me, but fun to read out loud. I regret to say my pronunciation of the Spanish names was much more Texan than Castilian, but MG didn't notice. --------------------- One hot summer afternoon in the dog-days, just as a terrible black thunder gust was coming up, Tom sat in his counting-house, in his white cap and India silk morning-gown. He was on the point of foreclosing a mortgage, by which he would complete the ruin of an unlucky land-speculator for whom he had professed the greatest friendship. The poor land-jobber begged him to grant a few months' indulgence. Tom had grown testy and irritated, and refused another day. "My family will be ruined and brought upon the parish," said the land-jobber. "Charity begins at home," replied Tom; "I must take care of myself in these hard times." "You have made so much money out of me," said the speculator. Tom lost his patience and his piety. "The devil take me," said he, "If I have made a farthing!" Just then there were three loud knocks at the street door. -"The Devil and Tom Walker" ------------- 3. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables 2. Frederick Rolfe, Hadrian VII 1. Thomas Mann, Death in Venice & Other Stories

Oxford Book of Poetry for Children, the one edited by Edward Blishen. OOP but easily found used. Not the usual collection of children's poetry. Not illustrated, but The Cambridge Book of Poetry for Children, edited by Kenneth Grahame (Wind in the Willows). Free from Google Books.

The Lorne/Loren discussion reminds me of a friend who moved here to central Texas after growing up in NYC, and was outraged to hear two male coworkers talking about going to see a "whore show" after work. After a while she realized that they were talking about a horror show. Similarly, I'm pretty sure I couldn't reliably say Lorne and Loren in a distinguishable way. The most severe alternate pronunciation of my first name has come from the tongues of Scots, who give a completely different vowel sound to the first syllable, do something amazing to the 'r' in the middle, and reduce the second syllable to about half a syllable. It sounds so much prettier than the way I pronounce it!

I finished House of the Seven Gables. It's been very hard to focus on reading this week. I kept finishing a page and realizing I had no idea what it said. Going downtown with Great Girl this afternoon for a statement, and arrest (not of us!) expected to follow. My house has been tidied seven or eight times this morning. Wish us luck.

The Griffin and The Minor Canon, by Frank Stockton, illustrated by the immortal Maurice Sendak. Fantastic story.