¶ Cthulhu’s pact with Russia exposed. Was Tim Powers prescient? (Via Dr. Hypercube.)
¶ “I did everything right out of the Necronomicon, and the candles didn’t even flicker.” Read it all at Pagan Snark.
¶ And an academic muses on Goth’s wan stamina.
¶ An employee of the same metaphysical bookstore where M. once clerked has an odd experience.
Since my blog-pal Gretchin asked about the “laws of religion,” here they are.
1. Nothing Ever Goes Away Completely. Every religious doctrine or practice ever invented is still being carried on by someone, somewhere.
2. The Disciple Is More Obnoxious Than The Teacher, which is the spiritual corollary of the old maxim, “The servant is more snobbish than the master.”
3. All Genuine Religions Have Torchlight Processions. See, for example, the one at the beginning of this documentary.
Now before all the Buddhists come after me (unless they do have torchlight processions in Sri Lanka or somewhere), let me say that this law is more aesthetic than philosophical. With all the advances in techne over the past millennium, still nothing speaks to the soul like flickering flames moving through the darkness.
¶ All genuine religions have torchlight processions (Clifton’s 3rd Law of Religion), but how do you make a torch? This guy has answers. For more Neolithic fun, make your own rock-and-plant-fiber oil lamp. He has instructions for that job too. It’s all a metaphor for living.
¶ I have been remiss in not thanking Anne Hill for her review of Her Hidden Children.
¶ Summer library program yanked after claims of witchcraft. That’s Greenville, South Carolina. I will be in nearby Spartanburg all next week. Luckily, I do not own any tie-dyed T-shirts. (Via Wren’s Nest.)
¶ Some Danish Pagans decided to make a religio-political statement–with a large stone. Take that, Harald Bluetooth!
¶ Some Greek Pagans are now able to use ancient temples, although bureaucratic delays persist.
Another meme going around: “I can’t do one-quarter of the things my father can.”
Fathers born in the 1940s or 50s–and please bear in mind that this will not apply to all of them–seem to demonstrate with much greater frequency the ability to ‘Take Care of Things’.
Being in possession of this blanket set of skills crucial for the operational fluency of daily life, they become indispensable to the family unit, developing auras of respect and–notably–competence.
They include, but are not limited to:
* Plunger Operation
* Woodworking
* Toy Repair
* A knowledge of adhesives
Dad had me beat in one area: horsemanship. He could throw a double-diamond hitch on a pack horse in a snowstorm. I never learned any of that.
I think I am his equal in the other stuff. Cars are more complicated now, so it’s mainly a matter of changing your own oil, checking tire pressure, and being aware of things changing for the worse.
But wait. They’re talking about the guys my son’s age — if I had a son. Hmmm..
Popular Mechanics, as ever, stands ready to fill the gap.
UPDATE: I left out the Wiccan connection.
Much of what I learned about woodworking in particular I learned in 7th and 8th-grade shop classes. And who was behind the push for such “manual” education in the schools? None other than Charles Godfrey Leland, whose three books on Tuscan folklore, witchcraft, and the goddess Aradia helped fuel the 20th-century Wiccan revival.
In Leland’s day, it was a rare kid who stayed in school after age 14. He believed that “manual arts” should be part of the curriculum, and he advocated for them a lot.
Via Glenn Reynolds. Men just want to be useful.
Erik at Executive Pagan tagged me with the “Thinking Blogger” meme. That’s fair enough, since I hit him with the “book pile photo thing.” (Mine’s here.)
In fact, I read one of his links too: Rod “Crunchy Con” Dreher.
So, setting aside the uber-bloggers like Glenn Reynolds, here are five who make me think or delight me with their writing:
• Ambulance Driver is a funny, often moving, and if you’re in emergency medicine (which I am not), informative blog about life aboard a Louisiana ambulance.
• Rate Your Students, now on summer vacation, is a venting space for academics (which I am). Find out what professors really think of their students’ lame excuses.
• If the universe had take a different twist, I would have become a religion journalist, yet Get Religion continues to show me how the job should be — and more often should not be — done. In other words, the press just does not “get” religion as a motivating factor in human affairs.
• James Lileks is an artist of blogging, even though I do not share all of his preoccupations.
• Querencia is written by three guys preoccupied with falconry, archaeology, the literature of natural history and exploration, Central Asia, and dogs. The “book pile” meme has been fruitfully applied there. They’re my blogging heroes.
¶ Now this is a poorly written headline.
¶ As John Leo would explain in “Thoughts on Good Writing”, the headline writer needs to “work to avoid the dead idioms that we all seem to carry in our heads.”
¶ Weirdest search string to bring someone here in the past month: “Is the vagina of the pagan priestess a holy place?” (punctuation supplied). Discuss among yourselves. This site was the top search result.
¶ They are using laser analysis on the Book of Kells, and, coincidentally, the Vikings are headed for Ireland.
The “what I am reading” book pile challenge is taken up by Anne Hill and Victoria Slind-Flor.
UPDATE: One more, from Daven’s Journal.
It turns out that a lot of people are working on that question, and they are posting their work on sites like Flickr. Metapagan has a roundup.
Following the example set by Steve Bodio and others, here is my current book pile: part of what I am reading (for research, for reviewing, for pleasure) and in the case of Pharmakognosis, re-reading.
I invite my blogging readers to post their own.
¶ Most of my blogging energy lately has gone into Nature Blog, but here are some links of interest.
¶ Pagan Web sites and podcasts continue to become more sophisticated. Chris Larsen’s Odin Lives site includes archived radio shows and a news portal.
¶ If you want to see the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, you will have a hard time with six of them, but the Web gives you a taste.
¶ The Raven’s Perch is another podcast, featuring “book reviews, rants, raves, interviews, and anything else” that Wade MacMorrighan feels like including. The most recent podcast is titled “Cookin’ with the Kali.”