Saints du Jour

I need to catch up here.


First off, an icon made by one of my favorite Saintings (or paintings of Saints, if you will) based on this photo:


It's Saint Clement. I just love the perspective on this painting. It looks like Saint Clement is about to fall head first into 2 feet of water. I figure that the anchor around his neck was a needless precaution, because he'll probably break his neck before he drowns. However, I suspect his original killers actually floated farther out to see. In addition, if this painting is any sort of story teller, he was killed near a village of Tweedle Bug sized inhabitants. Perhaps the Lilleputians?

February 15th: Saint Georgia or Georgette, if you're nasty. She died somewhere around the beginning of the 6th century. Don't you love how vagueness lends to veracity? What we know of her we know from Gregory of Tours, and what we know of Gregory of Tours was that he didn't keep track of precise dates.

Saint G was a maiden known for marathon fastin' and prayin' sessions. Englebert doesn't go into her death. Until I do some research to find out more, I'm going to assume she died from fasting.

She died and had a lovely funeral, which Engelbert thought noteworthy, many doves appeared out of nowhere, avoided crapping on anyone, swooped over her corpse and flew up to heaven (also known as "as far as the eye could see"). It is believed the doves were angels. Angels like appearing as doves because they never have to pay to get into fun venues like movie theatres or other theatrical events. Actually, Englebert said they appeared as doves to honour the purity of the dead maiden Georgia. Because, you know, angels aren't pure enough.

February 16th:

Saint Elias
Elias and four friends were traveling to some mines in Cilicia to give comfort to some condemned Christians. Along the way they were apprehended at the gates of Caesarea and questioned.

"Are you a Christian?" the authorities asked.
"Fo' Shizzle!" they said.

They were promptly shackled and sent to the Palestine governor, Firmilian. He asked them questions, they answered in terms Firmilian did not understand. Firmilian got pissed, and Elias and his Posse didn't try to communicate in a common language, so Firmilian had them sentenced to death.

Martyrdom via a failure to communicate.

We also have Saint Juliana of Nicomedia. Not only does she come from a town that sounds like it could be a software company that purveys flash plugins, but she was bethrothed to a dude named Evilase. Now, when hell patents their nasal decongestant, it should be named Evilase. Otherwise, her life was standard issue Christian Martyrdom: flaunt your faith, lose your head.

February 17th:
Saint Silvinus
He skipped out on his marriage to travel through the Holy Land. He lived a life as an exemplary holy man: giving what he could to the poor, living an austere existence subsisting only on fruits and herbs and the joy of converting pagans to Christianity. He always wanted to shed his blood for his faith, whatever that means. But somehow he didn't end up doing that. So he died listening to compatriots singing psalms to him. Depending on how well they sang, this fate could have been as good as shedding blood for the faith.


February 18th:

Saint Angilbert
Who was Charlemagne's secretary? Angilbert was. He ran an abbey, and performed a number of odd jobs under Charlemagne. And then I guess he died. Someone like me is prone to think that Angilbert was sainted because he was well connected to King Charlemagne.

(no subject)

While I'm waiting for my favored ipod integration device for my Prius, here's another cool gadget I want to buy, and will likely do so, soon:

http://www.coastaletech.com/nav_kit.htm

You see, I went on a spontaneous road trip yesterday, and taogrl went with me. I can see why they don't want to encourage anyone to use the nav system wile driving, but it would have been nice for my passenger to be able to use it.

Also, hell, I want to run that thing whenever I want to, as well. And while this could pose a danger. I don't think it poses any more danger than trying to operate my cd changer and stereo while I drive.

However, when I buy this gadget and proceed to drive myself into a swamp in the middle of East BF (I'm not in the mood to type out the tasteless words this morning, kids), you will know why.

Saddness enters my heart and spreads through my body

So, an Italian Minister wears a t-shirt with the caricatures of Mohammed, and then resigns. However, it apparently triggers more protests.

This continues to be horrific to me. Such a complete and total abandonment of the loving nature Mohammed was supposed to have. Although, in reading one version of his life history, he was a political and military leader as well as a prophet. So I can see why Muslims feel justified in taking up arms.

When I read of the stories of religious persecution in history class as a child, I was so frustrated by the notion that people killed each other for their faiths on behalf of the leaders who had strategic and not spiritual reasons for those conflicts.

So what's behind this conflict? Why do non-muslims want to taunt Muslims into a frenzy and why do Muslims allow themselves to be manipulated in this fashion?

Of course, this isn't necessarily a reflection on all Muslims, but I would hope a number of Muslims are speaking out against these protests. Then again, I'm sure some are afraid that the cranky Muslims will turn around and protest them.

There's been a lot of bad press this year for Muslims. First the tragedies of the Hajj, and now this. It makes me think that Muslims just can't have peaceful processions, be it celebrating their own faith or trying to defend verbal or graphical aspersions.

I wish there could be an International Let It Go month and people would just drop their anger and violence and be kind to one another, regardless of beliefs. And if someone writes something or draws something offensive, you represent your discontent in written or graphical means, and take a pass on the violent protests.

Something worth a chuckle.

textivore shared this with me this morning.

It's a play on an old, yet I find timelessly amusing and true joke. Be sure to note the caption in the picture.

Endings

When you reach the end of a good book, there's a period of mourning that occurs. And so, I am left to deal with the joy of a good book with the quiet disappointment that it is over.

However, there are more books to read.Wicked was like a fine meal. His command of the language was delightful.

Some brief thoughts/favorite quotes:
-I wish I could have gone away to college in a town called "Shiz". How much fun to say is that? I'll tell you. A Hill of Shizzy fun. As a friend once mentioned exclaiming "Scott Bakula!" is a good surrogate for certain cuss words. I contend that uttering "Shiz" under your breath is highly satisfying and likely chock full of anti-oxidants. I would be so proud to exclaim that I attained matriculation to the University of Shiz.

-Gregory Maguire is not big on dramatic death scenes, though the Witch had a fine one. Everyone else got virtually a one liner. I didn't mind that at all. I was struck by how matter of factly these deaths occurred.

-Quote:Journalists, armed with the thesauras and apocalypic scriptures fumbled and were deafened by it. "A gulfy deliquescence of deranged and harnessed air." "A volcano of the invisible, darkly construed...".

-Quote: Poets are just as responsible for empire building as any other professional hacks.

And she walked her days under Parisian Skies

My weekend in review:

-Friday Night I was at a crab feed event. The crab was good. In the small world category, I saw a guy I dated a few times about 5 years ago-ish. He is 12 years older than I am. He is now married, as he is with wedding ring, and so was his companion/assumed wife. What are the odds that he would end up at the same table? He did not appear to acknowledge me.

-Saturday was drum lessons, then home. I caught up on Saints du Jour, and then surrendered to a wild hair urge for a road triplet. I called up taogrl, and we took the back roads along 160 (aka the River Road) to Berkeley. We got lost. It was fantastic. A few hours plus change later, we were in Berkeley on San Pablo. We went to Good Vibrations. Don't go to this link unless you want to look at sex toys. We perused, we laughed, we cringed upon seeing larger products. We were creeped out by the lesbian "packing" gear. I saw the product that inspired one of clemidia's icons. After perusing all the tools of lust, we made our purchases and answered the call for Indian food. We went home. We tried to get lost again, but we got dumped back onto I-80, which took us directly home. All in all, a fine time was had.

-Sunday I slept in, had breakfast, finished reading Wicked, and took some photos around town while I ran errands.
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Jokes in poor taste lead to a little trivia

While gabbing with a friend online, I made the erroneous conclusion that Ikea was from Finland. I'm not sure why, except that I'm quite ignorant about those scandahuvian countries o'er yonder way. So, thanks to that, I now know Ikea started in Sweden. Oddly enough, though Sweden borders Finland, an Ikea store did not open in Finland until 1996. Ikea started in 1958. Stores opened up around the world well before Ikea opened up a store in its neighboring country. Was that because it was close enough to drive into Sweden to shop?