Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Magna est veritas

Our latest piece of investigative reporting, re: the Harvard cereal crisis, has earned the "Courageous Journalism Award" from Abbot Matthew Stark, who has also graciously offered the following Latin maxim for spiritual growth:
Tecum habita: noris quam sit tibi curta supellex.
Live in your own house and recognize how poorly it is furnished.
Persius, Satire IV.52
In other news, the Portsmouth Abbey Monthly Musings had this to say about last Thursday's concert given by yours truly and his minstrel friends:
The School community was happy to see Joseph McDonough ’03 (sic) don his velvet breeches once again and arrive back on campus with his merry group of Williams College Elizabethans. Joe and his group of eleven (sic) a capella vocalists delighted the audience with a repertoire of early English, French and Italian songs, one being the earliest known recorded song in history.
Velvet breeches, indeed. Though I am flattered by my description as being of the class of '03. I guess I hide my age well- that, or it's merely a symptom of the general disbelief that I can possibly be a junior already. But flattery seems to be the name of the game when it comes to the Elizabethans in general. Thoreau himself, in a prophetic vein, once wrote:
Some are dinning in our ears that we Americans, and moderns generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients, or even the Elizabethan men. -Walden
It's always gratifying to have one's mental stature acknowledged by no less a personage than Thoreau. And yes, Elizabethan ladies, before you start posting nasty comments about my misogynistic tendencies, I'm sure he meant you too. Nevertheless, if I may take the precaution of diverting attention with a final vix sequitur, I'd just like to extend a belated welcome to whomever happened upon this humble weblog by googling The Elizabethans flight to Lourdes. I don't know who you are or what you were looking for, but I hope you found it. Meanwhile, I need to make some arrangements for next year's tour.
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Monday, March 28, 2005

Not the Bran they're looking for

Would you exchange your Lucky Charms for a bowl of Marshmallow Mateys? How about pouring yourself some obnoxiously perky "Hearty Start" or vaguely nauseating "Amazon Flakes" instead of some honest old-fashioned Bran Flakes or their frosted cousins? I didn't think so, and it turns out, neither would Harvard students, reports the Boston Globe.
"I was shocked to see they had done this to our cereals. They replaced all of the familiar cereals with ones that have weird names and don't taste good." -Harvard senior
Yes, it's true- students at our nation's most elite educational institution are being forced to consume inferior brands of cereal for breakfast, and, knowing college students, probably for lunch and dinner as well. No good can come of this. If, as we all know, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and students who eat a good breakfast do better in school, then what surer way to cripple America's future than to strike at the breakfasts of her best and brightest university students- those who will go on to become her politicians, her lawyers, her doctors, her college professors?

For there can be no doubt that these are the best and the brightest that we're dealing with. After all, this is Harvard. Why, mere sophomores are using SAT words in their everyday speech!
"While I am not a huge cereal fan... I would say that I am generally supportive of efforts to improve the quality of quotidian offerings." -Harvard sophomore
Fortunately, the students have wasted no time in demanding the return of their Cap'n Crunch and Frosted Mini-Wheats, nor have the brand-name cereals themselves been slow in responding to the crisis.
"It is disappointing for us to hear that any university would discontinue branded breakfast cereal," said Jamie Stein, a spokeswoman for Quaker Oats in Chicago. ''We expect the students to be even more disappointed."
Disappointment seems a woeful understatement, hardly an adequate response in the face of such an alarming situation. But even with the future of the Western world hanging in the balance, it's important that we not panic. If we can't keep a cool head on our collective shoulders, the terrorists have already won. We need to keep calm, like the cereal spokespeople, and seek nonviolent ways to protest this unjustice, like the Harvard students- peacefully voicing their discontent by setting up groups on thefacebook.com. Maybe in times like these what we really need to do is to to step back to the fundamentals and contemplate the wise words of David Roth, founder of Cereality:
"There's a fierce brand loyalty with cereal," he said. "Give people what they know and love. It's just something that nurtures and comforts them."
Such wisdom; so desperately needed, yet so rarely heard in our troubled times. If only we could all learn to follow such simple principles, surely the world would be a happier place. But we must begin at the breakfast table.
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Sunday, March 27, 2005

Easter Sunday

Rise heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise
Without delayes,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
With him mayst rise:
That, as his death calcined thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more, just.

Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
With all thy art.
The crosse taught all wood to resound his name,
Who bore the same.
His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.

Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song
Pleasant and long:
Or, since all musick is but three parts vied
And multiplied,
O let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,
And make up our defects with his sweet art.

I got me flowers to straw thy way;
I got me boughs off many a tree:
But thou wast up by break of day,
And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.

The Sunne arising in the East,
Though he give light, & th’ East perfume;
If they should offer to contest
With thy arising, they presume.

Can there be any day but this,
Though many sunnes to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred, but we misse:
There is but one, and that one ever.

(George Herbert, Easter)
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Tour Highlights

Friday, March 18
Tour begins. En route to Saratoga Springs from Williamstown, Dave's car goes astray in the Vermont wilderness. Signs for Rt. 67 indicate a narrow dirt road disappearing into the darkness through a gap in a chain link fence. As we pass graffiti advertising "Ladies' Night", we cross a railroad and find ourselves literally on the wrong side of the tracks, in a dark, muddy lot filled with abandoned cars. Fearing for our lives, we conclude that we have not in fact found Rt. 67 and make a speedy exit.

Saturday, March 19
After a harrowing dash across the streets of downtown Saratoga Springs in full Renaissance garb, we sing our first full concert at the Arts Center. Following the concert, I attend Mass at a nearby church. Upon entering, I am disturbed by the apparent lack of a tabernacle, perhaps out of a misplaced devotion to the Fifth Joyful Mystery. In the course of the Mass it appears that the the rubrics have gone the way of the tabernacle, not to mention the kneelers. Unfortunate.

Sunday, March 20
Gig at a Unitarian Universalist church in Saratoga Springs. Theme: "Keeping Alive the Hope for Peace." Gentle readers will fast-forward to the afternoon as we drive to Matt's house in Syracuse, where his younger brother introduces us to baby pictures, a ping-pong table, and a long-suffering cat.

Monday, March 21
Embarking on a three-mile trek to morning Mass, I lose half an hour by failing to distinguish "Onondaga Road" from "Onondaga Boulevard." I later learn that an "Onondaga Street" intersects both. Following a visit to Matt's high school, we depart for Dave's house on Long Island, but not before an ill-fated gender distribution resulting in one car of all women and another of all men. The former incurs a speeding ticket and later becomes lost, arriving several hours later. The latter is blamed and is further accused by the former of being a hotbed of rampant misogyny. The third car, of mixed gender, completes the journey without incident.

Tuesday, March 22
Arriving in New York City via Long Island Rail, carnivores wander about midtown while vegetarians head for Greenwich Village. After meeting for dinner in Little Italy, we attend "Forbidden Broadway" and return to Dave's House.

Wednesday, March 23
After a gig at Flushing House in Queens, we drive to Rhode Island. Crisis ensues when car carrying food becomes stuck in traffic and falls 45 minutes behind. Crash upon arrival at my house.

Thursday, March 24
Awoken in the early A.M. by my wild younger siblings, 'Bethans get up and sing morning gig at Abbey auditorium. Afternoon drive to Daniel's house in Andover and evening concert at Maundy Thursday service at Congregational Church in Somerville.

Friday, March 25
Trip to Boston, where I attend Good Friday service at MIT Chapel. Evening gig at Daniel's temple, where we commit the faux pas of offering CDs for sale on Shabbat. Rabbi grants permission "as long as he doesn't see it." (I am reminded of the Lutheran Church we sang at two years ago, where the Gospel reading was Christ driving out the money-changers from the temple. We sold CDs there too.) Returning to Daniel's house, we engage in late-night Scrabble. A sampling of rejected words: mogulist (one who specializes in mogulry), urpox (the source of pox), dejuicer (if a juicer takes the juice out...). Guested, though hotly contested, grabs a triple word score and a 50-point bonus and ultimately puts the outcome of the game beyond dispute.

Saturday, March 26
Tour officially ends and 'Bethans depart their separate ways.

Sunday, March 27 (Rich Rodriguez reporting)
After a fitful week of feverish and hysterical wanderings all over the northeast, compounded by savage cases of gluttonous and split personalitous disorders, tour finally succumbs to the dreaded Urpox and expires upon the parting of Rich and Ariel at 5:40am at Albany Airport gate A6. Requiescat in pace.
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Friday, March 18, 2005

'Bethans Tour!

Does this look like someone who's excited for Spring Break? The Elizabethans Spring Tour 2005 departs this evening for Saratoga Springs, Syracuse, New York City, Rhode Island, and Boston. We'll be singing at the Abbey on Thursday morning at 10:35, following which I'll give a tour of the campus and a repeat performance of my signature gravity-defying stunts.

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Thursday, March 17, 2005

St. Patrick's Day

And now, because it's St. Patrick's Day, Mr. John Belushi is here to discuss "The Luck of the Irish."
Thank you, thank you very much. Well, it's that time again, St. Patrick's Day has come and gone and well, the sons of Ireland are basking in the glow. Y'know, when I think of Ireland I think a lot of colorful Irish expressions like, "Top of the morning to ya," "Kiss the barney stone," "May the road rise to meet ya," "May you be in heaven an hour before the devil knows you're dead," "I'd like to smash you in the face with my shillelagh," "Danny-boy," "Begorrah," "Wail of the banshee," and "Whiskey for the leprechauns, whisky for the leprechauns." But the expression I think most people identify with the Irish, is, of course, the luck of the Irish...
If you want to know how it ends, you'll have to watch the whole skit; I can't do Belushi justice here. But now for some authentic St. Patrick (gather 'round, children.) St. Patrick was newly arrived in Ireland in the year 433 when the eve of Easter Sunday coincided with the pagan feast of Beltaine. On the hill of Slane, visible across the valley from the High King's seat on the Hill of Tara, he and his followers kindled the paschal flame in defiance of the royal edict that no fire be lit on that night except the bonfire of the Druids. "If that fire is not put out this night," warned the Druids, "it will never be extinguished in the whole of Ireland." During that night Patrick and his followers chanted the Faed Fiada or "Deer's Cry" for protection, so named because the soldiers of King Laoghaire, sent to arrest the violators of the edict and put out the fire, saw only a mother doe and her fawns. The prayer also known as the Lorica or "St. Patrick's Breastplate". The Paschal fire was not extinguished that night and the next day, Easter Sunday, Patrick obtained permission from Laoghaire to preach Christianity in Ireland. The rest, as they say, is history. St. Patrick, ora pro nobis.

I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of the Invocation of the Trinity:
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe.

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the Incarnation of Christ with His Baptism,
The virtue of His crucifixion with His burial,
The virtue of His Resurrection with His Ascension,
The virtue of His coming on the Judgement Day.

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the love of seraphim,
In the obedience of angels,
In the hope of resurrection unto reward,
In prayers of Patriarchs,
In predictions of Prophets,
In preaching of Apostles,
In faith of Confessors,
In purity of holy Virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

I bind to myself today
The power of Heaven,
The light of the sun,
The brightness of the moon,
The splendour of fire,
The flashing of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of sea,
The stability of earth,
The compactness of rocks.

I bind to myself today
God's Power to guide me,
God's Might to uphold me,
God's Wisdom to teach me,
God's Eye to watch over me,
God's Ear to hear me,
God's Word to give me speech,
God's Hand to guide me,
God's Way to lie before me,
God's Shield to shelter me,
God's Host to secure me,
Against the snares of demons,
Against the seductions of vices,
Against the lusts of nature,
Against everyone who meditates injury to me,
Whether far or near,
Whether few or with many.

I invoke today all these virtues
Against every hostile merciless power
Which may assail my body and my soul,
Against the incantations of false prophets,
Against the black laws of heathenism,
Against the false laws of heresy,
Against the deceits of idolatry,
Against the spells of witches, and smiths, and druids,
Against every knowledge that binds the soul of man.

Christ, protect me today
Against every poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against death-wound,
That I may receive abundant reward.

Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of an invocation of the Trinity,
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe.
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Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Ligers and Groundhogs and Robins, Oh My

Well, the Ides of March have come and gone sine coniuratione, unless you count Emily's suspicions that a large mixed-breed cat, or liger if you will, has somehow wandered downstairs to her room and eaten her scissors. Now in my opinion, anyone who leaves sharp metal objects lying around when there's a liger on the loose deserves whatever happens. Nevertheless, she has the effrontery to suggest that I am somehow responsible for the situation. Et tu, Bruce? Am I my liger's keeper? Ligers do what they want.

In other news, I would like to point out that six weeks have now elapsed since Punxsatawney Phil (King of the Groundhogs, Father of all Marmota, seer of seers, prognosticator of prognosticators) saw his shadow in that fateful February morning, plunging the world into another month and a half of gloom and depression. Were this anywhere but Williamstown, we could now confidently predict the long-awaited arrival of spring, but as it is, it seems that even the robins are untrustworthy harbingers. (How many robins can you spot in this picture?)

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Monday, March 14, 2005

Restate My Assumptions

12:45, restate my assumptions:
  1. Mathematics is the language of nature.
  2. Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers.
  3. If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge.
Therefore, there are patterns, everywhere in nature. Evidence: the cycling of disease epidemics, the wax and wane of caribou populations, sunspot patterns, the rise & fall of the Nile. So what about the stock market? The universe of numbers that represent the global economy. Millions of human hands at work, billions of minds...a vast network, screaming with life: an organism. A natural organism. My hypothesis: within the stock market there is a pattern as well. Right in front of me, hiding behind the numbers. Always has been.

12:50, press return.

http://www.pithemovie.com

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Thursday, March 10, 2005

Procrastinate at your own risk

Re: the comments to my previous post, let me first make it clear that seosamh.blogspot.com is not intended as a means of or aid to procrastination, nor does the author assume any responsibility for any injuries, academic or otherwise, incurred during or as a result of said misuse of his weblog.

That being said, it appears that certain readers (and I use the plural lightly, insofar as I have serious doubts regarding the authenticity of the second comment) feel that I have been insufficiently diligent in keeping seosamh.blogspot.com freshly updated with new and interesting material. Now, I suspect that were I to check the frequency of posts on Emily's Livejournal, I might find that she has not been setting an example in this regard either- and for that matter, I haven't seen much new material lately from Haydn, though I understand he used to be quite the prolific composer back in the day and would probably have something to say about my own meager compositional output if he were around now. Though I'm only 104 symphonies and 67 3/4 string quartets behind him, which I don't think is too bad given his 252-year head start.

But I'm not the sort of person that would mention any of that, or attempt to hide my own failings by calling attention to the shortcomings of others. I'm not even going to point out that it's midterm season and I've been busy with schoolwork, rehearsals, and the like to the detriment of my weblogging. No, I shall not sink to such pitiful excuses. The people have voiced their discontent, and seosamh.blogspot.com must answer. And will answer. Eventually.
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Saturday, March 05, 2005

My Civic Obligation- Update

JOSEPH D MCDONOUGH
101 LYNDE LN
WILLIAMSTOWN MA 01267

NOTICE OF DISQUALIFICATION FROM JUROR SERVICE

Your request to be disqualified from juror service under this summons has been allowed:

YOU ARE NOT REQUIRED AND ARE NOT EXPECTED TO APPEAR
The reason for your disqualification:

You have appeared at a courthouse to serve as a juror within the past 3 years.

Respectfully,
Jury Commisioner
for the Commonwealth

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Wednesday, March 02, 2005

This Week in (Williams) History

From this week's edition of the Williams Record:
1989 The Admissions Office brings in truckloads of "fake flakes" to winterize the campus for a reshooting of the prospectus. In addition to the manmade winter, photographers manufacture cozy fireside study sessions in one corner of the Perry living room and arrange Stetson tutorials complete with posed professors, borrowed briefcases and busts of famous academics brought in for the occasion.
Bringing in the busts of famous academics (academicians?) cracks me up. Yes, we like to cultivate the impression that a Williams education is conducted under the benevolent gaze of the great minds who have gone before us. My question is, why just bring them in for the prospectus? Shouldn't we have them around all the time? You might say that the prospectus is never going to accurately reflect the college because it's an artificial marketing tool designed to make the college look better than it really is. But that's begging the question. If it looks better in the prospectus, why shouldn't it look better in real life, too? If this is how we want college to be, why not make it that way in real life instead of constructing these fantasies and then dismantling them again? If the prospectus is not going to imitate college life, then maybe it's time that college life start imitating the prospectus. We could do with some more busts of famous academics around, not to mention those cozy fireside study sessions. Also, everyone needs to be uniformly good-looking, and no picture should contain more than one person of any given ethnicity and no more than sixty percent of either gender. It should always be summer, the peak of autumn when the foliage is at its most glorious, or immediately after a fresh winter snowfall when all is clear and pristine. And these are only a few of the ways in which college life stands to benefit from imitating the prospectus. I'm sure the Admissions office and the CUL could team up and think of a lot more instead of debating all this anchor house business. I'm sure I could think up a lot more right now, but I'm late to my photo-op. Look for me in the prospectus, practicing the cello beneath a flowering cherry tree in the bright spring sunlight, except I'll be of ambiguous ethnicity, and a girl.
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