The Week in Meep, 28 Jan 2024: Weird Saints, Dresses with Pockets, Sumo, and Opera
Keeping to the basics
It’s been a bad pain week for me. I have had a chronic nerve pain condition since 2010, and a lot of it is driven by the weather. We have a lot of weather up here, especially during winter.
That’s why I did the Trump/Biden post yesterday. I was in a mood.
Pints with Aquinas and Fr. Wetta
Speaking of pain, this particular episode of Pints with Aquinas spoke to me:
It’s long — the best part (to me) is where Fr. Wetta shares his cards of the “crazy” saints — and those these are far from the craziest saints I’ve heard of.
Two of the saints Fr. Wetta talked about:
Saint Drogo: Patron Saint of Unattractive People
Saint Drogo is the patron Saint of unattractive people because during one pilgrimage he contracted a disease which caused him to develop severe bodily deformities. The people of the village built a small cell attached to the local church to provide him with a place to live and to also protect them from seeing his deformities (nice, hey?!). St. Drogo stayed in his cell for the next forty years, having no contact with anyone, except to receive his simple sustenance: barley, water and the Eucharist.
Blessed Takayama: Cause for Canonization
BORN in Takayama village, in Toyono-cho, Toyono-gun, Osaka Prefecture, the Martyr of Christ, Justus Ukon Takayama (1552-1615), a Catholic layman of heroic virtue who was considered a pillar of the early Church of Japan, died in Intramuros, Manila on February 3, 1615 – only 44 days after he was exiled to Manila for refusing to abjure his Catholic faith. In 1630, a petition was presented to the Vatican by the Archdiocese of Manila for Takayama’s beatification. His Cause was revived at the Vatican in 1963 – with the Japanese Bishops in charge. The Takayama process was crowned with Beatification in Osaka on February 7, 2017.
UKON TAKAYAMA was born in 1552, the year after St. Francis Xavier died; his death took place in 1615, only a few months after Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川家康, January 31, 1543 – June 1, 1616) had expelled the Christian missionaries from Japan.
Ukon therefore witnessed practically the whole period of missionary endeavor during the so-called Christian Century of Japan (1549-1650). At times in this period, other men perhaps placed more important roles than he did, but no other person occupied such an enduring and crucial placed in the history of the Japanese Church.
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The reply was simple. Ukon was willing to obey the ruler in everything that concerned his status as a vassal, but he would not abandon his faith; as regards to his work of evangelizing his former retainers, he considered this to have been his most outstanding achievement.
….
Maeda Toshitsune never really understood Ukon and feared that, on receiving the edict ordering him to exile, most likely to be followed by the death sentence, Ukon would take up arms to defend himself. So Toshitsune prepared for fighting, but Ukon hastened to put his mind at rest by sending a message that gave evidence of the evolution of his idea of a gentleman-warrior.
The message read, “I do not strive for my salvation with weapons but with patience and humility, in accordance with the doctrine of Jesus Christ which I profess.” He further sent the daimyo 60 bars of gold as a gift, “because this year I will not be able to repay with my services the emoluments that I have received.” He also presented to his old friend Toshinaga, living in retirement, a valuable tea utensil; for himself, he took with him a small tea utensil that had been made by his master Sen no Rikyu.
Takayama was exiled to the Philippines, which is partly why it is the church there that is championing his cause for sainthood.
Dresses with Pockets!
I thought I’d mention something I like and it is a happy thing.
They sell all sorts of STEM-related clothing, but the main reason I like them is they’ve got great dresses with HYUGE pockets. I can put an entire Kindle Fire inside one of the pockets and you can’t see it… and you can’t even tell the dresses have pockets.
The dress I’m wearing there (and yes, that’s Stu — hey Stu!) back in 2021 is diagrammed sentences from famous novels, like Pride and Prejudice. Right now, I’m wearing one of their dresses with fractals on it. They’ve got great designs, like patent applications from Hedy Lamarr:
Or Op Art:
As you can see their dresses are a staple of my wardrobe.
If you’re not into dresses, they’ve also got a great line of shirts! You can get the Hedy Lamarr/George Antheil design on a shirt. If you’re XS or S, grab this Emilie du Chatelet design while it lasts — I have one! (in XL).
I don’t get any commission on any of these — I’m just a very happy customer. I like their designs, and comfy dresses with huge pockets are much in my interest, especially when I’m in pain.
SUMO!
Just plugging my other substack for a moment.
The January Grand Sumo Tournament ended today… and it was EXCITING!
I have moved my sumo activity over to Sumo Stats.
And yes, it’s got graphs. And Sumo memes.
Yeah, I’m protecting you from this. But you may find it interesting, such as cluster analysis.
….or maybe not.
OPERA!
You may see a theme. I said to someone once - I find big people REALLY COMPELLING.
THEY HAVE GRAVITY.
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ANYWAY.
Okay, I can’t share that moment with you (just checking the Met’s YouTube account to make sure….)
Oh hey! It’s there!
Okay, you don’t get the whole number. But you get the idea.
The full number (I went to the Met Streaming platform to check) runs about 7 minutes (okay, more like 6:40, but let’s round.)
For any new production of Don Giovanni I go straight to this number (and, as this is Mozart, this is a clearly delineated number) and play it. No, I don’t do the overture. Don’t care. I go straight to this.
I will not explain what went wrong in that production, but I’ve seen a lot of BAD Don Giovanni productions. After my particular test, I have seen only ~6 minutes of the bad productions now per production (I don’t get to see many live productions), which is a great emotional saving.
While I do enjoy watching bad movies, I do not enjoy watching bad opera, especially Mozart, my favorite opera composer.
The newest Met production is pretty good, but it’s not my favorite. My favorite is from 1990, with Sam Ramey as the Don, and Furlanetto as Leperello.
And Kurt Moll as the Commendatore. I think Kurt Moll is the scariest statue. His voice comes from the pits of hell.
Pockets! Pre-COVID I pledged to stop buying pants and jackets without pockets. They are hard to find in women's clothing. I'll have to check them out.
Nice article about ESG implications, BTW. But ESG won't matter if the investment horizon is 20 or 50 years as much as Funding Level will matter....