How Long, O Lord, How Long?

Dear Lott of Oxford,

We humbly exhort you to gather up your family, the Godzdogz, and the last ten righteous folk. You're standing in the way of the brimstone.

a shepherd in exile

If you didn't hear me come in, it's because my steps were muffled by the dust.

Dear Belfry,

Where are you? It's getting so that you might think this place were haunted by real bats, not just the pseudonymous kind. Really, if you can't think of some nifty math or other stuff to blog about, we might have to fall-back on that original conceit behind this here --- er ---- whattkhaview. And that means I have to come up with people to write to, and people to pretend to be and all that; of which you will remember what a pain it got to be the first time around, yes? Well, perhaps it'll be fun.

Anyways, get over that cold/depression/choleric and come back, soon, you hear?

Sincerely,
you-know-who

The narrow way

Dear Director,

Apart from the obvious things, I must admit to unhelpful habits of thought, around those obvious things. There are the maxims that float around, of the form "such is the cure for sich" --- and so I fall to thinking at God things like "See? You have to give me this-priceless-good, because otherwise I'll just keep falling into this-mortal-sin"; I become like the ersatz suicide holding himself hostage against God's mercy.

Each visit to God's Minister Through the Grille, I'm given an antidote against the deadliest part of this poison to which I seem to keep returning, and I'm prescribed a short course of purgatives --- or, sometimes, the chain of repeated forms makes me think of stitches; a row of sutures on my heart. I rejoice in the promise of health and healing. It hasn't, in the past, ever taken very long to play with the poisons again, to pull out the stitches. I read once that, outside the world of metaphor, if you DO need stitching in the same place twice in short order, it's better to use glue the second time, because the living tissues do something weird when they've been pierced mid-scarring. I wonder if that isn't somehow reflected in these human trials against temptation...

But today the stitching --- or however the patching is done --- today, it is fresh; I hear the echoes of temptations still, but now in this Day, let us rejoice. In this desert, my too-often too-parched soul, may I make a straight and level road for the Saviour to enter by; if I can see Him coming, perhaps then I shall see also the narrow way into Heaven.

in prayerful union

Random acts of apostrphe

O Steam,

where hast thou gone?
I see from my windows
your hoarded dews ---
the chill echoes
against graded blues
of shadows wan.

Thy heats escaped,
and pressures fled,
now contemplate
whither to shed
in snowy spate
what wind hath raped.

But here, 'tis dry:
no urging force
advanced my course,
made whistles cry;
the work day's done,
now sets the Sun.

Who calls you hobbits, though?

"Hoom, hmm! Come, now! Not so hasty! You call yourselves hobbits? But you should not go telling just anybody. You'll be letting out your own right names, if you're not careful."

"We aren't careful about that," said Merry, "As a matter of fact I'm a Brandybuck, Meriadoc Brandybuck, though most people call me just Merry."

"And I'm a Took, Peregrin Took, but I'm generally called Pippin, or even Pip."

"Hm, but you are hasty folk, I see [...] I'll call you Merry and Pippin, if you please --- nice names. For I am not going to tell you my name, not yet at any rate." A queer half-knowing, half-humorous look came with a green flicker into his eyes. ...

Being a lazy reader (and I really ought to be trying to work out when and why there's a splitting in some queer long-exact sequence involving spheres... the answer is "in exactly those cases I want to ignore") it has taken me a long while to think about the flurry of names-as-such in the Epic; some of this is due to the rich linguistic history that Tolkien imagined for his subcreation. But I'm starting to piece together something more: even deeper than Tolkien's love of euphony (whether or not Greek!) there seems to be something of a philosophy of names for things that he is keen on approaching from several angles.

"Eh? What's that? Don't you know my name yet? That's the only answer. Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless? But you are young, and I am old. Eldest, that's what I am."

It is curious that Bombadil claims this title for himself, and Elrond seems to ackowledge it; while Gandalf and Celeborn seem to propose him we know as Treebeard, who opened the topic for us, as "Eldest", and "the oldest of all living things". Perhaps this grant should be informed by our knowing (from the Silmarillion) that Gandalf is actually akin to Saruman and Sauron and the Valar, who have their memory from before the making of Eä or Arda in it, or the shaping of Middle Earth within that. Whether Bombadil or Treebeard is of the same sort or something else I can't tell or guess: the histories are confused, or I am.

But even more: Bombadil echoes something of Treebeard's philosophy in asserting that, on the one hand it is difficult (if not impossible) to talk of specific people without having some word to use as naming them, yet there is often something in each person's Story that will pin down which person they are: and so, Eldest works for Bombadil. If you aren't likely to meet Bombadil (and most of us aren't), then Eldest may as well suit Treebeard --- not that you're much more likely to meet him than Old Tom.

"Mithrandir we called him in elf-fashion," said Faramir, "and he was content. Many are my names in many countries he said. Mithrandir among the Elves, Tharkûn to the Dwarves; Olórin I was in my youth in the West that is forgotten, in the South Incánus, in the North Gandalf; to the East I go not."

To the East... there are hints that in the Lost Tales more is made of the "Rods of the Five Wizards" --- you'll note we only ever have names and colours for three! --- that two Blue Wizards got lost in the East; but here we learn that to some extent, names are things given us by those around us. In this sense none of my noms de dactylographe is really apt, least of all that I use most. Mind you, wherever I go on the internet, if the local service doesn't assign me a name, whatever name I do use is effectively one I'm claiming for myself.

About that, let's jump volumes:

But when Gwindor would tell his name, Túrin checked him, saying "I am Agarwaen the son of Úmarth," --- (which is "Blood-stained, the son of Ill-fate") --- "a hunter in the woods"; and the Elves of Nargothrond questioned him no more.
[...]

On the one hand, it may be perilous to play with names too recklessly. There are plenty of cautions out there against nicknaming your Guardian Angel, for instance --- it being sufficient to use the title "My Guardian dear", and difficult to be sure that some other word doesn't address something less holy, or less wholesome. Very perilous; though Tolkien is not univocal on Man's proper relation to Peril: "Indeed, [Gimli], you are beset with dangers, for you are dangerous yourself, in your own way" on the one hand, while on the other "Yet I am wise enough to know that there are some perils from which a man must flee." But let us see also what Gwindor later advises his dangerous friend:

Now when Túrin learned from Finduilas of what had passed, he was wrathful, and said to Gwindor: "In love I hold you for rescue and safe-keeping. But now you have done ill to me, friend, to betray my right name, and call my doom upon me, from which I would lie hid."

But Gwindor answered: "The doom lies in yourself, not in your name."

That is, there is a definite sense in which what I call myself (short of impersonation -- cf. Amlach from "The coming of Men into the West", Silmarilion) is less important than my character in deeds and in conversation, and certainly the one is easier to change than the other. Túrin is indeed seen to be a tragic figure in the old Greek sense --- for though the "weight of [Morgoth's] thought" (Narn i chin Húrin) oppresses him, yet it is by his own habits that destruction and despoliation is able to follow wherever he goes, and eventually overcome him with despair.

On the other hand, there is --- even beyond history, the things we've done --- a sense in which certain names are more apt, though they may have to wait some time come into their own:

And so the very name it was foretold at his birth that he should bear was chosen for him by his own people.

After all that nonsense

Dear Hilary,

I have fluttered through annoyance, despondence, frustration, confusion, and possibly two or three others that didn't last long enough to identify (like those $Z^{0}$ particles before the Super Proton Synchrotron got warmed up).

The thing is, it isn't you, HJMW, from whom I wish to remain anonymous, nor any of the friendly folk who care to leave replies here, but from unscrupulous con artists, stalkers, grudge-holders, borderline personalities, spambots, marketers and any antipapal inquisitors who might be keen to leverage whatever irrelevantia are handy for the cause of annoying the neighborhood Christian. It isn't folk of good will I'm aiming to frustrate, but search engines --- for they are indeed stupid automata. Just ask Dr. Thursday (which is not his given name, btw). This is why I have an anonymous-looking email address, writing from which I sign the name I was given in Baptism.

I have publically noted elsewhere over the present signature that I have a middle name of Christopher --- and indeed this is true, while I don't usually draw attention to it in real life. So I suppose I could honestly sign "Christopher" at your 'blog and we'd all be more-or-less happy. But this puzzles me: what particularly would you gain by my calling myself Christopher? Surely there are some dozens of millions of Christophers out there, many using the internet quite happily (and many of them not Christians at all). Which of them would I be, unless you met me? I could call myself Raphael or Philip, and you'd know about as much about me, and have as much reason to believe these were names given me (they're not). I could even call myself "Choi Chu" and be reasonably sure of a well-formed Mandarin name (or several), but it could as well be a command in Klingon to "beam me up". I already write in many places using the present pseudonym, and it would be unnatural to arbitrarily write now within the same circle under a new name. (I've already acquired two others, quite inadvertently, just because of the way google blogger works, and it mildly annoys me, when it's not amusing me.)

And it's not as though pseudonyms were a new or even ill-seeming phenomenon in writing, publishing, or commentary. To take some self-serving examples, in maths there's the infamous "Bourbaki"; in fiction, John LeCaré and Lewis Carol come to mind; I don't know if Anne Landers is a real name, or why it shouldn't be several people --- Landers is notoriously suggestible when it comes to agreeing with conflicting advice written-in by readers, and so I wonder.

It makes perfect sense to me that Fr. Z, whose blog is an extension of his professional and vocational activities, writes under his own name; I understand that you are a professional writer, too, but the Orwellian Picnickers aren't reading or commenting there as your professional associates, but for joy and comfort on the internet. The insistence on "real" names simply doesn't make sense, because you've no way to check them, no way to avoid false negatives, and no advantage anyways.

On the other hand, I'm very glad you're recovering enough to feel noticeably more awake, as you say, and I pray for your speedy return to full health (and your perseverence unto salvation, too!), and otherwise wish you all the best.

A la prochaine,

Guy Street

Puzzlements: Terms.

If I may be permitted to introduce

The Obscure Carnival Man

"But, We are the Great, the Amazing ...
Surely, you have heard of us?
The Twins are reknowned far and wide
As they look each exactly like ...
And --- and, this Wolf-... No, he is! ...
See his toes? And here's well-noted Side!"

His aim: my interest's raising.
The result: I long off to hike

"Surely, the strange tales of Gus?!"
Of course, though, I haven't --- nor Fizz.

There's more than just odd to his manner,
I can't seem to blot out their banner
Or turn aside from the *pitch*
Though it's causing my heels to itch...

In the end I was rescued
by a damsel with pigtails
who said she had icecream
and plenty of wild quails.

Which is meant, in some way, to include answer to the interogative phrase "And you are ... ?"
And, you can see, I also squished the word toes in, though you can further see there's another spot where it might have made more sense. I think I'm in a mood for linguistic perversity, today, which in fact is a neat reflection of the impression I mean the narrator to have of that subject he is relating to us. This doggerel is in no way autobiographical: I've never been accosted by an obscure carnival man, nor rescued by a damsel with pigtails. I don't think I'm even particularly taken by pigtails on a lass, though of course there's nothing objectionable to the style...

I hope you've been entertained, anyways.

Word & Question