THE PAGE TURNS

January 7, 2021January 21, 2021

Our House, Our Capitol

At the Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, the Capitol dome was still under construction. Photo at Wikipedia/ Library of Congress.

Vandals attacked Our House yesterday, but as the aimless barbarians they were, they could do little but pose for idiotic selfies. We can repair the windows; no real damage to the Apotheosis of our Democracy. The walls have been refurbished before. Our House–Our Capitol–has long been a work in progress, changing continuously. After all, it’s built on words.

By Jove

I did not, until today actually understand the distinction between “capitol” and “capital,” which means I’ve probably misused them for years. I thought “capitol” meant the governmental head of something whereas “capital” meant money or referred to a good idea. Actually, the “capitol” is the building, and the “capital” is the place. “Capital” can also refer to a size of a letter or wealth, i.e. the source of wealth.

Jefferson invented the specific idea of the “Capitol,” or rather he ~~stole~~ borrowed it from Rome. The original architect for the Capitol building–and we’ll get to architects in a minute–wanted to call it the “Congress House,” to be distinguished from the “President’s House” or executive mansion, the White House. But Jefferson, always a guy who understood the optics, thought it needed to have classical influences.

December 24, 2020January 2, 2021

Is Santa Claus Really Jesus?

Jesus armwrestles Santa — Photo at AlanRudnick.org

Or was Jesus really Santa Claus? OK, perhaps that feels a little clickbaitey, but there’s an interesting degree of overlap between these well-known historical characters who reign over Christmas proceedings in various ways.

I apologize in advance if this blog topic offends anyone. If your initial reaction is “Sacrilege!” you could stop reading now before gathering too much umbrage. I was raised partly devout Catholic and partly doubting Unitarian, so I do speak Christianity. My personal faith–and I do have one–sits somewhere between pagan and atheist. The atheists are too nihilistic for me (c’mon! sunsets! tulips! puppies! there’s something there!) but the pagans are also too organized and just as preachy as the Catholics. I tried reading a book on How to Be a Pagan once, and it demanded I go vegan and stop wearing leather. So much for that.

It’s long been fascinating to watch the tussle between Santa and Jesus that takes place this time of year, or the tussle between gift-getting and altriusm, more to the point. It’s not really an either/or, though, is it? There were real people, there were stories that augmented their life, and those stories keep evolving.

Will the Real One Please Stand Up?

Bearded. Robed. Known for his generosity. Categorized deeds as either meeting standards or as violations. Miscreants on the left and do-gooders on the right. (Or is naughty on the right and nice on the left? ) Painted by the famous, whether accurate or not. Immortalized in song, which then may or may not be included in the “legend.”

December 10, 2020December 23, 2020

The Mundane Spectacle of Pat, Rocky, Moonface, and the Great Mephisto

Wrestling poster from 1972, photo from Pinterest.

A chunk of my childhood was in black and white. Or, to be more accurate, my recollection of the outside world as-it-was when I was young, my memory of historical events, is in black and white because television was in black and white, and that was the conduit to the outside world. The Vietnam War, the Brady Bunch, Richard Nixon, the funeral of Martin Luther King, and even cartoons. Saturday nights when I was a pre-teen belonged to black-and-white UHF stations, to Big Time Wrestling.

One of the stars from those days was Pat Patterson, whose obituary in the New York Times this week caught my eye. He was Canadian; he was gay; he was a legend. But all of the wrestlers loomed larger than life. It was the nature of their business to loom.

Big Time Wrestling

Wrestling, like so many forms of circuses in our world of bread and circuses, has evolved multiple times over the centuries. My grandparents probably saw it as a sideshow in a circus or attached to vaudeville acts before the invention of TV and mass media. It did not spring forth in whole cloth as it is today, in pay-per-view, with lasers flashing, tens of thousands of fans, and heavy metal music blaring. The version I saw was on that tiny (9-inch) TV screen on grainy channel 40 in a musty half-filled Sacramento auditorium. But it was essentially the same.