Last time we heard John the Deacon explain how Alpine bodies are just incapable of the kind of grace in chanting that Romans naturally have. But maybe the Alpine bodies were set up for failure from the start. How? Gaslighting, says the famous Notker Balbalus....
Quartet for the End of Blogs
John Ahern
Church Music Is Just the Worst (Circa 800)
Charlemagne had been carrying on his father's mission to unite the chanting practices of western Europe under a single practice when he ran into some snags coordinating the singing between Rome and the provinces. Keep in mind that there was not a very good way to...
Baudrillard on Icons
"One can see that the iconoclasts, whom one accuses of disdaining and negating images, were those who accorded them their true value, in contrast to the iconolaters who only saw reflections in them and were content to venerate a filigree God. On the other hand, one...
Reluctance to Speak
It has been a long time since I foisted upon my hapless readers my opinions, screeds, condescending remarks, &c. I have an excuse, but it is a very boring one (it begins with "diss" and rhymes, in both sound and sense, with "consternation"). And so I will make up...
Who Are Our Time Lords?
In Sid Meier's classic game Civilization III, one of the first "technologies" that your chosen civilization must learn is the calendar (which, amusingly, unlocks the ability to build the Stonehenge, even if you happen to be the Chinese or Incas). As a teenager, this...
Eagleton’s Ideology of Aesthetic (I)
Is art how modern people create moral order in a godless universe?
Augustine, Music, and the Birds and the Bees
If Augustine considers sex something that man cannot enjoy sinlessly, where does that leave music?
A Little Coleridge
"In every state, not wholly barbarous, a philosophy, good or bad, there must be. However slightingly it may be the fashion to talk of speculation and theory, as opposed (sillily and nonsensically opposed) to practice, it would not be difficult to prove, that such as...
Technology Ex Nihilo
Technology hardly ever emerges ex nihilio. In fact, it’s usually by accident.
Luther’s Law and Gospel in Josquin
There has been quite a lot of Reformation-themed posts going around on these Ad Fontes blogs (can anyone tell me why? I don't get it, is something going on this week?) and so I figure I had better contribute something before Sunday when I will be busy with Halloween,...