In the 30s this morning...

And very foggy: I caught a brief glimpse of the sliver of the Moon an hour ago but it is either obscured now by the fog or else-- I have no clear grasp of these things-- it has moved outside of my range of sight, from my little window. First Vespers of the feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord begins at Saint-Eugène in a couple of hours. Tomorrow is the Sunday infra Octavam but Benedict XV made it the feast of the Holy Family in 1921 (Wiki); in the Novus Ordo Rite the feast is celebrated on the Sunday infra Octavam Nativitatis Domini (December 27th, this year) or on December 30 if there isn't one-- that amalgam of liturgical innovations having of course suppressed the Octave of the Epiphany altogether. Anyway, in France of the Traditional Rite the 'external solemnity' of the Epiphany occurs tomorrow, hence Vespers at 0830. 




Was relieved to at last receive my copy of the Ordo for 2021 from Saint Lawrence Press the day before yesterday, so the 7th: was postmarked in England on November 20th, so its travel time was over a month, tsk. While I cannot recall with any precision, I believe that in ordinary years a fortnight or so suffices for it to make its way from Worcestershire to Oregon. Plague nonsense of course. 

Post Sextam. Well, for some reason First Vespers of the feast wasn't streamed after all, eh. I honestly don't mind-- who knows what happened; someone fell ill, some change in the parish rota had to happen, who knows. Holy Mass in the morning, I hope. 

Have been listening to music appropriate to the Christmas and Epiphany seasons and will continue to do so through the Purification on the 2nd February. As Dr Townsend suggests, in yesterday's Friday Miscellanea, I am, once Septuagesima is begun, going to begin a program of more careful listening to... well, he's enthused with the Beethoven piano sonatas and Igor Levit's version thereof but I'm going with Chopin's two series of études, the op 10 and op 25; have got the Paderewski edition of the score and bought two new (well, new to me) recordings, Wilhelm Backhaus's op 10 and Grigory Sokolov's op 25. I've listened to the Sokolov or parts of it on YouTube but have never listened to the Backhaus-- his was the first recording of the Chopin, from 1928.




Post Nonam. I've been reading François Fénelon's Dialogues des Morts in between sections of the latest PD James-- Confucius and Socrates are about to chat. But I did also notice earlier a post by Amy Welborn, who is doubtless one of the most 'ancient' of Catholic bloggers I continue to read (at least occasionally). She is a wise woman, certainly. 

I’ve been telling you for years, when it comes to social media, put not your trust in princes. This has nothing to do with political preferences, but with other issues I’ve been contemplating, in my usual haphazard way, for years, and which I’ll set down later today. Here. Not in an Instagram or Facebook post. Not on Twitter. Not on a podcast or a YouTube video. Here. Yes, this space is prone to censorship and deplatforming as well. We’ve seen it. One of the best 'Gender Critical' (i.e. anti-trans movement) blogs was completely removed from WordPress a couple of years ago. Including the archives, I believe. Google owns Blogger. You know what that means. But for the moment, this is what it’s always been. Mostly mine.

We shall see for how long 'the blogs' can survive.

I only randomly read Kathy Shaidle's blogging but she was on the side of the angels, certainly; requiescat in pace. Mark Steyn's post today.



LDVM



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