Julie and Scott travel to New Mexico to put the sheets out on the clothesline. Oh - and to do some math.

 We discuss Christopher Nolan's movie Oppenheimer in episode 353 of A Good Story is Hard to Find. Join us!

A Movie You Might Have Missed #102 — Blossoms in the Dust

It tells the story of Edna Gladney, who opened a home for foundlings and orphans find homes. She was able to place the children in good homes, despite the opposition of “conservative” citizens, who would condemn illegitimate children for being born out of wedlock. Eventually Edna led a fight in the Texas legislature to remove the stigma of illegitimacy from birth records in that state, while continuing to be an advocate for homeless children.

We watched this as part of our Oscar winner/nominees for 1942. I know this wasn't quite as artfully done as the winner, How Green Was My Valley, but we sure liked it better. Living in Dallas I'd heard of the Edna Gladney home in Fort Worth and I was interested in the story. It did not disappoint.

Greer Garson is a wonderful actress and the story, though told in a straight forward manner, handled several social issues that hadn't occurred to us. We also appreciated the way the story showed major events without drawing out the tragedies. It was inspirational in a way that I didn't expect.

I hadn't realized what a pioneer Gladney was in legislation to protect orphaned children. The film made it clear why this was very important. It was fascinating to realize that her accomplishments happened just a few years before this movie was made, making it a topic of real interest and also education to people at the time.

The Pink Dancers, Before the Ballet

Edgar Degas, 1884, The Pink Dancers, Before the Ballet
via WikiPaintings

Of course it is Degas. It's ballet dancers! But I don't recall ever seeing anything so ... pink ... from him before. The vivid color is softened by the painting style but still draws my eye. I can't look away somehow.

Court of Lions

Court of the Lions, Alhambra, Granada, is the epicentre of the greatest concentration of high Islamic art, through which runs the perpetual trickle of water that Muslims thought essential to architecture.

 This photo is nowhere near the quality that is featured in Art: A New History, but it gives a flavor of the delight I felt upon seeing the image in the book. I absolutely loved the idea of water being a part of the architecture of a building.

The second feature of the Alhambra is the presence of water, which flows, drips, splashes and spouts in dozens of different ways, and in scores of places, throughout the immense complex of buildings, though it is visible chiefly in the courts. The Patio de los Leones, or Court of the Lions, built in the 1370s, summarises everything the Islamic world had learned about water-architecture. it has a central fountain resting on the backs of twelve white marble lions. The water trickles away in narrow canals between systems of twin-pillared arches, forming arcades on which rest four magnificent reception rooms on the first storey. They overlook the court, but are remarkable also for their starry vaults, lit by great windows which admit and discipline the sunlight. The decoration is provided by Kufic patterning and by poetry in brilliant cursive script, and a poem also adorns the fountain itself. Font and arch, marble and glass mosaic, paint, stone and script, tile and open window, grass and herb, light, shade, and brilliance all combine together to create a sense of airy lightness, reassuringly underwritten by marmoreal solidity. ...

I could keep going but then I'd just have to give you the whole book. Paul Johnson is not a bad artist with words himself as we can see.

My husband has always wanted to see the Alhambra. After reading Johnson's take on it and seeing photos I can understand why. I'd like to see it myself.

A Movie You Might Have Missed #101 — Thelma

When 93-year-old Thelma gets scammed by a phone scammer pretending to be her grandson, she sets out on a treacherous quest across the city to reclaim what was taken from her.

This was a delight. Thelma being inspired by Tom Cruise to track down the scammers who tricked her into sending cash is just the first level.

It is funny but never at the expense of the elderly, a la "having an old lady swear" which is the sort of unfunny joke that is so often perpetrated in the movies. As the movie goes forward there's a serious side that is interwoven but never heavy-handedly. 

This is the sort of indie, small movie that we get all too rarely these days and it is so welcome!

You like to cook. Making breakfast is fun for you.

[The baby goats] were a lot of work, especially in the beginning. I tried, with moderate success to enlist my human kids to pitch in. One afternoon a few days after school let out for the summer, I heated the milk for the goats and filled their baby bottles. "Would you please take these out and do the feeding?" I asked Owen, who was lying on the floor, drawing a Transformer.

"You do it," he said.

"You do it?" I replied.

"Yes, you do it."

"Did you just say, 'You do it'?"

"I always do it," he said.

"That is not true."

He said, "I did it last night."

"And I did it this morning."

"Because I was sleeping. Besides, you like getting up early."

"I do not like getting up early."

"Then why do you do it?"

"So I can feed the goats! So I can do the laundry! So I can make you breakfast!"

"You like to cook," he said. "Making breakfast is fun for you."

"JUST GO OUTSIDE AND FEED THE GOATS!"

Owen stared at me in shock. He shouted, "You want me to be a SLAVE for you. Summer was not invented so kids could be SLAVES for their parents."

"Actually," I said wearily, "it was."

there were no exchanges like this in the Little House books, ever. Owen went outside. A few minutes later, I heard him singing.

Jennifer Reese; Make the Bread, Buy the Butter

A Highland Breakfast

A Highland Breakfast, Edwin Henry Landseer

Kids' Breakfast

Kids' Breakfast (Kinderfrühstück), Albert Anker

Why is breakfast different from all other things?

I would very much like to know what those who have an answer to everything can say about the food requisite to breakfast? Those great men Marlowe and Jonson, Shakespeare, and Spenser before him, drank beer at rising, and tamed it with a little bread. In the regiment, we used to drink black coffee without sugar, and cut off a great hunk of stale crust, and eat noting more till the halt ... Dogs eat the first thing they come across, cats take a little milk, and gentlemen are accustomed to get up at nine and eat eggs, bacon, kidneys, ham, cold pheasant, toast coffee, tea, scones, and honey, after which they will boast that their race is the hardiest in the world and ready to bear every fatigue in the pursuit of Empire. But what rule governs all this? Why is breakfast different from all other things, so that the Greeks called it the best thing in the world, and so that each of us in a vague way knows that he would eat at breakfast nothing but one special kind of food and that he could not imagine breakfast at any other hour in the day?

Hilaire Belloc, The Path to Rome

The Path to Rome is such a wonderful book to idly read here and there in your day. It is the story of the pilgrimage Belloc made on foot to Rome in as straight a line as possible order to fulfill a vow he had made. It is a delightful travel book with all sorts of discoveries and musings, such as above!

A man came up to the window to ask for money. I know there are those who do this as a scam. So what should you do?

This is a post I've been running occasionally for over a decade. I now serve the poor by volunteering with the Saint Vincent de Paul Society. But my first exposure to deep thinking about the poor and charity was in the incidents I describe below.

Today I'm running it because it is perfect for reflection during Lent. As you can see below, St. John Vianney was a major influence in changing my heart and mind toward the poor. Not that I don't still struggle with the issue, but every time I come back to the quote I feature I am reminded of what matters. 

St. John Vianney, pray for us!

===================

When I was talking to my sister about this some time ago, she had the short answer. "Pull out your wallet and give them money."

I don't tend to have cash but I have begun carrying Subway gift cards for $15. Subway shops are everywhere and they can get at least couple of good meals with that. 

For the longer, more anecdotal version, and the answer to the question "what if it is a scam," just keep on readin' ...

Photo from Barcelona Photoblog

As my long-suffering husband well knows, from the fact that when he gave a handful of change to an Australian man sitting outside a London tube station years ago ... the man shouted after our family, "God bless you mate! Thank you!" My husband muttered, under his breath, "Don't thank me, thank her; I had nothing to do with it" as I gave him a thank you hug. This didn't compare to later on when he would be driving with three people in the car all urging him to roll down the window and hand out granola bars.

GIVING TO THE HOMELESS, FACE TO FACE

The first time I ever saw a beggar was in Paris, 18 years ago. She was across the street and Tom said, "Don't look at her." Of course, I did and she began screaming invective and shaking her fist at me. It's a good thing my French wasn't very fluent or I'm sure my ears would have burned. Everywhere we went there were beggars. It was deeply troubling for someone like me who had never seen such a thing before. Tom, whose family lived in London for several years, was more blasé. He taught me to ignore them and that they were making plenty of money off of the population at large. I did make him give to a couple of WWII veterans who were playing music for their coins but at least they had sacrificed something for their country ... they had done something to deserve our charity.

I wasn't Christian then; I wasn't even sure if God existed. Nothing other than popular thought occurred to me in those situations. That was saved for 15 years later in 2001 when we went back to Paris and London with the girls. I had converted by then, we attended Mass weekly, and they went to Catholic school with religion lessons every day. It was fairly common to see the homeless on street corners but we were insulated by the car and traffic flow. These up close encounters with beggars in Europe were different. Tom and I gave the standard "making money off the crowd" explanation but it didn't sit very well, especially with the Christian precepts that had taken hold by then.

Then, one evening, I read this quote.

There are those who say to the poor that they seem to look to be in such good health: "You are so lazy! You could work. You are young. You have strong arms."

You don't know that it is God's pleasure for this poor person to go to you and ask for a handout. You show yourself as speaking against the will of God.

There are some who say: "Oh, how badly he uses it!" May he do whatever he wants with it! The poor will be judged on the use they have made of their alms, and you will be judged on the very alms that you could have given but haven't.

St. John Vianney

You certainly couldn't get much clearer than those words. St. John Vianney covered pretty much every objection I ever thought of for giving to the poor. That was my wake-up call and the end of ignoring beggars. We were supplied with handfuls of coins that were distributed at large as we went through the subway stations.

When I got home I stocked the car with granola bars and bottles of water. I passed them out at every street corner we stopped at. I never have any cash on me and they almost always had signs saying "Will work for food" so it seemed a good match.

Then Dallas passed a law against any panhandling on street corners and, for the most part, the homeless disappeared from sight. I had gotten used to being on the lookout for people to give my granola bars to and now the corners seemed very empty.

About that time, I was the leader of a Catholic women's group that met weekly. One evening our discussion became a debate over two strategies of giving to the homeless. One group believed in giving to people as they were encountered. The other countered with stories of scam artists and believed in giving to organizations who would distribute goods and cash in the most beneficial way to the needy. Two things stuck with me after that meeting though. The first was that my friend, Rita, said she was troubled by those who didn't want to give face to face because "they don't know what blessings they may be depriving themselves of." Once again I remembered St. John Vianney's quote.

I also thought about the very day before when I encountered a homeless man, gave him some cash, and later was extremely glad that I did ... because I'm still not sure who it was that I gave that cash to.

The second thing occurred to me as I listened to the debate. Jesus never said anything about helping the poor by giving to the local temple or soup kitchen. He said:

"For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me."

Then the righteous will answer him and say, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?"

And the king will say to them in reply, "Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me."

Matthew 25: 35-40

Tom and I do support organized charities and I know they reach farther than I ever could personally. This is not an argument against those organizations. However, I think that we cannot rest with those contributions. I believe that if we have a personal encounter with the needy it is because they have been sent to us for their good and our own. If we turn them away, then we are turning Christ Himself away and what blessings are we sending away with Him?

This was reinforced for me during a retreat I attended later. Somehow the debate over how to give to the homeless came up along those old familiar lines, not just once but twice. Each time I trotted out my St. John Vianney quote. Then my friend, Mauri, said that when she looked at those unfortunates she saw people she knew. For instance, she has a schizophrenic nephew who doesn't want to take his meds so he has been found wandering only in his boxers in a Chicago suburb. A confused old lady at the bank reminded her of her mother and Mauri found a discreet way to help her while preserving her dignity. She reminded me of the worth and dignity of each of these people. She later sent me this story which is the perfect example of looking past the surface to the real person that is there in front of us.

Today at the post office I saw this man going through the garbage -- I think looking for food as he was going through a discarded fast food bag and picked out left over bun from the bag, emptied the bag of the other garbage, and then used the bag to neatly wrap up the left over bun and then placed it in his satchel. You could tell that he still had his pride as he looked well kept, although worn and a bit "dusty". He was not begging in any way. Just walking through the strip center where the post office was.

I wanted to help as I sensed that he was hungry, but he was not asking for help and he did not approach me in anyway. I was so worried to bruise his pride, but could not stand the thought of him only having the leftover bun for food. I got out of my car with $5 and asked him if he was hungry. He said he was fine but hesitantly. I gave him the money and told him that there were many times when I was hungry but didn't have the cash on me to go through McDonalds or grab a sandwich. I told him to take it for when he might need it. I don't think I hurt his pride. His eyes were so kind.

I only wish I had asked his name ... He looked like he might have been mid 60s. I should have given him more money. I can't get him out of my mind. He could have been someone's grandfather, father, etc.

I am so grateful to Mauri for bringing me to this phase in my awareness of the homeless. Each of them was some mother's baby, a tiny toddler learning to walk, a laughing boy or girl at school. We must remember that when we are looking at these people who can seem so frightening or strange or manipulative. I pray that someday I can look at these people and find my vision is perfect ... I hope that someday I can look at a homeless person and see Jesus Himself. In this quest I think we can not do better than to take the advice of someone who achieved perfect vision and sought out her beloved Jesus in the homeless.

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

There's Nothing Like Spaghetti Fresh Off the Tree!

 I hate practical jokes so you may guess that I'm not crazy about April Fools Day. However, this classic joke from the BBC is an all-time favorite with me.

With the unusually mild winter, we were able to have our first harvest of spaghetti this morning. Seriously, there’s nothing like spaghetti fresh off the tree!

Northern California’s spaghetti is a legacy of the Swiss-Italians who settled the San Francisco Bay Area in the late19th century, operating dairy ranches and vineyards. Naturally, when they came to California, these pioneers brought their beloved spaghetti.

The most common vinestock of Spaghetti trees in Northern California, (Iocari stultus var. flicrus ), traces its lineage to the shores of Lake Lugano in the southern Swiss canton of Ticino. This bountiful tree was first planted here in the early 1890s during the founding of the Italian Swiss Colony in Sonoma County.

Last year’s cold, frosty winter mostly left us with capellini and spaghettini, if spring continues like this, we might even see Vermicelli before summer!

We’re quite happy for the joy our little tree provides every year at this time.

Wikipedia

This April Fools joke was a 3 minute broadcast from the BBC in 1957, a time when spaghetti was relatively unknown in England. Read more here.

The Frugal Meal

This is from J.R.'s Art Place where he says:

The Frugal Meal by Rose Hartwell, 1903, showing an immigrant family sitting down to a dinner of spaghetti. Note the image of St. Anthony of Padua on the wall!

It seemed the perfect accompaniment to the story about the Spaghetti Trees!

Around Here: Dickens and the Sandwich

Having revisited Dickens and Boxers last Friday made me remember another thing I love and its connection with Dickens — sandwiches. This is also from several years ago but well worth revisiting. At least it was for me!

Sandwiches and Dickens

I was reading Barnaby Rudge and was startled by seeing a sandwich mentioned:

He was not without some refreshment during the long lonely hours; generally carrying in his pocket a sandwich of bread and meat, and a small flask of wine.

Now I know sandwiches were invented some time ago but I hadn't come across them in fiction this old, especially as a reflection of casual everyday life. And this book was set around the time of our Revolutionary War so I had 1776 firmly in mind.

Did they eat sandwiches then?

Finishing up Barnaby (not bad, not bad at all), I picked up The Pickwick Papers for a bit of light bedtime humor.

I was stunned to find ... another sandwich in Mr. Jingle's shocking but funny story:

Heads, heads — take care of your heads!... Five children — mother — tall lady, eating sandwiches — forgot the arch — crash — knock — children look round — mother's head off — sandwich in her hand—no mouth to put it in — head of a family off—shocking, shocking!

This made Tom look up the origin date of the sandwich which, of course, no one knows. The famous story about the Earl of Sandwich, all honor to this lazy but tidy card player (bread kept the meat grease off his hands and cards) who invented one of my favorite foods, is placed in the late 1700s.

Of course, sandwiches were around before then but they weren't called sandwiches. They were known as "meat and bread" or "bread and cheese." It is when the name "sandwich" became commonly used that is interesting. And then we have this bit of evidence:

That respectable body, of which I have the honour of being a member, affords every evening a sight truly English. Twenty or thirty, perhaps, of the first men in the kingdom, in point of fashion and fortune, supping at little tables covered with a napkin, in the middle of a coffee-room, upon a bit of cold meat, or a sandwich, and drinking a glass of punch.

Edward Gibbon, journal entry, November 24, 1762

So that's all right then, for Dickens use in Barnaby Rudge. And it turns out that Dickens had his own sandwich memories, though this one doesn't seem happy at all:

A longer time afterwards he recollected the stage-coach journey, and said in one of his published papers that never had he forgotten, through all the intervening years, the smell of the damp straw in which he was packed and forwarded like game, carriage-paid. “There was no other inside passenger, and I consumed my sandwiches in solitude and dreariness, and it rained hard all the way, and I thought life sloppier than I expected to find it.”

Dickens writing of his journey when he was 10
to join his family in their new home,

Life of Charles Dickens by John Foster

I found a few more of Dickens' sandwiches when I was looking around.

Great Expectations: My guardian then took me into his own room, and while he lunched, standing, from a sandwich-box and a pocket flask of sherry (he seemed to bully his very sandwich as he ate it), informed me what arrangements he had made for me.

Bleak House: "My dear son," said Mr. Turveydrop, "you have four schools this afternoon. I would recommend a hasty sandwich."

Mugby Junction: "Well!" said Our Missis, with dilated nostrils. "Take a fresh, crisp, long, crusty penny loaf made of the whitest and best flour. Cut it longwise through the middle. Insert a fair and nicely fitting slice of ham. Tie a smart piece of ribbon round the middle of the whole to bind it together. Add at one end a neat wrapper of clean white paper by which to hold it. And the universal French Refreshment sangwich busts on your disgusted vision."

Uncommercial Traveller: Between the pieces, we almost all of us went out and refreshed. Many of us went the length of drinking beer at the bar of the neighbouring public-house, some of us drank spirits, crowds of us had sandwiches and ginger-beer at the refreshment-bars established for us in the Theatre. The sandwich--as substantial as was consistent with portability, and as cheap as possible--we hailed as one of our greatest institutions. It forced its way among us at all stages of the entertainment, and we were always delighted to see it; its adaptability to the varying moods of our nature was surprising; we could never weep so comfortably as when our tears fell on our sandwich; we could never laugh so heartily as when we choked with sandwich; Virtue never looked so beautiful or Vice so deformed as when we paused, sandwich in hand, to consider what would come of that resolution of Wickedness in boots, to sever Innocence in flowered chintz from Honest Industry in striped stockings. When the curtain fell for the night, we still fell back upon sandwich, to help us through the rain and mire, and home to bed.

Dickens must have enjoyed a good sandwich as much as I do. I'll have one of those universal French Refreshment sangwiches for lunch, please!

Around Here: Dickens and Boxer

This is from some time ago but never fails to amuse me.

Boxer, feeling that his attentions were due to the family in general, and must be impartially distributed, dashed in and out with bewildering inconstancy; now, describing a circle of short barks round the horse, where he was being rubbed down at the stable-door; now feigning to make savage rushes at his mistress, and facetiously bringing himself to sudden stops; now, eliciting a shriek from Tilly Slowboy, in the low nursing-chair near the fire, by the unexpected application of his moist nose to her countenance; now, exhibiting an obtrusive interest in the baby; now, going round and round upon the hearth, and lying down as if he had established himself for the night; now, getting up again, and taking that nothing of a fag-end of a tail of his, out into the weather, as if he had just remembered an appointment, and was off, at a round trot, to keep it.

Courtesy of Project Gutenberg where
this novella is available free in a variety of formats

One of my favorite bits in the beginning of The Cricket on the Hearth is accuracy of Charles Dickens' description of the Perrybingles' dog, Boxer. Ours is a "double Boxer" household and ours are almost constantly displaying some of those very attributes.

Chances are that the Boxers of Dickens' day didn't look precisely like those we have today, but they surely acted like them!

This article shows current Boxers and if you scroll down you can see how they probably looked in Dickens' day.

The Grill

The Grill
painted by Karin Jurick

I love paintings showing the details of ordinary, modern life. No one did it better than Karin Jurick.

Cooking and the Ballet

Noncooks think it's silly to invest two hours' work in two minutes' enjoyment; but if cooking is evanescent, so is the ballet.

Julia Child

Sometimes I think of this quote when I am cooking. Then I think of how many other things in my life are considered evanescent and how I enjoy them.

And the Winner Is — 1937

 Our family is working our way through Oscar winners and whichever nominees take our fancy. Also as they are available, since these early films continued to be hard to find.

This was a delightfully mixed bag ranging from drama to screwball comedy. All of them were entertaining enough to make a good evening's viewing. 

WINNER

The story of a legendary musical producer whose unerring eye for the heart of a performance allows a variety of well-known entertainers to flourish. Unfortunately, he also had a perfectionist side which sent the bills sky high and an eye for beautiful women which caused problems for his marriage.

We were surprised at how good this was — light, funny dialogue and William Powell's charisma carry the day. I could also see how it would have appealed to a 1936 audience who were probably sorely in need of fantasy — the shows were extravagent visual fantasies that would have been a wonderful break from Depression life.

 NOMINEES

Longfellow Deeds lives in a small town, leading a small town kind of life. When a relative dies and leaves Deeds a fortune, Longfellow moves to the big city where he becomes an instant target for everyone. Deeds outwits them all until Babe Bennett comes along. When small-town boy meets big-city girl anything can, and does, happen.

Frank Capra with essentially an early version of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. It's okay but just watch Mr. Smith instead.

A beautiful singer and a battling priest try to reform a Barbary Coast saloon owner in the days before the great earthquake and subsequent fires in 1906.

This has over-the-top drama, lots and lots of songs, too much opera, and a spectacular earthquake and subsequent fire. It also has a moral battle between Spencer Tracy as the priest and Clark Gable as the bad boy. It was entertaining the whole way.

When a major newspaper accuses wealthy socialite Connie Allenbury of being a home-wrecker, and she files a multi-million-dollar libel lawsuit, the publication’s frazzled head editor, Warren Haggerty, must find a way to turn the tables on her. 

William Powell and Myrna Loy made 14 films together and this is a sterling example of their versatility, talent and charisma. The film itself was a good screwball comedy but not enough to make it better than the 1937 Best Picture rightly went to The Great Zeigfeld, which also starred ... Powell and Loy.

The exciting story of Dr. Manette, who escapes the horrors of the infamous Bastille prison in Paris. The action switches between London and Paris on the eve of the revolution where we witness ‘the best of times and the worst of times’ - love, hope, the uncaring French Aristocrats and the terror of a revolutionary citizen’s army intent on exacting revenge.

Here's the one that should have won the Oscar. Until we watched it we agreed with The Ziegfeld Follies as Best Picture. This blew our socks off. It was practically perfect in every way and made me a Ronald Colman fan for life. (My full review here.)

=======

All the Oscar viewing is here.

Julie and Scott just arrived on Earth. Scott thinks the thermostat is set too high. Julie is frustrated when a seagull takes her sandwich with no reprisal. Who is managing this place? Then they realize — Earth is wild and does what it wants.

 In Episode 352 of A Good Story is Hard to find we discuss Ad Limina by Cyril Jones-Kellett.

The Solemnity of the Annunciation

It's a solemnity! No fasting!

Leonardo da Vinci. The Annunciation.

On today's feast the Church celebrates the mystery of the Incarnation and, at the same time, the vocation of Our Lady. It was her faithful response to the angel's message, her fiat, that began the work of redemption...

The setting of this feast day, March 25th, corresponds to Christmas. In addition, there is ancient tradition that the creation of the world and the commencement and conclusion of the Redemption all happened to coincide at the vernal equinox.

As the greatest proof of his love for us, God had his only Son become man to save us from our sins. In this way Jesus merited for us the dignity of becoming children of God. His arrival signaled the fullness of time. St. Paul puts it quite literally that Jesus was born of a woman. (cf The Navarre Bible, Romans and Galatians, note to Gal 4:4) Jesus did not come to earth as a spirit. He truly became man, like one of us. He received his human nature from Our Lady's immaculate womb. Today's feat, therefore, is really in honor of Jesus and Mary. That is why Fr. Luis de Granada has pointed out: It is reasonable to consider, first and foremost, the purity and sanctity of the Woman whom God chose 'ab aeterno' to give form to his humanity.

When God decided to create the first man, he first took care to create a fitting environment for him, which was the Garden of Eden. It makes sense, then, that when God made ready to send his Son, the Christ, he likewise prepared for him a worthy environment, namely, the body and soul of the Blessed Virgin. (Life of Jesus Christ, I)

As we consider the significance of this Solemnity, we find Jesus very closely united to Mary. When the Blessed Virgin said Yes, freely, to the plans revealed to her by the Creator, the divine Word assumed a human nature: a rational soul and a body, which was formed in the most pure womb of Mary. The divine nature and the human were united in a single Person: Jesus Christ, true God and, thenceforth, true Man; the only-begotten and eternal Son of the Father, and from that moment on, as Man, the true son of Mary. ... (J. Escriva, Friends of God, 274)

In Conversation with God,
Vol. 6: Special Feasts: January to June

There is more from this reflection featured in this previous post for this solemnity.

Annunciation by illustrator Edmund Dulac, 1916.

The Annunciation by Luc-Olivier Merson

The Murderbot Diaries

Since I've run a few Murderbot quotes lately I thought I'd rerun the review of the series which I first highlighted in 2021.

I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don't know, a little under 35,00 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure. — All Systems Red

The first thing you need to know about Murderbot is that it doesn't like humans. Even though its job is to protect them.

The second thing you need to know is that Murderbot would really rather be watching TV. Specifically the most unrealistic soap-opera science fiction available.

These books are the most fun I've had reading for a long time. The story plots are somewhat beside the point, just as in a big, splashy action thriller where what you want is action and thrills. And yet, the plots do matter because that's where we find out that Murderbot actually does care about more than watching TV. 

And, you know, we kind of wind up loving Murderbot, so we care too.

It begins with four novellas.

All Systems Red 

Artificial Condition 

Rogue Protocol 

Exit Strategy 

These four novellas  encompass one large story arc, so in essence they are like four long sections in a book. (So you need to read them in order.)

 The series is light, entertaining, fun, and exciting. All that with a sense of humor and a mystery in each book in order to keep everyone alive. Each novella is a thriller-adventure with Murderbot reluctantly acting as the Security Unit for a group of humans as cover for other things it is trying to accomplish.

I like that Murderbot uses its free will to spend all day watching TV, if possible. I also liked the reason that it was capable of the killing that makes it name itself "Murderbot." 

In a way, the series feels a bit like it could have been from the Firefly universe. Or maybe Futurama? Every time Murderbot said "kill all humans" - and it was said a fair number of times - Bender flashed before my eyes. 

I've seen a few complaints that the novellas are too short and episodic feeling. You mean just like the entertainment that Murderbot loves to watch so much? Maybe that's why I like them. Sometimes what you want is a good episodic adventure with a likable hero struggling against the odds. And that's what the novellas give us. 

Network Effect

If the novellas are like TV episodes, then the novel is the movie we've been waiting for. 

This book put me in the almost unprecedented position of wanting to read as fast as possible (the way I always do with the Murderbot books) and yet to also slow down so the story didn't unfold and end too soon. So I read every spare moment, but deliberately ... and that made the book last two days! Hahaha - mission accomplished. 

Martha Wells wove a complex action-adventure story that kept me on the edge of my seat while taking the time to further develop Murderbot's character. Not to mention developing those of past friends and new partners in action. Toward the end a new character is added in the most satisfying yet surprising way - one I hope we see more of in the future. 

The novellas are good but the novel is better. 

Read the novel after the novellas.

Fugitive Telemetry

System Collapse

Now there are a couple more novellas. Fugitive Telemetry is a murder mystery set before Network Effect. I like to read it after Exit Strategy but it really doesn't matter. 

System Collapse is set after Network Effect and is the least successful of the series in my opinion. Wells has Murderbot dealing with a personal problem in an exceptional clunky way. However, the last half of the book more than makes up for the slow beginning. It is very rewarding for those who, like me, enjoy Murderbot's love of media.