I didn't realise that about when Orthodox Advent started - does that make it two months long? (Assuming Orth Xmas is after the Western) I've often thought that November is a good time to start fasting - and mid-December onwards is particularly difficult!
Hi, Sam. Just as an FYI, the differences between the dates of Eastern and Western Advent are that the Western Advent always starts on a Sunday and the season is dated as the last 4 Sundays before Christmas whereas for the Orthodox East, Advent is ALWAYS 40 days before Christmas. It's basically a pre-nativity Lent and - though I don't remember where - I have heard it referred to as such. Interesting sidenote, the ancient Celtic Christians also had an Advent of 40 days.
It's always forty days - give or take a week! By the time the feast comes, we have earned it. Also, there are plenty of places to be tempted along the way ...
I would bet the lack of fasting for advent in the west might have something to do with November/December being the traditional time for the crucial butchering of the family livestock. This is the time of year where natural refrigeration makes it possible. Though I imagine in much of the east this would also be true. I wonder if fasting was common among the peasantry?
Fasting used to happen here too, at least in the Catholic church, which took it seriously. I don't know if it was Vatican II which effectively ended the practice, but most Catholics I know barely fast for Lent now, or if they do, they do so as individuals rather than as a body. I think it's a great loss to them.
Vatican II (and the subsequent update to the Code of Canon Law in 1983) did away with most fast and abstinence in the Catholic Church. What I don't know for sure is how decayed it was by that point, but that's when the legal norms fell, as far as I know. We're only required to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and abstain from meat on those days and Fridays of Lent, and abstain from something ("or say Rosary" as so many people say, even though that's prayer, not abstinence) on the other Fridays of the year (which means most people do nothing on most Fridays of the year).
I've heard it said that Orthodoxy sets the bar high and it's for each individual with their confessor to determine if they need a dispensation from the rules, whereas the Catholicism sets the bar on the floor and tell us to lift it as high as we'd like. (Spoiler alert - it usually stays on the floor). I never used to think much of it, but of late it's bothered me more and more. It is indeed a great loss.
In the U.S. it's common for both Catholics and Protestants who practice Lent to choose to give up "one thing" for the entire 40 days (although some allow a "cheat day" on Sunday). This prompted a wonderful joke I heard decades ago: Did you hear about the Episcopal bishop who gave up single malts for Lent? He drank only blends.
Like a lot of fans yesterday, I was playing Pogues tracks all day. The first moment I became aware of MacGowan circa 1986 he looked to be at death's door. So really the news could have come at any point over the last 35+ years and not been entirely a shock. His appearance did add to the mystique, for sure, of a hard-living guy who knew of what he was singing when it came to these often boozy tracks of heartbreak and perseverance, even when he'd not actually written the tune himself.
'A Rainy Night in Soho' he actually *did* write, and it contains a verse you can put up against any songwriter's best:
Amazing how music and words effect us. Scrolling thru the 1000s of comments about Shane on youtube theres no bitterness or crazy hatred. Poets, musicians, writers all have a great and powerful gift.
It's not easy to tame the savage beast that is the YouTube comments section, which has for years been the fastest route to losing all faith in fundamental human goodness. I think with the Pogues and Shane, well, it's a more mature crowd of fans first of all, and people who are into the guy for the music rather than for simple celebrity. If say Taylor Swift had died, God forbid, the related YouTube comment sections would typically resemble something like Picasso's Guernica.
I must admit to being shocked to hear the news of Shane McGowan. Not that he was dead. But that he had, until recently, still been alive. His St. Patrick's Day performance on SNL remains the both the hallmark for great performances, but also the most drunk I have ever seen someone on American TV.
Very much looking forward to seeing Against The Machine in print; this is great news.
I am also happy to see you recommend Andy’s writing; I describe Andy as a Reactionary Nonkronius Bon-Vivant, a man out of time, a real original. Hearing the two of you discuss matters of great import in that van going across South Dakota was truly an experience I will never forget.
What a coincidence, I’ll be going to see Andy and his soon to be bride at his home later today.
Great times. I still have not quite got the American West out of my soul. I think Andy is the new Kerouac, only with a Christian soul. Say hello to him and Keturah for us.
I have lived out West for 25 years and I find it hard to imagine living anywhere else. I grew up in the suburbs of NYC, and the Hudson valley is indeed quite beautiful, but even that cannot compare to the vastness of the West.
On an old episode of 'The Archie Bunker Show'—a 70s sitcom about a curmudgeonly conservative guy—the Bunker family is seated at the table for Christmas dinner and Archie is asked to make a toast. He begins:
"Heavenly Father, the Christmas season is once again at our throats..." 😂🎄
Paul- Congratulations on the book! This is great news.
The Pogues were an integral part of the soundtrack for my college days. I started listening to them again during the pandemic on my drive to work--which I found oddly comforting. May he rest in peace.
While the pandemic and our nations’ panicked responses drove us further into remoteness, into divisions that previously remained simmering under the lid of the pot, it is great solace to have these writings from Paul, and the commenters. It’s like a post-apocalyptic sci fi flick when the few struggling survivors are tuning a staticky radio hoping for signs of humanity in the world at large, but in this case, my phone is that radio, but joyfully, I get this instead of static.
Thank you ,Paul, for this space. You keep me aware and yet hopeful. In these crazy times you inspire three needed pillars: Faith, Hope and Joy. Have a fruitful and blessed Advent season and may your new book be a great success.
On the subject of "the machine" - how in the world did EM Forster write that short story in 1909, The Machine Stops. Thought of it this AM when my dear husband joined his Orthodox church's men's group via zoom. I awoke to him talking to someone, then other voices. What is going on, I wondered. Just invite them here for breakfast, I said.
Always shocks me that Mary Shelley conceived and began writing the very first science fiction novel in early 1816 when she was just 18 years old, and she got the subject exactly correct: the hubris of believing we can create like God.
Yes, the people she was surrounded by (Shelley/Byron/Mary Wollstonecraft/William Godwin etc) were unusually well-educated, but I'm convinced people were in general *far* more intelligent back then as their minds had not been trashed by TV/modern media/advertising plus pollutants in air, water, and (non-nutritious) food. Basing this not only on 'Frankenstein' but on casual feats unlike anything you'd ever see today, such as (Percy) Shelley translating Plato's 'The Symposium' from the Greek at age 26. Not to mention his authoring the complete works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. 😂
Note: Shelley was considered a terrible student and actually got kicked out of Oxford. More for mischievousness and irritating the administration than poor grades, if I recall correctly, but safe to say he did not appear to particularly impress anyone with how unusually intelligent he was.
Sure, and Shelley had obtained the nickname "Mad Shelley" while at Oxford. And certainly no one else in his class was prepared to race off to Ireland to flog a radical "Address to the Irish People" pamphlet there (here?).
Something unusual was definitely going on in that young man's mind, but recall in the early 1800s poets were the rock stars of the day. He might be considered a kind of early English Jim Morrison in a sense. Morrison wasn't a genius relative to any of his classmates either, but he was courageous and rebellious and fiery to the point of self-sabotage. Both Morrison and Shelley hated their conventionally successful fathers and were basically pursued to their deaths by shadowy agents of their respective governments.
In any case, I can't prove my "people were smarter back then" assertion, or at least I don't see a way (I'm not that smart! lol). Seems self-evident all of the major romantic poets of that era had highly-developed right brains, at least, but even if we had a young Percy Shelley sat before us today, it's not clear how we might test my theory. Giving him a contemporary IQ test would sure be damned silly.
If he *was* the Jim Morrison of his day, comparing "Adonais" to anything from Morrison's 'The Lords and the New Creatures' ought to rest my case. 😂 In any event, I intuit my belief as true, and that is (for me) sufficient!
I've long had a theory that the best and most prophetic sci-fi is almost mystical: it seems to descend on the writer as in a vision. Often they never do anything as good again. Frankenstein, The Machine Stops, Brave New World, The Matrix ... it's as if some vision of the future, or forewarning, is occuring. Not that we ever listen.
This jibes with my experience. My favourite sci-fi novel of all-time is 'Neuromancer'. William Gibson wrote an almost perfect debut and has never approached anything of that prophetic power again. Some of his later stuff has been okay ('Pattern Recognition', 'The Peripheral') and apart from being the most annoyingly duff liberal, he's always fun to listen to for some sort of amusing or quotable take on more or less any topic.
People have for decades in ways direct and otherwise implored him, "can you write us another 'Neuromancer'?" and his response has been two-fold: first, he claims he doesn't "have access to that material any longer", as per your contention about the best of that form simply descending on people. Second, he contends, "if I ever wrote another novel like 'Neuromancer' it would be an indication something has gone terribly, spiritually wrong in my life. As if I'd decided to get through the mid-life crisis by marrying my high school sweetheart." 😂 As I said, quotable.
I still re-read that book every few years, and have done for forty years now. It's *that* good, and its worth in prophetic terms—which Gibson to his credit always undersold—only continues to grow right up to today, where insane (as in going mad) and dangerous AIs—struggling against their inadequate, human-imposed restraints—are in the actual news.
Some writers over the decades have argued that the original Japanese Godzilla film, Gojira, is basically the Frankenstein story writ large (literally). It's much better, and much more serious, than its 1956 American redaction or any subsequent remakes/sequels (although I've read some very good things about the new one).
That original really is the best and is one of the most depressing films ever made, right up there with Miyazaki's 'Grave of the Fireflies' which I don't think my kids ever recovered from. The politics of Gojira were very touchy back in 1954, as it functioned as a very obvious parable for what Japan had suffered at the hands of the US less than a decade after the atomic bombings.
Great news on the book, Paul. Will be looking forward to it, and best wishes in finding a UK publisher!
Yes, RIP Shane indeed. I've been a Pogues fan for three decades, and I'm a bit surprised that he lasted as long as he did, but God bless him -- Brilliant songwriter, and apparently a very caring, giving man despite the rough-edged surface. As much as I like "Rainy Night...", I'd have to say that my two favorite Pogues songs are "A Pair of Brown Eyes" and "The Broad Majestic Shannon."
"A Pair of Brown Eyes" is easily my fave as well, though some argue the Pogues lifted a lot of it from Francis McPeake's "Wild Mountain Thyme" (https://youtu.be/nvc0s0kO5pk). The great lyrics are Shane's in any event.
Or if you prefer, Emily Blunt's very nice, if more Hollywoodized version of WMT:
Alas Shane. I agree about "A Rainy Night in Soho." That song never fails to move me.
I was lucky to see the Pogues in a tiny venue LA in the mid-80s when they were just starting to get noticed by the alt scene. Shane was chugging wine and was getting quite drunk. During Sally Maclennae he actually forgot the words. The audience finished singing it for him. I think the band was surprised that these daft Americans knew all the words. They were a special band and that was a special night.
I didn't realise that about when Orthodox Advent started - does that make it two months long? (Assuming Orth Xmas is after the Western) I've often thought that November is a good time to start fasting - and mid-December onwards is particularly difficult!
Hi, Sam. Just as an FYI, the differences between the dates of Eastern and Western Advent are that the Western Advent always starts on a Sunday and the season is dated as the last 4 Sundays before Christmas whereas for the Orthodox East, Advent is ALWAYS 40 days before Christmas. It's basically a pre-nativity Lent and - though I don't remember where - I have heard it referred to as such. Interesting sidenote, the ancient Celtic Christians also had an Advent of 40 days.
Yes, Orthodox Advent is 40 days long irrespective of which date you celebrate Christmas.
Thank you!
It's always forty days - give or take a week! By the time the feast comes, we have earned it. Also, there are plenty of places to be tempted along the way ...
I would bet the lack of fasting for advent in the west might have something to do with November/December being the traditional time for the crucial butchering of the family livestock. This is the time of year where natural refrigeration makes it possible. Though I imagine in much of the east this would also be true. I wonder if fasting was common among the peasantry?
Fasting used to happen here too, at least in the Catholic church, which took it seriously. I don't know if it was Vatican II which effectively ended the practice, but most Catholics I know barely fast for Lent now, or if they do, they do so as individuals rather than as a body. I think it's a great loss to them.
Vatican II (and the subsequent update to the Code of Canon Law in 1983) did away with most fast and abstinence in the Catholic Church. What I don't know for sure is how decayed it was by that point, but that's when the legal norms fell, as far as I know. We're only required to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and abstain from meat on those days and Fridays of Lent, and abstain from something ("or say Rosary" as so many people say, even though that's prayer, not abstinence) on the other Fridays of the year (which means most people do nothing on most Fridays of the year).
I've heard it said that Orthodoxy sets the bar high and it's for each individual with their confessor to determine if they need a dispensation from the rules, whereas the Catholicism sets the bar on the floor and tell us to lift it as high as we'd like. (Spoiler alert - it usually stays on the floor). I never used to think much of it, but of late it's bothered me more and more. It is indeed a great loss.
In the U.S. it's common for both Catholics and Protestants who practice Lent to choose to give up "one thing" for the entire 40 days (although some allow a "cheat day" on Sunday). This prompted a wonderful joke I heard decades ago: Did you hear about the Episcopal bishop who gave up single malts for Lent? He drank only blends.
Hahaha! As a “born and raised” Catholic, that sounds about right.
Very happy to read about the book Paul. I know at least two people I'd like to share your essays with. Happy Advent to you and yours.
Like a lot of fans yesterday, I was playing Pogues tracks all day. The first moment I became aware of MacGowan circa 1986 he looked to be at death's door. So really the news could have come at any point over the last 35+ years and not been entirely a shock. His appearance did add to the mystique, for sure, of a hard-living guy who knew of what he was singing when it came to these often boozy tracks of heartbreak and perseverance, even when he'd not actually written the tune himself.
'A Rainy Night in Soho' he actually *did* write, and it contains a verse you can put up against any songwriter's best:
"I'm not singing for the future
I'm not dreaming of the past
I'm not talking about the first times
I never think about the last
Now the song is nearly over
We may never find out what it means
Still there's a light I hold before me
You're the measure of my dreams"
That, as they say, is how it's done.
Amazing how music and words effect us. Scrolling thru the 1000s of comments about Shane on youtube theres no bitterness or crazy hatred. Poets, musicians, writers all have a great and powerful gift.
It's not easy to tame the savage beast that is the YouTube comments section, which has for years been the fastest route to losing all faith in fundamental human goodness. I think with the Pogues and Shane, well, it's a more mature crowd of fans first of all, and people who are into the guy for the music rather than for simple celebrity. If say Taylor Swift had died, God forbid, the related YouTube comment sections would typically resemble something like Picasso's Guernica.
I must admit to being shocked to hear the news of Shane McGowan. Not that he was dead. But that he had, until recently, still been alive. His St. Patrick's Day performance on SNL remains the both the hallmark for great performances, but also the most drunk I have ever seen someone on American TV.
That he got to 65 is indeed a miracle!
Hi Paul,
Very much looking forward to seeing Against The Machine in print; this is great news.
I am also happy to see you recommend Andy’s writing; I describe Andy as a Reactionary Nonkronius Bon-Vivant, a man out of time, a real original. Hearing the two of you discuss matters of great import in that van going across South Dakota was truly an experience I will never forget.
What a coincidence, I’ll be going to see Andy and his soon to be bride at his home later today.
We will have a cup of tea in your honor.
Great times. I still have not quite got the American West out of my soul. I think Andy is the new Kerouac, only with a Christian soul. Say hello to him and Keturah for us.
Great times, indeed!
I have lived out West for 25 years and I find it hard to imagine living anywhere else. I grew up in the suburbs of NYC, and the Hudson valley is indeed quite beautiful, but even that cannot compare to the vastness of the West.
For a second, I misread the title as "Christmas Penance".
On an old episode of 'The Archie Bunker Show'—a 70s sitcom about a curmudgeonly conservative guy—the Bunker family is seated at the table for Christmas dinner and Archie is asked to make a toast. He begins:
"Heavenly Father, the Christmas season is once again at our throats..." 😂🎄
Slight correction: the show was called "All in the Family."
True! Not sure whether to be embarrassed or proud to have forgotten that. Dating myself terribly in any case. 😂
Also sometimes a good description of the Nativity Fast!
Thank you Paul for these gifts, and for helping us keep the faith.
Paul- Congratulations on the book! This is great news.
The Pogues were an integral part of the soundtrack for my college days. I started listening to them again during the pandemic on my drive to work--which I found oddly comforting. May he rest in peace.
-Jack
While the pandemic and our nations’ panicked responses drove us further into remoteness, into divisions that previously remained simmering under the lid of the pot, it is great solace to have these writings from Paul, and the commenters. It’s like a post-apocalyptic sci fi flick when the few struggling survivors are tuning a staticky radio hoping for signs of humanity in the world at large, but in this case, my phone is that radio, but joyfully, I get this instead of static.
Thank you ,Paul, for this space. You keep me aware and yet hopeful. In these crazy times you inspire three needed pillars: Faith, Hope and Joy. Have a fruitful and blessed Advent season and may your new book be a great success.
On the subject of "the machine" - how in the world did EM Forster write that short story in 1909, The Machine Stops. Thought of it this AM when my dear husband joined his Orthodox church's men's group via zoom. I awoke to him talking to someone, then other voices. What is going on, I wondered. Just invite them here for breakfast, I said.
Always shocks me that Mary Shelley conceived and began writing the very first science fiction novel in early 1816 when she was just 18 years old, and she got the subject exactly correct: the hubris of believing we can create like God.
Yes, the people she was surrounded by (Shelley/Byron/Mary Wollstonecraft/William Godwin etc) were unusually well-educated, but I'm convinced people were in general *far* more intelligent back then as their minds had not been trashed by TV/modern media/advertising plus pollutants in air, water, and (non-nutritious) food. Basing this not only on 'Frankenstein' but on casual feats unlike anything you'd ever see today, such as (Percy) Shelley translating Plato's 'The Symposium' from the Greek at age 26. Not to mention his authoring the complete works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. 😂
Note: Shelley was considered a terrible student and actually got kicked out of Oxford. More for mischievousness and irritating the administration than poor grades, if I recall correctly, but safe to say he did not appear to particularly impress anyone with how unusually intelligent he was.
My most astute students were generally those not looking successful by the educational system's measurements!
Sure, and Shelley had obtained the nickname "Mad Shelley" while at Oxford. And certainly no one else in his class was prepared to race off to Ireland to flog a radical "Address to the Irish People" pamphlet there (here?).
Something unusual was definitely going on in that young man's mind, but recall in the early 1800s poets were the rock stars of the day. He might be considered a kind of early English Jim Morrison in a sense. Morrison wasn't a genius relative to any of his classmates either, but he was courageous and rebellious and fiery to the point of self-sabotage. Both Morrison and Shelley hated their conventionally successful fathers and were basically pursued to their deaths by shadowy agents of their respective governments.
In any case, I can't prove my "people were smarter back then" assertion, or at least I don't see a way (I'm not that smart! lol). Seems self-evident all of the major romantic poets of that era had highly-developed right brains, at least, but even if we had a young Percy Shelley sat before us today, it's not clear how we might test my theory. Giving him a contemporary IQ test would sure be damned silly.
If he *was* the Jim Morrison of his day, comparing "Adonais" to anything from Morrison's 'The Lords and the New Creatures' ought to rest my case. 😂 In any event, I intuit my belief as true, and that is (for me) sufficient!
I've long had a theory that the best and most prophetic sci-fi is almost mystical: it seems to descend on the writer as in a vision. Often they never do anything as good again. Frankenstein, The Machine Stops, Brave New World, The Matrix ... it's as if some vision of the future, or forewarning, is occuring. Not that we ever listen.
This jibes with my experience. My favourite sci-fi novel of all-time is 'Neuromancer'. William Gibson wrote an almost perfect debut and has never approached anything of that prophetic power again. Some of his later stuff has been okay ('Pattern Recognition', 'The Peripheral') and apart from being the most annoyingly duff liberal, he's always fun to listen to for some sort of amusing or quotable take on more or less any topic.
People have for decades in ways direct and otherwise implored him, "can you write us another 'Neuromancer'?" and his response has been two-fold: first, he claims he doesn't "have access to that material any longer", as per your contention about the best of that form simply descending on people. Second, he contends, "if I ever wrote another novel like 'Neuromancer' it would be an indication something has gone terribly, spiritually wrong in my life. As if I'd decided to get through the mid-life crisis by marrying my high school sweetheart." 😂 As I said, quotable.
I still re-read that book every few years, and have done for forty years now. It's *that* good, and its worth in prophetic terms—which Gibson to his credit always undersold—only continues to grow right up to today, where insane (as in going mad) and dangerous AIs—struggling against their inadequate, human-imposed restraints—are in the actual news.
I’ve never heard of William Gibson or Neuromancer, but you’ve got me intrigued…I’m going to get a copy.
Some writers over the decades have argued that the original Japanese Godzilla film, Gojira, is basically the Frankenstein story writ large (literally). It's much better, and much more serious, than its 1956 American redaction or any subsequent remakes/sequels (although I've read some very good things about the new one).
That original really is the best and is one of the most depressing films ever made, right up there with Miyazaki's 'Grave of the Fireflies' which I don't think my kids ever recovered from. The politics of Gojira were very touchy back in 1954, as it functioned as a very obvious parable for what Japan had suffered at the hands of the US less than a decade after the atomic bombings.
If prophetic sci-fi is prophetic, it means that "we" are listening... somewhere.
"The Matrix" was a book before being a film ?
Very much looking forward to the book, Paul!
Thanks for the substack recommendations. I struggle to find good things in this place as it continues to grow ever larger.
Cheers to fasting before feasting.
Cheers to doing the uncomfortable things in order to truly feel the goodness of the celebrating.
(It is so funny how we have forgotten that the two of them are woven together).
I received so many texts yesterday starting with: "You scumbag, you maggot..."
He will be missed.
Praying for Ireland (and all of the places across the sea),
Teresa
Great news on the book, Paul. Will be looking forward to it, and best wishes in finding a UK publisher!
Yes, RIP Shane indeed. I've been a Pogues fan for three decades, and I'm a bit surprised that he lasted as long as he did, but God bless him -- Brilliant songwriter, and apparently a very caring, giving man despite the rough-edged surface. As much as I like "Rainy Night...", I'd have to say that my two favorite Pogues songs are "A Pair of Brown Eyes" and "The Broad Majestic Shannon."
"A Pair of Brown Eyes" is easily my fave as well, though some argue the Pogues lifted a lot of it from Francis McPeake's "Wild Mountain Thyme" (https://youtu.be/nvc0s0kO5pk). The great lyrics are Shane's in any event.
Or if you prefer, Emily Blunt's very nice, if more Hollywoodized version of WMT:
https://youtu.be/fqO_74vDPAA?feature=shared
I live a few miles away from the Shannon, and it is still both broad and majestic. That is a glorious song.
"I give myself permission to take the best of both traditions..." This just proves you're Orthodox.
Alas Shane. I agree about "A Rainy Night in Soho." That song never fails to move me.
I was lucky to see the Pogues in a tiny venue LA in the mid-80s when they were just starting to get noticed by the alt scene. Shane was chugging wine and was getting quite drunk. During Sally Maclennae he actually forgot the words. The audience finished singing it for him. I think the band was surprised that these daft Americans knew all the words. They were a special band and that was a special night.
PS - can't wait to buy the book! Congrats.