Holidays
Seventy Years Ago This Day
On June 22, 1941, a day that will live in infamy (everywhere else but America), the Wehrmacht poured over the barely established line of partition between the Hun-dominated Third Reich and the Georgian-dominated Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. So began Operation Barbarossa, the largest invasion in human history.
It was named for Frederick I Barbarossa, the twelfth century Holy Roman Emperor and Hohenstaufen powerhouse who went east on Crusade only to drown ignominiously in an obscure Anatolian river along the way. After his death, Barbarossa became a sort of Hun Arthur. Hun legend told that Barbarossa hadn’t died in the swirling mountain currents of the Saleph. Instead, Barbarossa was sleeping with his knights in a cave under a mountain in Hun-Land named Kyffhauser. Once the ravens stop circling this mountain, Barbarossa will arise and lead the Hun back to his ancient greatness.
Or something.
Doting Dads of History
Just in time for Father’s Day, this puff piece purports to list the 12 most doting dads in history. Its criteria for measuring paternal dotage are vague but seem to center on dads who educated their daughters when it was historically unfashionable to do so. Charlemagne (#10), Thomas More (#8), and Lt. Col. George Lucas (#7, not the one you’ve heard of) get mad props for being pioneers of women’s rights.
Based on that criteria, I’d add three more doting dads of history to their list:
Repose
I have so much I should be doing I keep clamping down so I don’t have a panic attack.
But, its Memorial Day and I am taking it easy. I have been going to read Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities for a long, long time. And I finally bought the highly praised recent translation last year. As a devotee of all things literary pertaining to the final years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (e.g. the three masterpieces: The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth, and The Snows of Yesteryear by Gregor von Rezzori and The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig), Musil is long overdue.
So, I managed to evade the rest of the family and get a few minutes on the front porch with Musil and a stiff glass of lime, ice, tonic water and Tanqueray gin — which was in the back of the cabinet and forgotten until a few days ago.
Chicken and grilled veggies up next.
God bless America.
Memorial Day
God bless our veterans, living and dead. God bless America.
Recessional, by Rudyard Kipling (1897)
God of our fathers, known of old—
Lord of our far-flung battle line—
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
The tumult and the shouting dies—
The Captains and the Kings depart—
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
Far-called our navies melt away—
On dune and headland sinks the fire—
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe—
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard—
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding calls not Thee to guard.
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!
Amen.
Here is a version of Recessional being sung by Leonard Warren.
(“Far-called, our navies melt away…” I have always found something very stirring about that phrase. I always imagine the shock of some final military disaster striking, and the news spreading, and weeping and numbed silence, the end of hope, the knowledge that the tide has turned against you at last and forever. May we never see such days. And this: “All valiant dust that builds on dust, and guarding calls not Thee to guard.” I think of that one all the time.)