Why Saturnalia? Well, as a card carrying atheist, I think it would be mildly hypocritical of me to celebrate Christmas in the manner in which it ought to be celebrated and so I celebrate the pagan Roman festival which is the reason Christmas is roughly where it is in the calendar. It was so much easier for the early Christians to hi-jack an existing festival than to try to create a whole new one. What's interesting is that with every passing century Christmas comes to resemble Saturnalia more and more. Overeating, indulgence in too much alcohol, a lot of tomfoolery and exchanging gifts so that for many people in the west the whole point of Christmas is exactly that! All we need now is to introduce Saturnalian role reversal (masters served slaves so read ruled get waited on by rulers) and we would have come full circle.
Below is an e-card I received from MG (he sends 'home-made' ones every year) and the Penguin couldn't agree more!
You are being a jerk.
ReplyDeleteThe sentiment is for the recipient, not the sender.
So, Happy Saturnalia to you-
And I will hurry up and run over to your side for a moment and say
"Merry Christmas" to me.
There. That is better.
Also, I had the most splendid evening listening to my niece play harp surrounded by candlight. One of the older fellows' wax catcher caught fire, so the show was stolen for a moment while we watched to see if the man in front of him could blow it out before his shirt went up in flames.
It was quite idyllic.
Blessings,
The Stuck-up, Proud, Traditional
Am
Santa brought the penguin something, but since penguins don't believe and since Santa couldn't find the semi by the sea, it will sit on the shelf until next year.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to the bookstore today to find more Feynman, amongst others. If you have a chance, email me the french books that you mentioned before. Finding things in the comments section of your blog is never easy.
Also, one more thing: I have a Wild River Child (aka WRC) whose birthday is Sunday. Since you are a 'drorer' of birds and she is also a 'drorer' of birds, I wondered if you had any suggestions of books that I might look at for her.
Right now I've given her my "Drawing with Children" book to look at. She mostly just draws- late into the night- whatever she can, birds, comics, people. So most of her talent comes from just doing it- and an eye for detail, though that isn't mature yet.
Thanks!
Hope you are not stuck somewhere on the ice.
-The Am
The books? They're in the comments to 'Thou, thee & thine and another fairy story' at the end of September.
ReplyDeleteJohn Busby's 'Drawing Birds' is an excellent guide to actually doing it. He's an artist and teacher here in the UK. It's available in softback on amazon.com for about $13.50.
Alternatively, for examples of how it should be done, any 'picture' books by any of the following: Ray (Harris) Ching, Robert Bateman, Charles Tunnicliffe, George McLean, Terence Lambert, Trevor Boyer, Basil Ede, Lars Jonsson, Roger Tory Peterson (not the field guides), Eric Ennion, George Lodge to name a few. Or you could try '20th Century Wildlife Artists' by Nicholas Hammond which is a 'pick & mix' of some 20 of the best with a couple of pictures by each artist, although that seems to be available only as secondhand.