now playing | on the turntable this week

photos | mushrooms

photo | magritte lives

ron reed | the great canadian poem

Ashes Are Butterfly Bones Made Of Light And Dust:
God's Bones in their Wings
for Peter Norman

His bones are light,
(radiant, bone-barred):
Even the smallest bone 
in his inner ear, the bone chapel—
bone etchings,
bone song,
bone dance,
bone dream,
bone silence.

Old momma teach me nerve ends
made of juniper and bone,
bear bones and feathers,
bread and not bone;
the bone broker.

Here is a bone resembling a word;
milk tooth bane bone
seed-bone and hammer.

When the bone fragments arc to earth
the bone's song will be pulled,
descending to my ankle-bones.
The wind picks up the dust from the ashes,
the white of bone;
your bone, Morgan's bones, lean and boneless,
the jazz-loosened loose bone thing he is.

We will have only bones to hold;
the bone ash of
a red herring-bone skirt clasped with a bone button
buried among femurs and knuckle bones
where the bones 
of the child are hid.

The stone’s praise
for the sparrow’s ankle bone
rising like a frozen flood
of stone bone birds on the wing singing.

I'm chilled clean through to the bone.

by Ron Reed
with Margaret Avison, Leonard Cohen, Joy Kagawa, Lorna Crozier, Lorne Daniel, Daniela Elza, Moira MacDougall, Michael McAloran, Cassidy McFadzean, Kath MacLean, Jill Battson, Joe Blades, Louise Halfe, Ben Ladouceur, Dennis Lee, Christine Murray, Carol Shillibeer, Anne Simpson, Elizabeth Zetlin, and Robert W. Service

*

What the critics are saying;

"Cuts to the bone and then into the bone, to find the marrow." Turtle Island Native Network

"Most of all it’s felt experience, what’s close to the bone – feelings, emotions, combined with a sense of craft." Cyril Dabydeen

"The poem does not hang straggled and bone-whitened like rags in the bleaching sun. His engagement is with a burned and ruined corpse left out to dry and fossilize with its rag-remnant of torn flesh and chilled bone, an empty jaw-bone, a leaving from a physical life. Here is a victory-song for life pushing up through human-remains, detritus, stink and bone." Bone Orchard Poetry

the feast of the holy crossing

source

may 11, 1926 | tolkien + lewis meet

Eighty-eight years ago today, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis met.

The English Faculty meeting began at 4:00, May 11, 1926 at Merton College, Oxford. The previous year, Tolkien had been appointed Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College, and Lewis had been elected a Fellow and Tutor in English Language and Literature at Magdalen College. 

It was heady stuff; a proposal to co-ordinate lecture schedules with tutorials, the need for lessons in pronunciation and beginners' outlines of literature. Lewis wrote in his journal that "Tolkien managed to get the discussion round to the proposed English Preliminary examination."

The two men spoke after the meeting. "He is a smooth, pale, fluent little chap – can't read Spenser [Lewis' favourite author] because of the forms.... Thinks all literature is written for the amusement of men between thirty and forty.... No harm in him: only needs a smack or two."

Before long, Lewis was attending "The Coalbiters," a weekly study group Tolkien had initiated earlier in the year to read aloud from Icelandic sagas and myths in the original languages – something of a precursor to the Inklings, I suppose. A year later Lewis wrote to his friend Arthur Greeves, "We have so far read the Younger Edda and the Volsung Saga: next term we shall read the Laxdale Saga. You will be able to imagine what a delight this is to me, and how, even in turning over the pages of my Icelandic Dictionary, the mere name of god or giant catching my eye will sometimes throw me back fifteen years into a wild dream of northern skies and Valkyrie music." This experience of "northernness" was at the centre of Lewis' spiritual longing – the "joy" in his spiritual autobiography "Surprised By Joy" – which flowered into faith between 1929 and 1931, Tolkien playing a critical role.

Tolkien's passion for Nordic myth fueled a mostly secret project, the creation of complete histories, languages and geographies of the world which eventually became the setting of his Middle Earth stories. The summer of 1926 – within months of meeting Lewis – is the earliest possible occasion on which Tolkien may have scrawled the words "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit" on the back of a student examination paper, though it is more likely to have been two or three years later. By November 1929 the two men were meeting together regularly, talking well past midnight about "the gods and giants of Asgard."  On December 6, 1929, Lewis read Tolkien's "Lay of Leithien," the essential story of The Silmarillion – perhaps the first Middle Earth story Tolkien shared. 

In February 1933, Lewis read the mostly complete first draft of The Hobbit, and it is likely that The Inklings were begun in the fall of that year. By December, Lewis's brother Warnie writes in his journal that he sees less and less of his brother every day because of the friendship with Tolkien.

Because Tolkien's journals are not readily available to scholars, we don't know that date of the following entry, but likely soon after the famous Addison's Walk conversation of September 19, 1931. "Friendship with Lewis compensates for much, and besides giving constant pleasure and comfort has done me much good from the contact with a man at once honest, brave, intellectual - a scholar, a poet, and a philosopher - and a lover, at least after a long pilgrimage, of Our Lord."

robert farrar capon | apostate from the religions of health

"Isn’t it true that the eating habits of most Americans are killing them?”

My answer is no. People die because the human race is mortal. What they eat may cause them to die sooner (much sooner if they eat strychnine; less soon, perhaps – barring plane crashes – if they eat Hollandaise sauce). But in any case, some time before they reach the age of 120, they will die; and no religion of eating, however perfectly obeyed, will make the slightest difference in that.

Therefore, the last secret of the cult of nutrition – the mystery to be guarded at all costs – is that the implicit promise of immortality (which is the principal selling point of the whole religion) is bunk. The idol in the innermost sanctum doesn’t just have no clothes on; it is even there. But the faithful must scrupulously avoid facing that fact. The one question they must never ask is whether indefinitely on a diet of tofu and organically grown green leaves–without even salt to perk it up, or wine to wash it down, or a nice smoke to top it off–even vaguely resembles living as the human race in its earthly wisdom has defined it.

That, you see, is the big question. And on that, I am one hundred percent apostate from all the religions of health. I am simply tired of uplift, whether at the table, in the armchair, or anywhere else. I am sick of all the pious types who gasp when they watch salt a dish on the stove or put butter and cream in mashed potatoes, or leave a respectable amount of fat on my pork chops when I smother them with onions. I am mortally insulted by snide signs thanking me for not smoking. And I flatly refuse to believe that well-being is in any way furthered by ill-living.

Oh, I know. You want me to qualify all that. You want me to write a paragraph on moderation – or at least a sentence that makes a bow to religion of health – by calling the things I enjoy my “vices.” Or by referring to my smoke-shrouded end of the dinner table as “the sinner’s corner.” But I won’t. A moderate life to me, is about as exciting as a moderate love affair, or a moderate marriage, or a moderate banana split. I want a terrific life. So you write the paragraph yourself, and let me get on with my immoderate pursuit of happiness.

The net result of the religions of food is non-cooking, non-dining, and non-living.


from 
Health, Money and Love (and Why We Don’t Enjoy Them) 
by Robert Farrar Capon

richard klein | eating like a frenchman

Richard Klein first started coming to Paris as a teenager from a small town in Pennsylvania, and has essentially constructed an entire life around the feeling that he got in Paris. He went on to become a scholar and a professor in the Romance Studies Department at Cornell University, author of several books, Eat Fat and Cigarettes Are Sublime, which are deeply suffused with a sensibility that is partly just un-American, or anyway, semi-Parisian, a sensibility that is all about the small pleasures of everyday life.

Richard Klein: "You know, the French have a much more uncomplicated and much less guilty relationship to their body, beginning with eating, not only the way they eat, but the pleasure that they take in eating. I mean, the American notion that food is medicine, for example, is totally repulsive to the French. And yet, increasingly in America, that's all you hear. I mean, people eat only as a function of what they think is good for them. And nobody in France would eat strictly as a function of what was good for them."

 from This American Life 165: Americans In Paris

records of the week | neptoon records

neptoon records | vancouver, bc

photos | measure for measure out-takes 2

The Honest Fishmongers' production at Pacific Theatre features tons of scenes in gorgeous low light, and candle light - which means the photo shoot yielded many pictures that aren't much use for the usual promotional purposes. But I quite like a lot of the discards, so I'll post some of my favourite "not ready for prime time" images from the show. 

records of the week | lotusland

lotusland | vancouver, bc

photos | measure for measure 'out-takes' 1

library

Abrahams, The Fan (BB)
Adair, The Physics of Baseball (BB)
Adler, Baseball Wit (BB)
Ahuja, Fields of Dreams (BB)
Allen, Baseball's 100 (BB)
Angell, Last Innings (BB)
Angell, Season Ticket (BB)
Angell, Five Season (BB)
Angell, The Summer Game (BB)
Angell, Once More Around The Park (BB)
Angell, Game Time (BB)
Asimov (ed), Sherlock Holmes Through Time And Space (mystery)
Asinof, Eight Men Out (BB)
Barry, Bottom of the 33rd (BB)
Beckham, Runner Mack (BB)
Bell/Elliott, Hardball (BB Jays)
Berra, The Yogi Book (BB)
Bisher, Strange But True Baseball Stories (BB Vintage)
Bjarkman, The Toronto Blue Jays (BB Jays)
Bjorkman (ed), Baseball & The Game of Life (BB)
Blessing, Cobb (BB)
Blessing, Oldtimers Game (BB)
Bly, Iron John
Block, The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams (BB)
Boswell, The Heart of the Order (BB)
Bosewell, How Life Imitates The World Series (BB)
Boswell, Why Time Begins on Opening Day (BB)
Bouton, Ball Four (BB)
Bouton, Strike Zone (BB)
Bowen, Fielder's Choice (BB)
Bowering (ed), Taking The Field (BB)
Boyd & Harris, The Great American Baseball Card...Book (BB)
Brinkman & Euchner, The Umpire's Handbook (BB)
Brock, If I Never Get Back (BB)
Broomer, Paul Molitor: Good Timing (BB Jays)
Brown Keylin Lundy, Sports of the Time (BB oversize)
Browne, Girls of Summer (BB)
Brunt, Second To None (BB Jays)
Brunt, Diamond Dreams (BB Jays)
Campanella, It's Good To Be Alive (BB)
Carkeet, The Greatest Slump of All Time (BB)
Cataneo, Peanuts and Crackerjack (BB)
Chabon, Telegraph Avenue
Chadwick, The Illustrated History of Baseball (BB oversize)
Cheek/Berger, Road To Glory (BB Jays)
Cooper, The Southpaw's Secret (BB Vintage)
Coyle, Hardball (BB)
Craft, Rookies of the Year (BB oversize)
Cronin, A Short History of the Long Ball (BB)
Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity
Davidi, The Big 50 (BB Jays)
Dawidoff (ed), Baseball: A Literary Anthology (BB)
Deford (ed), Best American Sports Writing 1993 (BB)
DeLillo, Underworld (BB)
Derleth, The Casebook of Solar Pons (mystery)
Dickey, The History of American League Baseball (BB)
Dickson, Baseball's Greatest Quotations (BB)
DiMaggio, Lucky To Be A Yankee (BB Vintage)
DiMaggio, Dom, Real Grass, Real Heroes (BB)
Donohue, Spitballs & Holy Water (BB)
Douglas, GOOD NIGHT, MR. HOLMES (mystery)
Doyle, THE FINAL ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (mystery)
Doyle, His Last Bow (mystery)
Dravecky, Comeback (BB)
Einstein, Willie's Time (BB)
Einstein, The Baseball Reader (BB)
Einstein, The New Baseball Reader (BB)
Einstein (ed), The Fireside Book of Baseball: Fourth Edition (BB)
Engel, Mr. Doyle & Dr. Bell (mystery)
Evers, Tigers Burnin (BB)
Everson, Suicide Squeeze (BB)
Faber, Baseball Ratings (BB oversize)
Falkner, Nine Sides of the Diamond (BB)
Falkner, The Short Season (BB)
Fowler, The Sweetheart Season (BB)
Friendlich, Relief Pitcher (BB Vintage)
Garagiola, Baseball Is A Funny Game (BB Vintage)
Gardner, The Return of Moriarty (mystery)
Geist, Little League Confidential (BB)
Godfrey, Baseball Crazy (BB Jays)
Goldberg, This Is Next Year (BB)
Goldstein, Superstars and Screwballs (BB)
Goodwin, Wait Till Next Year (BB)
Gordon, Prairie Hardball (BB)
Gordon, Dead Pull Hitter (BB)
Gordon, Safe At Home (BB)
Gordon, Striking Out (BB)
Gordon, Foul Balls (BB Jays)
Gordon (ed), Diamonds Are Forever (BB oversize)
Greenberg, The Celebrant (BB)
Gregorich, She's On First (BB)
Greenberg (ed), On The Diamond: A Treasurey of Baeball Stories (BB)
Greene (ed), THE AMERICAN RIVALS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (mystery)
Gregory, Diz (BB)
Grey, The Young Pitcher (BB Vintage)
Gropman, Say It Ain't So, Joe! (BB)
Grossman, A Baseball Addict's Diary (BB Jays)
Gruber/Boland, Kelly (BB Jays)
Gutman, Baseball Super Teams (BB)
Halberstam, October 1964 (BB)
Halberstam, Summer Of '49 (BB)
Halford, My Utmost
Hall, Fathers Playing Catch With Sons (BB)
Harris, Bang The drum Slowly (BB)
Harris, A Ticket For A Seamstitch (BB)
Harris, The Southpaw (BB Vintage)
Harris, Diamond: Baseball Writings of Mark Harris (BB)
Harvey, They Called Me God (BB)
Harwell, Diamond Gems (BB)
Haughey, The Case of the Frozen Scream (mystery)
Haupt, Me and Dimaggio (BB)
Hays, The Dixie Association (BB)
Heiman etc, When The Cheering Stops (BB)
Henderson, Off Base (BB)
Hernandez, Pure Baseball (BB)
Hershiser, Out of the Blue (BB)
Herzog, You're Missin' a Great Game (BB)
Hodel & Wright, Enter The Lion (mystery)
Holtzman (ed), Fielder's Choice (BB)
Honig, Last Man Out (BB)
Honig, The Plot To Kill Jackie RobinsonHonig, Last Man Out (BB)
Irving, Gone to Glory (BB)
James, The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (BB oversize)
James, The Baseball Book 1990 (BB oversize)
James, The Baseball Book 1991 (BB oversize)
James, The Baseball Book 1993 (BB oversize)
Jones, The Elements Of Hitting (BB)
Jordan, The Suitors of Spring (BB)
Jordan, A False Spring (BB)
Kahn, A Season In The Sun (BB)
Kahn, Good Enough To Dream (BB)
Kahn, The Boys of Summer (BB)
Kahn, The Seventh Game (BB)
Kaufman etc, Moe Berg: Athlete, Scholar, Spy (BB)
Kerrane & Grossinger, Baseball Diamonds (BB)
King, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (BB)
Kingwell, Fail Better (BB)
Kinsella, Shoeless Joe (BB)
Kinsella, The Iowa Baseball Confederacy (BB)
Kinsella, The Thrill of the Grass (BB)
Kinsella, The Dixon Cornbelt League (BB)
Kinsella, The Further Adventures of Slugger McBatt (BB)
Kinsella, If Wishes Were Horses (BB)
Kinsella, Box Socials (BB)
Kinsella, Diamonds Forever (BB)
Kinsella Bisher Perkins, A Series For The World (BB Jays)
Klinkowitz, Short Season (BB)
Kruger, Bullpen (BB)
LaBlanc, Hot Dogs, Heroes & Hooligans (BB oversize)
Lamb, Stolen Season (BB)
Lardner, You KNow Me Al (BB Vintage)
Lau, The Winning Hitter (BB)
Lewis, Moneyball (BB)
Luciano, The Fall of the Roman Umpire (BB)
Lyle, The Bronx Zoo (BB)
Malamud, The Natural (BB)
Mays, Say Hey (BB)
McConnell & Vincent, The Home Run Encyclopedia (BB oversize)

McCormick, Fielder's Choice (BB Vintage)
Meany, Baseball's Greatest Players (BB Vintage)
Meyer, The Canary Trainer (mystery)
Meyer, the Seven-Per-Cent Solution (mystery)
Mote, Everything Baseball (BB oversize)
Nash & Zullo, The Baseball Hall of Shame (BB)
Nash & Zullo, The Baseball Hall of Shame 3 (BB)
Nathan, Baseball Quotations (BB)
Neft Johnson Cohen Deutsch, The Sports Encyclopedia: Baseball (BB oversize)
Nighbert, Strike Zone (BB)
Okrent, Nine Innings (BB)
Orodenker, The Writers' Game (BB)
Owen, Teen-Age Baseball Stories (BB Vintage)
*
Parker, The Godwulf Manuscript (73) 2
Parker, God Save The Child (74)
Parker, Mortal Stakes (75)
Parker, Promised Land (76)
Parker, The Judas Goat (78)
Parker, Looking For Rachel Wallace (80)
Parker, Early Autumn (81a)
Parker, A SAVAGE PLACE (81) get original paperback
Parker, Ceremony (82) missing: get original paperback
Parker, The Widening Gyre (83)
Parker, Valediction (84)
Parker, A Catskill Eagle (85)
Parker, Taming A Sea-horse (86)
Parker, Pale Kings And Princes (87)
Parker, Crimson Joy (88)
Parker, Playmates (89)
Parker, Stardust (90)
Parker, Pastime (91)
Parker, Double Deuce (92)
Parker, Paper Doll (93)
Parker, Walking Shadow (94)
Parker, THIN AIR (95)
Parker, Chance (96)
Parker, Small Vices (97)
Parker, Sudden Mischief (98)
Parker, Hush Money (99)
Parker, Hugger Mugger (00)
Parker, POTSHOT (01)
Parker, WIDOW'S WALK (02)
Parker, BACK STORY (03)
Parker, Bad Business (04)
Parker, Cold Service (05a)
Parker, School Days (05b)
Parker, Hundred-Dollar Baby (06)
Parker, Now And Then (07)
Parker, Rough Weather (08)
parker, chasing the bear: a young spenser novel [get]
Parker, The Professional (09)
Parker, PAINTED LADIES (10)
Parker, SIXKILL (11)
Parker/Atkins, Lullaby (12) 7/?/18
Parker/Brann, SILENT NIGHT (13)
Parker/Atkins, WONDERLAND (13)
Parker/Atkins, Cheap Shot (14) 7/7/18
Parker/Atkins, KICKBACK (2015)
Parker/Atkins, SLOW BURN (2016)
Parker/Atkins, LITTLE WHITE LIES (2017)
parker/atkins, old black magic (2018) [get]
*
Parker, Wilderness (79, non-Spenser)
Parker, Love And Glory (non-Spenser, 83)
Parker/Chandler, POODLE SPRINGS (Marlowe, 89)
Parker, PERCHANCE TO DREAM (Marlowe, 91)
Parker, All Our Yesterdays (non-Spenser, 94)
Parker, Double Play (Jackie Robinson, 94) BB
Parker, Perish Twice (Sunny Randall, 00)
Parker, Appaloosa (western, 05)
Parker, Blue Screen (Sunny Randall, 06)
Parker, Brimstone (western, 09)
Parker, Killing The Blues (Jess Stone, 11)

Penzler (ed.), In Pursuit Of Spenser
*
Peary (ed), Cult Baseball Players
Platt, The Screwball King Murder (BB)
Plimpton, Out Of My League (BB)
Plimpton, The Curious Case of Sidd Finch (BB)
Quarrington, Home Game (BB)
Rampersad, Jackie Robinson (BB)
Rice, The Tumult and the Shouting (BB Vintage)
Richardson, The Bobby Richardson Story (BB)
Reichler, Baseball's Great Moments (BB)
Rizzuto (Peyer/Seely), The Selected Verse of Phil Rizzuto (BB)
Robinson, Iron Horse (BB0
Rose & Kahn, Pete Rose: My Story (BB)
Roth, The Great American Novel (BB)
Runyon (Reisler), Guys, Dolls, and Curveballs (BB)

Sayles, Pride of the Bimbos (BB)

Schacht (ed), Mudville Diaries (BB)

Scholz, Batter Up (BB)

Seaver, Beanball (BB)

Seidel, Streak: Joe DiMaggio and the Summer of '41 (BB)

Senzel, Baseball and the Cold War (BB)

Sifakis, Three Men On Third (BB)

Shaara, For Love of the Game (BB)

Shannon (ed), The Best of Spitball (BB)

Sherman, Strike Him Out! (BB Vintage)

Shlain, Oddballs (BB)

Simone, Going, Going, Gone! (BB oversize)

Smith, Voices of the Game (BB)

Smith, Baseball in the Afternoon (BB)

Smith, Baseball in America (BB oversize)

Soox, Murder at Wrigley Field (BB)

The Sporting News (ed), Dynasty (BB oversize)

The Sporting News (ed), Take Me Out To The Ball Park (BB oversize)

Sports Illustrated (ed), Baseball: Four decades of SI's finest writing (BB)

Stieb/Boland, Tomorrow I'll Be Perfect (BB Jays)

Stump, Cobb: A Biography (BB)

Sugar, Baseball's 50 Greatest Games (BB oversize)

Thorn, Baseball Our Game (BB)

Thorn (ed), The Armchair Book of Baseball (BB)

Thorn & Palmer (ed), Total Baseball (BB oversize)

Toronto Blue Jays, 1990 (BB Jays)

Tunis, World Series (BB)

Tunis, Rookie of the Year (BB)

Tunis, Highpockets (BB)

Turner, Heroes, Bums and Ordinary Men (BB Jays)

Valenti, Clout! (BB oversize)

Van Rjndt & Blednick, Fungo Blues (BB Jays)

Vancil & Hirdt, All Century Team (BB oversize)

Veeck, Veeck As In Wreck (BB)

Wallace, the Year The Yankees Lost the Pennant (BB)

Ward & Burns, Baseball: An Illustrated History (BB oversize)

Whiting, You Gotta Have Wa (BB)

Will, Men At Work (BB)

Will, Bunts (BB)

Williams, No More Mr. Nice Guy (BB)

Williams, My Turn At Bat (BB)

Winegardner, Prophet of the Sandlots (BB)

Wood, Dodger Dogs To Fenway Franks (BB)

Z, Baseball Cards of the Fifites (BB oversize)

Z, Baseball Cards of the Sixties (BB oversize)

Z, The Baseball Encyclopedia: Tenth Edition (BB oversize)

Z, Baseball Legends (BB)

Z, 20th Century Baseball Chronicle (BB oversize)

madeleine l'engle | o sapientia

It was from Joseph first I learned

Of love.  Like me he was dismayed.

How easily he could have turned

Me from his house; but, unafraid,

He put me not away from him

(O God‑sent angel, pray for him).

Thus through his love was Love obeyed.

The Child's first cry came like a bell:

God's Word aloud, God's Word in deed.

The angel spoke: so it befell,

And Joseph with me in my need.

O Child whose father came from heaven,

To you another gift was given,

Your earthly father chosen well.

With Joseph I was always warmed

And cherished.  Even in the stable

I knew that I would not be harmed.

And, though above the angels swarmed,

Man's love it was that made me able

To bear God's Love, wild, formidable,

To bear God's Will, through me performed. 

mike mason | three fools

The three wise men (as everyone knows but tends to forget) did not visit Jesus in the manger as a baby.  They found him much later, living in a shanty on the outskirts of Bethlehem, when he was two years old.  This is important.

They knew they were looking for a child, and this was a matter of some awkwardness for them.  They often wondered: What behaviour would be appropriate in the presence of a child-king?  They pictured themselves kneeling, presenting their gifts, and then perhaps sitting stiffly on the edge of wooden chairs and nibbling biscuits.  Their conversation would be mainly with the parents, of course, while the child looked on serenely, wonderingly.  With careful humility they would avoid his large, omniscient eyes.

This is not how it turned out.  These men were bachelors, remember.  Monkish types.  Contemplatives used to sitting on their duffs and reaching after the ineffable with their noggans.  What could they possibly know about the terrible twos?

How surprised they were to find their little king blazing around the house in a torn toga, chattering up a storm, and leaping onto their laps to tweak their beards!  Even more surprising, they found they did not react to these improprieties with horror.  Instead they felt all the stiffness draining out of them, lifetimes of reverent caution (i.e. distrust) dissolving like sugar lumps in tea.  They were charmed, delighted, won. Truly and deeply.  In no time they found themselves regressing, relaxing back into the childhoods they had never had.  They got down on their knees, all right, but it wasn't to worship - it was to give the kid camel rides, and then to roll over like great fat bears while the boy who had made the universe used their bellies for trampolines.  Yes, they fell down before their king, yet not in some formal act of prostration, but bowled over like ninepins by the thunder of a child's chortle.

Even the stars - which to these men objects of utmost seriousness – were like so many marbles to the Boy King.  Had they not given themselves to following one of them, believing this to be the great high purpose of their lives?  And where had the star gotten them?  Rolling around in their sumptuous robes on the dirt floor of a hovel, that's where.  Squealing like pigs, hooting till their sides fairly split, squirting out buckets of snotty tears.  Ripping open their fine silks and brocades so that the holy little hoodlum could blow trumpet kisses into their bare tums. 

Did the magi know beyond doubt that they had found their king?  O yes, they knew!  They knew it when the little guy sat astride their backs, smacked them on the rumps and cried, "Giddy up, Frankincense!  Mush, Myrrh!  Heigh ho, Gold - away!"

"Jesus, hon," his mother kept saying, "Don't embarrass the nice men."

But he was born to embarrass nice men, to embarrass them with riches.  All day long the great sages lay in the dirt collapsed in ecstasy, slain by the spirit of an urchin.  All night they lay there too, babbling in tongues, humming snatches of psalms and Mother Goose, burbling musically like babes.  That night the greatest astrologers of the ancient world literally saw stars - saw them for the first time, as they are, rolling round heaven to a toddler's tune.

These men who had come to pray, ended in play.  They came to give gifts, but ended by leaving what they had always longed to get rid of: starched collars, phony crowns, jaded adult wisdom.  The wise men were turned into wise guys.  Jokers.  They became fools - fools for Christ.

photos | luigi ghirri

photos by luigi ghirri