Category Archive: RELIGION
Escolania De Montserrat
(AF, Adelaide Town Hall, 4 March 2023) Founded in the 13th century, this ensemble is the oldest extant boys’ choir in the world and its rigorous training and selection criteria ensure its standards never slip. The choirboys of Escolania are taught the Benedictine sacred repertoire at the Santa Maria de Montserrat Abbey in Catalonia (established in 1,025AD). Their core duty is to enliven pilgrims who come to Montserrat, so to see them on tour – 36 of the full complement of 50 – is quite special. Llorenç Castelló (see below) conducted the choir, who entered the Hall from the back,…
Continue Reading →Exodus to Labor
And the jealous body politic that had cast upon the Chosen the power, the glory, and the light, did remind itself of those commandments it had required the Chosen to keep…and St. Albo did gather up those fragments and shore them against our ruins, taking a vow of poverty and darkness for ‘Astraya.‘ THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME THOU SHALT NOT MAKE UNTO THEE ANY GRAVEN IMAGE THOU SHALT NOT TAKE OUR NAME IN VAIN REMEMBER THE HOLY DAY HONOUR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER THOU SHALT NOT KILL THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY THOU SHALT NOT…
Continue Reading →Painted Saints and Martyrs
As Cats are to the internet, so Saints were to the religiose and their artisans. Whether by miracle or martyrdom, these historical figures (a miniscule sample of whom are below) provide the anthropomorphic link between the carnal world and the beatific vision.
Continue Reading →The Doctor
Adelaide Festival Theatre (5 March 2020) (Written and Directed by Robert Icke; adapted from the play “Professor Bernhardi” by Arthur Schnitzler) This piece is a playground for ethicists, a sociologist’s paradise, and a nod to Lord Melbourne, who said of Macauley, “I wish that I was as sure of any one thing, as Tom Macaulay is sure of everything.” Whilst a contemporary adaptation of a 1912 play, set in the antisemitic and ferociously Catholic Austrian Empire, takes hostages to anachronism, the dilemmas raised remain fresh and probably insoluble. Dr Ruth Wolff (Juliet Stevenson) is the founder and head of the…
Continue Reading →Tranquillity, Too: A Revelation
(An Allegory) Behold, he cometh with clouds He had a second rate mind, and his name had been Register Seven. At two o’clock in the morning, after night fill, the infomer-cial for a “fat-free infuser” caused him to get into his zombie-mobile and drive to a window to collect his succulent “Stak-A-Krap.” He could eat that for breakfast, lunch, or dinner; the taste portable, running all over, smelling like a wet dog on a sunny day. So he ended up working there, managing what management called “the dining area.” His diseased yearnings had gotten him into difficulties with earlier jobs….
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