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A Fabulous Collection

O, Miscellaneous Things!

• Welcome to Peking, eh chaps?
• Good Bye, Dear Aleksandr!
• Solzhenitsyn in The Sun
• See, I’m a Man of Simple Tastes…
• Frater Dolorosa
• The Change We Must Change, To the Change We Hold Dear
• Ford Model T Celebrates Centennial
• When I was Just a Four Point, a Font was a Font!
• Presenting the Shrine of Christ the King
• Mr E and Me, Otherwise Known as the Viscount and the Duke
• The Open Doors
• If Only I Had Whiskers On My Chin…
• Gentlemen, All You That Will Not Have Your Brains Twice Sodden
• I Am an Apteryx, A Wingless Bird With Hairy Feathers
• Mr Tilney! Have a Care With My Name–You Will Wear It Out!
• My Two Favourite Prelates
• Luna is Apparently Confused
• I’ve Recently Got Into Advert Modeling
• Potential Design Elements
• Two Cows Walk Into a Bar… It Was an Electrified Bar

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There is no thing too small for so small a thing as man.

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I was born at Kislovodsk on 11th December, 1918. My father had studied philological subjects at Moscow University, but did not complete his studies, as he enlisted as a volunteer when war broke out in 1914. He became an artillery officer on the German front, fought throughout the war and died in the summer of 1918, six months before I was born. I was brought up by my mother, who worked as a shorthand-typist, in the town of Rostov on the Don, where I spent the whole of my childhood and youth, leaving the grammar school there in 1936. Even as a child, without any prompting from others, I wanted to be a writer and, indeed, I turned out a good deal of the usual juvenilia. In the 1930s, I tried to get my writings published but I could not find anyone willing to accept my manuscripts. I wanted to acquire a literary education, but in Rostov such an education that would suit my wishes was not to be obtained. To move to Moscow was not possible, partly because my mother was alone and in poor health, and partly because of our modest circumstances. I therefore began to study at the Department of Mathematics at Rostov University, where it proved that I had considerable aptitude for mathematics. But although I found it easy to learn this subject, I did not feel that I wished to devote my whole life to it. Nevertheless, it was to play a beneficial role in my destiny later on, and on at least two occasions, it rescued me from death. For I would probably not have survived the eight years in camps if I had not, as a mathematician, been transferred to a so-called sharashia, where I spent four years; and later, during my exile, I was allowed to teach mathematics and physics, which helped to ease my existence and made it possible for me to write. If I had had a literary education it is quite likely that I should not have survived these ordeals but would instead have been subjected to even greater pressures. Later on, it is true, I began to get some literary education as well; this was from 1939 to 1941, during which time, along with university studies in physics and mathematics, I also studied by correspondence at the Institute of History, Philosophy and Literature in Moscow.

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The death of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, coming as it does amid a great new struggle between the free and unfree worlds, brings to mind a story the editor of the Sun likes to tell his colleagues. It was during the years of Solzhenitsyn’s exile in America, when he turned his Vermont estate into a latter-day version of Tolstoy’s famous retreat, Yasnaya Polyana. The editor, who was then working at the Wall Street Journal, was about to make, with a number of the Journal’s other editors, a trip to the Soviet Union. So he sent Solzhenitsyn an invitation to join the editors for dinner. The writer, who lived a reclusive life, sent a short but gracious note to say that he was unable to get to New York but that his advice to the editors was: “Remember, there is such a thing as good and evil.”
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Goran Djurovic

Why dost thou brood, O, Melancholia!?
For thou dismay’st this Cholerick heart.
Its flame reduced to a kindling branch,
And bleak, blackest cold it doth impart.

Jacek Malczewski

Jibjab is fast becoming one of the best socio-political satirists out there, unfortunately they often lull into crass toilet humour which undermines the value of their satire. The following is likely the truest expression of our campaign process that is possible in a two minute cartoon.

Lyrics and video stills below the fold.

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Click Here for a picture slideshow.

A Souped-Up Model T May Have Been the First Mash-Up

Mr. Ford’s T: Versatile Mobility

Rethinking a Pioneer — The only one that impressed me was that of Hyeoksang Chung. The monstrosities can all be viewed in gallery here.

Excerpt from ‘Ford Model T: The Car That Put the World on Wheels’

Monseigneur Michael R. Schmitz narrates an informational video about the Shrine of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, a historical landmark and architectural gem on Chicago’s south side currently being restored by the Institute of Christ the King, for use of the extraordinary (traditional) form of the Latin Rite. The video is in two parts as presented sequentially below.

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So comes the Viscount on the lake,
To the land of the rolling hills of green,
Wherein he’ll join the Duke for cake,
To lunch on tea and fine cuisine.

They’ll fill a stein with a draught of gold,
From out the halls of history,
Named for a most revolting bloke,  
Whose name I’m sure’s no mystery.

Then p’r’aps they’ll climb into the hills,
The trees will part to make a path,
The Duke commands, his voice instills,
Upon the wood a tyrant’s wrath.

‘Twill bend the boughs in varied ways,
To ‘commodate those dandy chaps,
Bedecked and draped so to amaze,
The lowly plebe, who looks and claps.

And then toward home they will return,
In the valley to their country haunt,
To rest at hearth and to adjourn,
To ne’er again proceed avant.

They’ll lounge and gorge their ample gullets,
From richly laden trays of gold,
With grape, and pear and tiny cutlets,
A sight, I’m sure, they’re to behold.

They’ll laze about with ferment leaf,
Into their pipes they’ll put it,
And puff the injuns greatest grief,
I’m not much saddened to admit.

In all their raunchy decadence,
All their holdings shall be lost,
And in their Lordships’s absence,
Their peasants will these gents accost.

They’ll batter down the painted doors,
They’ll burn the carriage house,
While their Lordships hide in the linen drawers,
To sober from their souse.

And when the estate is in ruin,
They’ll come out to see the sun,
Out hibernation, like the bruin,
And from hunters they must run.

Lest their raucous plebeian tenants,
See the slovenly Lords of the place,
And raise their torches, forks, and pennants,
And give to the good sportsmen’s chase.

The moral, I’d gather,
Is that Lords who indulge,
Are left unprepared,
When rebellions divulge.

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THE MISCELLANY was inspired by those works of pure and unalloyed brilliance that are Schott's Original Miscellany and Schott's Almanacks, all of which were conceived, written, and designed by Mr. Ben Schott. Since this little endeavour promises to carry on the traditions of the aforesaid publications, while using a unique electronick platform to broaden the type of material presented, I should like very much to quote the introduction to Schott's Original Miscellany by way of explanation of our intended purpose:

An encyclopedia? A dictionary? An almanack? An anathology? A lexicon? A treasury? A commonplace? An amphigouri? A vade-mecum?

Well... yes. The Miscellany is all of these and, of course, more.

The Miscellany is a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. Its purpose is to gather the flotsam and jetsam of the conversational tide. Importantly, The Miscellany makes very few claims to be exhaustive, authouritative, or even practical. It does, however, claim to be essential. It is, perhaps, possible to live one's life without The Miscellany, but it seems a curious and brave thing to do.