This email includes a canto from my retelling of Dante’s DIVINE COMEDY, which has 100 cantos.
Anecdotes are usually short humorous stories. Sometimes they are thought-provoking or informative, not amusing.
Work
• Muhammad Ali owned a lot of fancy cars, and he hired a chauffeur; however, he enjoyed driving his cars so much that often his chauffeur sat in the back seat while Mr. Ali drove. Occasionally, Mr. Ali would joke that he had taken a part-time job as a chauffeur, and he would point to the real chauffeur in the back seat and say, “That’s the white boss in the back.”
World Series
• When pitcher Greg Maddux became a free agent after the 1992 season, he had a chance to sign with the New York Yankees; however, he signed with the Atlanta Braves although they offered him $6 million less than the Yankees. He had two main reasons for this: 1) He and his wife, Kathy, felt that Atlanta would be a better place to raise their children, and 2) he felt that he had a better chance of winning a World Series with the Braves. These two considerations were more important than the money. Playing for the Braves worked out well for Mr. Maddox; in 1995, the Braves won the World Series.
• Brooklyn Dodger Gil Hodges suffered a horrible hitting slump in the 1952 World Series, getting no hits at all in 21 at-bats. His slump continued during the first part of the 1953 season. A priest (and Dodger fan) urged his congregation to do two things: keep God’s commandments and pray for Gil Hodges. The prayers worked. He started to hit again, he had a very good 1953 season, he had a very good 1953 World Series although the Dodgers lost, and he helped the Dodgers win the 1955 World Series.
Preface
The doing of good deeds is important. As a free person, you can choose to live your life as a good person or as a bad person. To be a good person, do good deeds. To be a bad person, do bad deeds. If you do good deeds, you will become good. If you do bad deeds, you will become bad. To become the person you want to be, act as if you already are that kind of person. Each of us chooses what kind of person we will become. To become a hero, do the things a hero does. To become a coward, do the things a coward does. The opportunity to take action to become the kind of person you want to be is yours.
Many people in the arts, in religion, and in everyday life have done good deeds, and I am happy that such people exist in this world.
Tipping the Balance—Either Way
According to the Talmud, all of us ought to consider the world as being equally divided into good and evil. That way, we will regard our own actions as important. If we act evilly, we will tip the world onto the side of evil and all Humankind will suffer, but if we perform good deeds, we will tip the world onto the side of good, and all Humankind will benefit.
Tennis Shoes and a Pink Umbrella
One book that Gilda Radner read and enjoyed was Disturbances in the Dark by Lynne Sharon Schwartz. The main female character in the book remembers that when she was a young girl, she, her sister, and her parents would go to the beach. So that the two young girls would always be able to find the beach umbrella their parents were using, her father tied a pair of tennis shoes to the umbrella. The two young girls felt safe and protected when they saw the umbrella with the pair of shoes hanging from it. The night before Gilda underwent her first chemotherapy after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer, her husband, Gene Wilder, walked into her hospital room carrying a little pink umbrella to which he had tied some shoes.
My Fellow Bums
While living in New York City, comedian Bill Hicks was shocked by the number of homeless people he saw, and he always left home with change in his pockets to give to the homeless. He pointed out, “I could have been a bum. All it takes is the right girl, the right bar, and the right friends.”
Visiting the Wounded Troops
Comedian Al Franken goes into Veterans Administration hospitals to meet the wounded troops. He thought that it would be very difficult, but he was amazed by how cheerful many of them—including a woman helicopter pilot who had lost most of her left leg and part of her right leg—are. He asked a man with one leg what had happened to him; the man replied, “I came in here for a vasectomy, and when I woke up my leg was gone.” By the way, Mr. Franken says not to thank these wounded veterans for their service to the country—they imitate all the politicians who tell them that. Therefore, Mr. Franken uses humor. When he has a photograph taken with one of these veterans, he writes on the photo, “Thank you for getting grievously wounded.”
***
FREE eBooks: THE KINDEST PEOPLE WHO DO GOOD DEEDS (Volumes 1 and 2)
“Behold the monster that makes the world stink!” Virgil said to Dante as he motioned for the monster to land.
And the monster — the embodiment of fraud — did land.
Dante and Virgil saw the guard of the Circles dedicated to punishing fraud: Geryon, a creature with a face like that of an honest man, a body made of a combination of parts of beasts, and a stinging tail like that of a scorpion.
Geryon has three parts, Virgil noted. Like other triune guards, Geryon is a perversion of the Holy Trinity.
Geryon is an appropriate guard of Circle 8 because he embodies fraud. His honest-looking face encourages people to trust him, while he hides his tail that will sting his victim. Geryon usually stings the sinners who ride on his back, but he won’t do that to Dante and me. When Geryon first gets sinners to trust him and then he stings them with his scorpion’s tail, he commits fraud.
Look at Geryon. He is displaying his honest-looking face, but he is trying to keep his stinging tail out of sight; it is hanging down the cliff leading to the next Circle. He is trying to commit fraud even as I look at him.
Geryon provides transportation to the next Circle. Minos flings sinners down into Hell, but at least some sinners must travel further down to the Circle where they will be punished. Just as Phlegyas the ferryman takes sinners across the Styx, so Geryon flies sinners from Circle 7 to Circle 8.
Dante was surprised by the way the monster looked. His face made you want to trust him, but the rest of him was animalistic. He had clawed paws, not hands. He had hairy legs instead of arms. His back, his belly, and his flanks seemed to be painted with exotic designs like those of some snakes. And he had a stinging tail like that of a scorpion, although he was attempting to keep it out of sight.
“Now we need to go to the evil beast,” Virgil said to Dante. They did, being careful to stay off the burning sand. Dante looked around and saw some sinners close to the edge of the burning sand.
Virgil noticed Dante looking at the sinners and told him, “Go and see them. That will complete your knowledge of the torments in this Circle. But don’t stay long. I will be here convincing the evil beast — whose name is Geryon — to take us down to Circle 8.”
Dante walked toward the sinners, who were in pain because of the flakes of flame falling from the sky onto them and because of the burning sand on which they crouched. Their hands moved constantly, brushing off flames and trying to provide some protection from the burning sand. They resembled dogs trying unsuccessfully to get relief from fleas as they constantly scratched here and scratched there.
Because when they were alive, the greedy moneylenders took something that ought to be infertile and made it fertile, now that they are dead, they are in this burning plain with fire raining down on them. Here they are bent over, just like living greedy moneylenders who bend over their tables and count their money. Hanging from the necks of these sinners in Hell are moneybags, which they gaze at greedily just as they did while they were living.
Dante looked carefully at the faces of several sinners, but he recognized no one, although he knew that the sinners were greedy moneylenders because of the moneybags that were hanging from their necks. These sinners’ love of money had kept them from accomplishing something great in the Land of the Living. Because they were undistinguished in the Land of the Living, they cannot be distinguished in the Land of the Dead.
However, although Dante could not recognize any individual greedy moneylenders, he did recognize the families that the greedy moneylenders came from by looking the designs — the coats of arms — on their moneybags. He identified a member of the Gianfigliazzi family of Florence because the sinner had a yellow purse that was decorated with a blue lion. He identified a member of the Ubriachi family of Florence because the sinner had a red purse that was decorated with a goose. And he identified a member of the Scrovegni family of Padua because the sinner had a purse that was decorated with a blue sow.
The sinner who was a member of the Scrovegni family told Dante, “What are you looking at! Get away from me! What are you doing here!
“But since you are alive, I will tell you that soon my neighbor Vitaliano will arrive here in this Circle of Hell and sit on my left. We will then have one more Paduan among all these Florentines.”
The Paduan then stuck his tongue out at Dante, who returned to Virgil lest he anger his guide by staying too long.
Virgil, who was already sitting on the back of Geryon, told Dante, “Now is the time for courage and strength. This is our transportation to the next Circle. Sit in front of me so that I will be between you and this monster’s stinging scorpion’s tail.”
Dante was afraid, but he obeyed Virgil and mounted Geryon’s back. He thought about asking Virgil to hold on to him, and Virgil, reading Dante’s mind, did just that.
Virgil then ordered the monster, “Geryon, take flight, and fly gently. Remember, on your back is a living person.”
Geryon launched himself in flight and descended.
Dante was afraid. He thought, I am more afraid than Phaëthon was when he took flight. Phaëthon was Apollo’s son, but he was born to a mortal woman, and so he was a mortal. One day, he journeyed to see his father, who wanted to give him a gift — a gift consisting of anything he wanted. Phaëthon decided that he wanted to drive his father’s chariot. Apollo was the Sun-god, and he drove the chariot that warmed and lit the Earth. However, Apollo knew that only a god could handle the horses that drove the chariot, and he begged his son to choose another gift. However, Phaëthon was determined to drive the chariot. Since Apollo had sworn an inviolable oath by the River Styx, he had to let Phaëthon drive the chariot.
As Apollo had foreknown, Phaëthon could not control the horses, and the chariot drove wildly over the sky, coming too close to the Earth sometimes and going too far away from the Earth sometimes. Eventually, the chariot came so close to the Earth that the Earth was about to catch fire. Fortunately for the people living on the Earth, Jupiter killed Phaëthon with a thunderbolt and Apollo was able to drive the chariot again, and so everything went back to normal.
I am even more afraid than Icarus, Daedalus’ son, was when he fell out of the sky. Icarus was the son of Daedalus. Daedalus built the wooden cow that Pasiphaë crept into when she fell in love with a bull and wanted the bull to make love to her. After Pasiphaë gave birth to the Minotaur, Daedalus built the labyrinth that housed the Minotaur.
To make sure that no one could ever learn the secret of how to get out of the labyrinth, the King of Crete imprisoned Daedalus and Icarus, his son. Daedalus fashioned wings made out of wax and feathers so that he and his son could fly away from the island where they were imprisoned. Daedalus warned his son not to fly too high, for if he did the Sun would melt the wax, the feathers would fall out of the wings, and he would fall into the sea and drown.
That is exactly what happened. Icarus became excited because he was flying, he flew too high, the wax of his wings melted, and he drowned.
Dante and Virgil could hear the roaring of the waterfall as they descended. Dante looked out at the terrain of Circle 8 as they descended, but leaning outward frightened him so much that he quickly stopped doing it.
Geryon was angry at Dante and Virgil because he had expected to be able to torment some newly arrived sinners when he answered the signal of the cord that had been used by Dante as a belt.
When Geryon descended in spirals from Circle 7 to Circle 8, he was like a falcon that was angry at its master. When Geryon landed, he made sure to land in such a way that Virgil and Dante were almost up against the jagged cliff.
And as soon as Virgil and Dante got off his back, Geryon took off like an arrow shot from a bowstring, getting away from Dante and Virgil as quickly as possible.
Theater director Tyrone Guthrie advised his actors and crew to do this. The advice means to rise above whatever forces are working against you. All of us have personal problems. No one’s life is perfect. Sometimes, life seems to conspire against us. Rise above all that, and produce the best work you can.
ASTONISH ME.
Dance impresario Sergei Diaghilev advised his choreographers to do this. The advice means what it says. Do such good work that the person who commissioned the work—and of course the audience—is astonished. (Tyrone Guthrie also used this phrase.)
DO IT NOW.
As a young man, choreographer George Balanchine nearly died and so he believed in living his life day by day and not holding anything back. He would tell his dancers, “Why are you stingy with yourselves? Why are you holding back? What are you saving for—for another time? There are no other times. There is only now. Right now.” Throughout his career, including before he became world renowned, he worked with what he had, not complaining about wanting a bigger budget or better dancers. One of the pieces of advice Mr. Balanchine gave over and over was this: “Do it now.”
GO OUT AND GET ONE.
Ruth St. Denis once taught Martha Graham an important lesson when Ms. Graham was just starting to dance. Ms. St. Denis told Ms. Graham, “Show me your dance.” Ms. Graham replied, “I don’t have one,” and Ms. St. Denis advised, “Well, dear, go out and get one.” (Everyone needs an art to practice. Your art need not be dance. Perhaps your art can be writing autobiographical essays. Of course, you may practice more than one art.)
WORK A LITTLE HARDER.
“I think high self-esteem is overrated. A little low self-esteem is actually quite good—maybe you’re not the best, so you should work a little harder.”—Jay Leno
A song for the rights of all: the right to be safe in our bodies, the right to make decisions for our bodies, and the right to be who we are in our bodies. (Lyrics below.) I wrote this song […] out of the need to process my anger at women’s rights being taken away and for what this means for other rights down the line. A never-ending issue it seems, but one we can’t stop fighting for. A big thank you to Tom Riggs for taking footage of my first performance of this song with Mark Hellenberg on drums at The Union in Athens, OH.
Caitlin Kraus: “Make It Clear” (Caitlin Kraus performs “Make It Clear” Aug. 17, 2023, at the Athens (OH) Community Center.) — From the album GONE BEYOND.
This email includes a canto from my retelling of Dante’s DIVINE COMEDY, which has 100 cantos.
Anecdotes are usually short humorous stories. Sometimes they are thought-provoking or informative, not amusing.
Umpires
• Minor-league umpires Don Denkinger and Ron Luciano were together when they received a telephone call from the American League. The caller asked to speak to Mr. Denkinger and told him to be happy for Mr. Luciano because he was going to be offered a contract to be an umpire in the major leagues. Then the caller asked to speak to Mr. Luciano and told him to be happy for Mr. Denkinger because he was going to be offered a contract to be an umpire in the major leagues. That’s how Mr. Denkinger and Mr. Luciano learned that they were major-league umpires.
War
• Pelé was such an internationally acclaimed soccer star that even war stopped for him. When Nigeria and Biafra were at war with each other, Pelé needed to go from Nigeria to Biafra so that he could play soccer. The war stopped so that Pelé could travel safely, and the war stayed stopped until the two opposing armies could escort Pelé safely out of the war zone. This is not bad for someone whose father taught him how to play soccer as a small child by using a bundle of rags tied up into a ball. By the way, Pelé’s real name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento — Pelé is a nickname that means “The Black Pearl.”
• During World War II, baseball announcers weren’t allowed to comment about the weather because of fear that Japanese radio monitors might pick up on the information and get some military advantage out of it. Once, retired pitcher Dizzy Dean was broadcasting a game when it was stopped because of a rainstorm. He told his radio audience, “Folks, the game has been called temporarily. I ain’t allowed to tell you why, but if you’re curious, just stick your head out the window.”
• During the Vietnam War, Arthur Ashe played some tennis in Saigon for the USAmerican troops. At one point, someone in the car he was riding in rolled down the window because of the heat, but a soldier in the car said, “Roll that window up. Tell you what, you leave a window down and sometimes a little guy will ride by on a bike and drop a grenade in your lap.”
Work
• Major-league umpire Bill Klem must have loved his job. Early in his career, he worked as a bartender and did some umpiring on the side. Once, a friend told him about an umpiring job — a doubleheader — in Providence, Rhode Island, 50 miles away. Mr. Klem was willing to work it, and so the two men rode on a tandem bicycle to Providence, worked the two games, and then rode the bicycle back home, just in time for Mr. Klem to go to his bartending job. For working the doubleheader, Mr. Klem earned $10, and afterward, he said to himself, “Why, this is easy.” Fellow umpire Jocko Conlan says, “Ride a bike 100 miles, work a doubleheader, earn ten bucks, and call it easy. He had to be a born umpire.”
• Vince Lombardi and his staff were hard workers. When the Green Bay Packers won the 1965 National Football League championship by defeating the Cleveland Browns, 23-12, sportswriters asked Mr. Lombardi about his vacation plans. He replied, “I’ve got a meeting scheduled with my coaching staff. We’re going to start to lay out plans for 1966. We’re starting work tomorrow morning at 9 a.m.” This doesn’t mean that Mr. Lombardi had absolutely no plans for a vacation. He told the reporters, “Maybe I’ll take a week off in February. Maybe two weeks.”
• Seattle Mariners first baseman Edgar Martinez was a role model for shortstop Alex Rodriguez. One day, Alex took batting practice and left at 2 p.m. However, he discovered that he had left his cell phone behind. Returning to the clubhouse at 6 p.m. to pick it up, he discovered Mr. Martinez still taking batting practice. Surprised that this two-time batting champion was still hard at work, Alex asked, “Edgar, what are you still doing here?” Mr. Martinez replied, “I have to hit. I have to work.” Quickly, Mr. Rodriguez decided to emulate Mr. Martinez.
• A young, green umpire told minor-league umpire Harry “Steamboat” Johnson, “I’m a plate umpire,” and Steamboat said, “OK.” He let the young umpire work behind home plate, wearing the bulky chest protector in the hot summer sun, until the young umpire asked him, “Mr. Johnson, aren’t I ever going to work the bases?” Steamboat, who had been enjoying not wearing all the bulky home umpire gear, replied, “I thought you said you were a plate umpire.”
Chapter 16: The Violent Against Nature (Continued) (Inferno)
Now Dante and Virgil could hear a waterfall in the distance, indicating that they were approaching the boundary of this Circle and would have to soon find a way down to the next Circle: Circle 8.
At this point three sodomites saw Dante and broke away from their group and started running toward him, shouting, “By your clothing, you seem to come from our city: polluted Florence! Stop and speak with us for a while.”
Dante looked at them and saw their wounds from the falling flakes of flame. Some wounds were old, and many wounds were new. Clearly, these souls had suffered and were suffering.
Virgil heard the shout and looked at the three sinners coming toward Dante and him. He told Dante, “I recognize these sinners, and they are worthy of your respect. If not for the burning plain, you should be running toward them.”
The three sodomites arrived, and they formed a circle and kept running to avoid the punishment of lying on the sand for 100 years, unable to brush away the flames from their body. In the circle they moved the way that a professional wrestler, oiled and naked, will move as he looks over his opponent to see which grip will be best before the real wrestling action begins. As they ran in the circle, each sinner kept his eyes on Dante.
“If our punishment makes you less willing to speak to us,” one sinner said, “perhaps our great fame on Earth will lead you to speak with us. We would like to know who you are, and how you — a living man — are able to walk through Hell.
“The sinner is front of me is Guido Guerra, a warrior and adviser. In 1260, the Florentine Guelfs attacked Siena at Montaperti. Before the battle, Guido Guerra advised the Florentine Guelfs not to attack Siena.
“The sinner behind me is Tegghiaio Aldobrandi, who also advised the Florentine Guelfs not to attack Siena at Montaperti. He knew that many mercenaries had joined the Sienese forces and therefore were very likely to be victorious in the battle.
“As all Florentines now know, they should have accepted these men’s advice. The Sienese won the Battle of Montaperti and routed the Guelfs. Farinata, who is punished among the heretics, was one of the generals of the Sienese and their allied forces.
“I am Jacopo Rusticucci, and I was wealthy. My wife was unpleasant, and I sent her home to her father. She was reluctant to do what I wanted her to do, and I blame my sodomy on her.”
Dante knew the biographies of these sinners, and he respected them. Guilty they were of sodomy, but they had been good patriots who loved Florence and wanted the best for her, just like Dante. He would have joined them, but the burning sand prevented him from going to them.
Dante said to the sinners, “I feel grief for the punishment you are suffering. As you think, I am from Florence, your city, and I have heard much about you and about your love for her and about your accomplishments.
“I am on a journey to a better place, but first I must walk through Hell, going down to the very center of the Earth and thus to the bottom of the Inferno.”
“Please tell us about Florence,” Jacopo Rusticucci requested. “Are Florentines filled with courtesy and valor, or are these qualities no longer found in the city?
“We have heard from a newly arrived sinner, Guglielmo Borsiere, that Florence is in bad shape.”
“You have heard truly,” Dante said. “Newly rich people encourage pride and encourage unrestraint and make Florence weep.”
All three sinners said, “Thank you for so clearly answering the question. You are fortunate in being able to speak so clearly and so well. If you are equally fortunate in being able to return to the Land of the Living, keep our memory alive among living men.”
The three sinners then raced to rejoin their group.
Virgil and Dante continued walking, and the sound of the waterfall grew much louder, making it difficult for them to hear what the other spoke. They had reached the pit again and needed to go down to the next Circle.
Dante wore a cord around his waist to serve as a belt, much as the Franciscans did. He had thought earlier to use it to catch the leopard that was keeping him in the dark wood of error and keeping him from ascending to the light — his self-confidence was too abundant and too foolish then.
Virgil requested that cord, and Dante untied it and handed it to him. Virgil then threw it into the abyss.
Dante thought, We will see something strange soon. The cord is a signal.
Virgil has many powers. One power is to always know what time it is by the location of the heavenly bodies such as the Sun and the Moon and the planets even though the Inferno is always dark. Another is great strength. And yet another is to know what Dante is thinking.
Virgil said to Dante, “As you think, soon you will see something strange — something that will respond to my signal.” Almost immediately, Dante saw a figure rising from below through the air. The figure appeared to be swimming in the air.
(All musical friends of Bruce Dalzell are honorary Athenians no matter where they live and love. Besides, Austin, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee are very large suburbs of Athens, Ohio.)
This page is set up to celebrate the music of the Athens-based original music band The Kings of Hollywood, featuring Bruce Dalzell, T. Craig Goodwin, Scott Minar, David Borowsky, Mark Hellenberg, and Bernie Nau. The Kings were regionally successful, celebrated performers and recording artists in Athens, Ohio during the 1980s.
(All musical friends of Bruce Dalzell are honorary Athenians no matter where they live and love. Besides, Austin, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee are very large suburbs of Athens, Ohio.)
This page is set up to celebrate the music of the Athens-based original music band The Kings of Hollywood, featuring Bruce Dalzell, T. Craig Goodwin, Scott Minar, David Borowsky, Mark Hellenberg, and Bernie Nau. The Kings were regionally successful, celebrated performers and recording artists in Athens, Ohio during the 1980s.
Saxophonist Kyle Slemmer received a Bachelor’s degree in Music Performance and Technology in 2005 from Moravian College, and a Master’s degree in Music from Eastern Illinois University in 2007. A resident of Athens, when he’s not working his day gig, Kyle can be heard performing with a myriad of ensembles and musicians, from the Local Girls to Elemental Groove Theory, Word of Mouth Jazz, numerous activities on the OU campus, and more.
Joe Etgen – Guitar Michael Brokamp – Organ Josh Wicker – Bass / Vocals Wren Fenton – Drums Kyle Slemmer – Baritone Sax Ian LeSage – Trumpet
Boomslang: “Compound Refracture”
LANDON ELLIOTT
Landon Elliott Music
I am a musician/guitar player and student at Ohio University. This channel was created to show the various groups I have performed with and the variety of instruments I play. Click on channels to check those out!
(All musical friends of Bruce Dalzell are honorary Athenians no matter where they live and love. Besides, Austin, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee are very large suburbs of Athens, Ohio.)
This page is set up to celebrate the music of the Athens-based original music band The Kings of Hollywood, featuring Bruce Dalzell, T. Craig Goodwin, Scott Minar, David Borowsky, Mark Hellenberg, and Bernie Nau. The Kings were regionally successful, celebrated performers and recording artists in Athens, Ohio during the 1980s.
A song for the rights of all: the right to be safe in our bodies, the right to make decisions for our bodies, and the right to be who we are in our bodies. (Lyrics below.) I wrote this song […] out of the need to process my anger at women’s rights being taken away and for what this means for other rights down the line. A never-ending issue it seems, but one we can’t stop fighting for. A big thank you to Tom Riggs for taking footage of my first performance of this song with Mark Hellenberg on drums at The Union in Athens, OH.
Lyrics for “This Body”:
This body is temporary, but while it’s here / It’s not yours to hold captive in fear / This body is mine, it was never yours / So fuck your laws and gods and guns / I get to say what I put inside / I GET TO CHOOSE, IT IS MY RIGHT / This body is sacred, but only safe / When I’m in charge, you have no claim / This body is proud and wears the crown / Makes the decisions and won’t back down / I get to say what I put inside / I GET TO CHOOSE, IT IS MY RIGHT / And don’t tell me who I can love or about my identity / Don’t use your privilege to subject your patriarchy / I get to say what I put inside / I GET TO CHOOSE, IT IS MY RIGHT
Theater director Tyrone Guthrie advised his actors and crew to do this. The advice means to rise above whatever forces are working against you. All of us have personal problems. No one’s life is perfect. Sometimes, life seems to conspire against us. Rise above all that, and produce the best work you can.
ASTONISH ME.
Dance impresario Sergei Diaghilev advised his choreographers to do this. The advice means what it says. Do such good work that the person who commissioned the work—and of course the audience—is astonished. (Tyrone Guthrie also used this phrase.)
DO IT NOW.
As a young man, choreographer George Balanchine nearly died and so he believed in living his life day by day and not holding anything back. He would tell his dancers, “Why are you stingy with yourselves? Why are you holding back? What are you saving for—for another time? There are no other times. There is only now. Right now.” Throughout his career, including before he became world renowned, he worked with what he had, not complaining about wanting a bigger budget or better dancers. One of the pieces of advice Mr. Balanchine gave over and over was this: “Do it now.”
GO OUT AND GET ONE.
Ruth St. Denis once taught Martha Graham an important lesson when Ms. Graham was just starting to dance. Ms. St. Denis told Ms. Graham, “Show me your dance.” Ms. Graham replied, “I don’t have one,” and Ms. St. Denis advised, “Well, dear, go out and get one.” (Everyone needs an art to practice. Your art need not be dance. Perhaps your art can be writing autobiographical essays. Of course, you may practice more than one art.)
WORK A LITTLE HARDER.
“I think high self-esteem is overrated. A little low self-esteem is actually quite good—maybe you’re not the best, so you should work a little harder.”—Jay Leno
Caitlin Kraus: “Make It Clear” (Caitlin Kraus performs “Make It Clear” Aug. 17, 2023, at the Athens (OH) Community Center.) — From the album GONE BEYOND.
This email includes a canto from my retelling of Dante’s DIVINE COMEDY, which has 100 cantos.
Anecdotes are usually short humorous stories. Sometimes they are thought-provoking or informative, not amusing.
Superstitions
• Athletes frequently have odd superstitions and do odd things that they feel bring them good luck. Sarah Hughes, who won a gold medal in ladies’ figure skating at the 2002 Winter Olympics, always slept in a Peggy Fleming T-shirt before important competitions. Ms. Fleming even sent her one with this note: “P.F.’s PJs.”
Training
• Veronica Walker, the sister of NBA great Herschel Walker, was a track star. When Herschel was young, he wanted to beat her in a race, but he was pudgy and he could not beat her. Getting tired of losing all the time, he asked Tom Jordan, the coach of the Johnson County (Georgia) track and field team, what he had to do to beat her. Coach Jordan, who was full of common sense, told him, “Do pushups. Do situps. Run sprints.” Herschel worked hard at pushups, situps, and sprints, and after much, much work, he beat his sister in a race. Immediately, he set a new goal — he tried to beat a pet horse in a race. His mother, who was full of common sense, told him, “Herschel, you can’t outrun a horse.” She was right. He tried a beat a pet horse in a race, but he lost. His father was another person who was full of common sense. Herschel and his siblings wanted to practice their jumping, and they talked about jumping over their father’s car. Their father quickly put an end to such talk: “You fool kids, that’s my car! You’ll get hurt. I’ve got no money to pay for hospitals.” All of Herschel’s hard work paid off. In high school, he did not lift weights, but when his high school got some new weightlifting equipment, he decided to give it a try. He lifted 250 pounds a few times, and then he told his coach, “Coach, 250 pounds isn’t heavy.”
• Triathlete Heather Hedrick takes her sport seriously, and so do the other athletes she hangs out with. One advantage of having fellow athletes as her friends is that everyone is training. According to Ms. Hedrick, “I’m never the party pooper. Everyone else goes home at 10 p.m., too.”
Umpires
• It doesn’t pay to try to win an argument with an umpire. Detroit Tiger Bobby Veach hit a ball over the third-base line and took off running before umpire Tommy Connolly ruled whether it was fair or foul. Mr. Veach was standing on second base when Umpire Connolly yelled at him, “Foul ball. You’ll have to hit another.” Mr. Veach grumbled, but left second base to return to the batter’s box. When the inning was over, he ran to the third-base line where his ball had dropped, then came running back to Umpire Connolly to report, “That ball was fair, Tommy. It landed right on the foul line, and there’s a mark in the lime where it landed. You can see it plainly.” Umpire Connolly smiled and said, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You just run out and bring that foul line to me, and I’ll have a look at it!”
• Sometimes, umpires get blamed for what other umpires do. A minor-league umpire named Kerin worked a game that upset some home fans who abused him mightily, and Mr. Kerin challenged any fan who wanted to fight him to see him after the game. The next day, Harry “Steamboat” Johnson came in to umpire, and fans yelled things at him like, “Kerin, you better get the cops to look after you when this game is over, because we are after you and mean business.” Not until halfway through the game did the fans realize that Steamboat was not Mr. Kerin. In telling this story in his autobiography, Standing the Gaff, Steamboat marvels about fans, “And still they try to call close plays from where they sit!”
• Umpire Tom Gorman once had his leg broken when Al Oliver and Paul Popovich collided at first base, blindsiding him. He was lying on the ground in pain when Leo Durocher came over and asked for a ruling, screaming, “What is he? Safe or out? Safe or out?” Although he was in great pain, Mr. Gorman managed to joke, “He’s out — he had the wrong foot on base.” In the next inning, when Mr. Gorman was in the hospital, Mr. Durocher thought about the answer he had been given, and he started screaming again: “What did Gorman mean — ‘wrong foot’? There’s no ‘right’ foot.” But the other umpires answered, “Too late, Leo. You’ll have to ask Tom.”
Thanksgiving
• In 1943, the Army nurses in the 95th Evacuation Hospital in Capua, Italy, north of Naples, managed to make fudge for Thanksgiving, despite such interruptions as air raids that sent them diving into their foxholes. Nurse Claudine Doyle remembers that during air raids, sometimes a nurse would get out of her foxhole when it seemed safe and run over and stir the fudge. For Christmas that year, the Army nurses decorated a tree, using surgical gloves to make balls. The nurses stuffed the palm section of the glove with gauze, and then they tied all of the fingers of the glove together. Then, to make the glove-ball sparkle, they dipped it into Epsom salts and let it dry. In addition, from tin cans they cut out angels, stars, and Santas.
• Karleena Carpenter has cerebral palsy, and she has a service dog named Amanda to help her be independent. The dog will bring things to her, pick up things she has dropped, press a button to answer the telephone, and even open a door by tugging on a towel tied to the door handle. One Thanksgiving Karleena visited her brother and sister-in-law, and Amanda went outside to a patio. Unfortunately, the patio is where her brother and sister-in-law had placed a container of turkey so it could cool. Soon, there was no turkey but there was a very happy and very full Amanda. Karleena says, “My brother and sister-in-law were not very happy, but I thought it was pretty smart of Amanda to open the tight lid on that container. She’s very intelligent, funny, and loving.”
As Dante and Virgil continued walking, Dante observed the burning desert. He saw that the stone bank of the river was like a wall built in a country below sea level to keep sea water out of a field so that it could be used to grow crops. In that case, the walls make the field fertile rather than infertile. Here in the burning desert, of course, the wall is unable to make the burning desert fertile.
Virgil and Dante had left the wood of the suicides far behind, and now one of the groups of running sinners were coming towards them.
These are some of the sodomites, Virgil thought. They are men who sought sex with other men. They took something that ought to be fertile and made it infertile.
The men looked at Dante the way that some men will look at other men at night, and one of the sodomites recognized Dante and touched the hem of his clothing and shouted, “This is a marvel!”
Dante looked closely at the burned features of the sodomite, recognized him as a man he had known and still respected, and said, “Is this really you here, Sir?”
This is Brunetto Latini, Virgil thought. This sodomite was famous for his writings, including the Trésor, which recounted much encyclopedic knowledge of his day. After the Battle of Montaperti in 1260, he was exiled from Florence. In addition to being a scholar, he was a Guelf.
You have something to learn here, Dante. You do not have homosexual feelings, yet you have something to learn from Brunetto Latini. He was a scholar, but he was very concerned with becoming famous through his writing. You, Dante, need to be more concerned with telling the truth in your writing than with becoming famous through your writing.
You, Dante, are in the Inferno to learn things that will keep you out of the Inferno. What you need to learn here is to not take something that should be fertile and make it infertile. This, of course, is what the sodomites do. No amount of homosexual intercourse will result in the birth of a baby from that union.
Souls in the Inferno know the future, and so I know that you will later be engaged in what should be a fertile act: the writing of The Divine Comedy. To make that work fertile, you must tell the truth in it. What could make the act of writing The Divine Comedy infertile? If you write in order to become famous instead of writing in order to say the truth, The Divine Comedy will not be the fertile work of art that it could and should be.
Brunetto said to Dante, “If it is OK with you, I would like to talk to you for a while, while I let the rest of my group run on ahead.”
Dante replied, “I would like that. Please stay a while and talk to me, as long as my companion here does not mind.”
“I will, then,” Brunetto said, “but I must keep on running beside you. Any of my group who stops for even a moment is condemned to lie on the burning sand for a hundred years, and he is unable to brush the burning flakes of fire from his body during that time.”
Dante continued walking, but he kept his head low to show respect to his friend. Of course, he did not dare to step onto the burning sand.
“You are still alive, so why are you here?” Brunetto asked. “You obviously have an impressive destiny. Who is your guide?”
“In the living world, I lost my way,” Dante said. “I have been trying to find my way to the right path, and yesterday this soul appeared to serve as my guide. This path through Hell is actually the right path to lead me to the path I ought to be on.”
Way to go, Dante, Virgil thought. You no longer think that your great genius is responsible for your being here, although Brunetto seems to think that. Instead, you realize that you so messed up your life that this journey is necessary to save your soul.
“Dante, you are gifted,” Brunetto said. “You are going to be famous. Your name will be in lights. I saw that clearly when I was alive, and if I had not died when I did, I would have continued to encourage you.
“But not everyone feels about you the way that I do. Some people are your enemies. You will do good deeds, but those people will not recognize them. They will make your life hard. Do not allow them to keep you from your destiny and from the fame that ought to be yours.”
“I wish that you were still alive,” Dante replied. “When you were alive, you taught me how people can make themselves eternal.”
Be careful, Dante, Virgil thought. You say that Brunetto taught you how people can make themselves eternal. That is a reference to becoming famous on Earth through writing.
Yet Brunetto is in Hell for all eternity. Brunetto did not teach you about the right kind of “eternal.” Brunetto was all about gaining eternal fame on Earth, not eternal life in Heaven.
If you, Dante, were to concentrate on becoming famous rather than telling the truth in The Divine Comedy, you may end up like Brunetto, with fame that is not long lasting on Earth and with punishment that is eternal in the Inferno.
If you, Dante, were to concentrate on becoming famous rather than telling the truth in The Divine Comedy, you might not put Popes in Hell, but instead flatter them so that you could be their guests and drop their names to other people.
If you, Dante, were to concentrate on becoming famous rather than telling the truth in The Divine Comedy, you might not put any of your friends in your Inferno, but instead you might put only your enemies in your Inferno.
Dante continued talking to Brunetto, “I will write down your prophecy about the enemies who will want to hurt me. A Heavenly lady will be able to make clearer to me all that you have said. I have heard other prophecies that she can also interpret.”
Virgil, pleased that Dante had listened carefully to what had been said to him, repeated a proverb to Dante, “He listens well who notes well what he hears.”
Dante then asked Brunetto about some of the other sinners with him.
Brunetto replied that many clerics and many men of letters were in his group. By name he mentioned Francesco d’Accorso, a lawyer from Florence who also had taught law at the University of Bologna, and Andrea de’ Mozzi, who from 1287 to 1295 had been the Bishop of Florence.
Then Brunetto said, “I would like to stay and talk with you longer, but I cannot. The dust rising from the desert over there shows that a new group of sinners is arriving, and I must not mingle with them.
“I do ask of you one thing: Remember my Trésor. On it my fame rests.”
Then Brunetto, a naked sinner, raced away the way a naked runner at Verona would compete in a race. He ran quickly, as if he would take the first prize.
I hope that you, Dante, have learned what you ought to have learned, Virgil thought. Brunetto truly has a keen interest in fame. However, compromising your artistic vision for fame is a sin. If you don’t tell the truth in your art, your art will not live on and it will not positively affect other people.
Ironically, if you do tell the truth in your art, it can live on and positively affect other people, and your fame will be greater than if you had compromised your artistic vision. You, Dante, may be remembered as one of the greatest poets who ever lived. At best, Brunetto will be a footnote in future scholarly volumes. If you achieve your destiny, Dante, and if you resist writing simply in order to be famous, anyone who reads the Trésor hundreds of years from now will read it only in the hope that he or she will learn more about you, Dante.
Books should be fertile; books written only to make the writer famous are infertile.
“Adam Remnant is a songwriter, producer, and photographer living in Athens, Ohio. Remnant got his start in music fronting the folk-rock band Southeast Engine. As the principal singer and songwriter of the band, Remnant and his bandmates garnered critical acclaim from publications such as Paste Magazine, Pitchfork, NPR, American Songwriter, Magnet, Stereogum, PopMatters, AV Club, and many more. They established a substantial following over the years, releasing five albums and touring across the United States and Canada.
“As Southeast Engine wound down, Remnant began plotting his way forward as a solo artist. He assembled a little studio in his basement and earnestly began writing & recording the songs that comprise the 2016 EP, When I Was a Boy, as well as the 2018 LP, Sourwood. Remnant’s signature baritone voice and literary songwriting act as the focal point in the productions spanning between folk, rock, and indie sounds mined from a Midwest basement.
“In the summer of 2019, Remnant took up film photography as a new means of artistic expression. Remnant’s photography explores many of the same themes of his music, including place, memory, history, and identity. Remnant typically shoots landscape/documentary style color photos of his surroundings as well as neighboring towns and cities.
“Remnant continues to work on new music, including a recently completed full length album, entitled Big Doors. An EP tentatively titled Rainy Day Savings is also in the works. The new recordings are performed by Adam Remnant and his working band, consisting of brother, Jesse Remnant, on bass and harmony vocals; Ryan Stolte-Sawa on violin and harmony vocals, and Jon Helm on drums.”
“Basement Tapes is a series of videos with live performances recorded to an analog tape machine here in my basement home studio. Inspired by the spirit of Bob Dylan & the Band’s Basement Tape sessions, this series serves as a sort of sandbox for alternative takes, demos, covers, and more experimentation.”
Adam Remnant: “Run of the Mill” (George Harrison cover on 4-track cassette)
“A huge and sincere thank you to Adam Remnant for his direction of the video and to the Hocking College students listed in the following credits: AC – Alex Rhinehart & Najayah Shepard; Grips – Alex Rhinehart, Alexis Pariseau, Najayah Shepard, Nate Ruhl, & Richard Valentine; On-set Photographer – Ivan Reardon.” — Caitlin Kraus
Supernobody: “Sheep”
“Lead track from Supernobody album YOU CAN’T GO BACK. This video was made by Adam Remnant and his video production team at Hocking College in Nelsonville, OH 2019.”
davekillcountysmith, a fan, wrote, “There is joyousness unrestrained by inhibition in the songwriting of Southeast Engine. [Canary] is my favourite album of theirs. Wonderful! Favorite track: ‘Red Lake Shore.’”
davekillcountysmith, a fan, wrote about CANAANVILLE, “This was the last recording released by Southeast Engine. It’s only four songs, but they are four songs of such magnificence that we wonder what this band could have become. Favorite track: ‘Great Awakening.’”
davekillcountysmith, a fan, wrote about FROM THE FOREST TO THE SEA, “A very well put-together album. Each song flows into the next. A proper album. Favorite track: ‘Preparing for the Flood.’”
davekillcountysmith, a fan, wrote about A WHEEL WITHIN A WHEEL, “There’s a real retro feel to this album. Like with The Jayhawks, you get a real sense that these tunes could have originated from the 60s or 70s. Favorite track: ‘Oh God, Let Me Back In.’”
davekillcountysmith, a fan, wrote about COMING TO TERMS WITH GRAVITY, “I love this band’s sound. There’s a bit of Americana, a bit of indie, a bit of folk and even a bit of psych. They are probably what Dr Dog would sound like if they weren’t so mad. Favorite track: ‘Undergrad.’”
ATHENS, OHIO (AND ENVIRONS) SINGER-SONGWRITERS ON BANDCAMP AND/OR LIVE FROM HOME
All musical friends of Bruce Dalzell are honorary Athenians no matter where they live and love. And as is well known, Austin, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee are very large suburbs of Athens, Ohio.
Adam Remnant
Albert Rouzie
Albert Rouzie: Live From Home (Includes at end Bruce Dalzell’s “Gifts”)
Peter Mealy and Laurie Rose Griffith: Live From Home (Includes at end Bruce Dalzell’s cover of “My Neighborhood,” previously recorded by Peter Mealy and Laurie Rose Griffith)
Theater director Tyrone Guthrie advised his actors and crew to do this. The advice means to rise above whatever forces are working against you. All of us have personal problems. No one’s life is perfect. Sometimes, life seems to conspire against us. Rise above all that, and produce the best work you can.
ASTONISH ME.
Dance impresario Sergei Diaghilev advised his choreographers to do this. The advice means what it says. Do such good work that the person who commissioned the work—and of course the audience—is astonished. (Tyrone Guthrie also used this phrase.)
DO IT NOW.
As a young man, choreographer George Balanchine nearly died and so he believed in living his life day by day and not holding anything back. He would tell his dancers, “Why are you stingy with yourselves? Why are you holding back? What are you saving for—for another time? There are no other times. There is only now. Right now.” Throughout his career, including before he became world renowned, he worked with what he had, not complaining about wanting a bigger budget or better dancers. One of the pieces of advice Mr. Balanchine gave over and over was this: “Do it now.”
GO OUT AND GET ONE.
Ruth St. Denis once taught Martha Graham an important lesson when Ms. Graham was just starting to dance. Ms. St. Denis told Ms. Graham, “Show me your dance.” Ms. Graham replied, “I don’t have one,” and Ms. St. Denis advised, “Well, dear, go out and get one.” (Everyone needs an art to practice. Your art need not be dance. Perhaps your art can be writing autobiographical essays. Of course, you may practice more than one art.)
WORK A LITTLE HARDER.
“I think high self-esteem is overrated. A little low self-esteem is actually quite good—maybe you’re not the best, so you should work a little harder.”—Jay Leno
A song for the rights of all: the right to be safe in our bodies, the right to make decisions for our bodies, and the right to be who we are in our bodies. (Lyrics below.) I wrote this song […] out of the need to process my anger at women’s rights being taken away and for what this means for other rights down the line. A never-ending issue it seems, but one we can’t stop fighting for. A big thank you to Tom Riggs for taking footage of my first performance of this song with Mark Hellenberg on drums at The Union in Athens, OH.
Anecdotes are usually short humorous stories. Sometimes they are thought-provoking or informative, not amusing.
Problem-Solving
• In the 18th century, the boxing ring was at ground level, and fans became so excited that sometimes they would jump into the ring and start fighting. To solve that problem, boxing promoter Jack Broughton added ropes to the ring and raised the ring six feet from the ground. His innovations are still in effect today.
• The late Chuck Daley used to coach the Detroit Pistons. Often, he would take players out of the game — players who objected vociferously at being taken out of the game. When a reporter asked him how he handled such situations, Mr. Daley said, “I’m over 70. I don’t always hear so good.”
• Figure-skating choreographer Sandra Bezic enjoys being on the ice. Whenever she works with pairs team Barbara Underhill and Paul Martini and feels like getting a figure-skating “fix,” she asks Mr. Martini to perform the movement known as a death spiral with her.
• In 1993 at the Hong Kong Open, rain washed out the first two rounds. Greg Norman wanted to practice despite the rain, so he hit golf balls through an open window in his hotel residence into the harbor. And yes, he won the Hong Kong Open.
Records
• When Walter Payton broke the NFL record, held by Jim Brown, for most games rushing 100 yards or more, he was asked who he would like to see break his record. He replied, “I don’t care who breaks my record once I retire — as long as it’s my son.”
• When Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim across the English Channel in 1926 (knocking two hours off the men’s record), reporters asked her how she felt as she walked onto shore. She replied, “Wet.”
Scouts
• Roy Cullenbine was an outfielder long ago. When he was still playing bush-league baseball, a sportswriter told him to play especially well that day because two scouts were in the stands and if he played well, they would want to see him after the game. Mr. Cullenbine did play well, making four hits and several spectacular catches. Sure enough, after the game, two scouts were waiting to meet him — they were Boy Scouts.
• In 1912, baseball player Casey Stengel was scouted on a day on which he could do little right. He tried to steal twice — and was thrown out each time. He made a spectacular catch — and threw the ball to the wrong base. He reached base once — and found himself sharing the base with a teammate. The scout reported, “Stengel can run, throw, and hit. He’s the most promising I’ve ever seen — from the neck down.”
Signs
• Major-league baseball pitcher Bob Gibson had a sense of humor. After he broke his leg, he got tired of answering the same questions over and over from sportswriters; therefore, after the cast came off his leg, he wore a sign around his neck with the answers to the questions that sportswriters kept asking him: “1. Yes, it’s off! 2. No, it doesn’t hurt. 3. I’m not supposed to walk on it for a week. 4. I don’t know how much longer. 5. Ask Doc Bauman. 6. Ask Doc Middleman.” In addition, he once drew eyes on his bat so it could “see” the ball and he would get more hits. It must have worked: In his career, he achieved a grand total of 24 home runs in regular-season play. His last major-league home run was a grand slam against the Mets.
• Early in his career, African-American tennis great Arthur Ashe played at a club that had this sign out front: “Whites Only.” Fortunately, the sign meant that white tails were to be worn at the club that night, but Mr. Ashe did not feel good looking at the sign.
• For 18 years, Gary McCord did not have a single win on the PGA Tour. Therefore, he acquired his own vanity license plate: NO WINS. Finally, in 1991, he won on the Hogan Tour. Because of the win, he added an asterisk to his license plate.
Superstitions
• Many hitters have strange beliefs about their bats. In the mid-1950s, Forrest “Spook” Jacobs used to squirt eye drops on his bat because he thought his hitting prowess improved when he used a “seeing-eye” bat. In the early 1900s, John “Chief” Meyers would not allow his fellow players to use his bats because he believed that each bat was capable of making only 100 hits. One of Meyers’ teammates, Benny Kauff, rested his bats whenever he felt that they were tired.
Chapter 14: The Desert with Falling Flames (Inferno)
Because of Dante’s love of Florence, he gathered up the leaves that had been torn from the bush that was the soul of the anonymous Florentine, and he left them by the bush.
Dante and Virgil continued walking, and they reached the third part of Circle 7. Already they had seen the river of boiling blood and the wood of the suicides. Now they came to a desert of burning sand. Nothing grew here, and nothing could ever grow here. Nothing was in this infertile desert but burning-hot sand and the flakes of fire that rained continuously down on the suffering sinners.
The sinners were of three kinds. Some sinners lay on their backs, facing upward. Other sinners were hunched over looking at something hanging from their necks. Yet other sinners were continuously running.
The greatest number of sinners belonged to the groups who were continuously running, but the loudest sinners were those who lay on their backs because they were most exposed to the falling flakes of flame and so they suffered the most.
The pain felt here came from two places: above and below. The flames fell from above, but the sand below was so hot that it burned all the sinners where they touched it.
Almost everywhere sinners were constantly moving their hands to put out the flames that fell on them. First on one side and then on the other side, flames fell. First on one side and then on the other side, hands moved to put out the flames. The dance of the hands was almost universal. Just one sinner did not deign to put out the flames.
Dante asked Virgil, “Who is the sinner who ignores the flames? Although he could move his hands to put them out, he does not.”
The sinner heard Dante and replied for Virgil: “I am the same here in Hell as I was while I was alive. Jupiter killed me because I blasphemed. I was one of the seven who attacked Thebes, and I challenged any of the gods, including Jupiter, to attempt to withstand me. Jupiter heard my boast and my challenge, and he killed me with a thunderbolt.”
Virgil then said to the sinner, “Capaneus, yes, you blasphemed against your god, and so you are punished here. Your sullenness and pride make the pain you feel even worse because they stop you from brushing the flames away from your body.”
Virgil turned to Dante and said, “As Capaneus has said, he was one of the seven kings who attacked Thebes. His blasphemy has sentenced him here, and here he is still blaspheming.”
Virgil thought, The blasphemers, sodomites, and greedy moneylenders are punished in this scorching desert. All of these sinners have committed sins in which they are violent against God or God’s gifts. All of these sinners have committed sins in which they either take something that should be fertile and make it infertile or take something that should be infertile and make it fertile. These sinners are on a sandy, infertile desert on which fire rains down and on which nothing can grow.
The blasphemers ought to have loved God, but they cursed God instead. The love of God ought to be fertile and result in good things, but the blasphemers cursed something that ought to be regarded as valuable. Now they lie in the burning, infertile desert and face upward, looking toward that which they cursed. Of course, when they open their mouths to curse God, flakes of fire fall into their mouths.
In contrast, the greedy moneylenders took something that ought to be infertile and made it fertile. The Bible, which Dante has studied, is against lending money at interest to relatives or to poor people, but the greedy moneylenders lent money at interest when they ought not to. The greedy moneylenders are hunched over, looking at the moneybags that hang from their neck.
Finally, the sodomites took something that ought to be fertile and made it infertile. Instead of having sex of a kind that results in children, they had sex of a kind that can never result in children. For this sin, they run continuously in groups with other sodomites.
All of these groups are violent against God. God is not a physical person (except in the case of the Incarnation), so someone may ask, How can a sinner be violent against God?
Blasphemers are violent against God directly. They curse God directly. The greedy moneylenders and the sodomites are violent against God indirectly. The greedy moneylenders take advantage of the poor, although God has several commandments saying to take care of the poor, not harm them. The sodomites are against God in that they are going against the commandment to “Be fruitful and multiply.”
Virgil said to Dante, “Now let us continue our journey. The wood lines the desert. Stay in the wood and do not set foot on the burning sand.”
They walked on until they reached a stream of reddish water. This was a branch from the river of boiling blood. Its bed and banks were made of stone, and it crossed the burning, infertile desert.
“This stream is our way across the burning desert,” Virgil said to Dante. “Above it, the falling flakes of flame are put out. This stream is the most remarkable sight you have yet seen in Hell.”
Intrigued by Virgil, Dante asked him to explain more about the stream.
“In the Mediterranean is an island called Crete,” Virgil said, “and on that island is the place where Rhea hid Jupiter, her son, from his father, Saturn, a monster who usually devoured his children. Whenever the young Jupiter cried, Rhea ordered her servants to shout loudly to conceal Jupiter’s presence from his cannibalistic father.
“A statue of an old man is located on Crete. The Old Man of Crete is made of many kinds of materials, which grow less in quality descending from the head to the feet. The Old Man’s head is made of gold, his arms and shoulders and chest are made of silver, the rest of his torso is made of brass, and his legs and one foot are made of iron. His other foot — the right one — is made of baked clay.”
Virgil thought, And so it is with the ages of man. At first there was a golden age, which was followed by a silver age, which was followed by other ages that became successively more degraded.
Virgil continued, “The Old Man of Crete shows his back to the Egyptian seaport Damietta, symbol of the pagan world. The Old Man of Crete faces Rome, home of the Pope and symbol of the Christian world.
“Except for the golden head, the statue is flawed. The eyes of the statue drip tears. The tears flow to the ground and become the streams and rivers and pools of the Inferno. These are those streams and rivers and pools:
“The Acheron, over which Charon ferries the souls of the dead.
“The Styx, a marsh in which the angry and the sullen and the slothful are punished.
“The Phlegethon, a name which means fiery.
“The Cocytus, which you will later see for yourself.”
Dante asked, “You did not mention the Lethe, and when will I see the Phlegethon?”
Virgil replied, “You have already seen the Phlegethon, which was the river of boiling blood in which the physically violent were punished.
“You will see the Lethe later, but not in Hell. It is in a place where those who have purged themselves of sin gather to wash.
“Now it is time to move on. Stay by me, and stay by the stream. Above the stream the flakes of falling flames are put out.”
Caitlin Kraus and her band perform “All Along” Sept. 17, 2023, at the Ohio Pawpaw Festival in Albany, OH. Matt Box on bass, Mark Hellenberg drums, Bernie Nau keys, John Borchard pedal steel guitar.
The Wingnuts: “Hippology”
John Borchard (left) on guitar, Bernie Nau keys, Mark Hellenberg drums, Dave Borowski bass, guest Kyle Selmer sax, Jimmy Smailes guitar.
The Return of the Cannibals live from the Adelphia Music Hall in Marietta, Ohio on March 26th 2022. Steve Lipscomb, Jason Swiger, Jacob Dunn, Kirby Evans, John Evans, and John Borchard
The Wingnuts with the John Hiatt song “Slow Turning” June 23, 2023, at The Union in Athens, OH. Mark Hellenberg on lead vocals and drums, John Borchard lap steel guitar, Bernie Nau keys, Dave Borowski bass, Jimmy Smailes guitar.
Peter Mealy and Laurie Rose Griffith: Live From Home (Includes at end Bruce Dalzell’s cover of “My Neighborhood,” previously recorded by Peter Mealy and Laurie Rose Griffith)
Theater director Tyrone Guthrie advised his actors and crew to do this. The advice means to rise above whatever forces are working against you. All of us have personal problems. No one’s life is perfect. Sometimes, life seems to conspire against us. Rise above all that, and produce the best work you can.
ASTONISH ME.
Dance impresario Sergei Diaghilev advised his choreographers to do this. The advice means what it says. Do such good work that the person who commissioned the work—and of course the audience—is astonished. (Tyrone Guthrie also used this phrase.)
DO IT NOW.
As a young man, choreographer George Balanchine nearly died and so he believed in living his life day by day and not holding anything back. He would tell his dancers, “Why are you stingy with yourselves? Why are you holding back? What are you saving for—for another time? There are no other times. There is only now. Right now.” Throughout his career, including before he became world renowned, he worked with what he had, not complaining about wanting a bigger budget or better dancers. One of the pieces of advice Mr. Balanchine gave over and over was this: “Do it now.”
GO OUT AND GET ONE.
Ruth St. Denis once taught Martha Graham an important lesson when Ms. Graham was just starting to dance. Ms. St. Denis told Ms. Graham, “Show me your dance.” Ms. Graham replied, “I don’t have one,” and Ms. St. Denis advised, “Well, dear, go out and get one.” (Everyone needs an art to practice. Your art need not be dance. Perhaps your art can be writing autobiographical essays. Of course, you may practice more than one art.)
WORK A LITTLE HARDER.
“I think high self-esteem is overrated. A little low self-esteem is actually quite good—maybe you’re not the best, so you should work a little harder.”—Jay Leno
This email includes a canto from my retelling of Dante’s DIVINE COMEDY, which has 100 cantos.
Anecdotes are usually short humorous stories. Sometimes they are thought-provoking or informative, not amusing.
Problem-Solving
• Managers and players have ways of letting umpires know that they want a game to be called on account of darkness or rain. Casey Stengel’s team was ahead in the second game of a doubleheader, but the opposing team was threatening to take the lead, and Casey wanted the game called on account of darkness to ensure a win for his team. Therefore, he called for a relief pitcher — using Morse Code to signal with his flashlight. In another game, Herman “Germany” Schaefer thought that a game should be called on account of rain, so when he went to play in the outfield, he wore a raincoat over his uniform.
• The great batter Ty Cobb was also respected as a base runner. When Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics and Mr. Cobb’s Detroit Tigers were preparing for an important series, Mr. Mack went over strategy, discussing what to do against certain opposing players. At one point, he asked catcher Wally Shang, “Suppose that the Tigers were one run behind with Cobb on second base and you knew that he was going to steal on the next pitch. What would you do?” Mr. Shang replied, “I’d fake a throw to third, and then hold on to the ball and tag him as he came sliding into home plate.”
• Women’s soccer coach Dan Tobias of the University of Arizona started his team practice every day at 6:45 a.m. It’s not a punishment. Star player Brianna Caceres said, “He doesn’t want us bummed out about the test we just took or distracted by other stuff. He wants us to have a good practice and then be energized for the academics and the rest of the day.” Of course, soccer practice causes lots of sweat, so Tucson Weekly columnist Tom Danehy, who has an inquiring mind, had to ask her, “What about the funk?” Brianna answered, “Change of clothes, lots of body spray.”
• Once, when the Utah Jazz were slumping and losing, they had an away game against the Charlotte Hornets. Point guard John Stockton told big scorer Karl Malone before the game that he had listened to a Charlotte sports program, and a Charlotte player had said that Karl Malone was overrated as a player. This got Mr. Malone mad, and he scored 52 points that night, ending the Jazz’ losing streak. After the game, Mr. Stockton confessed that no Charlotte player had disrespected Mr. Malone. Instead, Mr. Stockton had made the story up to motivate Mr. Malone.
• Sports director Doug Wilson was faced with a problem—how to create a camera shot that would reveal the movement and the feel of skating. He solved the problem by putting a cameraperson in a wheelchair on the ice and having a skater push the wheelchair. By the way, ice skating Olympic gold medalist and announcer Dick Button is openly bald nowadays, but earlier he wore a toupee. Once, he was on the ice demonstrating a move for television when his toupee came off during a fast move. Like the trouper he is, he carried on.
• When Paul “Bryant” Bryant coached for the University of Kentucky, a fumble occurred in a game against the University of Tennessee. Unfortunately, the fumble occurred near the Kentucky bench, where a box of footballs was knocked over. The footballs rolled onto the playing field, and the football players recovered them. Because the referees had no way of telling which football was the real game ball, they awarded possession to the University of Tennessee — whose players had recovered five of the nine footballs on the field.
• For a while, major-league baseball player Kevin Mitchell had an unusual haircut: one with three strips shaved on the sides of his head. The three strips symbolically represented his first three hits in the major leagues. By the way, Mr. Mitchell is a problem-solver. While playing in the San Diego Padres’ sometimes-chilly Candlestick Park, he used to put pepper between his toes on cold nights. Why? He explains, “When your feet sweat and the pepper dissolves, it makes your feet warm.”
• During a golf tournament, Walter Hagen hit his ball into a paper bag that had blown into a sand trap. After asking for a ruling, he was told that he couldn’t take a free drop and that his options were to play the ball or to take a one-stroke penalty for an unplayable lie. Mr. Hagen responded by lighting a cigarette, taking a drag on it, then dropping the cigarette on the paper bag. The bag burned up, and Mr. Hagen played the lie.
Not yet had Nessus reached the other bank of the river of boiling blood than Dante and Virgil were walking in a forest that did not have a path. No green leaves could be seen, but only black leaves. No smooth branches could be seen, but only entangled and crooked branches. No fruit could be seen, but only poisonous thorns. No grubby wood such as this exists anywhere in the Land of the Living.
Here were the Harpies, who are half-human and half-bestial. Part of them is female and human, and part of them is a bird. With their human faces, they shriek, and with their wings, they fly.
“Remember where you are,” Virgil told Dante. “We have left the river of boiling blood, and soon we will be in a desert of burning sand. Right now, we are in the second of the three areas that punish those sinners who are guilty of violence. This wood is more remarkable than you think right now. Look carefully around you. I will not tell you what you are seeing because you would not believe my words.”
Dante looked, and he listened. All he saw were grubby shrubs, but he could hear the sounds of lament coming from somewhere — he knew not where — in addition to the shrieks of the Harpies. Puzzled by the sounds of lament, he stopped.
One of Virgil’s powers was being able to read Dante’s mind. He knew why Dante was puzzled, and so he said, “Break off one of the branches you see in this forest, and your puzzlement will vanish.”
Dante broke off a branch, and the place where the branch had been attached to the shrub oozed with blood. The blood bubbled, and a voice complained, “Why do you injure me by tearing off one of my branches? Why don’t you pity the pain I am suffering? All of us shrubs were human beings once, but even if we had been snakes you should show us more pity.”
Dante dropped the branch he had broken off.
Virgil said to the sinner whose branch had been broken off, “I knew that my companion would never believe with words alone what he is now seeing, so I urged him to break your branch. Unfortunately, even though I wrote about a similar event in my Aeneid, I knew that my companion would not believe unless he had direct experience.”
That is true, Virgil thought. In my Aeneid, Aeneas broke a branch and then the shrub began to bleed and to speak to him. It turned out that Polydorus, a Prince of Troy, was buried there. The prince was murdered with spears so the murderers could take his wealth. The body fell to the ground, and the spears took root and grew.
“Please, tell my companion who you were. He can keep your name alive in the Land of the Living. You need not be forgotten. My companion is still alive, and he will return to the Land of the Living.”
“Your words please me very much,” the shrub said. “I want to be remembered. My name is Pier delle Vigne — Peter of the Vines. I served the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II.”
Pay attention, Dante, Virgil thought. Remember who Frederick II is. Frederick II fought the Pope for control of Italy. He died in 1250, and we know that Frederick II ended up in the Inferno in a tomb with Farinata, so we know that he died an unrepentant sinner.
“I was the Chief of Staff to Frederick II,” Pier delle Vigne continued. “I controlled who got access to the Holy Roman Emperor. I also advised Frederick II — I advised him on whether something was good or bad. I served him so faithfully that I lost sleep through overwork as well as losing my life. Envy turned up in the court of Frederick II, who was my Caesar. Envy made all the others my enemies, and my enemies turned Frederick II — my Augustus — against me. False accusations were made about me, and they were believed. Even though I was loyal and just to Frederick II, I behaved unjustly against myself. When you return to the Land of the Living, tell everyone that I was loyal to my emperor. Tell everyone that I am here because of the blow that Envy gave me.”
Be careful, Dante, Virgil thought. Like other sinners in the Inferno, Pier delle Vigne has told his story in a very self-serving way. He is blaming Envy for his problems. Envy turned everyone against him. Envious people convinced Frederick II that Pier was disloyal to him, so he put Pier in prison. While in prison, Pier committed suicide. Of course, we know that Pier — not Envy — was the person who committed suicide. In addition, Pier delle Vigne overvalued Frederick II, whom he calls “Caesar” and “Augustus.” And because Pier is in the Inferno, we know that he undervalued God. Of course, although Pier delle Vigne was loyal to Frederick II during Pier’s life, he was disloyal to God when he committed suicide.
Virgil then said to Dante, “If you wish to know anything more, ask your questions now.”
“You may ask him questions,” Dante replied. “I am so overcome with pity for him that I cannot say anything more to him.”
Why are you overcome with pity? Virgil thought. Do you pity him because of the false accusations that envious people made against him? That kind of pity is acceptable. Or do you pity him because he committed suicide? That kind of pity is unacceptable. I hope that you are learning not to allow yourself to be scammed by these sinners who, after all, are exactly where they ought to be. I hope that you have learned something since you spoke with Francesca da Rimini.
And, Dante, you have much to learn here. You will be under attack one day. You will lose your political position, and you will be exiled. Like Pier delle Vigne, you will be discouraged and you will wonder whether life is worth living.
The main thing you can learn here is to not act like Pier delle Vigne. Pier delle Vigne committed suicide, and he ended up in the Inferno. If you, Dante, commit suicide when you are discouraged, you can end up in the same place as Pier delle Vigne.
I know that you will be sent into exile, and I know that you will be discouraged, but if you wish to stay away from eternal punishment in the Inferno, you must respond to your discouragement differently from the way that Pier delle Vigne responded to his discouragement.
As human beings, we have free will, and we can choose how we respond to disaster. We can give in to discouragement and commit suicide, or we can respond in a more courageous way.
Virgil then said to Pier delle Vigne, “So that my companion may keep your name, please tell him how souls become shrubs here, and please tell him whether a soul will ever leave these shrubs.”
“Briefly,” Pier said, “after a person commits suicide, Minos judges his soul and sends it here in Circle 7. The soul drops in this wood the way a seed drops. The soul germinates like a seed and grows into a shrub. The Harpies then feast on it, breaking its branches and causing it pain. By breaking a shrub’s branches, the Harpies give it an outlet through which to express grief as the blood comes bubbling from the wound.
“Like the other souls in the Inferno, we will be given our bodies on Judgment Day, but our soul will not be reunited with our body. Instead, our body will hang from our branches. We rejected our body, and therefore it will not be reunited with our soul.”
Here we have another contrapasso, Virgil thought. The suicides are the grubby shrubs of this wood. The suicides cannot even determine when they will talk; they can communicate only when one of their twigs or branches is broken because they use the resulting hole as a mouth until the blood congeals — the blood oozes from the wound the way that sap oozes from a broken twig or branch.
The punishment of the suicides is appropriate because by killing themselves, the suicides gave up the privilege of self-determination. As shrubs, the suicides have no free will because plants have no free will. This is appropriate because in life the suicides rejected free will by committing suicide.
Because the suicides gave up their privilege of self-determination, they no longer have self-determination in the Inferno. Minos throws their souls into Circle 7, and the souls sprout wherever they fall. As grubby shrubs, the suicides cannot move around, and they cannot even speak unless someone breaks off a twig or branch.
The suicides have no free will because they rejected the chance to use free will to solve their problems. The suicides rejected their bodies, so they will not be reunited with their bodies.
In life, the suicides mutilated themselves. Now, as shrubs, they can no longer mutilate themselves.
Just then, Virgil and Dante heard the sound of a hunt when dogs chase their prey. Two naked souls came running, crashing amidst the shrubs and breaking many branches, causing the souls who were the shrubs to cry out in pain.
One of the naked souls said, “I wish that death would come quickly.”
The other naked soul replied, “Lano, you did not run so quickly when you were in battle.”
I know who these sinners are, Virgil thought. They are Lano of the wealthy Maconi family and Giacomo da Sant’ Andrea. They are Profligates who violently wasted their wealth so they are here in the Circle that punishes the violent. Giacomo da Sant’ Andrea once deliberately set on fire several houses that he owned just because he wanted to. Lano of Siena violently wasted his wealth, and then he deliberately sought death in a 1287 battle; he could have escaped by retreating, but stayed to fight so that he would die. That is a kind of suicide.
The spendthrifts who are punished in Circle 4 merely wasted their wealth, while the profligates here in Circle 7 violently wasted their wealth and then courted death.
Tired, Giacomo da Sant’ Andrea hid himself among the shrubs, while Lano continued running. The black dogs that had been pursuing the two profligates found Giacomo da Sant’ Andrea and tore him to pieces, and then they carried away the pieces in their mouths.
While tearing apart Giacomo da Sant’ Andrea, the black dogs also broke many branches of the shrub, and Virgil brought Dante close so that he could hear the shrub complain: “Giacomo da Sant’ Andrea, why did you hide in me? You have brought me much pain because you brought to me the black dogs that tore my branches and took my leaves from me.”
Virgil asked the shrub, “Who are you?”
The shrub answered, “I am a Florentine who committed suicide by hanging myself in my home. The first patron of Florence was Mars, the Roman god of war. But Florence exchanged this patron for John the Baptist, whose image is stamped on the gold coins of Florence. Because of this, Mars swears that endless sorrow will come to Florence.”
HARPER REESE: MEMBER of VELVET GREEN and SUN BOATS, aka SUNBOATS
VELVET GREEN
Young funk band based in Athens, Ohio:
Cora Fitch — Vocals
Harper Reese — Guitar
Sam Debatin — Other Guitar
Liam Mcsteen — Keys
Mitch Spring — Bass
Shea Benezra – Drums
***
Helen Widman: “Velvet Green Brings ‘Junk Funk’ Music to Athens” (Backdrop Magazine)
“J.D.’s original songs have been recorded by numerous artists, including Tim O’Brien, Robert Earl Keen, K.T. Oslin, Jan Howard, Ginny Hawker, Suzanne Thomas and the bands Hot Rize and Stella. […]
“‘These are tough and tender things. We can only have confidence that the Natural Order of Things prevails–and that a wondrous life well-lived has moved on accordingly. Pain in my heart where better words should be ….’”—John Dale Hutchison (2018)
JEANIE AND THE DREAMERS: “Practicing the Swallowtail / Haste to the Wedding / Mairi’s Wedding Set”
Three traditional Celtic tunes. The first two are jigs, the third is a marchy reel, with wonderful lyrics. (Practicing at Nick’s house on January 3, 2020.
JEANIE AND THE DREAMERS: “Practicing the Rebel Raid / Golden Stud / Touching Cloth Set”
Rebel Raid is a traditional old time tune. Golden Stud and Touching Cloth are both Irish tunes, the first, written by tenor banjo players Kieran Hanrahan; the second, by fiddler James Kelly. (Practicing at Nick’s house on January 3, 2020.
Peter Mealy and Laurie Rose Griffith: Live From Home (Includes at end Bruce Dalzell’s cover of “My Neighborhood,” previously recorded by Peter Mealy and Laurie Rose Griffith)
Theater director Tyrone Guthrie advised his actors and crew to do this. The advice means to rise above whatever forces are working against you. All of us have personal problems. No one’s life is perfect. Sometimes, life seems to conspire against us. Rise above all that, and produce the best work you can.
ASTONISH ME.
Dance impresario Sergei Diaghilev advised his choreographers to do this. The advice means what it says. Do such good work that the person who commissioned the work—and of course the audience—is astonished. (Tyrone Guthrie also used this phrase.)
DO IT NOW.
As a young man, choreographer George Balanchine nearly died and so he believed in living his life day by day and not holding anything back. He would tell his dancers, “Why are you stingy with yourselves? Why are you holding back? What are you saving for—for another time? There are no other times. There is only now. Right now.” Throughout his career, including before he became world renowned, he worked with what he had, not complaining about wanting a bigger budget or better dancers. One of the pieces of advice Mr. Balanchine gave over and over was this: “Do it now.”
GO OUT AND GET ONE.
Ruth St. Denis once taught Martha Graham an important lesson when Ms. Graham was just starting to dance. Ms. St. Denis told Ms. Graham, “Show me your dance.” Ms. Graham replied, “I don’t have one,” and Ms. St. Denis advised, “Well, dear, go out and get one.” (Everyone needs an art to practice. Your art need not be dance. Perhaps your art can be writing autobiographical essays. Of course, you may practice more than one art.)
WORK A LITTLE HARDER.
“I think high self-esteem is overrated. A little low self-esteem is actually quite good—maybe you’re not the best, so you should work a little harder.”—Jay Leno
This email includes a canto from my retelling of Dante’s DIVINE COMEDY, which has 100 cantos.
Anecdotes are usually short humorous stories. Sometimes they are thought-provoking or informative, not amusing.
Prejudice
• When Muhammad Ali, then known as Cassius Clay, won a gold medal at the Olympic Games in Rome in 1960, he wore it all the time, even sleeping with it. (He started sleeping on his back so that the medal wouldn’t cut his chest.) However, even with Olympic gold, he still faced prejudice. In Louisville, Kentucky, he and an African-American friend went to a restaurant. There, they were refused service because of their race, even though Mr. Clay showed the owner of the restaurant his gold medal.
• Barbara Jo Rubin hit the big time as a woman jockey — the first one to do so. However, she had to overcome prejudice before fully making her mark. Early in her career, 11 male jockeys boycotted a race she was supposed to ride in, forcing its cancellation. Fortunately, each male jockey was fined $100, with the promise of stiffer fines to come if they continued to boycott races in which a woman jockey was scheduled to compete.
• Pittsburgh Pirate (and Baseball Hall of Famer) Roberto Clemente sometimes felt that he was being discriminated against in southern cities. When that happened, he would tell the clerk his identity, watch as the prejudice turned into awe and compliments, and then leave.
Problem-Solving
• During the Jim Crow days, professional baseball player Ed Charles, an African American, and his white teammates (and one black teammate) stopped in rural Georgia. The black ballplayers were not allowed to eat in the restaurant, so their white teammates brought out food for them to eat on the team bus. But of course the white teammates could not go to the restroom for them. Mr. Charles was angry, so he entered the “Whites Only” restroom and a white employee entered and started hassling him. One of Mr. Charles’ white teammates entered the restroom and got in the white employee’s face, then a second white teammate entered the restroom and got in the white employee’s face, and then a third white teammate entered the restroom and got in the white employee’s face. Finally, the white employee decided that he didn’t have any hassle left in him and he let Mr. Charles alone.
• Figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi once skated a short program to “Doop Doop,” by Dancelife Orchestra. In their short program, skaters are required to perform certain movements to demonstrate their technical skill. This created a problem for Kristi’s choreographer, Sandra Bezic. “Doop Doop” is a funky song, danced to by hip chicks. What would any hip chick do during a traditional spiral, which is a required element in short programs? Ms. Bezic solved the problem by having Ms. Yamaguchi look bored during the spiral, holding her hand on her chin, tapping her cheek with a finger, and occasionally looking at her watch to see if it was time to stop the boring spiral. Ms. Bezic writes, “Competitive choreography is often about ways to do things differently within the confines of the rules.”
• At the San Francisco Giants’ stadium, any home runs hit into the San Francisco Bay are probably presumed by most fans to be lost, but actually trained dogs rescue them. The dogs include Rio, a black Portuguese water dog, and several other dogs that are a part of B.A.R.K., the Baseball Aquatic Retrieval Korps. B.A.R.K. is actually the brainchild of comedian Don Novello, aka Father Guido Sarducci. The aquatic-retrieval dogs sail on The Good Ship Jollipup, which is owned by an animal rescue organization called Pets in Need, and the dogs jump into the water and retrieve all the home-run balls hit there. Pets in Need auctions off the baseballs to fans, and the proceeds (and an added donation by the Giants) go toward finding good homes for pets in need.
• Tucson Weekly columnist Tom Danehy has a cuñado [brother-in-law] named Jesse who entered the 111-mile El Tour de Tucson bicycle event a few years ago, although Tom says that this particular event is “usually reserved for the people who all look like they’re Keira Knightley’s cousins.” In high school Jesse used to be a heavyweight wrestler — and has gained weight since then. Jesse trained for the event, he participated in the event, and he was so far behind the other cyclists — who had finished — that race officials jumped in front of his bike to tell him that the event was over. However, Jesse’s goal was to finish the event, so he yelled, “I don’t have any brakes!” and kept pedaling. The race officials jumped out of his way, and Jesse achieved his goal.
Chapter 12: The Minotaur and the River of Boiling Blood
As Dante and Virgil continued on their journey, they saw ruins. They also saw the Minotaur, one of the guards of Circle 7.
I know your story, Dante thought about the Minotaur. You are the half-human, half-bull offspring of Pasiphaë, the wife of King Minos of Crete, who is now the judge of the damned in the Inferno. Virgil and I saw him earlier. Pasiphaë fell in love with a bull, and in order to have sex with the bull, she crept inside a lifelike cow that she ordered the skilled inventor Daedalus to create. The result of their sexual union was the half-bull, half-man Minotaur, which was so violent that Daedalus created a labyrinth for the Minotaur to live in. The Minotaur feasted on the flesh of young Athenians who were given to the Cretans as tribute and put into the labyrinth with him. Eventually, Theseus, the King of Athens, was able to kill the Minotaur. He was afraid that he would get lost in the labyrinth, but Ariadne, Pasiphaë’s daughter, helped him by telling him to tie one end of a ball of string to the entrance, then enter the Labyrinth. He was able to find his way out of the Labyrinth by using the string.
The Minotaur saw Dante and Virgil. The sight so enraged the monster that it began to bite itself.
Virgil called to the Minotaur, “Do you think that you are seeing Theseus again — the man who killed you? You are mistaken, beast! The man who is with me is here to see your misery.”
The Minotaur then began to twist and turn with anger, the way that a bull does just before it dies.
Virgil said to Dante, “Run past the Minotaur while it is distracted by its anger.”
Virgil and Dante made it past the Minotaur, and they began to climb over the ruins they saw, the result of a great earthquake. As Dante climbed over the ruins, the rocks moved, unaccustomed as they were to the weight of a living man.
“The last time I climbed down here to this Circle, there were no ruins,” Virgil said. “I remember that an earthquake struck just before the Mighty Warrior took from Limbo the souls of those who were destined for Heaven. You know that event as the Harrowing of Hell. That earthquake caused the ruins you see here.
“But now look into the valley. There you will see a river of boiling blood in which are punished those who were physically violent against others.”
Dante looked, and in addition to the river of boiling blood he saw Centaurs — beings with the body of a horse but the torso, arms, and head of a man. They were the guards here, and they were armed with bows and arrows.
Have you noticed that so many guards in the Inferno are half-man, half-beast? Virgil thought. There is a reason for that. Sin can be bestial in nature. Certainly, the sins of violence are bestial in nature; after all, many animals are red in tooth and claw because they kill other animals in order to eat them. Human beings at their finest are not like animals; human beings at their worst are very much like carnivorous animals.
The Centaurs saw Dante and Virgil, and one shouted at them, “Who are you, and for what Circle of Hell are you destined? Speak, or I will draw my bow!”
Virgil shouted at the Centaur, “I will answer your questions when we reach you and can talk to Chiron. You are as rash as ever, so I won’t answer you now.”
Virgil then said to Dante, “Not all of the Centaurs are violent — Chiron, the leader of the Centaurs, was the noted tutor of Hercules, the ancient physician Aesculapius, and Achilles — but enough Centaurs are violent that they are appropriate guards of the violent who physically harmed others.
“The Centaur who challenged us is Nessus, who is violent. He seized Hercules’ wife, Dejanira, and tried to rape her. Hercules killed Nessus with an arrow that had been dipped in the poisonous blood of the monstrous Hydra, but before Nessus died, he told Dejanira to soak a shirt with his blood, and if she ever doubted Hercules’ fidelity to her, to have him wear that shirt. When Dejanira later gave Hercules the shirt to wear, the Hydra-poisoned blood of the Centaur burned Hercules’ skin so painfully that he committed suicide.
“Many of the Centaurs are as violent as Nessus. In Thessaly, the Centaurs were invited to a wedding, but grew drunk and tried to rape the women guests.
“As you can see, the Centaurs are the guards here. Being immersed in the river of boiling blood punishes these sinners who were physically violent against other people. These violent people caused the blood of other people to flow; now they are immersed in blood. Each sinner is appointed a certain level to be immersed in the river; the more blood the sinner caused to flow on earth, the more deeply they are immersed in the river. Centaurs shoot arrows at sinners who try to rise above their appointed level in the river.”
When Virgil and Dante reached the group of three Centaurs, Chiron, their leader, said to the other Centaurs, “Have you noticed how this one moves the stones he steps on? He is alive! The souls of dead people can’t do what he does!”
“This man is indeed alive,” Virgil said to Chiron. “My divine duty is to take him through Hell — a journey that he makes out of necessity. A soul from Heaven gave me this task. This living man is not a sinner trying to escape from Hell, and I am acting in accordance with the will of the Heavenly lady who came to me.
“Please give us a guide to escort us across the river of boiling blood at the ford. This living man needs to be carried over.”
Chiron ordered Nessus, “You be their guide and escort. Make sure that no one interferes with them.”
Obviously, Chiron is intelligent, Virgil thought. He realized that Dante is a living man, and he immediately made up his mind to help us.
As they moved along the river of boiling blood, Nessus pointed out some of the sinners being punished. Among the sinners up to their eyelids in boiling blood are cruel tyrants such as Alexander the Great. According to the Christian historian Orosius, Alexander the Great was cruel and violent. Attila the Hun, another noted warrior, is also immersed in boiling blood here. Being immersed in boiling blood up to his eyelids punishes Ezzelino, who burned 11,000 people at the stake on one occasion, here. Other violent sinners are up to their chests, waists, knees, or feet in blood.
As Nessus, Dante, and Virgil moved along the river, it got shallower and shallower until they reached the ford, and Nessus carried Dante and Virgil across it. Dante and Virgil dismounted, and Nessus crossed the river and returned to Chiron.
Dante did not speak to anyone here, nor did he need to, Virgil thought. Although Dante has sinned, violence is not one of his sins.
Daniel Spencer talks about Fathers of the Revolution (from 2013)
“Fathers of the Revolution lead singer Daniel Spencer discusses how his music got started, the history behind the band’s unique name, and where he sees the band going in the future.”
ATHENS, OHIO (AND ENVIRONS) SINGER-SONGWRITERS ON BANDCAMP AND/OR LIVE FROM HOME
All musical friends of Bruce Dalzell are honorary Athenians no matter where they live and love. And as is well known, Austin, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee are very large suburbs of Athens, Ohio.
Adam Remnant
Albert Rouzie
Albert Rouzie: Live From Home (Includes at end Bruce Dalzell’s “Gifts”)
Peter Mealy and Laurie Rose Griffith: Live From Home (Includes at end Bruce Dalzell’s cover of “My Neighborhood,” previously recorded by Peter Mealy and Laurie Rose Griffith)
Theater director Tyrone Guthrie advised his actors and crew to do this. The advice means to rise above whatever forces are working against you. All of us have personal problems. No one’s life is perfect. Sometimes, life seems to conspire against us. Rise above all that, and produce the best work you can.
ASTONISH ME.
Dance impresario Sergei Diaghilev advised his choreographers to do this. The advice means what it says. Do such good work that the person who commissioned the work—and of course the audience—is astonished. (Tyrone Guthrie also used this phrase.)
DO IT NOW.
As a young man, choreographer George Balanchine nearly died and so he believed in living his life day by day and not holding anything back. He would tell his dancers, “Why are you stingy with yourselves? Why are you holding back? What are you saving for—for another time? There are no other times. There is only now. Right now.” Throughout his career, including before he became world renowned, he worked with what he had, not complaining about wanting a bigger budget or better dancers. One of the pieces of advice Mr. Balanchine gave over and over was this: “Do it now.”
GO OUT AND GET ONE.
Ruth St. Denis once taught Martha Graham an important lesson when Ms. Graham was just starting to dance. Ms. St. Denis told Ms. Graham, “Show me your dance.” Ms. Graham replied, “I don’t have one,” and Ms. St. Denis advised, “Well, dear, go out and get one.” (Everyone needs an art to practice. Your art need not be dance. Perhaps your art can be writing autobiographical essays. Of course, you may practice more than one art.)
WORK A LITTLE HARDER.
“I think high self-esteem is overrated. A little low self-esteem is actually quite good—maybe you’re not the best, so you should work a little harder.”—Jay Leno
Anecdotes are usually short humorous stories. Sometimes they are thought-provoking or informative, not amusing.
Practical Jokes
• In 1987, catcher Dave Bresnahan became famous briefly for throwing a potato in Class AA baseball in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. He had peeled a potato so that it was round like a baseball, then hid it in an extra baseball glove in the dugout. When an opposing player reached third base, Mr. Bresnahan told the umpire that his glove was broken, and went to the dugout to get his potato and spare glove. He then pretended to try to throw the player out at third base with a wild throw, that player ran home to score a run, and Mr. Bresnahan tagged him with the real baseball. The umpire was plenty mad when he found out what had happened, and he let the runner score although Mr. Bresnahan argued, “You can’t give him a run on a wildly thrown potato. Can you? Look it up.” Unfortunately for Mr. Bresnahan, he was fired for his stunt, although the farm director laughed and said, “That was ingenious. What are you trying to do: get on the David Letterman show?”
• On 6 July 1936, 17-year-old Bob Feller got to pitch in an exhibition game for the Cleveland Indians as they played the St. Louis Cardinals. Bob used his blazing fastball as he struck out Leo Durocher in three pitches. Yes, Bob’s fastball was blazing, but another thing that helped him was an occasional lack of control that allowed the ball to go toward the batter instead of the catcher, as previous batters had learned. After striking out, Leo went to the dugout and hid behind the water cooler while yelling at Bob, “You can’t hit me from here!” Bob was capable of joking around as well. Later, he used to attach noisy — but harmless — bombs to the cars of guests attending parties at his home. Some bombs made a bang when the owners started their cars, and some bombs that were attached to the tires made bangs as the cars traveled down the road.
• Professional baseball player Truett “Rip” Sewell once roomed with a practical joker and outfielder named “Junk” Walters. Junk once snuck up on Rip in the shower and smeared his rear end with a salve that was used to heat injuries. Rip would sit down, then stand up, then sit down — because of the salve, he couldn’t get comfortable. Later, when they were playing in Oakland, California, Rip was lying in bed when it began to move. He was sure that Junk was up to some devilment or other, so he said, “Junk, cut that out!” Junk replied, “You better shut up, Sewell, and stand in this doorway with me — we’re having an earthquake!”
• At the beginning of the NCAA gymnastics meet in 1974, a man walked out onto the floor exercise mat wearing nothing but pantyhose — over his head. Otherwise completely nude, he performed a roundoff, a back handspring, and a back somersault, and then he raced away with a police officer in pursuit. After managing to elude the police officer, he removed the pantyhose mask, got dressed, and returned to watch the competition. The nude gymnast was Jim Culhane, who made $35 in dares for performing his stunt.
• Nolan Ryan was one out away from a no-hitter when practical joker Norm Cash came up to bat, but he didn’t have a bat — he had a table leg! Even though Mr. Cash claimed that the way that Mr. Nolan was pitching, a bat wouldn’t do him any good, umpire Ron Luciano made him step up the plate with a real bat. Actually, Mr. Cash was right — the bat didn’t help him. Mr. Cash popped up, and Mr. Nolan recorded a no-hitter.
• Hockey is a rough sport, and many hockey players wear dentures. On an away trip, mid-1970s player Bob Plager of the St. Louis Blues once stole the dentures of his teammate Larry Keenan and mailed them to Mr. Keenan’s home. During a different game, after Mr. Plager was sent to the locker room because of game misconduct, he visited his teammates’ lockers and switched around their dentures.
Prejudice
• Gene Sarazen was born Eugene Saraceni. When he was playing professional golf in the 1920s, some of the other golfers did not want to play with an Italian. For example, at the 1922 U.S. Open, a golfer named Jim Barnes made a fuss about playing a practice round with him. However, Mr. Sarazen won the U.S. Open, and he and Jim Barnes were scheduled to play an exhibition match together for money. Jim Barnes asked Mr. Sarazen if he wanted to split the purse evenly no matter who won, but Mr. Sarazen declined. To make a point, he wanted to beat Jim Barnes in the exhibition match and take all the money — which he did.
Dante and Virgil arrived at a steep bank from which they could look down into the dark, deep pit of Hell. They did not stay there long, for the stench arising from the lower Circles was too rank for them to bear. They moved back from the edge of the pit onto a tomb. On the tomb was written a name and a sin. The name was that of Pope Anastasius II, and his sin was to be a heretical follower of Photinus, who denied the divinity of Christ, believing instead that both of His parents were mortal human beings.
Virgil said to Dante, “We cannot continue on our journey yet. We will stay here a while so that we can become accustomed to the stench arising from the lower Circles of Hell. Once we have become used to the stench, we will continue our journey.”
Dante replied, “That’s fine, but I don’t want to waste time while we wait. Do you have any ideas?”
Well done, Virgil thought. You don’t want to waste time, and indeed time is not a thing to be wasted, especially now, when you are on a journey to save your soul.
“Yes,” Virgil replied. “As we wait here, I will be able to tell you how Hell is organized. That way, you will be better prepared for what is to come.
“First, let’s have a review. Even before entering Hell Proper, you saw the Vestibule of Hell, where those who did not choose between good and evil are punished. These souls are not worthy of Heaven, and Hell does not want them. These souls did nothing memorable — good or bad — with their lives.
“After passing through the gate above which are words written by God, we crossed the River Acheron and you saw my residence in Limbo, the first Circle of Hell. In that place the virtuous pagans and the unbaptized reside. It is a place of sighs, not screams.
“Then you saw the first of the three great divisions of Hell according to the pagan idea of sin: incontinence, violence, and fraud. The sins of incontinence are less evil than the sins of violence and of fraud because the sins of incontinence are those of a lack of self-control, not of malice aforethought.
“Circles 2 through 5 are devoted to the sins of incontinence. In Circle 2 are punished those who could not control their lust. In Circle 3 are punished those who could not control their desire for food and drink. In Circle 4 are punished the prodigal and the miserly: those who could not control their desire either for money or for the things that money can buy. In Circle 5 are punished those who could not control their anger.
“In Circle 6 are those who committed heresy. Because heresy is an essentially Christian sin, it is outside the pagan classification of sins.
“Below are the final three Circles of Hell. These Circles are devoted to punishing those who are guilty of malice, which is committed through violence or fraud. Fraud is something that is committed only by human beings — animals are violent but do not commit fraud — and so God hates fraud more than he hates violence.
“In Circle 7 are punished those who have committed violence. There are three kinds of violence:
“One, a sinner can be violent against neighbors. A sinner can do this by harming the person or by harming the person’s property.
“Two, a sinner can be violent against self by committing suicide. A sinner can also be violent against self by so violently wasting his wealth that he courts death.
“Three, a sinner can be violent against God by blaspheming Him. A sinner can also be violent against God by opposing Nature, which God created; for example, the Sodomites oppose Nature by engaging in sex that is incapable of resulting in children.
“In Circles 8 and 9 are punished those who are guilty of committing fraud. Fraud is depriving another person of a right through the use of willful misrepresentation.
“The two major kinds of fraud are simple and complex. Simple fraud is punished in Circle 8. Simple fraud does not involve the betrayal of a special trust.
“Ten kinds of sinners engage in simple fraud:
“One, Seducers and Panders,
“Two, Flatterers,
“Three, Simonists,
“Four, Fortune-Tellers and Sorcerers,
“Five, Grafters — those who give or accept bribes,
“Six, Hypocrites,
“Seven, Thieves,
“Eight, Evil Deceivers/Those Who Misuse Great Gifts,
“Nine, Schismatics; that is, those who caused divisions (in families, in politics, in religion, etc.), and
“Ten, Falsifiers; that is, Alchemists, Evil Impersonators, Counterfeiters, and Liars.
“Complex fraud is punished in Circle 9. Complex fraud does involve the betrayal of a special trust. Complex fraud is fraud to which is added treachery toward those to whom we have a special obligation to be honest and forthright. Four kinds of sinners engage in complex fraud:
“One, Traitors against kin/family,
“Two, Traitors against government,
“Three, Traitors against guests or hosts, and
“Four, Traitors against God — the worst sin possible.”
Dante said to Virgil, “I don’t understand why the sinners in Circle 5, those who could not control their anger, are not punished in Circle 7 along with those who are violent. We saw the sinners in Circle 5 fighting each other. Isn’t that violence?”
“The two sins are different,” Virgil replied. “In Circle 5 are punished those who are guilty of one kind of intemperance — they did not control their anger. The violence they do is not out of malice but rather out of intemperance.
“In Circle 7 (and Circles 8 and 9) are punished those who are guilty of malice. Instead of being guilty of not controlling themselves, they are guilty of using their self-control to deliberately commit violence (or fraud).”
“I have one more question,” Dante said. “How is usury offensive to God?”
Virgil replied, “Human industry and Nature are related. Human beings are meant to work the way that Nature does. A farmer does good by growing plants. This is the sort of work that human beings are supposed to do. A craftsman also works with Nature by taking raw materials and turning them into useful products. A usurer lends money at interest and makes money that way. The usurer does not make anything; the usurer produces neither food nor useful items. God wants human beings to work with Nature and to be productive.
“Now we are ready to continue our journey. We have grown used to the stench, and you now have a better understanding of the organization of Hell.”
I think you have learned quite a lot, Virgil thought. You have learned the main point: The deeper you go into Hell, the worst the sins become. The sins of incontinence are the least evil. Lust is the least evil sin of all. The sins of incontinence are punished outside the walls of the city of Dis, which is the city of Lucifer. The sins of heresy, violence, and fraud are punished within the walls of the city of Dis.
The sins of fraud are the most evil. The sins of complex fraud are more evil than the sins of simple fraud. Being a traitor against God is the worst sin possible. As you would expect, Lucifer, the angel who led the rebellion against God, is the worst sinner of all time.
SAD GIRLS — “LOVE YOURSELF”
Track: “Love Yourself”
Album: GIRLS ROCK CAMP BRAZIL 2018
Artist: Sad Girls
Artist Location: São Paulo, Brazil
Info:
Sad Girls é: Vocal – Maya Baixo – Luíza Guitarra – Giovana Guitarra – Maíra Bateria – Julia Teclado – Laís
“LOVE YOURSELF” CHORUS
Você não sabe como eu me sinto, quando você me critica Eu posso e vou amar meu corpo como ele é Você não sabe como eu me sinto, quando você me critica Eu posso e vou amar meu corpo como ele é
Edgar Whan: “Growing Up is a Waste of Time, So Relax and Enjoy the Next Four or Five Years of Your Life: Advice for First-Year Students”
Some college friends of mine have asked me to write a few words about the university for those of you just entering this year. It is a difficult thing to write. I know you don’t want or need me to tell you about all the pitfalls and dangers that are sprinkled throughout the world of the university, and it wouldn’t do any good if I did. Besides, in the more than 40 years I have spent in universities, I myself have eagerly embraced almost every stupidity, sentimentality, self-indulgence, and vanity available to those in the university. With a little luck, you’ll manage to survive.
Your parents have already warned you about fast men and loose women and have endlessly explained to you how much this educational enterprise will cost them. Your uncles have told you that this is the best time of your life. Your brother wants your bedroom, and your sister wants some privacy. Your steady expects you to write every day. Everyone wants in.
But what can I tell you? I guess I should talk of some of the ways that students make their university experience be less than the passionate love affair with learning that it ought to be and maybe I should suggest some things you can do to make it really worthwhile. When you graduate you will, after all, be four years closer to being dead than when you started, so don’t waste all this time.
No matter what your practice may be, you know well enough what the bad attitudes about school are, but one of the most widespread and subtle of these unhealthy attitudes you may believe to be the only attitude available. I speak of the belief that a school is really just a different kind of a factory. Indeed, educational leaders talk about productivity, high standards, quality control, image making, and marketing the product (you). This language is not as sinister as it seems; it is simply the only way that large institutions know how to talk. But if you buy into this industrial/commercial scheme uncritically, you will demean yourself.
If, following this model, you allow yourself to think that you are simply working for a professor who pays you with grades, all the resentment and boredom that afflicted you working in the Burger King will begin to clog your attitude. But as a free student you should see that the world is upside down—the professors (whether they recognize it or not) work for you, not you for them. In the same way, the free faculty know that the administration works for them, not they for the administration. It is the administration’s job to keep the records and payroll and see that the blackboards are erased; similarly, the professor is responsible to you, not for you.
It is true that the prevailing view of the school as a factory has a certain utility for those of you who choose to follow it. It surely will train you to be what most employers want you to be; four years of grudging, automatic obedience to those hovering over you with red pencils will have its sobering influence. Being a submissive student will attract job offers to you because you will be four years older than when you began school, and you will have satisfied some forty different authority figures in a proscribed pattern of study. If what you did satisfactorily for those professors was dull and meaningless to you, so much better are you prepared for, as we say, the great world of work.
No matter how hard you try to be a more serious student, however, there will be times when you will find it useful to lean into the system and rock along with it, and that’s all right as long as you know what you are doing and as long as you keep alert and keep watching for those moments when some ideal will really engage your mind and spirit. You should always have in your mind some deep concerns or profound questions around which you can shape or organize the rush of facts or opinions which threaten to engulf you as you move from class to class and from experience to experience. Indeed, illuminating your work by such concerns will bring a wholeness and unity to you.
Each of you have your own questions, even though you may not know you have them. The following examples of unifying questions may help you recognize your own:
How can a man and a woman manage the politics of living together in the tension of conflicting interests?
What does it mean to be dead?
How can we deal with other races, classes, and nations without condescension, bullying, or contempt?
Are our religions just wishful dreams or reflections of another plane of reality?
What should be our relationship to the planet on which we ride?
So go to class. Learn your irregular verbs, equations, formulas, and management techniques. Develop your esthetic sense, expand your knowledge of society. Accumulate your credits. Pay your fees. Keep your eyes on the prize.
Don’t forget that what you care about is who you are. If all you care about is grades now and money later, who are you and what will you be?
—The late Edgar Whan taught English and was one of Ohio University’s best teachers ever.
(All musical friends of Bruce Dalzell are honorary Athenians no matter where they live and love. Besides, Austin, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee are very large suburbs of Athens, Ohio.)
This page is set up to celebrate the music of the Athens-based original music band The Kings of Hollywood, featuring Bruce Dalzell, T. Craig Goodwin, Scott Minar, David Borowsky, Mark Hellenberg, and Bernie Nau. The Kings were regionally successful, celebrated performers and recording artists in Athens, Ohio during the 1980s.
Theater director Tyrone Guthrie advised his actors and crew to do this. The advice means to rise above whatever forces are working against you. All of us have personal problems. No one’s life is perfect. Sometimes, life seems to conspire against us. Rise above all that, and produce the best work you can.
ASTONISH ME.
Dance impresario Sergei Diaghilev advised his choreographers to do this. The advice means what it says. Do such good work that the person who commissioned the work—and of course the audience—is astonished. (Tyrone Guthrie also used this phrase.)
DO IT NOW.
As a young man, choreographer George Balanchine nearly died and so he believed in living his life day by day and not holding anything back. He would tell his dancers, “Why are you stingy with yourselves? Why are you holding back? What are you saving for—for another time? There are no other times. There is only now. Right now.” Throughout his career, including before he became world renowned, he worked with what he had, not complaining about wanting a bigger budget or better dancers. One of the pieces of advice Mr. Balanchine gave over and over was this: “Do it now.”
GO OUT AND GET ONE.
Ruth St. Denis once taught Martha Graham an important lesson when Ms. Graham was just starting to dance. Ms. St. Denis told Ms. Graham, “Show me your dance.” Ms. Graham replied, “I don’t have one,” and Ms. St. Denis advised, “Well, dear, go out and get one.” (Everyone needs an art to practice. Your art need not be dance. Perhaps your art can be writing autobiographical essays. Of course, you may practice more than one art.)
WORK A LITTLE HARDER.
“I think high self-esteem is overrated. A little low self-esteem is actually quite good—maybe you’re not the best, so you should work a little harder.”—Jay Leno
Anecdotes are usually short humorous stories. Sometimes they are thought-provoking or informative, not amusing.
Pitchers
• Ohio farmboy Denton Tecumseh Young had a fastball so speedy that he became known as “Cyclone” Young, which later was shortened to Cy Young. He was quite a pitcher, winning 30 or more games five seasons in a row, and winning 20 or more games 14 seasons in a row. When he retired, he had won 511 games. He could still pitch extremely well, but he decided to quit because he could not field bunts — he had grown too fat!
• Bob Feller threw hard, and definitely hard enough to hurt. Early in his career he was preparing to face Lefty Gomez in the late innings of a game as the evening was growing dark. Stepping up the plate, Lefty lit a match. Umpire Bill Sommers asked, “What’s the matter, Gomez? Can’t you see Feller?” Lefty replied, “I can see him all right — I just want to make sure that he can see me.”
• Dizzy Dean was a talented pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals. In the 1934 World Series, in the ninth inning of the final game of the series, the Detroit team sent the great hitter Hank Greenberg to bat against him, but Dizzy said loudly, “What’s the matter? Ain’t you people got no peench hitters?” Then Dizzy struck him out.
• The great African-American pitcher Satchel Paige sometimes would call in his outfielders and have them sit down behind the pitchers mound. He then would strike out the batters facing him. Some people considered this a kind of bragging, but Satchel always replied, “If you can do it, it ain’t bragging.”
• Robin Roberts once struck out three Pittsburgh Pirates in a row after a player hit a triple. He struck out Pete Castiglione with five pitches, Ralph Kiner with four pitches, and Joe Garagiola with three pitches. Afterward, Mr. Garagiola said, “It’s embarrassing. He should have at least worked on me.”
Practical Jokes
• Practical jokes are a part of life of minor-league baseball, with rookies often the target — and often the rookies try to get their own back. Matt Smith was the new pitcher for the Birmingham Barons, and veteran Jake Meyer dumped a bucket of ice water on him when Matt was in the shower. Jaker then said, “Welcome to the bullpen.” Another veteran, Brian West, advised Matt to throw ice water on Jake the next day at 5 p.m. when Jake would be in the shower. Matt promised to do that, and he did just that, throwing the ice water on Jake and then running out of the shower. Unfortunately, he heard a loud crash, and suddenly baseball players started screaming for the trainer. Jake came out of the shower with two players assisting him. Lots of blood was flowing down from his head, and the manager, Wally Backman, looked at him and said, “We have to get him to the hospital. We have to get him stitched up.” Then Wally asked who was responsible. Everybody pointed at Matt, who said, “Wally, I didn’t mean to do anything.” Wally chewed Matt out, and Matt was afraid that he is going to be fired. Then he noticed that Jake was furious and trying to get at him, but he couldn’t because two players were holding him back. Wally, noticing the same thing, said, “Let him go. He’s got to do what he’s got to do.” Jake came at Matt, but instead of hitting him, he put a tube of fake blood in his hand. Brian had told the entire team that Matt was going to throw ice water on Jake, and the entire team was in on the practical joke on a very relieved Matt, who admitted, “It was the most elaborate, choreographed prank I’ve heard of.”
• Fielding Yost, a football coach at the University of Michigan, took sides in the then-current controversy of who had discovered the North Pole: Doc Cook or Commodore Perry. Mr. Yost believed that Commodore Perry had discovered the North Pole, and he was ready at any time to argue the case for Perry. Knowing this, Dan McGugin, the brother-in-law of Mr. Yost and a football coach at Vanderbilt, set up a practical joke. Mr. Yost, Mr. McGugin, and a group of their friends started talking about the Cook-Perry controversy, and they took a vote to see which side everyone took in the controversy. The vote was 18 to 3 that Commodore Perry was the true discover of the North Pole. Therefore, Mr. Yost argued well and passionately in an attempt to convince the three non-believers that Commodore Perry was the true discover of the North Pole. At the end of Mr. Yost’s 40-minute speech, another vote was held. This time, with the sole exception of Mr. Yost, the vote was in favor of Doc Cook. On another occasion, Mr. Yost was scheduled to give a speech to the National Coaches Association. He believed in being prepared, so he worked hard writing and memorizing his speech, and he even practiced his speech a few times in front of Mr. McGugin, who was also attending the meeting. However, just before Mr. Yost spoke at the meeting, Mr. McGugin stood up and gave Mr. Yost’s speech, leaving him to improvise a new speech as best he could.
As Dante and Virgil walked among the flaming tombs, Dante asked, “Can the people in these tombs be seen? After all, the lids are off the tombs. And the guards are not here, but on the tower and the walls of the City of Dis.”
Virgil replied, “Right now, the tombs are open, but on Judgment Day these sinful souls will be reunited with their sinful bodies, and then the tombs will be closed forever. Here you see the part of the cemetery where Epicurus and his followers lie. They committed heresy by not believing in life after death.”
This is another example of contrapasso, Virgil thought. These heretical sinners did not believe in life after death. They believed instead that when they died they would be in a tomb forever, and that is exactly what will happen to them.
“You ask: Can you speak to these souls?” Virgil continued. “That question will be answered for you very quickly. So will the question that you want to ask me but you have not asked yet.”
“I have not yet asked it because I am afraid of talking too much,” Dante said.
Just then, a figure stood up in the tomb, which was sunken into the ground. The top of his body was visible. The sinner said, “Oh, Tuscan, because of your accent I know that you are from Florence, my own city — a city on which I was perhaps too harsh while I was alive. Talk to me.”
Dante, startled, drew closer to Virgil, who said, “Turn around and look at Farinata degli Uberti, who while he was alive was a big man in your part of the world.”
Dante turned around and looked at Farinata, who stood like a statue. His face showed his disdain for the Hell he was in.
Virgil gently pushed Dante toward Farinata, the better for Dante to speak to the sinner, but Virgil also advised Dante, “Be careful which words you speak.”
Yes, Farinata, Virgil thought. You are standing like the statue that you wish the Florentines would raise to you. You are proud, and you wish to be impressive as you stand here. But half of your body is in the tomb and half of your body is sticking out of the tomb. Although you would like to tower over Dante, Dante stands higher than you do. Although you would like to look like a dignified statue on a pedestal, you look somewhat silly.
When Dante was standing alongside the tomb in which Farinata stood, the sinner said to him with contempt, “And just who are your ancestors?”
Dante told him. Because Dante was very familiar with Farinata’s biography, which was important in the history of Florence, he knew that Farinata’s family was very high born and much classier than Dante’s own family.
Farinata listened as Dante explained who his family was, and then Farinata said, “Your family was a bitter enemy of mine and to my family and my political party. I fought against them and scattered them not just once but twice.”
This is at least partly true, Dante thought. Farinata and his family were Ghibellines, while my family consists of Guelfs. The Ghibellines exiled the Guelfs from Florence twice: in 1248 and in 1260. However, my party, the Guelfs, came back from exile twice and as we speak they are in fact still in control of Florence.
A little angry, Dante said to Farinata, “You expelled them from Florence not just once but twice, but they returned to Florence not just once but twice. Returning from exile is an art that your family has not mastered.”
Just then, another shade popped his head above the tomb that Farinata was standing in. This sinner looked around as if he expected to see someone. That someone was not present, and the sinner began to cry. The sinner then said to Dante, “If your great genius as a poet makes it possible for you to visit the Inferno although you are still alive, then why isn’t my son here with you?”
Dante recognized the sinner. He was Cavalcante de’ Cavalcanti, a Guelf. Farinata was a Ghibelline, so they were of opposing political parties. However, they were related by marriage — Cavalcante’s son had married Farinata’s daughter in a politically motivated marriage. This son was named Guido, and he was a poet whom Cavalcante considered to be at least the equal of Dante.
Dante replied, “Your son is not with me, but I am not alone. My guide is a poet whom Guido, your son, did not respect.”
Be careful here, Virgil thought. I see a lot of pride. Farinata is obviously proud, standing as he does in imitation of the statue he wishes the Florentines would erect to him. Cavalcante is obviously proud of his son — overly proud, in fact, since you, Dante, are much the better poet. But Dante, do you really think that your great poetic genius is the reason why you are here in the Inferno? That is not the reason. You are here because you messed up your life so badly that three Heavenly ladies are going out of their way to teach you the right way to live your life so that you may avoid being damned when you die. This trip through the Inferno is not a reward for your great genius — although you are in fact a great poet. Instead, this is a last-ditch effort to keep you from being damned to Hell when you die.
Cavalcante jumped up in the tomb and said, “You say that he did not respect your guide? Do you mean that my son is dead?”
Dante was surprised. The sinners were aware of the past, and he had heard them prophesy, so they knew the future. Why wouldn’t the sinners also know what was happening in the present? Because of his shock, he did not answer Cavalcante quickly, and the sinner disappeared back down in the tomb.
Farinata completely ignored Cavalcante. Instead, he started talking to Dante as if they had not been interrupted: “If they did not master the art of returning from exile, that causes me more pain than my damnation. But you yourself will learn within 50 months how hard such an art is to master. But tell me, why is your political party so hard on my family? Why won’t your political party allow my family to return to Florence?”
“Your question is easy to answer,” Dante replied. “It is because of the blood that stained the Arbia River red.”
Yes, Dante thought, we Florentines remember that battle well. The Arbia River flows by the hill named Montaperti. In 1260, five years before I was born, you and the Ghibellines, including Ghibellines you had recruited from Siena, fought the Battle of Montaperti. You Ghibellines defeated the Guelfs and stained the Arbia River red with Guelf blood. But the Guelfs later regained control of Florence. In 1280, many Ghibellines were allowed to return to Florence; however, your family — the Uberti family — was not allowed to return to Florence. Why not? Because you got so many Florentines killed.
Farinata sighed and said, “I was not the only one fighting in the battle. But after the battle, when everyone else was thinking of destroying Florence, I was the only one who opposed the city’s destruction.”
Yes, you did, Virgil thought, but why did you do that? You fought against the Guelfs because you wanted political power in Florence. If Florence were totally destroyed, you would not be able to have power there. Like the other sinners in the Inferno, you are self-serving. You don’t want to take full responsibility for the blood shed in the Battle of Montaperti, and you do want to take full credit for saving the city of Florence when actually you wanted to save Florence just so you could rule it.
“Can you answer a question for me?” Dante asked. “I have been wondering for a while and have refrained from asking my guide how it is that you and the others here know the future but do not seem to have knowledge of the present.”
“We in Hell have faulty vision,” Farinata replied. “We do see the future, but we do not know what is happening in the Land of the Living at the present time. Only when a new sinner arrives here do we get news of present events in the Land of the Living. When Judgment Day comes and the tombs are closed forever, we will have no knowledge at all.”
This is true, Virgil thought. After Judgment Day, no future events will occur. Every soul will be in its proper place, enjoying bliss eternally or suffering torment eternally.
Dante then requested, “Will you tell Cavalcanti that his son is still alive? I did not answer him earlier because I was surprised that sinners here could have knowledge of the future and yet not have knowledge of the present.”
Dante, you are still naïve, Virgil thought. Do you think that Farinata will ever acknowledge the existence of Cavalcante, even though Cavalcante’s son married his daughter? They will be tombmates forever, and they will not acknowledge each other’s existence forever. Farinata is not going to deliver your message.
Also, note that Cavalcante misunderstood you. He thought that you were saying that his son is dead, but you were not saying that. Heretics misunderstand God and religion.
Also, note that the sinners in the Inferno have faulty vision. They certainly had faulty vision when it came to the Supreme Emperor.
Finally, note the interruptions that we have seen here. Farinata interrupted you and me as we were talking, and Cavalcante interrupted you and Farinata as you two were talking. Obviously, we have people not communicating well here. People who oppose each other do not communicate well with each other — and sometimes they do not communicate at all.
Virgil then called to Dante to come — they must continue their journey. Still, Dante asked one more question of Farinata: “With whom do you share your tomb?”
Farinata replied, “More than a thousand souls are here, including Emperor Frederick II and Cardinal Ottaviano degli Ubaldini. The others I shall not mention.”
You are still proud, even in Hell, Virgil thought. You mention the names of two VIPs, but not the names of your other tombmates. Pride is a deadly sin, and look where it got you.
Dante looked troubled as he remembered what Farinata had said about him — “you yourself will learn within 50 months how hard such an art is to master” — and Virgil said to him, “You have heard a prophecy of your future life. Remember it. Later, you will meet one who will clearly explain your future to you.”
The two continued their journey.
Dante, I don’t think that you learned what you should have learned here, Virgil thought. Whenever you speak to a sinner, you have something that you should learn. Here you talked to two sinners who are guilty of heresy. You are not a heretic, and so you did not speak specifically about heresy here, but about something that is related to heresy: factionalism — specifically factionalism in politics and in poetry. Factionalism, or parties battling each other, can be seen in politics, in religion, and even in art, including poetry. Obviously, factionalism exists in politics, as we see with the Ghibellines and the Guelfs, and with the White Guelfs and the Black Guelfs. Extreme factionalism can be very bad, indeed. When a new faction comes into power in Florence, it bans the opposing faction, exiling them from Florence. Although factionalism can be seen in politics, as in the struggle between the Ghibellines and the Guelfs, or between the White Guelfs and the Black Guelfs, we also see factionalism in other areas. For example, we can see factionalism in religion, as when we see the heretics being combated by those who have the true beliefs concerning religion and God. Factionalism can also exist in poetry. A new kind of poetry can replace the old style of poetry. A modern poet can disrespect an ancient poet.
Dante, what you should have learned here is to avoid extreme factionalism. I hope that you will learn that lesson as we continue our journey. I don’t think you have learned that lesson yet. Instead, you and Farinata were battling each other verbally. Farinata pointed out that he had exiled your political party twice, then you pointed out that your political party had returned from exile twice but that his family had not returned from exile, and then Farinata prophesied that you would be sent into exile. Instead of your learning to avoid extreme factionalism, you and Farinata were engaging in it. Instead of talking together as citizens of the same city, you and Farinata were battling each other verbally. Farinata engaged in extreme factionalism during his life, and he ended up in the Inferno. Dante, unless you learn to avoid extreme factionalism, you may end up in the Inferno.
Peter Mealy and Laurie Rose Griffith: Live From Home (Includes at end Bruce Dalzell’s cover of “My Neighborhood,” previously recorded by Peter Mealy and Laurie Rose Griffith)
ATHENS, OHIO (AND ENVIRONS) SINGER-SONGWRITERS BANDCAMP EMBEDDED ALBUMS
All musical friends of Bruce Dalzell are honorary Athenians no matter where they live and love. And as is well known, Austin, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee are very large suburbs of Athens, Ohio.
ADAM REMNANT: Sourwood
ALBERT ROUZIE: Late for the War
ANGELA PERLEY: 4:10
ANGIE HEIMANN: Edge of East
THE APPALUCIANS (with Angie Heimann): Bright Hills
ATTILA HORVATH: Bike Rock
BEN DAVIS, JR.: The Day Before Payday
THE BLUSHIN’ ROULETTES (with Angie Heimann): Live at Farmstead
BURGER BIG: “Long Song of the Law”
CAITLIN KRAUS: What Rises
CARRIE ELKIN: “We Became Cups”
CORBIN MARSH: Hammer & Spark
CORBIN MARSH: Wheel Spinning ’Round
CORBIN MARSH: The Corbin Marsh Band EP
DALLAS CRAFT: Demos Vol. 2
DANNY SCHMIDT: The 2020 Singles (EP)
DAVE “HEDGEHOG” MASON: Streetside Balladeer
FATHERS OF THE REVOLUTION: Underground People
JESSE REMNANT: Another Freak of the Flood
FATHERS OF THE REVOLUTION
FATHERS OF THE REVOLUTION: LIVE FROM STUDIO A
JORDAN TICE: Yesteryears
KIM RICHEY: A Long Way Back: The Songs of Glimmer
LARRY ELEFANTE: King Cake
LIZ WOOLLEY: Do Love
THE LIZ WOOLLEY BAND: Something I Can Feel
LOST ORCHARDS (RON FREEMAN): Crushing Heart EP
MEGAN BEE: Cottonwood
MICHAEL RINALDI-EICHENBERG: clocksyellow#9
MIKE RATLIFF: “Easier Said Than Done”
NICK VANDENBERG: ONE HORSE PONY
NO STARS: “A Good Thing”
PETE ANDERSON: LIVE AT OHIO UNIVERSITY
RACHEL MOUSIE: Talk to Your Babies
RUSTY SMITH: Rusty Smith and Friends
SAMUEL BARTLETT, with MARK HELLENBERG (DRUMMER): dance-a-rama
SHRIEK IF YOU KNOW WHAT I DID LAST FRIDAY THE 13th: Shrieker Stomp”
SNEAKTHIEF: Postcards
SOUTHEAST ENGINE (with ADAM REMNANT)
STEVE ZARATE: Patchwork of Light
SUPERNOBODY (WITH MATT BOX): Ancient Cosmic Tones
TODD BURGE: Imitation Life (Produced by Tim O’Brian)
VINCENT TROCCHIA: “Hearing Things” (DEMO)
WILLIAM MATHENY: That Grand, Old Feeling
WOLFMEN: In a Quiet Place
WOODY PINES: Woody Pines
SOME BOOKS BY DAVID BRUCE
My FREE eBooks can be downloaded here in various formats, including PDF and ePub:
Theater director Tyrone Guthrie advised his actors and crew to do this. The advice means to rise above whatever forces are working against you. All of us have personal problems. No one’s life is perfect. Sometimes, life seems to conspire against us. Rise above all that, and produce the best work you can.
ASTONISH ME.
Dance impresario Sergei Diaghilev advised his choreographers to do this. The advice means what it says. Do such good work that the person who commissioned the work—and of course the audience—is astonished. (Tyrone Guthrie also used this phrase.)
DO IT NOW.
As a young man, choreographer George Balanchine nearly died and so he believed in living his life day by day and not holding anything back. He would tell his dancers, “Why are you stingy with yourselves? Why are you holding back? What are you saving for—for another time? There are no other times. There is only now. Right now.” Throughout his career, including before he became world renowned, he worked with what he had, not complaining about wanting a bigger budget or better dancers. One of the pieces of advice Mr. Balanchine gave over and over was this: “Do it now.”
GO OUT AND GET ONE.
Ruth St. Denis once taught Martha Graham an important lesson when Ms. Graham was just starting to dance. Ms. St. Denis told Ms. Graham, “Show me your dance.” Ms. Graham replied, “I don’t have one,” and Ms. St. Denis advised, “Well, dear, go out and get one.” (Everyone needs an art to practice. Your art need not be dance. Perhaps your art can be writing autobiographical essays. Of course, you may practice more than one art.)
WORK A LITTLE HARDER.
“I think high self-esteem is overrated. A little low self-esteem is actually quite good—maybe you’re not the best, so you should work a little harder.”—Jay Leno
This email includes a canto from my retelling of Dante’s DIVINE COMEDY, which has 100 cantos.
Anecdotes are usually short humorous stories. Sometimes they are thought-provoking or informative, not amusing.
Olympics
• When Muhammad Ali was still known as Cassius Clay, he almost did not make it to the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome to win a gold medal as a light heavyweight. Why not? He was afraid of flying. Eventually, Joe Martin, his trainer, convinced him that he had to fly, so Cassius boarded the airplane — carrying his own parachute, which he had bought at an Army surplus store. Even with the parachute, he was still nervous. At one point, he knelt down in the aisle of the airplane while wearing the parachute and prayed.
• In 1998, at the Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan, Tara Lipinski won the gold medal. Her parents wanted her to enjoy all that the Olympics had to offer, so Tara stayed in the Olympic Village with the other athletes. She enjoyed marching in the opening ceremony and met such famous athletes as hockey’s Wayne Gretzky. In addition, the 79-pound Tara posed for a photograph with a sumo wrestler who weighed 516 pounds — six and a half times her weight!
• At the opening ceremonies of the 1992 Winter Olympic Games, figure skater Sasha Cohen was lucky enough to sit next to President George W. Bush. She called her mother to tell her, but her mother didn’t believe her, so Sasha handed her cell phone to President Bush, who spoke to Sasha’s mother for a few minutes. (President Bush may not have enjoyed watching the Opening Ceremonies — lots of athletes kept passing their cell phones to him and requesting that he talk to someone.)
• Before the 1984 Olympics, gymnast Mary Lou Retton used to dream that she was performing in the Olympics. She would be lying in bed asleep, then suddenly her body would jerk, and she would be at risk of falling out of bed onto the floor.
• The Big Apple Circus once did a parody of the Olympics. The clowns put ice down their pants, and then exhibited their skill in ice dancing.
Pitchers
• In 1954, Dodger pitcher Carl Erskine faced Mickey Vernon. With the count at three balls and one strike, catcher Smokey Burgess called for an unusual pitch in that situation: a straight change. The pitch was perfect, and Mr. Vernon had strike two. Apparently, the straight change was such a surprise to Mr. Vernon that he let a fastball go across the plate for his final strike. Mr. Erskine and Mr. Vernon did not see each other for 25 years after that, finally meeting again at an Old-Timers’ Game weekend. When Mr. Vernon saw Mr. Erskine, he walked over to him and said, “That was a helluva pitch.”
• The St. Louis Cardinals, aka the Gas House Gang, once faced a poor-pitching team whose starting pitcher walked four Cardinals in a row before being yanked. The next pitcher also fared poorly, walking two Cardinals and hitting two more Cardinals with balls. Batting ninth for the Cardinals was pitcher Dizzy Dean, who hit a weak grounder back to the pitcher, who misfielded the ball, allowing Dizzy to reach first safely. At first base, Dizzy complained, “A fine team I’m playing on. It isn’t enough that I do the pitching, I have to do the hitting, too.”
• As a major-league pitcher, Virgil “Fire” Trucks threw two no-hitters, but his career started inauspiciously. In 1942, in his first start as a major-leaguer, Mr. Trucks threw his first pitch against Johnny Pesky, who singled. He threw his second pitch against Bobby Doer, who doubled, and he threw his third pitch against Ted Williams, who also doubled. At this point, the Detroit Tigers manager came out to ask the catcher, “Doesn’t Virgil have it today?” “How do I know?” the catcher replied, “I haven’t caught a pitch yet.”
• Truett “Rip” Sewell well remembers the first game he pitched against the great slugger Stan Musial. The first three times Mr. Musial was batting, he got a hit, including the first home run of his major-league career. The fourth time Mr. Musial came up to bat in the game, Mr. Sewell rolled the ball to home plate, and yelled to Mr. Musial, “Here! Hit this one!” The following year, Mr. Musial hit his first grand-slam home run — of course, he hit it against Mr. Sewell.
Dante’s face had paled with fear as he saw that Virgil was returning after his unsuccessful attempt to convince the fallen angels to allow them to pass through the gates of the city of Dis.
Virgil waited, looking worried and saying, “We must pass through the gates. Nothing can prevent us from doing that. After all, we have been promised help. Or — no, we will receive help, but it is taking more time than I like for help to get to us.”
Dante was afraid, and he asked Virgil, “Has anyone ever traveled to the bottom of the Inferno from Limbo?”
“That is an unusual journey to take,” Virgil replied, “but I have traveled it before. Not long after I died, the sorceress Erichtho summoned my spirit to her and gave me a task to travel to the pit of Judas at the bottom of the Inferno and bring out a spirit for her to consult. This is something she had done before. While I was still alive, she sent a soul to the bottom of the Inferno to retrieve another soul who would foretell the victor of the Battle of Pharsalia, in which the forces of Julius Caesar defeated the forces of Pompey. Because I have traveled throughout the Inferno, I well know the path that we will take and I am familiar with the place we are now. This swamp of the Styx completely surrounds the city of Dis, which we will enter although not — as you know — without some trouble.”
As they talked, Dante looked up at the city, and above its walls he suddenly saw the three Furies — the Erinyes — fly. They were winged avenging spirits covered with blood — they had snakes for hair, and their purpose in the ancient world was to wreck vengeance against children who killed their parents. These were the avenging spirits who pursued Orestes after he killed his mother, who had killed his father.
Virgil looked up, and he saw the Furies, whom he recognized: “Look! Megaera is on the left, Alecto on the right, and Tisiphone in the middle!” Virgil knew much about the Furies. Alecto had maddened Queen Amata and Turnus to rebel against and fight Aeneas when he and his refugee Trojans tried to establish themselves in Italy. Virgil knew how dangerous the Furies could be.
The Furies hovered in the air, shrieking and tearing their skin with their fingernails, drawing blood. They shouted, “Come, Medusa, and turn this living man into stone. We let Theseus get away from us too easily.”
This is a threat that needs to be taken seriously, Virgil thought. Any living human being who looks at Medusa, who also has snakes for hair, will instantly be turned into stone. In addition, the Furies and Medusa are still angry because Hercules released Theseus from the Inferno when he came into the Inferno to take Cerberus the three-headed dog to the Land of the Living.
Virgil told Dante, “Turn around and cover your eyes because if you see Medusa your journey is over and you will not return to the Land of the Living.”
Dante did as he was told, and Virgil also covered Dante’s eyes with his hands. In doing so, both Dante and Virgil underestimated the power of God and of God’s helpers.
Now came an important event. Sound blasted through the Inferno, and Hell trembled. A hurricane will tear through a forest, uprooting trees and destroying everything in its path. Such seemed to be this sound.
Virgil removed his hands from over Dante’s eyes and told him, “Turn around and look.”
Dante saw over a thousand sinners diving into the muddy marsh of the Styx the way that frogs will dive into the water to get away from snakes, their natural enemies. Then he saw a good angel walking on the water of the Styx, which did not even wet his feet. The good angel did not fear; instead, the good angel was filled with scorn for the sinners and the fallen angels.
Dante was going to speak to Virgil, but Virgil motioned for him to keep silent and to bow low.
The good angel reached the gate of Dis and touched it with his wand, and the gate immediately opened.
Filled with scorn, the good angel said to the fallen angels, “What do you think you are doing? You know that you are powerless against the One Who sent me. You gain nothing but defeat by opposing Him. As you should have learned by now, Ultimate Evil is powerless against Ultimate Good. When Lucifer rebelled against God, you fought on the side of Lucifer. Look where it got you!”
This is much like another opening of a gate of Hell, Virgil thought. When the Mighty Warrior came to rescue the righteous saved souls from Limbo, these fallen angels opposed him, but nevertheless he rescued the souls, causing pain to those sinners who were and are condemned to reside in the Inferno forever. He also caused pain to the fallen angels who opposed Him just as this angel from the Supreme Emperor is causing pain to those fallen angels once again.
The angel from God left; his face showed that he was thinking of more important things than opening the gate — something that was a mere distraction for him.
Dante and Virgil approached the gate of Dis and passed through it. No fallen angel dared oppose them.
Past the gate, Dante saw an ugly landscape. It was filled with sepulchers. These burial chambers were not closed; from them flames leapt up. From the inside of the burial chambers came cries of grief and pain.
Dante asked Virgil, “What kind of sinners are these who reside in the open tombs?”
“Arch-heretics and their disciples are buried here,” Virgil replied. “The tombs hold many more sinners than you suspect, and each kind of heretic is entombed with the other heretics who believed incorrectly about God. The tombs burn more brightly for the greater heresies.”
Dante and Virgil walked toward the tombs.
I can understand why the guards here are the fallen angels and the Furies and Medusa, Dante thought. Medusa and the Furies are appropriate guards of this Circle because they are pagan figures, and of course pagans do not think correctly about God. The fallen angels are also appropriate guards of this Circle that is devoted to punishing heretics because they did not think correctly about God, as they chose to fight against Him rather than fight against Lucifer. Heresy is thinking incorrectly about God; the fallen angels, the Furies, and Medusa thought incorrectly about God. Still, tombs don’t need guards, so the guards here need hardly keep a close eye on the sinners in the tombs.
“Red Wanting Blue is a rock and roll band led by Scott Terry that formed in Athens, Ohio in 1996. In 1999, the band relocated its headquarters to Columbus, Ohio, the city Red Wanting Blue now calls home. RWB has been touring for nearly two decades playing around 200 live shows a year.”
“I write my own acoustic content and love to cover artists from all kinds of genres. I enjoy playing at local venues as well as busking. When I’m not writing music, you can find me either studying for my journalism and environmental studies degrees, backpacking across the U.S. or adventuring abroad!”
Theater director Tyrone Guthrie advised his actors and crew to do this. The advice means to rise above whatever forces are working against you. All of us have personal problems. No one’s life is perfect. Sometimes, life seems to conspire against us. Rise above all that, and produce the best work you can.
ASTONISH ME.
Dance impresario Sergei Diaghilev advised his choreographers to do this. The advice means what it says. Do such good work that the person who commissioned the work—and of course the audience—is astonished. (Tyrone Guthrie also used this phrase.)
DO IT NOW.
As a young man, choreographer George Balanchine nearly died and so he believed in living his life day by day and not holding anything back. He would tell his dancers, “Why are you stingy with yourselves? Why are you holding back? What are you saving for—for another time? There are no other times. There is only now. Right now.” Throughout his career, including before he became world renowned, he worked with what he had, not complaining about wanting a bigger budget or better dancers. One of the pieces of advice Mr. Balanchine gave over and over was this: “Do it now.”
GO OUT AND GET ONE.
Ruth St. Denis once taught Martha Graham an important lesson when Ms. Graham was just starting to dance. Ms. St. Denis told Ms. Graham, “Show me your dance.” Ms. Graham replied, “I don’t have one,” and Ms. St. Denis advised, “Well, dear, go out and get one.” (Everyone needs an art to practice. Your art need not be dance. Perhaps your art can be writing autobiographical essays. Of course, you may practice more than one art.)
WORK A LITTLE HARDER.
“I think high self-esteem is overrated. A little low self-esteem is actually quite good—maybe you’re not the best, so you should work a little harder.”—Jay Leno
This email includes a canto from my retelling of Dante’s DIVINE COMEDY, which has 100 cantos.
Anecdotes are usually short humorous stories. Sometimes they are thought-provoking or informative, not amusing.
Mothers
• Olympic gold medal-winning figure skater Tara Lipinski is named after the plantation in Gone With the Wind. Her parents had seen the movie on an early date, and her mother named her Tara because of the good things that came from that early date.
Names
• Jim Thorpe’s mausoleum is located in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. The town used to be known as the separate small towns of Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk, but after hard economic times hit the towns because coal mining declined, the residents started looking for ways to draw industry and attention to their area. Mr. Thorpe’s widow heard about their situation and offered to move the body of her husband there if they would rename the two towns after Jim Thorpe. They did so, and they provided money for a mausoleum for Mr. Thorpe. At the May 31, 1957, dedication ceremony, earth from parts of the world that had been important in Mr. Thorpe’s life was scattered around the mausoleum. Earth was scattered from his birthplace in Prague, Oklahoma; from the Polo Grounds, where he had played professional baseball with the New York Giants; and from the Olympic Stadium in Stockholm, Sweden, where Mr. Thorpe had won gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon.
• In pro-wrestling jargon, the wrestlers that fans cheer are babyfaces, while the wrestlers that fans jeer are heels. Sometimes, one wrestler can be both a babyface and a heel. Bret “Hit Man” Hart is from Canada, and at one time his wrestling persona heavily criticized the United States, saying such things as this: “Canada’s a country where we still take care of the sick and the old, where we still have health care. We got gun control. We don’t kill each other and shoot each other on every street corner. Canada isn’t riddled with racial prejudice and hatred.” In Canada, people were very happy with what he was saying, so there he was a babyface. In the United States, people were very unhappy with what he was saying, so there he was a heel.
• Minor-league umpire Jack Gifford once finished talking with the team managers about ground rules, then bent down and started to brush what he thought was the home plate, but no matter how much he brushed, the home plate did not appear. A ball player watched him for a while, and then said, “The plate is over here.” Mr. Gifford then looked up and saw home plate, several feet away. After that, of course, the baseball players called him “Home Plate” Gifford.
• Evelyn Cornwall married John Carusso, then divorced him. Thinking she needed a name change, she considered a favorite television show, McMillan and Wife, starring Jill St. James. She telephoned the famous actress, asked for permission to use her last name, then legally changed her name and became Lyn St. James. The name change may have been lucky for her — she became only the second woman to drive a car in the Indianapolis 500.
• When Joe Louis was heavyweight champion of the world before World War II broke out, he often fought, and he often won by knocking out his opponents. Longtime fighter trainer Ray Arcel handled 14 fighters who opposed Mr. Louis during this time. Mr. Arcel carried so many of these knocked-out fighters out of the ring that he acquired a nickname: The Meat Wagon.
• When she was growing up, Karen Bye wanted to play on a boys’ hockey team in River Falls, Wisconsin. To facilitate her plan, she listed her name as “K.L. Bye” on the team roster. Today, she is still sometimes called “K.L.” At the 1998 Nagano Olympic Games, K.L. became a gold-medal winner as a member of the United States women’s hockey team.
• At the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, Native American Billy Mills pulled off a major upset when he won the 10,000-meter race. His victory was so unexpected that after Mr. Mills won the race, a Japanese race official was forced to ask him, “Excuse me, what is your name?”
Numbers
• NBA star Kobe Bryant played basketball for Lower Merion High School (located in Ardmore, Pennsylvania), which became state champions in his senior year. During his junior year, Lower Merion High School had a good basketball season, but the team lost to Chester High School, 77-50. In the rematch between the two schools, the Lower Merion High School players all wore the number “27” on their warm-up jerseys — the number of points they had lost by in their previous game with Chester High School. This time, Lower Merion High School won, 60-53, and kept on winning until they earned a state championship. Later, Kobe became a Los Angeles Laker right out of high school. On 11 July 1996, at Los Angeles Airport, a man looked at Kobe’s height and knew that he must be a basketball player, so he asked for which team he played. Kobe almost replied that he played for Lower Merion High School, but then he smiled and said, “I guess I’m a Laker.”
Chapter 7: The Wasters, Hoarders, Wrathful, and Sullen (Inferno)
As Virgil and Dante approached him, Plutus clucked the nonsense words “Papa Satan, pape Satan aleppe!”
Virgil reassured Dante, “Plutus has no power to stop you from continuing your journey. Therefore, do not be afraid.”
Virgil then turned on the wolf-like Plutus and shouted, “Be quiet! This man here is on a mission from the Supreme Emperor!”
Plutus, deflated like a sail in a calm, sank to the ground, and was quiet.
Plutus is an appropriate guard for Circle 4, Virgil thought. Plutus is also known as Pluto, and he is the pagan god of wealth, as well as the god who ruled the Underworld. It is fitting that he rules the Underworld because much wealth (gold, silver, diamonds) comes from under the ground. His association with wealth makes him a fitting guard for the sinners in Circle 4: the wasters and the hoarders.
Virgil and Dante saw many souls now — more than in the Circles they had already passed through. These souls pushed heavy weights before them in the Circle, and when they met, they crashed the heavy weights together. One group shouted, “Why hoard?” The other group shouted, “Why waste?” Then they went around the Circle again, and they crashed their heavy weights together again, and they shouted again.
“Who are these sinners?” Dante asked Virgil. “From their haircuts, I see that many of them were priests. Were they all priests on this side?”
“These sinners were incontinent when it came to wealth,” Virgil replied. “Neither group could control themselves. One group hoarded their wealth, while the other group wasted their wealth. Many of the sinners you see here were Popes, cardinals, and priests — such people are unfortunately prone to greediness.”
Here we see two groups of sinners being punished together because their sins, although opposites, are closely related, Virgil thought. The wasters and the hoarders are people who either saved as much money as possible and never spent it or people who spent every penny they could and never saved anything. Both types of people are sinners. To be good with money, living people need to spend some money to acquire necessities and good things; however, they also need to have an emergency fund. When it comes to money, living people need to seek a mean between extremes.
Limbo has a library, and so I am familiar with the work of Aristotle, whom I also studied while I was alive and who is also in Limbo so that I can consult him. The theory of the mean between extremes is a famous part of Aristotle’s ethical thought. He believed in moderation — as most Greeks did. If you had too much or too little of something, you would suffer from an excess or a deficiency of that thing. Think about food. If you eat too much food, you will be overweight. If you eat too little food, you will be underweight. You need to eat the right amount of food so that you will have a healthy weight. What you need is exactly the right amount. A different example: Courage is the mean between the extremes of cowardice (deficiency) and rashness (excess). The sinners here failed to find the mean between the extremes of miserliness and of wastefulness.
“Shouldn’t I be able to recognize some of the sinners here?” Dante asked Virgil.
“No, you won’t be able to recognize anybody here,” Virgil replied. “Because of their sinful relationship with wealth, these sinners failed to accomplish anything notable while they were alive. They failed to accomplish something great for Humankind. Because of that, they have no distinguishing characteristics here.
“Well, they do have some distinguishing characteristics, Those who are misers have tight fists; those who are wasters are without hair because they have spent even the hair on their heads. But as for recognizing a sinner and knowing his or her name, forget it.
“These sinners are exactly where they belong. They overvalued either wealth or what wealth can buy, and now no amount of wealth can rescue them from Hell. In Hell as in the living world, they bicker over what belongs to Fortune.”
“Who or what is this Fortune that you mention?” Dante asked.
“Fortune controls all the wealth that ever was and ever will be,” Virgil replied. “Fortune is a minister of God. She sees that money goes from person to person, family to family, country to country. She controls the Wheel of Fortune. At times, a person may be at the top of the Wheel of Fortune and be very prosperous, but as the Wheel turns, that person’s prosperity decreases. The thing to do is to know that the Wheel of Fortune will turn. While riding high on the Wheel of Fortune, save some wealth so that you are at least somewhat prepared when you are riding low on the Wheel of Fortune. The same applies to families and to countries. The Wheel of Fortune turns for individuals, for families as a whole, and for entire countries.
“Human beings dislike Fortune, but they should recognize that she is doing the work of the Supreme Emperor.
“But now let us continue on our journey.”
Virgil and Dante continued walking. They came to a spring, which created a stream of grey water, and they walked along the stream on a rough path. As they walked, the stream of grey water turned into a marsh that Dante learned is named the Styx.
In the marsh they saw muddy, angry sinners moving around and fighting each other. Not only did they hit each other with their hands, but they also kicked and bit each other — so great was their anger.
Virgil said, “Here in this Circle — Circle 5 — you see those who could not control their anger. We see the sinners on top of the marsh, yet other sinners are below the marsh, revealing their presence only by the bubbles rising to the top of the marsh.
“These sinners below the marsh say, if you listen closely, ‘We were sluggish while we were alive, and in our heart was the smoke of sloth. Now we are punished in the muck of Styx.’ So they say, but not clearly.”
The sinners below the marsh are the slothful, Virgil thought. The slothful should have pursued the right things while they were alive, but they were slothful — lazy — and did not pursue them with the zeal that they ought to have shown for the right things. Along with their sloth, they were sullen — they bottled up their anger. It would have been better for them if they had expressed vigorous and righteous anger at sin and sinners.
Virgil and Dante continued walking along the path by the marsh. Eventually, they reached a high tower.
“Red Wanting Blue is a rock and roll band led by Scott Terry that formed in Athens, Ohio in 1996. In 1999, the band relocated its headquarters to Columbus, Ohio, the city Red Wanting Blue now calls home. RWB has been touring for nearly two decades playing around 200 live shows a year.”
Peter Mealy and Laurie Rose Griffith: Live From Home (Includes at end Bruce Dalzell’s cover of “My Neighborhood,” previously recorded by Peter Mealy and Laurie Rose Griffith)
Theater director Tyrone Guthrie advised his actors and crew to do this. The advice means to rise above whatever forces are working against you. All of us have personal problems. No one’s life is perfect. Sometimes, life seems to conspire against us. Rise above all that, and produce the best work you can.
ASTONISH ME.
Dance impresario Sergei Diaghilev advised his choreographers to do this. The advice means what it says. Do such good work that the person who commissioned the work—and of course the audience—is astonished. (Tyrone Guthrie also used this phrase.)
DO IT NOW.
As a young man, choreographer George Balanchine nearly died and so he believed in living his life day by day and not holding anything back. He would tell his dancers, “Why are you stingy with yourselves? Why are you holding back? What are you saving for—for another time? There are no other times. There is only now. Right now.” Throughout his career, including before he became world renowned, he worked with what he had, not complaining about wanting a bigger budget or better dancers. One of the pieces of advice Mr. Balanchine gave over and over was this: “Do it now.”
GO OUT AND GET ONE.
Ruth St. Denis once taught Martha Graham an important lesson when Ms. Graham was just starting to dance. Ms. St. Denis told Ms. Graham, “Show me your dance.” Ms. Graham replied, “I don’t have one,” and Ms. St. Denis advised, “Well, dear, go out and get one.” (Everyone needs an art to practice. Your art need not be dance. Perhaps your art can be writing autobiographical essays. Of course, you may practice more than one art.)
WORK A LITTLE HARDER.
“I think high self-esteem is overrated. A little low self-esteem is actually quite good—maybe you’re not the best, so you should work a little harder.”—Jay Leno
davidbruceblog #4 