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choco_froshPlaceholder: I have a lot of feels about For Pierre Chuvin. But I also just had another long, frustrating day at work, so I'm going for a walk first.
_____
OK, I'm back. So: In which I have a lot of feels about For Pierre Chuvin.
For background: Due to some combination of boredom, the passage of time, and developing borderline ADD, I have become one of those people whom I could never understand in college: I mean, the ones who listened to music all the time while they worked. (Though for the record, I suspect that if I were doing actual academic work, I’d leave the headphones off. Well, unless it was noisy.) Anyway, my music tastes* at work include some sacred music and quite a LOT of soundtracks from the Elder Scrolls series, but the other thing I’ve been listening to is lots and lots of The Mountain Goats. I have listened to The Sunset Tree so many times that I’ve gotten bored with it, and listened to a whole bunch of stuff from all the albums about drug addiction,** but what’s coming to mind today is For Pierre Chuvin, an album I found out about because I’d just listened to “Against Pollution” or something for the forty-eighth time, and saw a TMG song I’d never heard of, with a weird, sketched album cover, pop up on the list of recommended things to watch next, and I thought “Huh, I wonder what this is.”
The namesake of For Pierre Chuvin, whom I looked up immediately after listening to the said song, was a French historian who wrote about various topics from Greek mythology to Orientalism, but who is best known for his A Chronicle of the Last Pagans (1990), subtitled, “The disappearance of paganism in the Roman Empire, from the reign of Constantine to that of Justinian”.*** No I hadn’t read it, shame on me; yes, I have now ordered it, for whenever libraries reopen. But back to the album. Mostly.
I’ve tried to assess why I’ve listened to it so obsessively. Some of it is that, well, I’m obsessive sometimes. Some is that, assovay pointed out, the songs’ themes of loss and longing (we were particularly talking lines like “We will have uses for these things, when we come” from “For the Snakes) are "What the kids today would call ‘Big Mood’, i.e. very relatable" in the middle of a pandemic when you’re cut off from the things and people that you love. And mostly, it’s the fact that in times like these, when the world is falling apart in various ways and your job seems suckier by the day, what you want (or at least what I frequently want) is really peppy songs about things that are horrible. It’s the same reason I’ve listened to “Pigs who ran straightaway into the water, Triumph of”** and “Song for Dennis Brown” about forty thousand times apiece.
For For Pierre Chuvin is an album about the last pagans; about the slow disappearance of their world; and, of course, about how this was accomplished through systematic persecution by the State and the Church. And it makes me mad. Because I was on the winning side of that battle. However much I’m simultaneously an agnostic, however much my opinions would have shocked (most) late-Roman Christians... I’m one of them. Those are my people.
It’s always horrible watching or remembering people do horrible things; but it feels worse when it’s your people.
Moreover, it’s another reminder that I would have been then, and I am now, a member of the privileged group.
* * * * * * * *
Today, the Church celebrates St. Columba of Iona.**** And I could talk about him, and hagiography and medieval history and ethnicity and placenames; but that’s been written about endlessly. I want to talk about a much less famous saint.
Alongside Columba, the Episcopal Church today remembers William A. Guerry, Bishop of South Carolina. Advocate of the Social Gospel (i.e., what the Church ought to be doing re: social justice), of diversity, and of advancing racial equality, in the Episcopal Church and outside it. And for that reason, shot by one of his own clergy, 92 years and five days ago; he died on June 9, 1928. A good man to remember, in these times. At least he did something - something positive - with his privilege. May we all be better at doing the same.
* For which read, “Youtube favorites”
** Because John Darnielle, the singer/songwriter who basically IS TMG, is the biggest classics geek ever to be recover from meth addiction.
*** i.e. AD 306-565.
**** End of the same time period, opposite end of the Roman world; same fight, sortof, but taking place in a totally different context in practically every regard, and hence without all the forced conformity.
_______________________
Average number of new COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts per day this week: 390.
Festum Sci. Colum. Hiiensis.
Die Profectionis Wm. Guerry. Epi. & Mart.
_____
OK, I'm back. So: In which I have a lot of feels about For Pierre Chuvin.
For background: Due to some combination of boredom, the passage of time, and developing borderline ADD, I have become one of those people whom I could never understand in college: I mean, the ones who listened to music all the time while they worked. (Though for the record, I suspect that if I were doing actual academic work, I’d leave the headphones off. Well, unless it was noisy.) Anyway, my music tastes* at work include some sacred music and quite a LOT of soundtracks from the Elder Scrolls series, but the other thing I’ve been listening to is lots and lots of The Mountain Goats. I have listened to The Sunset Tree so many times that I’ve gotten bored with it, and listened to a whole bunch of stuff from all the albums about drug addiction,** but what’s coming to mind today is For Pierre Chuvin, an album I found out about because I’d just listened to “Against Pollution” or something for the forty-eighth time, and saw a TMG song I’d never heard of, with a weird, sketched album cover, pop up on the list of recommended things to watch next, and I thought “Huh, I wonder what this is.”
The namesake of For Pierre Chuvin, whom I looked up immediately after listening to the said song, was a French historian who wrote about various topics from Greek mythology to Orientalism, but who is best known for his A Chronicle of the Last Pagans (1990), subtitled, “The disappearance of paganism in the Roman Empire, from the reign of Constantine to that of Justinian”.*** No I hadn’t read it, shame on me; yes, I have now ordered it, for whenever libraries reopen. But back to the album. Mostly.
I’ve tried to assess why I’ve listened to it so obsessively. Some of it is that, well, I’m obsessive sometimes. Some is that, as
sovay pointed out, the songs’ themes of loss and longing (we were particularly talking lines like “We will have uses for these things, when we come” from “For the Snakes) are "What the kids today would call ‘Big Mood’, i.e. very relatable" in the middle of a pandemic when you’re cut off from the things and people that you love. And mostly, it’s the fact that in times like these, when the world is falling apart in various ways and your job seems suckier by the day, what you want (or at least what I frequently want) is really peppy songs about things that are horrible. It’s the same reason I’ve listened to “Pigs who ran straightaway into the water, Triumph of”** and “Song for Dennis Brown” about forty thousand times apiece.For For Pierre Chuvin is an album about the last pagans; about the slow disappearance of their world; and, of course, about how this was accomplished through systematic persecution by the State and the Church. And it makes me mad. Because I was on the winning side of that battle. However much I’m simultaneously an agnostic, however much my opinions would have shocked (most) late-Roman Christians... I’m one of them. Those are my people.
It’s always horrible watching or remembering people do horrible things; but it feels worse when it’s your people.
Moreover, it’s another reminder that I would have been then, and I am now, a member of the privileged group.
* * * * * * * *
Today, the Church celebrates St. Columba of Iona.**** And I could talk about him, and hagiography and medieval history and ethnicity and placenames; but that’s been written about endlessly. I want to talk about a much less famous saint.
Alongside Columba, the Episcopal Church today remembers William A. Guerry, Bishop of South Carolina. Advocate of the Social Gospel (i.e., what the Church ought to be doing re: social justice), of diversity, and of advancing racial equality, in the Episcopal Church and outside it. And for that reason, shot by one of his own clergy, 92 years and five days ago; he died on June 9, 1928. A good man to remember, in these times. At least he did something - something positive - with his privilege. May we all be better at doing the same.
* For which read, “Youtube favorites”
** Because John Darnielle, the singer/songwriter who basically IS TMG, is the biggest classics geek ever to be recover from meth addiction.
*** i.e. AD 306-565.
**** End of the same time period, opposite end of the Roman world; same fight, sortof, but taking place in a totally different context in practically every regard, and hence without all the forced conformity.
_______________________
Average number of new COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts per day this week: 390.
Festum Sci. Colum. Hiiensis.
Die Profectionis Wm. Guerry. Epi. & Mart.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-10 01:03 am (UTC)https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t_KiHRHwaAs
no subject
Date: 2020-06-20 05:07 pm (UTC)Also, looks like it's available in French on Amazon, but I don't know if a. that's what you'd want or b. if you even like reading French.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/2251380973
no subject
Date: 2020-06-20 05:30 pm (UTC)