A Purse

Who died and left a bunch of hipsters and ninnies in charge of deciding that men should now carry purses? I know, some places, like Saddleback, market some attractively rugged-looking leather bags for you to stuff things inside and carry with you. Even otherwise sensible advocates of style shill such things. But should you get one? Here are some simple rules to help you decide:

1. Are you carrying diplomatic dispatches, military orders, court filings, or something closely analogous?
If yes, you can carry a bag; if no, proceed to #2.

2. Are you carrying the bag as luggage---that is, does it hold clothing or other everyday items that you are only bringing with you because you are staying overnight somewhere or traveling beyond the convenient reach of otherwise home-bound accouterments?
If yes, you can carry a bag, but only for the duration of the trip; if no, proceed to #3.

3. Are you carrying surveying equipment, fractometer, large camera, artistic implements, or other equipment needed for a professional or hobby-oriented errand on which you are going?
If yes, you can carry a bag, but only for these purposes; if no, proceed to #4.

4. Is the bag a briefcase?
If yes, you can carry this---but not any other---bag; if no, proceed below.

If you couldn't answer yes to any of these questions, then place the bag on the ground, stand up, walk away, and be a man. Be advised that you are probably carrying, or inclined to be carrying, too many things with you.

Terrible Journalism

Terrible journalism is easy to come by, especially in "flagrant ignorance about religion" flavor. This piece, however, demonstrates a more subtle failure. I know nothing after reading the article that I didn't already know from the headline. Why do these windows violate the zoning restrictions? I certainly don't know. Do the zoning regulations prohibit tenants from opening the existing windows? Why can't the Margaritaville install windows that look exactly like the original windows but that open wider and more easily? Or do the zoning regulations simply prohibit storefronts that are only partially enclosed (in which case what windows are installed is entirely beside the point: the practice of opening them alone is offensive)?

But the article doesn't say any of that. It creates further uncertainty, rather than educating: poor writing on any level.

Prohibits?

From the Registrar:

"The size of the law diplomas (14x17) prohibits printing them on sheepskin so law diplomas are printed on a fine white paper."

Oh really? The Size came to the registrar's office and warned that someone would have to sleep with the fishes if the law diplomas were printed on vellum? I find that even less plausible than the excuse that it is simply impossible for our printing service to handle or procure such large sheets of vellum.

Oh Brother

What is it about Notre Dame in the 21st century that attracts people prone to bone-headed decisions to positions of authority? Seems like we can't even go a full year in between flubs these days.

Attila at the Met

When I heard that Ricardo Muti was making his Metropolitan Opera debut this month conducting Verdi's Attila, I was incredulous. Surely Mr. Muti, one of the leading conductors of our day, and no more a young man than music director James Levine, had held the baton at the Met before. But like Verdi's ninth opera, and just as surprisingly, Muti's current trip is his first.

The Met broadcast the opening performance online last night, but I'm waiting for the Saturday matinee to hear it for myself. Like most early Verdi, Attila is fairly obscure; I certainly don't own a recording and am fairly certain that I have heard it only in snatches. After having seen Ernani at the Lyric, however, I find myself at something of a loss to explain the early works' long residence in the broom closet of opera. If these works lack the full power and dramatic energy of Verdi's later masterpieces, they certainly stand as respectable late bel canto works. Of course, the standard repertory relegated much bel canto to truncated concert pieces for many years (Lammermoor, for instance, being whittled down to only the mad scene and some bare bookends), so perhaps the early Verdi was simply shuffled along.

Peter Gelb appears hell bent on securing his place as the Earl Warren of the operatic world. As the audience booed yet another production team off the stage, one wonders just how much re-education Mr. Gelb thinks we need. By George, those new opera audiences are out there somewhere and the Met is going to find them, and the rule of law, democracy, and nature of the judicial function good taste, tradition, and the well-established preferences of 100 years' worth of audiences will not stand in its way. Attila of the Apes* comes just as the company has announced the scrapping of Zeffirelli's Traviata. To assuage any hurt, the Met promises to bring us John Adams's Nixon in China. Well, I know that I certainly have spent my entire life looking forward to hearing a work depicting events that themselves occurred well after the thorough demise of classical music as a living art form, composed by a minimalist hack whose work product (music would be too indulgent) has more in common with phone tones than with Rossini.

The only solution to things like this is the pocketbook: stop buying tickets to this tripe. Once Mr. Gelb's revolution is complete, this will require not buying tickets to the Met at all. Stop writing them checks now and maybe, just maybe, it won't come to that. I won't be holding my breath.


* Granting that the designers set out to be unhistorical, permit me to complain about the costuming, entirely apart from the question of whether Italy is being invaded here by Huns or by kudzu. The fellow in the red miter is St. Leo the Great. But why is he wearing a miter in a non-liturgical setting? Why is he wearing white? Popes before St. Pius V wore red. And why is he carrying a pastoral staff made out of two-by-fours? If the costumers desire to be unhistorical and a-representational, so be it. Dress the pope and the Huns up as aliens, or Victorians, or deranged costume designers. But weird half-measures, especially ones so inexplicable and widespread as basic inability properly to represent clerical attire, are simply uncalled for.

35. Christ did not always possess the consciousness of His Messianic dignity. (Lamentabili Sane, 1907).

A condemned proposition, courtesy of St. Pius X. Also, incidentally, a proposition once seriously entertained by my sophomore religion teacher (who subsequently went to work for Episcopalians, explaining that they were "basically the same except for the Pope.") It's events like this that make me remember: if one ever thinks he has discovered some great, unpondered dilemma in the intellectual life of Christianity, one is probably quite wrong. Someone has likely pondered and resolved the dilemma already.

Keep Reading it Online, Please

. . . they'll go out of business.

Those were my Criminal Procedure professor's words about The New York Times. Sadly, the Times has finally realized that the internet has been beating it over the head with a hammer for a decade now and is shutting down free online access at the end of the year. So much for that route.

As fond as I am of print newspapers and print publications in general, I am sometimes surprised at how much I dislike the Times. That is, until I read pieces like this. They don't call it "Hell's Bible" for nothing.

The idea that this man writes a column under the heading "Culture" is simply risible. Granted, a lot of sex in movies is gratuitous and uncalled for regardless of who the actors or characters are. But to suggest that an otherwise worthwhile onscreen romance (not necessarily involving sex, since it was about the only thing not shown in some scene of Cleopatra) is depreciated because it involves or depicts marital acts is simply silly. Of course, a fellow of this sort is already living in his own world to a certain degree: I could have gone my whole life and not told you to whom Jennifer Connelly is married.