The 'C. S. Lewis Bible'

So, for some reason, this announcement kind of weirds me out. A few weeks ago on amazon I saw pop up an entry for THE C. S. LEWIS BIBLE. At first I thought they might be speaking extravagantly about some reference book to end all reference books about CSL, but no, it's an actual Bible. With C. S. Lewis's comments scattered throughout.

The book's now out, and I still have trouble with the whole idea; it seems like elevating CSL to the status of Holy Writ. The 'St. C.S.' movement was bad enough, but this just feels disturbing on a whole 'nother level. However, I've recently been thinking of picking up 'The Archeology Bible' as a follow-up to the Old Testament audiobook, so maybe I can adjust my expectations enough to come to terms with the idea. So far, it's not proving easy.

In any case, here's a link from the publisher with more information about the book -- note that to their credit they allow one poster to opine that 'Lewis himself wd have been absolutely horrified' without deleting the comment.

http://booksbycslewis.blogspot.com/2010/11/cs-lewis-bible.html

And here's another link showing some sample pages, so you can get a better idea how the Lewis material is integrated into the biblical text:

http://www.harpercollinscatalogs.com/TR/other/9780061982088_0_Extra_Interior-Content_1.pdf

I gather from some passing comments that Douglas Gresham, Lewis's younger stepson, wrote an introduction to this book and that a distinguished list of Lewis scholars contributed to making the selections, but haven't yet seen a copy to confirm this and haven't been able to find that list online.

--John R.

God Willing, and the River Don't RIse

So, yesterday afternoon while I was working away at the desk, buried deep in deadline, the phone rang. Answering it, I found it was the Kent automated Flood Warning system, calling to tell me we had just entered Flood Watch Stage Two. A few minutes later my cell phone rang with the same message, and not long after that they sent me an e-mail to the same effect. So, good news that the system works, but what about Stage One?

Checking the information on the website, I confirmed that this was no cause to panic, though certainly time to pay attention. Essentially Stage One just means the river is high and they're keeping an eye on it. Stage Two means there might be some flooding up near the river's headwaters the other side of Auburn. Still, I went downstairs and made sure all the cat carriers were easy to get at and took a few similar precautions, just in case.

Then this morning came another round of calls at seven a.m., this time to tell me the river had reached Stage Three. Which means that areas that flood when there's a ton of rain, like a stretch alongside a pumpkin patch on the West Valley Hwy south of Kent, are either flooding or probably soon will. Still no reason to panic, but time to pay close attention.

Luckily, we're not at Stage Four, which is where things get bad -- that is, somewhere a levee cd give way and things cd really get wet. Having made a side-trip to check on the river a few miles downstream of us when running an errand this afternoon, I cd see it's v. high and it wdn't take much more rain like what we've been having to fill it the rest of the way to the top. It was interesting to watch the little rafts of brush, the occasional log, and twice what must have been a small tree all go sailing past, and at a good clip too.

So here we are, still safe and warm and dry, so long as we stay inside. And outside, after the brief sunshine of late morning, it's raining again. Tomorrow I'll check the river closer to home, perhaps by the Neely-Soames House, and see how we're doing.

--John R.

Winter Bees

So, today there were bees.

Much to the consternation of our resident hummingbird, by the way, who was relieved when a little later it started to sprinkle again and the bees went back to their bee-refuge, wherever that is, leaving it to sip in peace without having to zig and zag amongst the little ladies.

That's twice now I've thought we've seen the last of them for the year, only to have them re-emerge a week or two later on the next warm or sunny day to rally round the ol' hummingbird feeder. And not just one or two grizzled survivor but more in the neighborhood of twenty to thirty.

Or, as some like to call it, climate change. Incidently, as I was watching the hummingbird/bee show, 'Bird Notes' came on the radio to talk about how the yearly bird counting day was coming round again, and they happened to mention one discovery from compiling their (extensive but anecdotal) evidence is that the wintering territory of migratory birds has shifted by about thirty-five miles over the last decade. I suspect the line dividing when it's warm enough to winter over in lieu of migrating at all is similarly creeping north. It'll be interesting to keep an eye out for other outliers of all the changes going on.

--John R.

Arbocide at Glastonbury

So, tonight I saw the news that the Thorn Tree at Glastonbury got chopped down two nights ago. Speculations as to motive range from anti-Xian (implausible legends connect it to Joseph of Arimathea) to anti-monarch (the locals send the Queen a sprig about this time every year), but it seems far more likely to me that it's simply someone who enjoys killing trees--which after all are large, alive, irreplaceable, and can't fight back (cf. Tolkien's comments on this in the preface to TREE & LEAF and also in THE NEW SHADOW).

They're hoping this one grows back from the stump; if not, I suspect they'll plant a new one, since the current tree is the latest in a long line stretching back for centuries, where a descendent of the former tree is planted in or near its place when the old tree dies, rather like the White Tree of Gondor. Which is good, but it won't be the same.

I'm hoping to get to England sometime in the coming year and seeing a lot of the old prehistorical/archeological sites, Mere and Glastonbury and the Somerset Levels among them -- but I'm sad to know that here's one sight no one will be seeing again, at least not for a v. long time.

Here's the link:

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/10/131978052/famous-christian-landmark-tree-cut-down-in-u-k

--JDR

current book: LOOKING FOR THE KING by David Downing.

Build Yr Own Dodo

So, thanks to Janice, here's the link to an interesting little display of ingenuity and obsessiveness: a fifteen minute talk by Adam Savage, best known as half of the two-man team that puts on MYTHBUSTERS, talking about why and how he came to make himself a full-sized model of a Dodo skeleton. Which, you learn from hearing him talk, is a lot harder than it sounds. From there he segues into discussion of how, and why, he became obsessed with making an exact model of The Maltese Falcon. But the kicker for me, and the reason Janice forwarded me the link, is the Tolkien reference. You just knew that someone devoted to minutia like this was probably a Tolkien fan, and sure enough at one point he shows, among other past projects he keeps on file, the hand-drawn map of Middle-earth he made once. Looks kind of like the one I made years ago and now have framed up in my office, on parchment, which has now aged enough to look more authentic than it has any right to.*

Anyway, here's the link. The Tolkien bit is very brief and can be found just before the three-minute mark, but the whole thing's worth watching, I think.

http://www.ted.com/talks/adam_savage_s_obsessions.html

*part of its accidental 'antiquing' came from when Tiger, our half-manx cat, threw up on it once many, many years ago now.

Interesting Development

Now this is interesting. I'd seen the announcement a few days ago that the leader of the Palestinian Authority had announced he wanted Palestine recognized as an independent nation or he was going to dissolve the quasi-autonomous 'Palestinian Authority' and let the West Bank revert to Israeli rule (pretty much the defacto state of affairs anyway).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101204/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians

Taken into context with other recent news that the US has just given Israel an extra three and a half billion dollars in top-of-the-line fighter jets in exchange for a three-month stay on settlements, that seemed pretty much yet another empty gesture. So imagine my surprise when tonight I came across a news story that three countries have in fact recognized Palestine as a country in the past few days: Brazil, Ecuador, and now Argentina.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/12/201012619131648126.html

I'm not a supporter of the so-called 'two-state solution' myself -- I think there shd be a single unified Israel-Palestine with universal suffrage for all citizens* -- but this is still a remarkable development, I think. I guess we'll see if it leads anywhere. Given the inertia of the region, and the huge vested interests in the status quo, it seems unlikely.

--John R.

*democracy: a good idea. Sparta-like systems of citizens/second-class citizens/Helots: not so much.

The Honey Bomb

So, I haven't been posting much lately because I've been on deadline -- again (one of those projects that's been 'done' twice now but is still not over). I did manage to meet a major milestone on Friday, but later than I expected, because I got seriously interrupted at mid-day by what I think I'll call the honey bomb incident.

There I was at my desk working away when Hastur came up and was inclined to be friendly. It's been a while since I've given her any catnip, which she enjoys sometimes (although less than our other two cats), so I reached into the bottom right drawer of my desk where there shd be a little bagful. Rummaging about absent-mindedly while still half-thinking about the sentence I was recasting on the laptop, I was a bit puzzled when my hand came out sticky. Looking into the drawer, I saw that a small jar I keep honey in, which shd have been on the desktop or in the middle drawer, was in the bottom drawer instead. On its side. And, when I picked it up, it was sticky too. That got my full attention.

To make a long story short, it turned out the jar had not only gotten in the wrong drawer, but it'd tipped over and spilled almost all the honey in it on the contents of the drawer. So I had an unscheduled break from work while I lifted items out of the (double-sized) drawer and carried the more honeyed items off to the bathroom, where I wiped them down with a wet washcloth and then dried them on a towel. The two main casualties were a tarot deck (or the excerpts therefrom that forms my personalized 'Deck of Many Things')* and my Denham file -- that is, all the photocopies I had made two years back of a number of the original little six- or eight-page pamphlets that make up the DENHAM TRACTS. Luckily the damage was confined to the right and top margins of each page, but still it was quite a mess, and the documents now have a faux-antique crinkling along those edges

Could have been worse, but still not a happy event. Ah well; that drawer's now cleaner than it's been in a while . . .**

--JDR

P.S.: Speaking of honey, I shd note that we had two sunny days in a row and the bees came back to the hummingbird feeder, much to my surprise -- I thought we'd seen the last of them for the year.

Also, speaking of bees, here's a strange little story about bees being dyed red from drinking maraschino cherry juice:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/30/nyc-bees-turn-red-with-dy_n_789958.html

*I prefer the Morgan-Greer Tarot for this purpose.

**my wife says: since it was new.