Yearly Archive: 2019

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2 Jan, 2019

Wednesday’s Child: Ritual Sounds

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Well, gentle reader, the ball has dropped, “Auld Lang Syne” has been sung, corks have hit the ceiling and wishes have been made. “The year is no longer new,” as Pasternak said in a poem of nearly a century ago. “Another, newer, has been promised.” Nursing my morning head will take awhile, possibly all the way through Orthodox Christmas next week and until the Old Russian New Year on January 13.  As Robert Burns’ venerable text suggests, this is the time to reminisce rather than act, and memories, obedient to the call of the bagpipe, are now marching before my...

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1 Jan, 2019

Sicilian Trog, Part II

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This is the long-awaited Part II of my Agrigento Trog There is hardly a better place in Europe—not even Athens—were the differences between the ancient and the modern world can be felt so acutely.  20th century Agrigento is, at its best, a tribute to the greed and and contempt for humanity that have characterized modern governments that are the distilled essence of democratic man.  The local government is hopelessly inept at carrying out the most basic tasks—picking up trash, policing traffic, cracking down on organized crime.  And yet, good democratic socialists that they are, they have imposed new rules on...