The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary
I first visited the Shostakovich Center–Association Internationale Dimitri Chostakovitch, if you go by the name on the doorbell–last October, and wrote about it in this space. A friend, now dead, used to live across the road in the Rue des Saints-Pères. The street, which marks the border between the 6th and 7th Paris arrondissements, dates back to the sixteenth century, with all the glories of intervening ages sucked up by it as by a sponge of sedimentary calcite. The Center is in a small courtyard, its stones overgrown with ivy and moss, and of an afternoon one can sit on...
Part III We are some time after the beginning of the new millennium. Americans are fighting “for their freedom” in two wars and liberating their own homosexual citizens who labored under civil disabilities. Fritz Rechstaffen III, who (like President Bush) once did a stint in the National Guard, is an enthusiastic supporter of the President’s war on terror. His son Fritz IV, known as JJ after his two middle names Justin and Joshuah, is not so sure. He is a bit tired of his father’s patriotic rants over the dinner table. He doesn’t want to waste time going...
Part II Jonson wrote some fine poetry and well-crafted plays, but I think he may have missed his calling, which was to be a scholar. Unfortunately, he did not finish Westminster and never attended university, though both Oxford and Cambridge were later to award him degrees. Instead, he learned the art of a bricklayer, a trade he practiced before running away to enlist as a soldier and afterwards, again, when his literary career was stalled. Jonson had a pugnacious disposition and must have enjoyed war. Fighting in the low countries in 1591, by his own account, he ostentatiously took the...
In this episode of Christianity and Classical Culture, Dr. Fleming discusses Virgil and why he is the pagan that Dante chose to lead him in the Divine Comedy. Dr. Fleming goes on to discuss Dante and, in part, the Divine Comedy and why it is a trilogy worth reading. He ends by discussing Virgil’s mysterious reference to a child who will save the world. Prophecy or coincidence? We report, you decide. Episode note: We apologize for some background noise that occurred during recording. Original Air Date: May 30, 2017 Show Run Time: 58 minutes Show Guest(s): Dr. Thomas Fleming Show Host(s): Stephen...
Sometime in the 1960’s a young German-American named Fritz Rechtschaffen is having a beer with his father, a prosperous owner of several appliance stores and a staunch Republican. Pretending to take an interest in the boring old businessman, Fritz junior asks: “So, dad. So like what did you do during the war?” Fritz senior, bringing the glass to his lips, pauses with the glass in midair and looks uncharacteristically pensive. After a half minute of embarrassing silence, the father takes a swallow of beer. “You know, son. We spent the war years back in Germany. It would have been hard...
This is a revised and improved version of a talk I gave at a Summer School on Elizabethan/Jacobean England. In the north aisle of the nave of Westminster Abbey there is a tomb of a man buried vertically with the inscription, “O Rare Ben Johnson.” [sic] The inscription was made at the request of a casual visitor who happened to be walking by. The misspelling is believed to be the work of those who replaced the original at some point. The unusual positioning is explained by an anecdote. Jonson was being chaffed, so the story goes, by the...
Time is running out, but there is still time to sign up for our special program on the roots of the revolutionary tradition. In addition to the lecturers we have already announced we hope to have two old friends with us: Christopher Check, my former second-in-command, who will be speaking on the Mexican Revolution and the persecution of Christians, and Dr. Srdja Trifkovic, who will share his thoughts on recent developments in Russia. If you are still hesitating, about coming, then read the letter below one more time. Dear Friend and Fellow-Reader: “The lamps are going out all...
It must be the time of year. Friends and acquaintances keep sending me novels, asking for my opinion as if I were a cocktail taster in a bar with a pernickety and occasionally abusive clientele – a gay one, presumably. Last week I nearly died after taking a swig of mendacious absurdity. This week’s concoction is very different. The brew that has been set before me has as its base a Gnostic cosmogony. And, since its style is tongue-in-cheek urbane, colloquial and hip, there is in the mix an equal amount of Hollywood brooding on the meaninglessness of life, as...
American bigots are always complaining about Islamic violence. They apparently are incapable of listening to the reasonable and fact-based arguments put forth by their democratically elected monarchs. George Bush explained to us that Islam was a “religion of peace,” and his successor gave us the valuable lesson in American history that Muslims had been with us from the beginning. Of course they were, doesn’t anyone remember the Terrorists who went by the name of Barbary Pirates? For all these reasons and many more, American bigots should beware of drawing conclusions from the recent attack in Manchester, England, that left 22...
The Day-Spring from on High By the Rt. Rev. Paul C. Hewett Maitland FL: Exulon Elite 711 pp., $32.99 Many Christians long admired the American Episcopal Church, even those without its bonds. The Anglican faith was orthodox but with a certain amount of gentlemanly tolerance; it shared friendly borders with Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox, an ecumenical miracle; it could embrace to a degree the catholic, the evangelical, and the charismatic, and perhaps tame them a little; its language and music were wonders; it was associated with many of the greatest achievements and leaders of the English-speaking world; it gave us...
