Volume 13 Number 8, July/August 2010
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Art
Battleground for the soul of Man
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: Ta b l e o f C o n t e n t s : Volume 13 Number 8, July/August 2010
4 |:Tremendous Trifles: 5 |:Lunacy & Letters: 7 |:EDITORIAL:
The Art of Splitting Hairs 8 |:Straws in the Wind:
On the True Artist By G.K. Chesterton
10 |:SCHALL on CHESTERTON:
“The Positive Miracles of Life” by James V. Schall, S.J.
11 |:Tales of the Short Bow:
The Investigator by John Peterson
The Attack James G. Bruen, Jr.
36 |:the Flying STars:
46 |:the Distributist:
The Chestertons in America
Industry: The Distributist Solution
by Nancy Carpentier Brown
by Richard Aleman
37 |:Jogging with G.K.:
47 |:Chesterton’s Mail Bag:
Through the Desert
Arguments That Don’t Work
by Robert Moore-Jumonville
48 |:News With Views: 38 |:The Battle with the Dragon:
Do We Know Good Art? Do We Even Know What We Like? by Chris Chan
39 |:All I Survey:
Happy Meals by David Fagerberg
50 |:Letter to America:
On Going Etruscan By G.K. Chesterton
About the Cover: Our cover was painted by artist Anthony VanArsdale. See more of his work on page 25.
40 |:Book Reviews:
The Empty Cradle By Phillip Longman Reviewed by Fr. Frederick Edlefsen
14 |:Alarms and Discursions:
An interview with artists Jef Murray and Timothy Jones
Chesterton on War and Peace By Michael W. Perry Reviewed by David Paul Deavel
by Therese Warmus
19 |:the Signature of Man:
A Gallery of Chestertonian Artists 33 |:Rolling Road:
Undiscovered Italy by Dale Ahlquist
35 |:the Flying Inn:
Beef by David Beresford
42 |: the Detection Club:
The Idea Man by John Peterson
Pie, Murder, Pie, Romance, Pie, Angst, Pie, Secrets, Pie, Lies, and More Pie by Chris Chan
Resolve. 12" x 16". Oil on canvas.
45 |:Chesterton University:
Ending with a Bang by Dale Ahlquist
All artwork in Gilbert Magazine is copyright by the original artist and appears with permission.
Publisher: Dale Ahlquist, President, ACS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Sean P. Dailey ART DIRECTOR: Ted Schluenderfritz LITERARY EDITOR: Therese Warmus COPY EDITOR: Susan Meister Senior Writer: John Peterson Contributing Editors: Richard Aleman, David Beresford, Nancy Carpentier Brown, Joe Campbell, John C. Chalberg, Christopher
Chan, David Paul Deavel, David W. Fagerberg, Kyro Lantsberger, Art Livingston, Robert Moore-Jumonville, James V. Schall SJ “News with Views” Editors: Nathan Allen, Mark Pilon, Larry Pavlicek, Ted Olsen Subscriptions: (See Coupon Page 6) Credit Card Orders: call 1-800-343-2425 or fax 1-270-325-3091 Letters and Articles: Gilbert Magazine, American Chesterton Society, 4117 Pebblebrook Circle, Minneapolis, MN 55437 editor@gilbertmagazine.com www.gilbertmagazine.com Letters to the editor may be edited for length or clarity. Gilbert Magazine is published every six weeks by The American Chesterton Society, a non-profit corporation established under Paragraph 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Tax
Code. Donations to the American Chesterton Society are tax-deductible in the United States. Your contributions help support the publication of Gilbert Magazine. Please send your donations to: The American Chesterton Society, 4117 Pebblebrook Circle, Minneapolis, MN 55437. The views expressed by Gilbert Magazine contributors are not necessarily those of the publisher, the editors, or the American Chesterton Society. Copyright ©2010 by The American Chesterton Society.
Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity
3
:Tremendous Trifles:
W
by Sean P. Dailey
elcome to Gilbert Magazine’s Art Issue. To kick things off, senior writer John Peterson recommends some pertinent titles. First is Alzina Stone Dale’s 1985 volume, The Art of G.K. Chesterton (Loyola University Press). Next on the list, if you can find it, is Aidan Mackey’s 1978 limited edition, Mr. Chesterton Comes to Tea, accompanied by sixteen previously unpublished pencil drawings by G.K. (Rampant Lions Press, Cambridge). Finally, just published by George Vanderburgh is Pasquale Accardo’s collection of Chesterton’s illustrations for Hilaire Belloc’s novels, The Chester-belloc, available from the Battered Silicon Dispatch Box in Canada.
¶¶We will have a full report of the 2010 Chesterton Conference in the next issue. You may order CDs of the talks now (see the ad on page 2). Mark your calendars for the 2011 Chesterton Conference to be held in St. Louis, Missouri. ¶¶Just published: A third volume of poetry in The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton, now available from the American Chesterton society or Ignatius Press. From the description on the Ignatius Press Web site: “We are pleased and honored that two of the leading Chestertonians, Mr. Aidan Mackey and Dr. Denis J. Conlon, have collaborated in the assembling of these volumes to which they have contributed many previously uncollected poems. Volume X, Part III, is the final installment of Conlon’s research: turn-of-the-century poems discovered after the publication of Part II and the poetry of the subsequent years up to 1936 not included in the previous books.” Find out more at chesterton.org ¶¶Also just published: G.K. Chesterton, Theologian by Fr. Aidan Nichols. It is available for back-order at Sophia Institute Press, http://www.sophiainstitute.com/productdetails.cfm?PC=403
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the reviews of What’s Wrong with the World were hitting the papers. The book had been out a month, years ago and critics were not having an easy time with it. One said that he “felt inclined to accept seriously the query and statement inscribed upon its cover—‘What’s Wong with the World?—G.K. Chesterton.’” Another complained that Chesterton “suffers from an incapacity to say even simple things unless he has first conceived them as a contradiction of accepted opinions.” And another warned Chesterton that he cannot continue to write books with his feet up on the mantelpiece. The Times was willing to forgive him for his “foolish and false criticisms” and even his “unholy appetite for that epigrammatic form which once seemed to us so fresh and hearty, and now, with its antitheses, half slipshod pun and half alliteration, seems so jaded and superfluous.” Perhaps they should have waited a century before judging just how stale Chesterton’s writing had become.
Since faith and reason are inseparable, the main goal of Behold and See 5 is to teach up-to-date scientific knowledge in the context of our Holy Faith.” David is a scientist and with his wife has homeschooled all of his own children. He also is working on science texts for sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Behold and See also comes with a student workbook, and is available at www.chcweb. com:80/catalog/Exclusives/WhatsNew/BeholdandSee5/ product_info.html
¶¶Speaking of books, a new biography of Chesterton’s friend, Fr. John O’Connor, now available in paperback. The Elusive Fr. Brown: the Life of Msgr. John O’Connor, by Julia Smith, was published in March by Gracewing Publishing. Monsignor O’Connor is best known to Chestertonians as the inspiration for Chesterton’s beloved priest-sleuth, Fr. Brown. Gilbert Magazine’s Nancy Carpentier Brown will review the book in a future issue.
¶¶Teens don’t go for Chesterton? Guess again. In a ¶¶The revolution continues: promoting “Faith, Politics, recent monthly newsletter the Papa B. Society of Fargo, and Culture in Mission Country,” a new Web site and blog, North Dakota, a social group of home-schooled teenagers, CatholicMaine, began operations in August. With a mix of included a list of events the teens could pick from to organews, commentary, and links to other Catholic Web sites, nize monthly gatherings. Suggested events CatholicMaine seeks to “represent the included everything from praying at an teachings of the Church in an honest and Have a Trifle? Send it to abortuary to a formal dance to an “air soft forthright manner, and to analyze the editor@gilbertmagazine.com gun war” for the boys. And then there was world through the lens of our Catholic number 17 on the list: “Start a Chesterton faith.” Oh, yeah, it also has a daily ChesSociety in your area and invite the group to terton quote, The Daily Chesterton, “a nod to the wit and a meeting.” wisdom of famed Catholic writer G.K. Chesterton.” You ¶¶Speaking of homeschooling (and art), Gilbert Magacan find CatholicMaine at www.catholicmaine.com/blog/ zine contributing editor David Beresford has written a fifth ¶¶Parting Trifle: the film adaptation of Chesterton’s grade science text, Behold and See. “Written for Catholic novel Manalive, filmed a year and a half ago in Savannah, homeschooling families, Behold and See 5 combines a Ga., is, I have on fairly good authority, “almost done.” Find stunning, full-color interior with hands-on experiments and more news at manalivethemovie.com, including a teaser engaging scientific content from a Catholic perspective. trailer. 4
Volume 13 Number 8, July/August 2010
: L u n a c y & L e tt e r s : from Gilbert Magazine Readers
I
found Don Himmelspach’s written response (GM June 2010) to Cindy Wineburgh’s letter (GM March 2010) most troubling. Mr. Himmelspach distorts what Ms. Weinburgh writes then attacks his own distortion.
1. Himmelspach writes, “3,500 babies are butchered every day, yet Wineburgh and her fellow liberals remain unmoved.” Ms. Wineburgh never said she was pro-choice, let alone unmoved by the spectacle of thousands of abortions. Ms. Wineburgh’s letter was about economics. 2. Himmelspach writes, “Yet the American Infant Holocaust, which has taken more than 50 million lives, doesn’t seem real to them.” How do you know it doesn’t seem real to them? Again, Ms. Wineburgh’s letter was about economic polices. Her point, and you didn’t get it, was that one reason (not the only reason) there are so many abortions in the United States may be that we have economic policies that enrich the very few and push the many toward economic desperation. If you don’t think economic desperation can result in desperate action, read about the French Revolution. Having an abortion cannot be a happy act for anyone who is sane. Doesn’t it seem likely that it is, rather, an act of desperation?
have been repeatedly exploited by politicians who claim to be pro-life, get themselves elected, and then proceed to join in creating the very destructive economic favoritism to which Ms. Wineburgh objects. 3. Himmelspach writes, “Catholics can disagree on a wide variety of issues, but they are conscience bound to vote pro-life. Those who don’t, jeopardize their souls. Wineburgh doesn’t understand this now but by God’s grace, some day she will.” Ms. Wineburgh may have a different view of what it means to vote pro-life. Catholics can disagree on a wide variety of issues, but I don’t think it is up to us to imply that voting for a Democrat will send us to hell. That is very presumptuous. 4. Himmelspach writes, “Wineburgh begins with the predictable straw man claim that pro-life voters don’t consider other issues, specifically the Republican Party’s labor and economic policies.” I have to agree with Wineburgh. I personally know a great many Christians who do exactly that—if the candidate says he/she is pro-life, they are done thinking about it. And don’t think politicians are unaware of this. My opinion as a former Evangelical (now Catholic) is that Christians in general and Evangelicals in particular
G.K. Chesterton wrote that he and his brother Cecil argued constantly but never quarreled. I read Wineburgh’s letter and Himmelspach’s response several times each, and it is Himmelspach who descends into quarrel. Ironically, all the name-calling and bitter words are directed at Wineburgh, who probably is on the pro-life side. If we level these kinds of hateful words at each other, how do we ever expect to convince those on the other side to join us in the belief that life is sacred? Don, your life is sacred, as is Cindy’s, as is mine. The greatest of Christ’s commandments were to love God and to love your neighbor—and he also commanded us to love our enemies. I invite Mr. Himmelspach, Ms. Wineburgh, and any other Gilbert Magazine reader to e-mail their comments to the magazine for further discussion. If we’re going to disagree, let’s try to understand the point of view of those who disagree with us—we can argue, but let’s not quarrel. Pat Colwell Waterloo, Iowa
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Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity
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: L u n a c y & L e tt e r s :
;
;
;
I
first want to start by saying that I don’t really read magazines, but when my wife signed me up…Well, I must say Gilbert Magazine is great! I read it from cover to cover along with the advertisements (and I thought Dale Ahlquist was making a joke when he called it the world’s best magazine). In the present edition (June 2010), however, I read D.J. Regnilas “Phony Baloney” (pg. 17). I must protest the pessimism of this article. I’ve worked many years in the service industry. I remember having a conversation with a youth who had done many jobs, but this was her first customer service job. She told me that people should do a service job at least once because it forces you to act nice and do for others. She saw the same as I did, that most people grow up being served and not serving. Many people have never been exposed to serving others, so these jobs provide the training they didn’t get at home. They will fall into one of two camps. One camp will take this as a new trait and see the advantages in it. They will become happier and more genuine, though their greeting may seem like everyone else’s. The other people will become disingenuous; some are obvious and others are not. I like working with those who love the service and hospitality industries because they make an environment friendlier and they enjoy serving each other as well as customers. When I tell people to have a wonderful day no one has ever asked me what I really mean. They would never expect that I really meant for them to have a day filled with wonder. There is a joy in being a servant, and a heartfelt gratitude when one is being served. You see, it must go both ways. The customer must appreciate the service, but a pessimist will never be satisfied. I dread such people but hope that my example of honesty will somehow break through. Have a wonderful day. Roland Dandeneau Rochelle, Virginia
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Volume 13 Number 8, July/August 2010
C h e s t e r t o n f o r To d a y ;;A Government can be anarchist; and a mob can be authoritarian. With us the anarchy is worst in the governing classes; their legislation has become a sort of silly and bewildered experimentation. (Illustrated London News,
Nov. 30, 1912) ;;When Conservatives, Liberals, and Socialists all agree, it is time for the larger and more harmless part of mankind to look after its pockets. (Illustrated London
News, April 5, 1913) ;;The Press is no longer holding up a dim or dusty or cracked mirror to the world; it is simply painting a sort of mad picture of the world, which is a pastiche of a hundred pictures
of anything or nothing, most of them badly painted and all of them badly chosen. (G.K.’s Weekly, Feb. 15, 1930) ;;Our standard of life is that of the governing class, which is eternally turning luxuries into necessities as fast as pork is turned into sausages; and which cannot remember the beginning of its needs and cannot get to the end of its novelties. (“The
Strangeness of Luxury,” Alarms and Discursions) ;;A
nation that has nothing but its amusements will not be amused for very long. (“The Canterbury Tales,” Chaucer) ;;All centralized systems mean the rule of a few; and industrial machinery is the most centralized of all systems.
(Illustrated London News, Nov. 13, 1926)
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: EDI T ORIAL :
E
The Art of Splitting Hairs
very once in a while it is a good idea to remind our readers—and ourselves—why we do what we do. Why do we devote so much time and energy to promoting G.K. Chesterton and his ideas? Why do we publish this magazine? We do it because we think Chesterton was right about things, and still is. His refreshing articulation of the truth is worth sharing with our friends and our enemies. His complete thinking always informs the incompleteness of our own thinking. His prophetic defense of all the good things that are under attack—or under neglect—is a reliable weapon and a tool in fighting what is wrong with the world and preserving what is right. We like to argue about these things. Whether we are fighting off the pagans who want to normalize perversion, or the Puritans who want to demonize fairy tales, or the barbarians who want to burn the city, or the barons who want to rape the land, we are always ready to do battle. We are armed with Chesterton, who fought precisely the same battles that rage today, battles that are in some ways more intense, in some ways more subtle. We know there are those who grow tired of our arguments, and so we at least attempt to keep them amused enough to stay interested. But sometimes that is not enough. And so, while we enjoy a good loud fight, we realize that more people are drawn to the truth by beauty than by bellowing. G.K. Chesterton was an incisive critic of modern art, recognizing its decay at every level as part of the general decay of our culture and the separation of everything from everything else. But unlike other critics, Chesterton did more than just criticize. He created. He added to the beauty of creation by fulfilling his own vocation as an artist. He wrote lovely poetry and exquisite prose. His fiction is creative (too creative for some tastes), but his non-fiction is even more creative. His throwaway newspaper columns ring with life. We still hear the laughter in his words and the joy in his voice. Even his criticism is creative. He still brings the eternal into the ephemeral, a vibrant example of his own definition of art. But even art has become a battleground, or as Chesterton might say, a divorce court. In the last century form became divorced from content. The so-called fine arts (which were largely subsidized by government grants or large endowments from dead rich people) produced formlessness that was supposedly full of meaning, while
the commercial arts (literally, television commercials) gave us highly produced form devoid of any real meaning. One extreme insults us with galleries that are nothing but slabs of concrete or swerves of stapled aluminum and the other extreme flatters us with the sixty-second movie that appears to be tugging at our emotions when it is in fact tugging at our wallets. But the real trench warfare in the arts, where we are all soldiers, has been the ongoing battle against ugliness. Chesterton says that in the modern industrial age, beauty is an accidental byproduct. The loss of common craftsmanship has accompanied the loss of a common philosophy and a common morality. When we question the good and the true, we also question the beautiful. Ugliness gains ground. And so we fight. We do not believe that the questions of art can be merely dismissed as personal taste. We believe there are fine distinctions that can be argued about and that are worth arguing about because they are connected to larger truths. Chesterton agrees: It seems to me that fine distinctions are essential to all the fine arts. They are essential to all fine thinking, to all really fine things, and especially to the fine art of theology. Everybody knows it in the case of bodily beauty. Everybody knows the grim joke of Pascal, that the whole world would now be different if the nose of Cleopatra had been an inch shorter; and it is idle to talk about hair-splitting while beauty draws us with a single hair. But it is equally true that health is a fine balance, just as beauty is a fine balance. It is equally true that sanity is as lightly and exquisitely poised as the statue of a dancing nymph. And it does emphatically make all the difference in all the arts and sciences where we draw the line, or even where we split the hair.
With this issue of Gilbert Magazine we are making a small attempt to demonstrate our commitment to good art, and to demonstrate what good art is. We have the privilege here to present the work of artists who are preserving craftsmanship, who are honoring the great Christian tradition of integrating the true, the good, and the beautiful. And we are wrapping them together with Chesterton’s own pleasing and powerful words. We do it because we believe that Chesterton’s ideas continue to be exactly what we need to rescue our culture from decay. That’s why we do what we do.
—Dale Ahlquist Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity
7
: St r a w s i n t h e W i n d : An Essay by G.K. Chesterton
On the True Artist
L
By G.K. Chesterton
ately it has been noted that the artists who started with entirely new artistic methods have now themselves returned to more realistic methods, and what some would call more reasonable methods. According to the pioneer theory of progress, of which we have all heard so much, they ought by this time to have shot far out of sight, and be enjoying the society of our great-great-grandchildren. For it is supposed to be the duty of this singular sort of pioneer to lose sight entirely of the army which he leads. Of course, the whole metaphor is a muddle: most of that modern theory of progress is merely a muddle of metaphors. A pioneer does not lead an army; he is merely a man who walks in front of it, and is as much under the orders of the general command as the last man who walks behind it. But, accepting the vague imagery of those who talk of a pioneer when they mean a prophet, it is clear that the pioneer sometimes falls back on the main body of the advance. In other words, the prophet sometimes gets tired of the society of the babe unborn (who may be an uncommunicative companion) and seeks for companions even among contemporaries. It is a great honour to be knocked into the middle of next week; but some have recovered from the shock, and seem to be making desperate efforts to be alive now. I cannot pronounce upon the case of pictorial art, but in the parallel case of literature there is perhaps something to be said about the tests of such a return to society, and of whether and when it is a return to sanity. The first truth involved is a truism, but a truism often as little understood 8 
Volume 13 Number 8, July/August 2010
as any mystery. It is that the artist is a person who communicates something. He may communicate it more or less easily and quickly; he may communicate it to a larger or smaller number of people. But it is a question of communication and not merely of what some people call expression. Or rather, strictly speaking, unless it is
communication it is not expression. A signalman cannot be said to express the fact that the Scotch Express is coming from York, if he communicates the fact that it has broken down at Newcastle. A messenger cannot be said to express his sorrow at a king having been shot, if he only succeeds in communicating the news that he has been crowned. The word “expression� implies that something appears as what it really is; and that the thing that is recognised outside is the same that has been realised inside. Now, I know that for some time past it has been the custom to talk of the artist expressing something, as if it only meant his getting rid of something. It may be natural that the artist should want to get rid of his art; especially when we consider what it is sometimes like. But it is not his
: St r a w s i n t h e W i n d :
business only to deliver himself. It is, I say very solemnly, his business to deliver the goods. It may be in some cases, when the goods are delivered to some people, that the goods are mistaken for bads. But if the goods cannot be delivered, the goods are not good enough. If we have nothing but the assurance that Mr. Brown is no longer troubled by a triolet, it is not good enough. If we must be content with knowing that Mr. Binks has had a tragedy out, as he might have a tooth out, it is not good enough. Mr. Brown and Mr. Binks have not expressed themselves, because we know no more about them than we did before; except that they are feeling a little better. This, as I say, is a truism, but it is one that is strangely forgotten in a great deal of the fashionable fuss about artistic self-expression. The artist does ultimately exhibit himself as being intelligent by being intelligible. I do not say by being easy to understand, but certainly by being understood. Yet there is still a vast amount of talk about the isolated and incommunicable spirit of the man of genius; about how he has in him things too deep for expression and too subtle to be subject to general criticism. I say that that is exactly what is not true of the artist. That is exactly what is true of the ordinary man who is not an artist. That is exactly what is true of the man who is called a Philistine. He has subtleties in his soul which he cannot describe; he has secrets of emotion which he can never show to the public. It is the grocer and the greengrocer who have thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. It is the haberdasher who weeps he knows not why. It is the chartered accountant who dies with all his music in him. But it should obviously be the aim of the musician to die with all his music out of him; even if this ideal state of things can seldom be achieved. The point is here, however, that it is not enough that the musician should get his music out of him. It is also his business to get his music into somebody else. We should all be reasonable enough to recognise that the somebody else will depend to some extent on the sort of music. But if all he can say is that he has a secret
Beaut y ;;We, who are mature and wicked, have constantly to be reminded that beauty is beauty, that kindness is kindness, that courage is lovable, or that lilies are white. (Illustrated London
News, May 30, 1908) ;;Beauty
can be an absolute; it can certainly be a joy in itself. (Illustrated London News, Dec. 11, 1926) ;;Beauty
is a fine balance. (Illustrated
London News, Sept. 8, 1928) ;;Beauty
is a fact, and harmony only a relation between facts. (Illustrated London News, Dec. 25, 1909) ;;Art
is born when the temporary touches the eternal; the shock of beauty is when the irresistible force
of sealed-up power and passion, that his imagination is visited by visions of which the world knows nothing, that he is conscious of a point of view which is wholly his own and is not expressed in anything common or comprehensible--then he is simply saying that he is not an artist, and there is an end of it. He is simply saying what his stockbroker or his dentist or his dustman have probably got a perfect right to say. The real truth to be recognised on the other side is this. The expression of a unique point of view, so that somebody else shall share it, is a very difficult and delicate matter. It will probably take the artist some time, and a number of experiments, to make his meaning clear. And it seems to me that the moment when he returns to a more normal style is, very often, simply the moment when he has managed to make it clear. The time when he is wild and revolutionary and unfathomable and ferociously original is the time when he is trying to do it. The time when he is called ordinary is the time when he has done it. It is true that there is a sort of bad parody of this good process. There generally is of all good processes: diabolus simius Dei [“the devil is an ape of God”]. It does
hits the immovable post. (“The Boredom of Butterflies,” Fancies vs. Fads) ;;The true poet is ultimately dedicated to Beauty. (“The Greatness of Chaucer,”
Chaucer) ;;Beautiful things ought to mean beautiful things. (“The Artistic Side,” The
Coloured Lands) ;;Wherever there are happy men they will build beautiful things. (Daily News,
April 8, 1905) ;;Beauty
is unanswerable. (“Tennyson,”
The Uses of Diversity) ;;Babies [are] the most beautiful things on earth. (“Christianity and
Rationalism,” The Blatchford Controversies)
sometimes happen that a man who had revolutionary ideals in his youth sells them for a merely snobbish conformity. But I do not think this is true of the modern artists whose return to a more normal manner has recently been remarked in this connection. Their work has still an individual character, even when it becomes intelligible as well as individual. I am merely pointing out that the moment when artists become intelligible is the moment when they become truly and triumphantly individual. It is the time when the individual first appears in the world with which art is concerned, the world of receptivity and appreciation. Every individual is an individual; and I am one of those who think that every individual is an interesting individual. But, anyhow, there are a very large number of individuals who would be interesting if they had the power of arousing our interest. But the moment of creation is the moment of communication. It is when the work has passed from mind to mind that it becomes a work of art. From Illustrated London News, November 27, 1926. Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity
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: S C H ALL o n C H ES T ER T ON : Timely Essays on Chesterton’s Timeless Paradoxes
“The Positive Miracles of Life”
T
by James V. Schall, S.J.
he Chesterton Review for essays. The writer wanted to know May, 1988, republished a very the meaning of the following sentence early essay of G.K. Chesterton that he had read in Chesterton: “No from the Daily News of June one can be miserable who has noticed 20, 1903. It is entitled, “The anything worth being miserable about.” Philosophy of Gratitude.” I suppose Chesterton tells us that he wrote this if there is any one single idea that we sentence in “a wild moment.” But it associate with Chesterton, it is that of was still true, whatever its wildness. If I gratitude. We cannot exactly maintain notice that I am miserable, then I must that he invented the idea, but no one have some sense of what it means to did more to clarify its meaning and be not miserable. My condition, in centrality in our lives. other words, is not exclusively locked It is significant that this essay is into misery. not entitled just “Gratitude,” but “The Among the most famous sentences Philosophy of Gratitude.” We need to in all of Chesterton is the one that say, as Chesterton wittily observes in reads, “If a thing is worth doing, it is the essay, “Thanks for passing the mus- worth doing badly.” If we read the sentard.” We need also to have gratitude tence above, we notice that it makes for the man who is there to pass it. We a very similar point. If a thing is not cannot have gratitude for anything if worth doing, why do it at all? But if it we think that it is owed to us and that is worth doing, then doing it badly is nothing is up to the freedom of others, better than not doing it at all. including the freedom of God. Likewise, if we are really miserChesterton makes his central point able about something, it implies that by recalling an imaginary “Trial of the we recognize a state of “non-miseraCosmos” which Aldus Huxley once pro- bleness.” We can only be miserable if posed to judge God for making such we are aware of the opposite of what a lousy world. Chesterton imagines a causes misery. The very fact that we judge at a trial of an old man who is admit that we are “miserable” implies clearly God. The old man is accused of that we know the difference between stealing a handkerchief from another misery and its opposite. old man. God’s defense is not that Sooner or later, Chesterton always he did not steal the item, but that gets back to the wonder of existence the stolen item was already his. You itself, that wonder on which all else cannot steal what is yours. Chesterton depends. carries this analogy to its logical These are the conditions of any extreme. Not only did God make the protest against what Stevenson called handkerchief, he also made the judge. “the essential decency of things.” When The point of this amusing parody existence destroys the flower it is not is the same as that of the man who sufficient for us to say that we admired passes the mustard, namely, that the it. The question is not whether we far greater issue in giving thanks is admired the flower; the question that there is someone capable of giving whether we could in the primal darksomething in the first place. Thanks ness of nonentity have imagined a without a thanks-giver is impossible. flower, and then by a spasm of divine Chesterton begins his essay by creation, made it. recounting a passage from a letter The point is not only that we could he received in response to one of his not make the flower, but that we could 10
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not even imagine it unless we first saw it existing before us. Besides gratitude, Chesterton is most famous for his appreciation of what is normal. “The whole question in which the existence of religion is involved is whether, while we have feelings about the catastrophic, we are or are not to have feelings about the normal.” Religion is not primarily concerned with the catastrophic but with the normal, with the flower that blooms and dies. Finally, Chesterton asks: “Are we to have any gratitude for the positive miracles of life?” Here is where the mustard comes in again: “We thank a man for passing the mustard; is there indeed nothing we can thank for the man who passes it?” Most men think that we should indeed thank something for the very existence of man himself. From this premise, Chesterton draws the amazing conclusion that the great cathedrals and little parishes are built precisely on the premise that we must also give thanks for ourselves, for the ordinary people of our lives. We do not regard the mustard of more value than the man who passes it. And his existence, like ours, is cause for thanksgiving that we exist rather than do not. the Signature of GKC
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The Investigator
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by John Peterson
an Turley stopped at the shelf of magazines near the water cooler. He was hoping the three men gathered there would drop some hint, some clue, or anything at all that would help him. But they were talking baseball, not office politics. Some observers, had they known the facts of the case, might have said that Dan was on a mission. Others might have thought he was in the throes of an obsession. In any event, the object of Dan’s interest was a senior vice president named Jack Heath. Dan’s mission—or obsession— was focused on Heath’s most recent job promotion, and Dan was troubled by the fact that the promotion had been made possible because of a heinous crime. Dan walked down the hall and stood for a moment looking into Heath’s office. There the man sat, yaking on the phone while gazing out the window with his back to the door, one foot resting lazily on the window sill. “I don’t care what you have to do,” he said, “just get it done.” Dan could not fault the man’s effectiveness as a manager. Still, Heath’s reputation for ruthlessness was not unrelated to Dan’s problem. Heath owed his newly elevated position at Pearson Enterprises to a mugger. Somehow the man had evaded security and entered the firm’s private parking garage. The police theory was that the mugger must have waited in the shadows for a likely-looking victim; and then, pretending he was simply walking past his quarry and without the slightest warning, he wheeled at close range and shot the man in the face, took his wallet, and was nowhere to be found by the time security, hearing the gunshot, had showed up to investigate.
The death created a vacancy in the corporation, and no one was surprised when Jack Heath was promoted into the spot. He was the best qualified of the candidates. But Dan was convinced that Heath had engineered the attack in the parking lot—a man of his means could easily afford to hire some thug to do his dirty work. That was where the police assessment and Dan’s beliefs parted company; and from what Dan could make of office scuttlebutt, none of Heath’s co-workers shared his suspicions. Dan couldn’t help thinking of an old Michael Caine film about a man who moved up the corporate ladder by murdering those who stood in the way of his climb to the top. That’s the whole trouble, Dan muttered to himself—his notions of investigation came straight out of crime novels and movies. As an alternative to doing nothing, Dan had often stayed late in the office to make forays into Heath’s office, studying his papers and looking through every file in his desktop computer. He had never found even a hint of anything criminal, let alone murderous. Now, with yet another business day rapidly coming to a close, Dan had to admit he was no closer to any solid evidence against Heath than he was on the day the shooting in the garage had taken place. Still, he lingered in the office doorway until Jack Heath replaced the receiver on his desk phone. As Dan was about to walk away, he heard Heath’s voice again and realized he had placed another call. He saw that this time Heath was speaking into a small mobile phone. “Why did he switch phones?” Dan asked himself. He stayed to listen. “They’ll be home about nine or so, got it?” Heath was saying. “Repeat the
address...No, no, it’s 3-1-8...Right, 318 South Elm, a white two-story colonial... Look, I’m leaving for the reception now, so if anything changes, I’ll let you know straight away...Right. Right. Okay, I’m on my way.” Heath grabbed three big cigars from the humidor on his desk, dropped the cell phone into his jacket pocket, and hurried out under Dan’s watchful gaze. Then Dan slipped into Heath’s office and opened an internet connection on the desktop computer. In half a minute, he had the name of the resident at 318 Elm. It was Bruce Morrison, Pearson Enterprises’ Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing. If Morrison should resign, retire, or—and here was the point— should meet with an untimely death, Heath would be his logical successor. Dan turned up at Morrison’s house just before eight. He saw that the front door had been forced, but the Morrisons would not notice that when they arrived home after the reception. They would drive their car into the attached garage and use the garage entrance. Dan slipped inside and, unseen himself, he could just make out, in the dim light of a single living room lamp, the brute of a man sitting there in an armchair. He was holding what appeared to be a large caliber handgun. Dan found the man’s ugly face vaguely familiar, but then he noticed the rest of the room. It had been ransacked. Drawers and cabinets stood open and papers littered the floor. He’s staging a burglary, Dan thought. The police will find Bruce Morrison and his wife shot to death in their own home, and they will conclude that they surprised a housebreaker who shot them and fled. It was a clever scheme. The police would not connect this shooting with the earlier one in the parking lot because of what they call the “M.O.”—the modus operandi—muggers aren’t burglars and burglars never mug people. Dan went quietly in search of a phone—one where he would not be overheard by that ape in the living room. “Emergency Services,” a woman’s voice said. “My name is Dan Turley,” he said. “I’m calling from a residence Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity
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at 318 South Elm Street. There’s a burglary in progress here. Now listen closely, because this is the important part. A ballistics test of the burglar’s handgun will match up with a mugger’s bullet that killed a man in the Pearson Building parking garage last year. This killer is a professional, and that murder was a contract killing. You’d better question a Pearson employee named Jack Heath about it.” He hung up the phone.
The woman who had answered Dan’s 9-1-1 call worked quickly, and within seconds a squad of police officers was speeding toward the Morrison home. Her task completed, she added one final comment to the dispatcher. “Our informant used a phony name,” she said. “How do you know that?” “He said his name was Dan Turley.” “So?” The woman laughed. “He has a
The Attack James G. Bruen, Jr.
T
he first waves of the attack were climbed onto a small stool and fired a so subtle that they were almost pistol into the ceiling. All eyes turned unnoticed; they mimicked norto him, then he spoke. malcy so convincingly that they “We’ve got a man on the mayor’s could have been mistaken for inner council. He reports that any it. Electricity went out for no apparent inhibitions Mayor Vegas once had are reason. Garbage trucks were rerouted; now gone,” announced O’Reilly. “The trash containers that had routinely mayor fears what she calls our uprisbeen emptied by dawn remained curbing. She tells folks we’re threatening side until dusk. Tap water was cloudy, her right to govern. George Weasel’s sometimes rusty. Cell phone service told her that the just war doctrine was sporadic. Internet connections boils down to this: the decision’s up became sluggish. to the mayor, who’s got more inforBut the residents of Maple, Oak, mation than anyone else. Once the and Birch Streets were vigilant. They mayor decides to wage war on us, the suspected the city was alarmed by question’s closed: the war’s just.” their efforts to divert traffic and “Does that mean our resistance reclaim control over their neighborwould be unjust?” asked Tony hoods. As the minor annoyances Underwood. multiplied, their suspicion grew that “No way,” shouted Ron Evans. the city was striking back. Then the “I’ve got weapons we can use.” cable television franchise for their area “Weasel’s got moral authority?” was not renewed by the city; its signal laughed Pete Anders. “Weasel dines was silenced. Though quite a few with the bishop and even wrote a residents were thankful for the quiet book about him. Big deal. Or was it that descended upon their homes, an article?” no one now doubted that they were “He knows the bishop so well,” under attack. snickered Jack Jensen, “that he can That night, the men of the Maple, take out his crayons and in one color Oak, and Birch Alliance jammed them- highlight those parts of the bishop’s selves into the dimly lit basement of homilies that reflect the bishop’s Pete Ander’s row house. So great was thinking and then use another color their agitation that there was no conto mark those parts the bishop disversation, just a din. The commotion agrees with.” subsided, though, when Sean O’Reilly “Besides,” chimed in Tony 12
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sense of humor,” she said. “Dan Turley is the name of that guy who was shot in the face in the Pearson parking garage. He’s been dead for almost a year.” Dan Turley felt the passion that had energized him for so many months begin to drain away. He seemed to be moving through a kind of dark tunnel with a bright, welcoming light shining at the end. It was a comforting sight and he felt at peace.
Underwood, “if we’ve seen the best the city can do, we’ve nothing to fear.” “The city can do more,” said Tom Shea. “Remember MOVE? Philadelphia teargassed them; then water cannons; then it bombed their townhouse. The fire burned down the whole block. Philly killed about a dozen people, including kids.” “Children, too?” asked Underwood. “They call it collateral damage,” added Shea. “Remember Waco? War is hell: that’s why we need to arm ourselves.” “I’ve heard Mayor Vegas already called out the SWAT and Terror Teams,” interjected Joe Daniels. “And everyone’s heard the helicopters that’ve been keeping us up at night.” “How can we protect ourselves and our families?” demanded Pete Anders. Ron Evans broke open a wooden crate that had been pushed against a wall in the corner of the room. “Wow,” exclaimed Tony Underwood; “I’ve never seen so many rifles.” “Take one,” said Evans. “Everybody take one.” Underwood stepped forward, grabbed a rifle, and was handed some ammunition by Evans. The other men quickly formed a silent line behind Underwood to receive arms; only Sean O’Reilly abstained. The mood was somber and the tension palpable. When the armed men began chanting “Maple! Oak! Birch! Maple! Oak! Birch!” while banging the butts of their rifles on the floor, O’Reilly
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slipped away, climbing the stairs from the basement. The lights in the basement went out. “Another power ‘failure,’ snorted Evans. A single file of somber men marched up the stairs into the darkened row house’s living room. The drapes and shades were pulled. Evans assigned each man a mission and a combat station before exhorting them to bravery in defense of home and family. Then he disclosed the password and response for the night watch. As the newly formed militia turned as one to leave the row house, a solitary figure stood in their way, grimly pointing a pistol in their direction. “Put down your weapons,” commanded Sean O’Reilly. “Or what?” spat Evans. “You’ll shoot? You might get one of us, you traitor, but then we’ll get you.” “Put down your weapons or you’ll all die,” commanded O’Reilly. A murmur rose steadily from the militia until it became a growl and then a shout. Sean O’Reilly stood firm. “We don’t want to hurt you, Sean,” exclaimed Underwood. “Just get out of our way.” “Fools,” yelled O’Reilly, still pointing his pistol at the mob. “Can’t you see what’s going on? Ten minutes ago, I had this peashooter but none of you had guns. Now you’re all armed. You’ve even got a few automatic rifles. Now the city can explain why it had to kill us: we were an armed threat. We’ve been set up.” “No way,” roared a voice from the crowd. “Let’s go!” “Somebody, look out a window,” implored O’Reilly. “Tell us what you see. Armored vehicles? Snipers?” Gino Mancini went to a window, lifted the corner of the drape, and pulled back the shade. “Don’t see much a’nuthin,” he said. “Too dark out there.” Instantly, the row house’s exterior was bathed in light so bright that the interior lit up too. Instinctively, the men inside fell to the floor. “Throw out your guns and come out in single file with your hands on the tops of your heads,” commanded an unseen bullhorn outside the building.
“Evans!” exclaimed Jack Jensen, cursing. “You brought the guns. You’re a damn agent provocateur!” Several men pounced on Evans and began to choke him. “Let him go,” commanded O’Reilly. “We’ve got bigger problems.” Ron Evans scampered to a corner of the room away from the other men. The bullhorn repeated its demand, adding, “This is your final warning. You have three minutes.” Amid the whimpering, cursing, and anger inside the building, the options boiled down to fighting, which most considered suicide, or surrender.
“Even if a war seems just, it can’t be fought if there’s no prospect of success,” pleaded Sean O’Reilly. Sean O’Reilly then cracked the door, threw out his pistol, opened the door just wide enough to squeeze through, put his hands atop his head, and walked into the light. Soon, several rifles were thrown through the door. One by one, Jensen, Mancini, and Underwood emerged from the building. A single shot pierced the night. Sean O’Reilly crumpled to the ground. Next: The Post-Mortem
Art ;;Art is a language, and not a secret language. (Illustrated London News, Oct. 3, 1908)
and therefore they produce art. Men do not dance in order to be happy. They dance because they are happy… Art is not the mother, but the child of beauty. (Daily News, April 8, 1905)
;;Every form of art has a soul of its own. It has a certain psychological effect which differs from the impression produced by another kind. (Daily
;;All
News, April 9, 1901)
News, May 26, 1906)
;;A
;;Much is said nowadays against the cult of pleasure, not without reason; and it is possible to make far too much of the cult of art. It is only fair to count this truth on the other side; that there is a certain candour about the worlds of impressions and sensations that there is not always in the world of theories and of laws; and that in this sense it is not only possible to dispute about tastes, but they are things about which men dispute with least hypocrisy and sophistry.
work of art is like a prayer. (Daily
News, June 7, 1901) ;;In our time we find a great deal of religion in art. In former ages we found a great deal of art in religion. Religion was the orthodoxy of those days: art has become almost the only orthodoxy of these. They permitted art and literature because they glorified God. (Daily News, Jan. 2, 1902) ;;The province of art may be said to be to discover what are the main lines of our pleasure, and to fix them firmly in the mind. It recreates for us the vanished sensation, and hunts the flying happiness. (Daily News, Feb. 7, 1902) ;;If Art is crowned queen, the first who will suffer will be the artists. This new tyranny will be of necessity a tyranny of the critics, who are many, not merely of the creators, who are few. (Daily News,
Nov. 19, 1904) ;;Men do not produce art in order to become joyful. They are joyful,
art is a thing of glimpses. (Daily
(Introduction to The New World of the Theatre) ;;There are two senses in which an artist may work to awaken wonder. One is the basest and vulgarist kind of art; the other is the highest and noblest kind of art. The former is meant to make us wonder at the artist; the latter is meant to make us wonder at the world. (New Witness, Mar. 12, 1920) ;;Every
great artist in his heart scorns art, as compared with the greatness of God and man. (“Shakespeare and the Germans,”
The Blinded Soldiers and Sailors Gift Book)
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nail—would understand why I am now mostly confined to my studio. You’re dancing around an issue here that is critical, so let me call it out into the open. At the risk of sounding pretentious, my own opinion is that being an artist is a calling akin to a religious calling. And by that I mean that it’s something one is almost compelled to do, whether one likes it or not. I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that there are so many obsessive-compulsive folk in the arts; it comes with the territory. I also think that many creative folk are “working out their own path to sanity” through their art. Regarding how I personally came to be a professional artist, it was never something I expected to have happen. I originally trained in engineering—
JM
A conversation with artists Jef Murray and Timothy Jones by Therese Warmus GM G.K. Chesterton called art “the signature of man.” Why art? Why not, say, biochemical engineering?
I’ll go with the obvious answer here. “Sub-creation” is the term used by J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis to describe what we normally think of as “creative activity.” Using this term, these authors expressed their humility toward God as the only true Creator. We, in our own capacity as artists—as penners of poems, composers of canvases, or spinners of stories—attempt to participate in God’s divine nature, they maintained, by imitating Him. Thus, art—sub-creation—is our highest calling, and our most important signature as children of God. Of course, none of this is intended to disparage the value of biochemical engineering. JM
In Orthodoxy G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Camels do not paint even bad pictures, though equipped with the material of many camel’s-hair brushes...Who ever found an ant-hill decorated with the statues of celebrated ants? Who has seen a bee-hive carved with the images of gorgeous queens of old?” You don’t see evidence of disinterested creativity in animals as you do in man. Animals can be very clever problem solvers—trust me on this, we have raccoons—but the impulse to make something just for the sake of seeing it completed—for fun or fascination—is not to be observed among animals. The sciences and technology could be understood as only more complex forms of problem solving or tool use, just as one sees with animals, and if this were TJ
really the signature of man, then there might be some reason to believe he was only a hairless ape with a freakishly large brain. The arts, however, speak of an entirely different category of being, and show that kind of materialist view of man to be nonsense. We create significant form. Modern art went off the rails, in my estimation, when it tried to break away from significance by making the medium the message, by taking the “sub” out of “sub-creation.” It ended up with signs that signify nothing, and pictures that depict nothing. GM How did you come to create art? After all, not everyone who has talent becomes an artist.
I have to admit frankly that God made it clear I should be an artist by making me not much good for anything else. I’ve tried real, honest work before, but those who have seen me driving a dump truck—or driving a
TJ
Timothy Jones, Oak Leaf. 24" x 24". Oil on wood panel.
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GM—so a jab at engineering may not be so far off the mark.
I worked in corporations and research organizations as an engineer for some eighteen years. During that time, and particularly toward the end of that time, I very often would draw, make up cartoons, create corporate logos for friends and acquaintances, and other things. Even during my college years, while taking classes in engineering, I sneaked over to the college of architecture and took drawing without the approval of my academic adviser. Later, when I was in the workaday world, I took studio classes in drawing and oil painting at night from the Atlanta College of Art.
JM
GM If we say that seeking after Beauty is a religious impulse then gross misunderstandings about art begin to resemble heresy. Timothy, for example, alludes to aestheticism, or what was called “art for the sake of art.” Oddly enough for a movement originally dedicated to the pursuit of beauty, latter-day aestheticism has produced crucifixes in urine and dung-splattered icons offered for exhibit by people
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who surely mean something. What is art meant to do for us? Art is storytelling. It is an attempt to capture some relevant and important bit of truth, about oneself, about the world in which one lives, about God. This, of course, connects seeking after Beauty with seeking after Truth, and only seeking after Goodness is then left us as a kind of “call to repentance” by the Thomistic virtues. What does this say, then, about “art for the sake of art”? Simply that the stories being told reflect the life Timothy Jones, Raspberries. 12" x 24". Oil on wood panel. and times of the artists who create such works. To the extent that some “modern” and “post-modern” art is Clearly, one popular modern underart, because art is always about some incomprehensible, bizarre, schizostanding of art as a kind of irritant for idea or other. There is a seamless phrenic, vulgar, shocking, and puerile the social conscience is very narrow, continuum of fine art and illustration, simply means that the values, goals, only with fine art, the idea—the story— if not to say dull. It was shocking at and ambitions of the society and the is more subtle. Illustration passes into first, but things have reached the point artists who produced these works the area of fine art when it is so well where the shock itself has grown stale. reflect these qualities. Certain stories done, so beautiful, that it would be Shock tactics drag art into the realm are told us in the propaganda “art” well worth viewing, even if one didn’t of politics. It amazes me now that in developed by the Nazis and the Soviet know at all what it was “about.” my college days the idea of simply creUnion during the early twentiethating something beautiful was rejected century; very different stories are told JM Very well put, Tim. in favor of “making a statement”—as if us by the art of the victims of these GM I get the feeling that neither of beauty isn’t a statement! Real beauty regimes. you would make a clear distinction may be the most radically counter-culGiven such diverse expressions of between “art” and “entertainment.” tural statement one can make to our what art is about, can we say anything Certainly, storytelling is an essential ugly civilization. rational about what is art meant to do part of both. The propagandist’s and Art should be about beauty, and for us? I’d suggest that, for the artist, pornographer’s “art” are a bastardizabecause it should be about beauty, it art provides tools for personal exploration, an aping of art, and, as Jef has must also be about life, truth, and tion of what is meaningful to him, or noted, the old Nazi propaganda still unity. Art that denies these principles for exposing aspects of existence that tells a sordid tale. The artist must tell is not even bad art: it is anti-art. What cry out for catharsis or redress. Art, the truth—that is, grapple with the the honest artist strives to achieve, then, is a form of prayer and commudemands of art—or suffer the conthrough beauty, is to draw us into a nion with the universe, and an attempt sequences of telling lies. But I don’t transcendent encounter. In The Man to make sense of it all. Who Was Thursday, Chesterton writes, think you “get away with it” in either For the viewers of art, the works case. What do you see in what you “Shall I tell you the secret of the whole that they encounter offer them stories create? world? It is that we have only known that either confirm and encourage the back of the world. We see everyJM Regarding the lack of distinction them on their own paths toward thing from behind, and it looks brutal. between “art” and “entertainment,” I Goodness, Truth, and Beauty, or pull That is not a tree, but the back of a expect Chesterton would suggest that them away from these virtues. And as tree. That is not a cloud, but the back “all is grist.” But you do have to factor with all forms of communication, subof a cloud. Cannot you see that everyin intent, it seems to me. And even creating art and appreciating art force thing is stooping and hiding a face? If with that, all this stuff gets messy right us to make decisions, they force us to we could only get round in front—” quick. choose. Do we choose to fill our homes, The artist is always trying to “get If we’re searching for a model of offices, and lives with works that uplift round in front” of things, and to show how art and entertainment might actuand direct us toward the eternal, or us what they really look like. This is ally work well together, I’m reminded do we fill them with images of dread, why we still need artists, and not just of examples from literature, and in parhorror, and existential angst? digital cameras. ticular from the books A Confederacy TJ Art is a mystery, and so I don’t know Illustration is just art in service of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole and that we are able, this side of paradise, to an idea. Jef called it “storytellThe Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. In to articulate a complete understanding ing.” I can’t see any clearly demarked these tales, which have to rank among of everything it is or does for mankind. frontier between illustration and fine JM
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the funniest ever penned, the authors have placed slapstick and fart jokes alongside extremely sophisticated “high” humor, satire, and pathos; and these with not a small amount of profound commentary on human nature. Where in such books is the “art” and where the “entertainment”? Clearly, they coexist, and the distinctions blur. But you make an excellent point with the issue of truth, or perhaps we should say fidelity to truth. Regarding my own illustration work, certainly what I produce must be in the service of the story, and I hope that it is also in the service of goodness, truth, and beauty. How do I come up with the “right” image for an illustration? That’s always part hard work and part gift from the Muse. Again, going back to Flannery O’Connor, it’s about developing discipline so that you’re ready to act when ideas come. But, overall, it’s a mystery. Sub-creation is a living, breathing process; it doesn’t lend itself to easy explanation or codification. I have jawed quite a bit about the nature of art on my various blogs, but have spent more time doing art than really thinking very deeply about it. There is a sense in which it might be truly said that everything man does or makes is “art,” but this is not the way we typically use the word. In normal speech, the word “art” carries some real, more specific meaning that, even if hard to define exactly, helps us to communicate in useful categories. My first instinct is to think there must be some significant difference between art and entertainment, if only because we have different words for them. We even talk about “arts and entertainment,” which would be redundant if they were the same thing. There might be a very porous borderland between art and entertainment, but (without resorting to dictionary definitions) I see them as being different at least in that entertainment, while it might
approach or actually become “art” here or there, is often intended as only an amusement—a kind of vacation from thinking—where art is an invitation to think. Not to think as in “to analyze intellectually,” but to ponder a mystery, to contemplate it without trying to solve it. One might say that entertainment—even good entertainment—is not always art, but good art is always entertaining. GM Certainly, blowing up cars in the Lethal Weapon tradition is not art in a definable sense— TJ Aww, really? What about The Blues Brothers? Have you ever seen Mythbusters? Now that’s art! Here’s an area I have thought about quite a lot over the last few years: how abstract art—really, nonrepresentational art—might be like music, and how often it is not. There has been a great deal made of the fact that music is “abstract,” that it
TJ
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represents nothing we know of, but I don’t think that is strictly true. Music gives aural form to patterns, intervals, and structures that the human mind mysteriously finds pleasing or stirring. I believe that these patterns and structures are objectively real things, that they reflect some aspect of created reality that we can recognize and respond to. Music is the embodiment of something real, perhaps something spiritually real, if not physically, though at this point some scientists might want to begin talking about the structure of the brain. Pornography is anti-art, not just because the manner and quality of depiction are more or less irrelevant to the viewer, but because it constitutes an attack on life, truth, beauty and unity…it is false, sterile and ugly. It tears the human person to pieces, alienating the body from the mind and spirit, and creates barriers to real human relationships. GM What about your work as an illustrator then?
I have a difficulty in talking about myself mainly as an illustrator, because most people, when they think of illustration, think of books. I have been published very seldom in that way, though my first-ever art job was illustrating an archaeological textbook that I found fascinating, and that sparked a lifelong interest in ancient artifacts. I very nearly went into scientific illustration, and there are days when I’m sure my wife wishes I had. Instead, I got two degrees in fine art and that has been my focus, though I have nearly always supplemented my income by doing commercial illustration—not often for anything as respectable as books, but for packaging and advertising of a very prosaic variety. Not surprisingly, it has involved a fair amount of pictures of food. My main focus and my primary interest has been in fine art, that is, gallery art. TJ
Jef Murray, The Mirror. 10"x 6.2" graphite on paper with digital enhancement.
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Interestingly, though, my most recent work in that area is (to my mind) more illustrative, and there is a common theme that runs through much of it. In college, straight realistic portraiture, landscape, and still life were not exactly encouraged. They were somewhat frowned on, in fact. There was a lack of continuity, or any sense of the history of Western art as a living tradition. We studied art history, but as one might study a frog pickled in a jar. It was understood that the art of Greece, Rome, and the Renaissance had largely been superseded and rendered obsolete by the great deconstructive art pioneers of the twentieth century. Each student was therefore on his own in terms of style, technique, and subject matter. We made it up as we went along, with input here and there from instructors. After graduate school, I didn’t paint much at all for Jef Murray,Otto and the pagan captain. 10" x 6.2" graphite years, and had no idea what on paper with digital enhancement. I might have wanted to paint even if I had the opportunity. I phrase “small is beautiful,” and also backed into a career in graphic art and perhaps “commonplace is beautiful.” illustration, and didn’t resume working My first thought in these composiin oils, my chosen medium, for almost tions was to establish this point of twenty years. I was inspired to begin view, this close and careful investigapainting again after meeting some tion of the ordinary, but it happened contemporary painters who were workalso (quite unintentionally) that most ing in traditional subjects in stylistic of the subjects were infused with an continuity with the Old Masters. The intense, penetrating light. The light art of Jeff Legg was especially moving, passes through transparent substances and suddenly I wanted very badly to like glass and wine, and illuminates paint again. translucent substances like the flesh So, I began painting traditional of mushrooms and raspberries. Being still lifes and portraits in a kind of filled with light is, of course, a powerrebellion against my university art ful metaphor of life in Christ, and school background. I found I had to I’d like to think that I was moved teach myself how to paint pretty well to paint these subjects partly by a from the ground up, but the process deeply ingrained appreciation for that was fascinating and more fulfilling than metaphor. anything I had ever done. The oak leaf is a good example. Since we have been talking about It is dead, tattered and broken—”All illustration, I will point out that the living Christians are dead pagans walkmost recent of my paintings pretty ing about”—but glows with a light that consistently illustrate a point of view seems to give it a new kind of life. which might be expressed by the
Though these paintings are different than anything Chesterton might have seen in his lifetime, I don’t think it too presumptuous to hope he might have appreciated them, or at least their spirit. GM As I grow closer to the Distributist ideal, where the goods of this world are used and enjoyed as the need for them arises, and not merely for their own sake, I’ve noticed that such humble things as a wood chisel shine forth a beauty of their own— they are suffused with light. It appears to be the same with everything we legitimately put our hands to—there is beauty in ordering, in putting things right. No atheist could disagree, I think.
Oh, you might be surprised! I’ve known a few who really talked as if we only projected order and beauty onto the world, that it is only an arbitrary way of interpreting what our senses tell us. I assume they still insist on correct change, though. TJ
GM Fulton Sheen spoke of an over-stimulation of the senses in man that eventually brought about the inability to be stimulated at all, and remarked there was so much talk of sex that little real sex remained in the world. Chesterton put it this way: “The exaggeration of sex becomes sexlessness. It becomes something that is much worse than mere anarchy, something that can truly be described as malice; a war, not against the restraints required by virtue but against virtue itself.” But in the end, he said, man prefers the hook to the bait. Can we look at a work of art and recognize the transcendent any more? Art speaks of the beauty of existence, and attempts to show more what things are than merely what they appear to be. What do you make of all this?
A few thoughts come to me, appropriately enough, more in the form of visual images than anything else. In
JM
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: A l a r m s a n d D i s c u r s i o n s :
C.S. Lewis’ The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, there is a scene on Ramandu’s island in which Ramandu tells Lucy, Caspian, Edmund, and Eustace of his days of being a star, and how he now is a “star at rest” until he eventually returns to the night skies. “In our world,” says Eustace, “a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.” Ramandu answers, “Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of.” It seems to me that artists are tasked with helping us all see what things are rather than just what they are made of. And, as you observe, “bad art” results from the efforts of those whose ability to discern is faulty, or has become blurred due to lack of use or deliberate misalignment. I’ve had a recent discussion with another artist friend about the passing away of my sister, Lisa, who died suddenly in August. I was trying to explain to him that, as a Catholic, it is not mine to judge whether Lisa is in heaven, or in hell, or in purgatory. I can’t even open that door. It is frankly none of my business, now that she is no longer with us on this earth. But I can use her passing to pray for her and to try to sharpen my own discernment about my own life; about my own relationship with God and with my neighbor; about my own journey toward what is Good, and True, and Beautiful. As Flannery O’Connor says, it’s our job to draw large pictures so that the nearly blind can see. But the wonder and glory of art is that once we can see, we get better and better at seeing, and once we can see, we want to help others to see as well. Our vocation is to yield fruit. If we are able to do this, we have succeeded as artists; if we are not, then we are sham artists. Sham artists do great harm in our world, but never more so than to themselves. ‘Art speaking of the beauty of existence’ makes me think of the Catholic idea of substance—or essence, as in Aristotle—and accidents. Pornography is like a crowd of spectators paying to watch someone else eat a steak dinner. Absurd on its face. Whereas sex that is genuinely
and fully human is comprehensive and integrates different levels of experience, pornography isolates one aspect, and in isolation it becomes lifeless and sterile, and eventually poisonous. Art has become disintegrated in a similar way, often isolating this or that element and exaggerating it at the expense of a harmonious and meaningful whole...like assembling an entire orchestra of tubas. This brings to mind Chesterton’s brilliant observation in Orthodoxy:
GM It is a shocking thought that our most pressing modern troubles might be traced to the perversion of art.
Disintegration is the work of evil... the breaking both of healthy boundaries and of bonds. For a century or more, art has been all about breaking boundaries and blurring distinctions, but this only leaves everyone a kind of naked cipher. Our boundaries and our distinctions are what make us ourselves, and it’s only when we are ourselves that we can form real bonds with others.
I see this order somewhat in the reverse. Art seems to me like a canary in a coal mine. At the height of Christendom in the Middle Ages, the arts were in full bloom. The disintegration of art was not the cause of the decay of Western civilization, but its result. We lost our heads philosophically first, and our art could not help but become distorted. Consequently, I don’t think civilization can be saved through art, because art is not the root, but the flower and the fruit of every civilization. We may help bring sanity to a good many minds and souls, though, and in that there is hope. I have come more and more to embrace Tolkien’s perspective: “I am a Christian, and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a ‘long defeat’—though it contains...some samples or glimpses of final victory.” Beauty is not always pretty, but beauty stirs up within us that desire to be united to our Creator, who alone can show us the meaning of the ugliness and suffering in our lives. The Christian artist should not avoid the ugliness of earthly life, but should always show that it has real meaning—ultimate meaning. Tolkien’s idea of “eucatastrophe” touched on this, on great good—the greatest good—arising from what might seem to be a hopelessly disastrous event.
Timothy Jones
Jef Murray
The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone.
TJ
TJ
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: th e S i g n at u r e o f M a n : A Gallery of Chestertonian Artists
Crucifixion. 8.5" x 11.5". Black ink on paper.
1 daniel mitsui (above and top of page 20 ) was born in 1982 and grew up in Illinois, where he now resides with his wife and son.
He graduated from Dartmouth College in 2004 and was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church that same year. Daniel works as a freelance illustrator and artisan from his home. “It is from the art of Western Europe in the Middle Ages that I draw most of my inspiration. My hope is to be faithful to the ancient traditions, but to express them in ways that correspond to the needs of the present.” More artwork can be seen on his Web site, www.danielmitsui.com Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity
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Bookplates. Black ink on paper.
1 Sonia Taboada Jackson (below, left and right) is a writer,
illustrator, artist, muralist, and cartoonist. While attending the University of Tennessee, Sonia published 2 separate daily cartoons as well as editorial cartoons for the university’s newspaper, The Daily Beacon. She has produced art for Catholic bulletins through the J.S. Paluch Co., and has contributed writing to The East Tennessee Catholic, the newspaper of the Diocese of Knoxville. More about Sonia can be found at http://soniajackson.weebly.com.
Cloaked. Scratchboard, 2009
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Holy Ghost Tower. Scratchboard, 2009
1 Matthew Alderman (this page), a graduate of Notre
Dame’s classical design program, is the founder of Matthew Alderman Studios, which is devoted to traditional Catholic art and design in all its forms from church furnishing concepts and ecclesiastical design consulting to original illustrations and prints. His designs, scholarly writing, and illustrations have been featured in such publications as Sacred Architecture, First Things, Antiphon: A Journal of Liturgical Renewal, The Living Church, and many others, His original artwork can be found in collections from California to Austria. Matthew also designed the organ case, altar, font, ambry, and associated furnishings in the newly-renovated Catholic proto-Cathedral in Vladivostok, Russia. His Web site is matthewalderman.com.
The Espousal of the Blessed Virgin with SS. Joachim and Anne. March 2010. Private Collection, Minnesota. The Crucifixion. August 2010. Private Collection, New York City. Madonna and Child. June 2010. Private Collection, Michigan.
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Late Afternoon. 10" x 20". Oil on linen.
Last Peonies. Oil on linen panel.
Ole Dodge. 11" x 14". Oil on linen panel.
1 Gilbert ’s Art Director TED Doodles to get his bread. He was young when he began But now he’s a grizzled old man. www.5sparrows.com
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1 JASON TAKO (left, above, and page 23) began drawing at a young age, interest that he pursued until his senior year when he switched to playing electric bass. Ten years passed before Jason began to sketch again. He painstakingly worked his way from pencil to watercolor while using nature and wildlife as his subject matter. A love for wildlife and landscape came naturally to the rural Minnesota-born artist. Jason has a love for simpler times that are long since gone; old barns, family life on the prairie and pioneer days, still-life paintings with hand-sewn toys, and flowers express this longing for the past. See more at www.jasontako.com
Getting Ready for the Day. 20" x 16". Oil on linen.
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St. Lucy. Chalk and conte on paper.
1 Mary MacArthur (above and right) studies at the University
of St. Thomas, Houston, and its art school partner, the Glassell School of Art, majoring in theology and concentrating in life drawing and painting. She hopes to become an illustrator, religious artist, and writer of graphic novels imbued with Catholic sensibility. See more at http://snowflakeclockwork.blogspot.
Child in the Cold. Marker on paper. Inspired by G.K. Chesterton’s “Child of the Snows” and Robert Southwell’s “The Burning Babe.”
The Repentant Dragon. Oil on canvas, 16" x 10".
1 JEF MURRAY (see interview, page 14; above and right) is an internationally known
Tolkien and fantasy artist/illustrator and counterfeit essayist. His work most recently wended its way into The Magic Ring: Deluxe Illustrated Edition by Friedrich de la Motte Fouque and Black & White Ogre Country: The Lost Tales of Hilary Tolkien by Hilary A.R. Tolkien. Jef resides in Decatur, Georgia, with his wife, author Lorraine V. Murray, hamster-in-residence Ignatius, and about 60,000 honeybees. See more at JefMurray.com
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Volume 13 Number 8, July/August 2010
Pensive Dragon. Oil on canvas, 11" x 14".
1 Anthony VanArsdale (Cover, this page, and page 26) is
an artist and illustrator living in the Alabama Gulf Coast area. Constantly studying to improve his skill, referring often to the work of the old masters and vintage illustrators, Anthony enjoys working in a variety of media including watercolor, pencil, and digital. For fine art or portraiture, his preferred medium is oil on linen. See more on his Web site, www.anthonyvanarsdale.com
Sketch for the Annunciation. Graphite on paper.
Pensive Mood. Mixed media.
The Meeting Place. Watercolor on paper.
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The Dragon and the Princess. Watercolor on paper.
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Volume 13 Number 8, July/August 2010
1 Ben Hatke (this page) is an artist, writer and comics creator (oh my!) who lives and works in the Shenandoah Valley with his wife and a boisterous pack of Distributist daughters. He is the creator of the Zita the Spacegirl graphic novel series. Ben enjoys painting and has been known to occasionally perform one-man juggling and fire shows. His work can be seen online at benhatke.com or zitathespacegirl.com. He also keeps a lively blog called Art and Adventure at letflythecannons.blogspot.com
Angelica. Ink and watercolor (right). Zita with Miku. Ink and wash (below).
Zita the Space Girl.
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: th e S i g n at u r e o f M a n :
St. Michael. Design for stained glass.
1 DAVE MATHENY (above and left) has been an artist since childhood and a professional illustrator since his early 20s. Dave credits his wife, painter Jean Sherlock Matheny, for bringing him back to the Catholic Church in his forties. “In recent years I’ve turned to designs for stained-glass windows. St. Michael is an attempt to restore some virility to his image, and St. Francis uses this saint’s well-known affinity for animals as a window into his soul.” St. Francis. Design for stained-glass.
1 Michaela Lawless (right) remembers being a young child and copying pictures that she thought were beautiful. “Drawing was a way to echo the beauty that I saw around me. When I read John Paul II’s letter to artists, the words of his first paragraph rang true: ‘You have admired the work of your inspiration, sensing in it some echo of the mystery of creation with which God, the sole creator of all things, has wished in some way to associate you’.” A movement away from the computer and back to traditional media and hand-made art was inspired by a physical move her family made in relocating from California to Oklahoma to live near Clear Creek Monastery. “We bought 220 acres, and my parents, along with the help of us six children, left the city and began the journey of making a more sustainable life for ourselves out in the country. The blending of our daily work with the prayer of the Benedictine monks has greatly enriched the whole family and created a beautiful Catholic culture in which to live. All of this has shaped my aspiration to make works of art that lift the soul to God.” 28
Volume 13 Number 8, July/August 2010
Mother working in the Fields. Summer of 2009.
: th e S i g n at u r e o f M a n :
1 ELLEN PRICE (right and below) did not learn to paint until she attended the University of California, Berkeley, where she received a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts. “Once I began, oil painting quickly became my favorite medium. Painting is a process of revealing form through the medium of paint, and as such is both a study and a puzzle to me. I enjoy taking an image, for example, an old photograph, and coming to understand the form portrayed by painting it. I hope that these two paintings of Chesterton convey at least my admiration for him and a sense of the man as he was.” Ellen Price still resides in Berkeley, California. For inquiries about commissions or more information about her art, e-mail Ellen at doofdread@gmail.com.
Two portraits of Chesterton. 8" x 10". Oil painting.
1 John Howley (right) grew up in Lakewood, California, although he was born in Rhode Island in 1949. As a child he was constantly drawing. He attended Long Beach City College where he studied art but never finished because, he admits, “at the time I just wanted to draw funny stuff and saw no value in painting little squares of color or drawing a human model.” John dropped out of school and went to live in Italy at an old Franciscan Friary. There, surrounded by classical beauty, his outlook on art changed dramatically. On returning to the United States a few years later he decided that he wanted to draw for a living. John began as a clerk in the stock room of an animation studio in Hollywood and worked his way up, eventually capturing an Annie Award for Best Animated Commercial. He now works for the Walt Disney Company as a story artist and lives with his wife, Linnea, a clothing designer, in the hills of Topanga, California. Kneeling Monk. Pencil. Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity
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1 TIMOTHY JONES (see interview, page
Mug of Beer. 24" x 24". Oil on wood panel.
China, Brass & Peaches. 16" x 16". Oil on wood panel.
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Volume 13 Number 8, July/August 2010
Wine & Jarlsberg. 24" x 24". Oil on wood panel.
14; this page and next) received a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art in 1984, and earned his Master’s Degree (MFA, painting) in 1987. He is, among other things, a founder of the League of Bearded Catholics, and has been blessed to be a working artist his entire adult life. He and his wife, Martha, have been happily married for 25 years and have two children. A special thanks to Timothy for creating, literally at a moment’s notice, the painting of a zucchini that graces Christopher Check’s gently humorous poem. View more of his art online at http://www.etsy.com/shop/ oldworldswine
Orange Peeled. 8" x 10". Oil on wood panel.
Fiore di zucca Yellow orange star unfolding To siren passing honey-bees, Flower sculpted for beholding Midst the broad-leaf canopies. Do you fancy that your beauty Is more suited to a vase? Or of a trellis is more worthy? Or a maiden’s neck to grace? Do bees say thus when come to greet ya? Then, alas, they’ve lied. Here’s my favorite way to meet ya: In a Roman trattoria Or in Trastevere’s cucinas Batter dipped and fried! —Christopher Check Zucchini. Oil on wood panel. Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity
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1 Bryan Bustard (above) is an artist from Greenville, South Carolina. A convert to the Catholic Church from fundamentalism, he has a great interest in Chesterton and other Catholic apologists. He is seeking to integrate his artistic work and his faith interests, with a view towards undertaking some sort of apostolate that could give expression to both. See more at http:// fineartamerica.com/profiles/bryan-bustard.html 32 
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: R o l l i n g R o a d :
Undiscovered Italy by Dale Ahlquist
I
taly is a work of art. It is a multifaceted masterpiece that must be viewed again and again. And not just viewed, but listened to and touched and tasted. In July, I had the unparalleled experience of spending ten days in Italy, most of it in one place. I was a guest speaker at The Roman Forum. But I was never in Rome. The Forum is held on Lake Garda, in the tiny town of Gardone Riviera. The lake is a magnificent body of water surrounded by lovely little towns, mountainous on the northern end and sprawling with beaches on the southern end. Roman rulers had their summer homes here; medieval saints built churches here; Mussolini had his last hurrah here. Walk around any corner and you are stepping into history, but also walking into a painting that is achingly picturesque. It is a little unfair how beautiful every church in every town is, considering how ugly and utilitarian are their counterparts in the American suburbs. The Roman Forum is conducted by Dr. John Rao, and is dedicated to exploring the fullness of the Catholic
Some villa that I stumbled upon during one of my walks in Gardone
faith. A talk on G.K. Chesterton would naturally help fill the bill for such a gathering, and I was willing to be forced into such a proposition. It involved ten days of eating and drinking and arguing with folks from all over the world, pausing for daily
Mass and glorious Gregorian chant, and the rest of the time, well, walking around, soaking up Italian sunshine or the soothing Italian shade, in and out of the living, lasting art fashioned by a culture that does not even seem to realize what it has. We took a couple of boat excursions around the lake, and a one day trip to Padua and Verona. I never saw the cities that most Americans come to see: Rome, Florence, and Venice. Didn’t need to. I had my hands full. And the rest of my senses as well. Take a look.
The Hotel Angeli in Gardone, where The Roman Forum was held
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: R o l l i n g R o a d :
A view of Lake Garda from the Church of St. Nicolas in Gardone
The parish church of Malcesine, a masterpiece filled with masterpieces
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: t h e F ly i n g I n n : Home rule at home
Beef by David Beresford “But I do say that this man who supplies his own needs is very much needed.” —G.K. Chesterton, “The Real Life on the Land,” The Outline of Sanity
A
friend of mine, a beef farmer named Matthew, had a fouryear-old bull that broke its leg last year. Matt is a powerful man, capable of doing almost anything he turns his hands to. He asked me if I wanted the bull. “We cannot bring it to the slaughterhouse because the stupid new law says it has to be able to walk in on its own— because of that mad cow nonsense a few years ago. So do you want it? We have to kill it, and there is no point in paying a vet, and we figured you could use it. The meat will be lean; it has not been on grain at all, it has been eating hay.” “Sure thing! Thanks!” I was thrilled. “You will have to take care of the killing and butchering yourself, but I can help if you like. Do you know how?” he asked, almost as an afterthought. “Yes, no problem with that,” I said, lying through my teeth. I went over to their farm on a weekend in early April. There was still snow on the ground and no flies, good things when an animal is going to become food. Three brothers were there to help, and the bull was in a pen. The eldest lad, Jim, had his .22 and his kids with him, and we stood back about 30 feet or so. “I talked with a guy who said to shoot it between the eyes in the middle of the forehead,” Jim said. “Have you not done this before?” I asked. “No, dad said he saw it done once in the 1920s.” Jim took careful aim, and then shot. There was a pop, and the bull blinked, and then went back to eating hay. Jim shot again, and again, and again; and ricochets zinged through
the air. The bull, getting restive, snorted at the noise and looked at us, and then ate some more hay. “Hold on a sec,” I said, and walked over to my truck to get the .30-30. “I figured this might happen so I brought my gun just in case.” I then pointed the gun at the bull’s forehead and pulled the trigger: the bull dropped like a stone without so much as a twitch. I stuck it in the throat with my knife to bleed it out, and we waited for a few minutes as Stan got the tractor. We then hooked the bull by the hind legs on a chain and raised it with the tractor bucket so it was hanging head down. I sharpened some knives, and we began to skin it out. “Where did you learn how to skin and butcher a cow?” Matt asked me. “I have never done this before, just my own deer, but I figured it is just a matter of scale,” I confessed. It took about an hour to skin the bull, cutting away the skin by pulling it down and putting the knife edge at the stretched area between the hide and meat. The only real trick is to hold the skin by the flesh side when pulling it away, to keep the hair-side from touching the meat. The goal is to keep the meat clean of loose hair or dried manure. After we got the hide removed, Matt drove the tractor and carcass over to a clean part of the yard for gutting and lowered the bull into a snow bank. I cut around the anus to free it up and tied it shut with binder twine. I then cut down the belly, using a trick a Franciscan priest showed me. I shoved my hand into the gut behind the belly and held the knife blade facing out to cut away from the gut. It is important to not to puncture the intestine or stomach, for obvious reasons. The insides began to spill out, and I cut away the bladder to try and make a wineskin out of it. For the next part, I stripped to my waist so I could lean into the body
cavity and not get my clothes bloody, and cut the offal away from the inside. Matt held a trouble lamp in the cavity for me above my head so I could see. I lifted what seemed like fifty yards of intestines out of the cavity, and then cut away the lungs and heart, saving the heart. Once the animal was gutted I had to split the spine. I do not have a big enough saw, the vertebrae were about ten inches across, so I cut along one side with a reciprocating saw. We then cut each half into three pieces: front legs, back legs, and spine and ribs. Each section of beef was wrapped in an old cotton sheet and put in the back of my truck. Matt got in with me, and we drove into town to Len Johnston’s house. Len is a retired butcher who has a shop in his basement and works for cash. “Can I get this as ground beef in ten-pound lots, Len?” I asked. “Fine. It needs to hang a week or so. Come by next Saturday and it will be ready,” Len told me. My wife Theresa ordered a new freezer to be delivered to our house for the meat. We got 900 pounds of lean hamburger for the price of a day’s work, $200 for Len, and a bullet. To accomplish this project we broke five laws. I will not list them. And, if you are someone from the government reading this, I assure you this story is entirely fictional.
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: t h e F ly i n g S Ta r s : “What do you call the man who wants to embrace the chimney sweep?” “A saint,” said Father Brown. —G.K. Chesterton
The Chestertons in America
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by Nancy Carpentier Brown
hile researching the talk I gave at the Annual Chesterton conference in August, one of the more fortuitous finds was that many newspapers are putting their archives online. This gives scholars a golden opportunity to learn more about the two trips the Chestertons took to America, the first in 1921 and the second in 1930, both widely reported in numerous papers. In my investigations, I discovered much of Chesterton’s writing in England was either reprinted here in America at the time or reported on as news. For example, news of the death of Chesterton naturally would make the papers in England, but his death was also widely reported in America. It’s easy to conclude that he was known and loved here as well when we see that The New York Times put his death notice on page one of their June 15, 1936 edition. Having discerned the titles of lectures given by Chesterton in 1921 (“The Education of the Ignorant”; “Woman’s Best Role is Wife”; “The Revolt against Reason”; “Is Psychology Necessary?”; “Is Divorce a Social Asset?”; and “The Perils of Health”), I found reports on lectures, interviews, and debates he participated in during his travels in the United States. In one interview, brought curiously from England to America, the reporter was the infamous “J.K. Prothero,” who also happened to be Chesterton’s sister-in-law, Ada Eliza Jones Chesterton. An emancipated woman working as a full-time journalist, Ada surprisingly titled her article, “Business Woman is Office Slave.” Ada was forced to work for her living after Gilbert’s brother 36
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Cecil died and left what little he had; as he had been a journalist himself, it couldn’t have been much. One wonders what she thought of the term “office slave.” Even Frances was the subject of an interview. In a Detroit Free Press article, Frances was asked to give her impressions of America. She was regularly amazed to see the hordes of reporters, all eager to receive quotes from her husband for the papers. Most of all, she was puzzled that anyone would want to quote her, as she had never been interviewed before she came to America in 1921. Gilbert apparently walked in on the interview near its end, and when the reporter congratulated him on the lecture he gave the night before, Chesterton typically quipped, “You can gather what I think of my lectures from the fact that I always precipitately leave town the next day.” When asked his opinion of America, Chesterton immediately fired back: “If Patrick Henry could arise from the dead and revisit the land of the living and see the vast system and social organization and social science which now controls, he would probably simplify his observation and say: ‘Give me death.’” When debating the social benefits of divorce (he naturally took the negative position on this), Chesterton admitted that, “It is true that people in marriage go through things for which soldiers would be decorated.” Still, he was able to state his case against divorce, and the reporter wrote, “Whether the father of ‘Father Brown’ settled the question for all time, there is no doubt that his agile wit and ability to ‘think on his feet’, as goes
the phrase in lecture circles, won the debate.” Then there’s the sublimely amusing story reported in the New York Tribune in January of 1921. The title of the article is, “Chesterton as a Fat Man Seems Somewhat Overrated.” The reporters tried to find Chesterton in a hotel the moment he arrived in New York. Reporter Heywood Broun reported that the ship’s news said that Gilbert K. Chesterton was staying at the Commodore Hotel, but the telephone girl said he wasn’t. The reporters trusted the ship’s news over the hotel phone service and persisted in their attempt to gain an interview. The telephone girl asked if Mr. Chesterton was associated with one of the automobile companies currently exhibiting there. “He’s NOT with the automobile company,” the reporter told her severely. “Didn’t you ever hear of The Man Who Was Thursday?” “He may have been here Thursday,” the telephone girl said, reassuringly, “but he isn’t registered now.” “It’s a book!” the reporter shouted. “He wrote it!” “Not in this hotel,” she stated with finality, and hung up. She was later proved right when the reporter discovered Chesterton at the Biltmore Hotel, lounging, of course, in the smoking room. In a The New York Times article, Broun tells of how Chesterton was so large, the photographer couldn’t get both Gilbert and Frances into the picture frame without some help. Finally, someone suggested that Chesterton sit in a chair, while Frances leaned on its arm. Then the reporter stated that Chesterton would be making his first public appearance before an American audience in Boston that very evening, and then again at Carnegie Hall in New York the following Sunday. “The lecture in both cities will have the same title,” Chesterton told reporters, “‘The Ignorance of the Educated’.” “But,” he continued, “they may not be the same lecture.” Diligent searches of old newspaper and magazine Internet archives can reveal a wealth of new Chestertonian quips and paradoxes for your reading and thinking pleasure.
: J o g g i n g w i t h G . K . : “Do not look at the faces in the illustrated papers. Look at the faces in the street.” —G.K. Chesterton
Through the Desert
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by Robert Moore-Jumonville
’ve always wanted to visit the desert. For some reason it holds a romance for me. Maybe my fascination with it blossomed as I heard friends recount their camping or rafting experiences in the American Southwest, glowing over the still-night peace, praising the splendor of cosmic horizons, describing rock shapes, flowers, and rivers not found anywhere else in the world. Isn’t it interesting that in these most insecure environments, so inhospitable to human habitation, an indescribable beauty flourishes? I can picture myself next week on the cover of Runner’s World, sweaty, sleek, and fit for a fight, gamboling like an ancient messenger on a mission through the expanse. But for runners especially, the desert means danger. Think of movies like Lawrence of Arabia that portray some agonized soul crossing the sand, trudging desperately, with drained canteen, mirages appearing, hoping for an oasis miracle. The closest I have gotten to desert running has been on the plains of central Kansas, the grasslands of Eastern Colorado, or briefly in Cairo, Egypt. In these cases I had to hydrate well and pay attention to potential warning signs (that is, I had to remind myself not to run stupid). Yet, in a way, all running is a desert experience—a fleeing from something, a running into deeper mystery, a reminder of finitude, a confrontation with ourselves. Jesus often went to the desert (to a lonely or deserted place) to withdraw from the crowds, to find a solitude which would allow more direct connection with the Father. It was as if he needed to step out of the flow of events, commanding
everything else around him to pause, shushing the world so he could refocus, re-calibrate his soul, and reset his internal compass. From this perspective, the desert stands as a place of retreat and rest—a respite from clamor. We are all too busy. We constantly run—toward distraction, toward denial, away from ourselves—we are running ourselves to death. Don’t we need a desert experience? Yet the prospect terrifies us. I’ve always been drawn to Kathleen Norris’s depiction of her move from New York City to western Dakota as a contemplative experience. For the barrenness of the desert landscape need not indicate deprivation, but possibility as well. “A person is forced inward by the sparseness of what is outward and visible in all this land and sky. The beauty of the Plains is like that of an icon; it does not give an inch to sentimentality or romance…what seems stern and almost empty is merely open, a door into some simple and holy state.” This is the desert as holy invitation to healthy introspection. For Israel, however, the desert also came as a testing time—a time of trial, of preparation, of depending on God—so when the people of God entered the Promised Land they could recall their faithfulness to God when resources proved scarce; water in the desert; running shoes that never wore out. Could God provide? Indeed, God alone was enough. Here was the ultimate test of monotheism: “For God alone my soul in silence waits” (Psalm 62:1). Similarly, for early Christians the desert stretched out not simply as a place of Sabbath retreat, and not just
as a region of rest. Rather it glared as a land of deprivation where all masks melted and individuals faced God alone in silence. The desert became a terrifying mirror. In the desert, demons appeared; nightmare ghouls and goblins (if we take seriously the renditions of St. Anthony’s temptation); sins surfaced that stripped persons naked. Like when Jacob stood by the brook, probably for the first time in his life, alone. He dreamt. He wrestled with a man, with an angel, with his sin against Esau, with God, and with himself. Yes. And ever after, Jacob hobbled wounded not unlike a badly damaged ACL. So we use the desert, the wilderness, as an analogy for those times in our lives where we feel God’s absence, or his threatening presence, less like natural storms when the bottom drops out unexpectedly, and more like being lost in confusion, like being orphaned, and like facing the abyss. We know Chesterton experienced a wilderness abyss early in his life that caused him to question the very value of existence. Was life worth it? Much later he could paint the “cave” (wilderness) experience of St. Francis in vivid colors. “It may be suspected,” surmises Chesterton, “that in that black cell or cave Francis passed the blackest hours of his life.” And although Chesterton surely felt deep pain in his later years, for instance, over his and Frances’s infertility, or over Cecil’s death, or over his own declining health, he never expressed such anguish in writing. Perhaps that’s because he took his first wilderness experience so seriously. Perhaps he looked deeply enough in the desert mirror to see himself for who he was as sinner, and to see who God was as God, and to recognize himself as God saw him—as God’s beloved child—so that he never again need doubt the greenness of grass, or the blessedness of wind on his face, or the goodness of life. Yeah, though I jog through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, thou art with me. Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus. Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity
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: T h e B att l e w i th th e D r a g o n : “The more truly we can see life as a fairytale, the more clearly the tale resolves itself into war with the Dragon who is wasting fairyland.” —G.K. Chesterton
Do We Know Good Art? Do We Even Know What We Like?
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by Chris Chan
e often hear terms like “‘popular’ culture,” “‘high’ art,” and similar phraseology in reference to artwork, and often we have no idea what they mean. This is not a new phenomenon. In the March 13, 1920, Illustrated London News column, “The Promise of Good Modern Architecture,” Hilaire Belloc muses on the gap between the potential for great art and why most of the art the public currently gets is somehow sadly lacking. A concurrent problem is that what little really good art exists (Belloc specifically mentions architecture, but he stretches the point to include art and literature as well) tends to go largely unappreciated. Indeed, popular culture is often nothing of the kind. There is a great disconnect between what the public wants and what the public gets. Belloc therefore raises the important question: why is this so? Gauging the quality of art is a wholly subjective process. There is no ruler, scale, or thermometer to rank the value of creative work; there are only the critics and the general populace. Neither of these sources is fully reliable. Many films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar over the last several years have been complete flops at the box office, although a precious few have been blockbusters; many bestselling books of the recent years have been drubbed by the critics, despite the presence of gems mixed in with the rough. Why is this? To begin with, much of the entertainment industry lives in a world of its own. Movie and television studios are not a democracy, and Americans cannot vote out a studio boss who produces work they dislike or find objectionable. Likewise, the general public has no influence over what kind of material is filmed, no 38
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matter how many petitions or letters are sent. Nothing new is likely to spring from such a hostile environment. As Belloc notes, “Where you have a certain communal spirit antagonistic to a certain art, that art will not flourish; and only by some very extraordinary accident will any individual suited to that art pierce.” There is always the possibility of organizing some sort of boycott, but such maneuvers are often met with indifference or even defiance. Thick-skinned Hollywood has grown accustomed to taking heavy losses. Given the expense of producing and distributing a movie or television series, it is nearly impossible for alternative work to gain much traction in this atmosphere. Similarly, new authors are facing increasingly uphill climbs in order to get their writings published. Even more galling is the seemingly undeserved success of certain artists. In recent years, the penultimate example of art receiving cheers from the critical establishment and raised eyebrows from the average person has been the infamous The Lights Go On and Off, which rose (or plummeted, depending on one’s point of view) to international fame and won the Turner Prize, one of England’s most prominent art awards. It consisted of a bare room with flickering lights. Nothing more. Belloc argues that there are two hurdles to dealing with the twin evils of bad art and unworthy acclaim: widespread inability to appreciate quality work and a culture that refuses to give promising efforts the praise they deserve. “If you take a time in which very few people know good verse when they see it, and in which no honour attaches to the writer of it, not only will you have the talent for good verse turned into other channels (writing
advertisements, for instance), but even the good verse that is written will be neglected and forgotten.” Belloc knew this firsthand. At present, there is an ever-widening chasm between art and the average person. Much of today’s films and television shows promote values completely at odds with those cherished by their average viewer. Few writers today make a genuine connection with a broad readership. And how many visual artists have achieved widespread recognition in America today? How much of today’s literature celebrates a bleakness and despair to which the average reader cannot relate? Is there any chance of this situation changing? Belloc seems to believe that quality work cannot remain unappreciated for long, however. He writes: “The tide will turn. We shall have not only a demand for good architecture in general and the recognition of good architecture, but an architecture suited to our modern material and to our modern powers—a thing as yet unknown. And I think that a fair knowledge of history can establish at least one criterion of that coming. It will be applauded by the masses of men.” From January 17 to February 22, 1920, G.K. Chesterton’s ILN columns were written by Hilaire Belloc. —Ed.
There is no error more general of late than the idea that a new good thing is ridiculed and persecuted. It is an error based on the analogy of the one good thing which was ridiculed and persecuted and finally triumphed through the blood of the martyrs. But all the other good things I can think of that renewed civilization came triumphantly and with applause. The opposite theory is the consolation of innumerable cranks and not a few criminals. When a man proposes that a man should not own property, or should not marry, or should not eat and drink ordinary food and drink, he finds himself naturally under the weather. He then claims that all great good changes have suffered persecution before they triumphed. It is not true. —Hilaire Belloc, Illustrated London News, March 13, 1920
: A l l I S u r v e y : “It is true that I am of an older fashion; much that I love has been destroyed or sent into exile.” —G.K. Chesterton
Happy Meals
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by David Fagerberg
hrough the magic of Google foods.” Quite a sobering charge to maps and other internet data lay at the feet of Barbie, Hot Wheels, sites I have been able to make Pixar, Tonka, plastic dinosaurs, 101 some rough calculations, Dalmatians, Mulan, Mickey, Mario stimulated by an attack on the and the Little Mermaid, E.T., Lego, McDonald’s restaurant from two sides. Transformers, and an R2D2 with a First, concerned parents are “callWookie. Contacted for comment, the ing for Ronald McDonald to retire as advertising executive who dreamed up a spokesman for the nation’s largest the Happy Meal made this feeble prorestaurant chain, saying he has too test: “To make a child happy and to much influence on kids.” Apparently not cost Mom any additional money— they believe that clowns are a kind of that was the original idea,” he said. authority figure for children, and if “The toy was not the reigning reason Ronald says, “eat a Big Mac,” and their for the child to order the Happy Meal.” parents say, “don’t eat another Big Now Chesterton knew a thing Mac,” the clown will win. We are fortuor two about “happy meals.” So, I nate that he doesn’t use his powers for wonder how he would fare in London more sinister purposes. today. My maps locator reveals that Indeed, corporate McDonald’s within an hour’s walking distance seems to be taking the complaints with from the center of Fleet Street there a straight face (unlike that grease-paint are nine McDonald’s restaurants, ten smiling face with which Ronald seems Burger King restaurants, and ten to be taking them). Instead of replyKentucky Fried Chicken restaurants. ing, “He’s only a clown; notice the red When I repeated the search for “pubs,” hair and big shoes?” they have argued the map lit up with red spots like in return: “Ronald also helps deliver a child with chicken pox, so I have messages to families on many imporexcluded them from my study. tant subjects such as safety, literacy, A Big Mac contains 485 caloand the importance of physical activity ries; the number of calories burned and making balanced food choices.” In in a one-mile walk depends upon other words, the clown has some good two contingencies: how fast one is qualities in addition to being a pied walking and one’s weight. A Web piper leading our children into obesity. site that permits entering both of Secondly, another group of these variables shows that a person concerned parents are convinced that weighing about 300 pounds (which McDonald’s Happy Meals make kids Chesterton did), walking at a gentle fat, and that kids buy Happy Meals saunter of two miles per hour (can I for the little toy that comes inside, so imagine him faster?), only burns 167 one county is “poised to outlaw the calories. Three hours at that pace little toys that often come with highwould walk off one Big Mac, the Lilo calorie offerings.” & Stitch toy notwithstanding. What I According to the LA Times, the do not know is how many calories per county supervisor “says the toys in kids’ hour are burned riding in a hansom meals are contributing to America’s cab, Chesterton’s favorite mode of obesity epidemic by encouraging transportation in London, even for children to eat unhealthful, fattening half-block trips.
Chesterton defined “democracy” not as a popular vote, and even less as the unpopular votes taken by elected representatives. “Democracy in its human sense is not arbitrament by the majority; it is not even arbitrament by everybody. It can be more nearly defined as arbitrament by anybody.” What he means is that even in a stranger you can usually take some things for granted. You wouldn’t bet his politics or his religion, “but you would bet your week’s wages, let us say, that he believes in wearing clothes. You would bet that he believes that physical courage is a fine thing, or that parents have authority over children.” These are the things held by anybody. Almost. While researching the background to the question whether parents have authority over children (at least more authority than Ronald McDonald), I read an accompanying story. A sleepy town in Maine saw a protest against an unabidingly unfair double standard. Not equal pay. Rather, “Topless protesters filled the streets agitating for an end to the double standard that says shirtless men are A-OK but shirtless women are scandalous.” Of Chesterton’s three examples of arbitrament by anybody, I have found exceptions to the belief that parents have authority over children, and wearing clothes; I quit my webbrowsing, lest I also discover that we no longer believe in physical courage. But Chesterton allows for the anomalies. “Of course, he might be the millionth man who does not believe these things; if it comes to that, he might be the Bearded Lady dressed up as a man. But these prodigies are quite a different thing from any mere calculation of numbers. People who hold these views are not a minority, but a monstrosity. But of these universal dogmas that have full democratic authority the only test is this test of anybody. What you would observe before any newcomer in a tavern—that is the real English law.” Or the real English law might be observed by a normal London family taking their normal number of normalsized children to get a Happy Meal together. Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity
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: B o o k R e v i e w s :
Toward a Human Ecology The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity (And What To Do About It) By Phillip Longman New York: New America Foundation, published by Basic Books (2004) 196 pages; $26:00 (hardcover) Reviewed by Fr. Frederick Edlefsen
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hen I was in third grade at a parochial school, the teacher told us that Catholic parents should have at least three children in order to replace themselves. That’s about the only thing I remember from third grade, aside from being admonished for not paying attention. The teacher’s comment was prophetic in light of a book I read over the summer: “If free societies
have a future, it will be because they figure out or stumble upon a way to restore the value of children to their parents, and of parents to each other.” No, this is not a line from the Pontifical Council for the Family. It is the conclusion of Phillip Longman, a research fellow at the New American Foundation. Longman makes no metaphysical or moral claims about human nature. Rather, he makes a data-based observation: the world is experiencing an unprecedented fall in birthrates. Global fertility rates are half what they were in 1972. No industrialized country produces enough children to sustain its population. And developing countries are experiencing the steepest drops in fertility. “In both hemispheres,” writes Longman,
Things Worth Fighting For Chesterton on War and Peace By Michael W. Perry Seattle: Inklings Press, 2008 448 pages; $24.95 (softcover) Reviewed by David Paul Deavel
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ichael W. Perry received the Outline of Sanity Award in 2009 for publishing four books by or about Chesterton through his Inklings Press. The strengths and the weaknesses of the previous books are displayed in his new volume. The greatest strength is the idea of the collection. Until fairly recently, few have attempted to assess Chesterton’s views on war, politics, and nationhood. (One such attempt, the recently released Christianity, Patriotism, and Nationhood: The England of G. K. Chesterton by Julia Stapleton, 40
Volume 13 Number 8, July/August 2010
was reviewed by Chuck Chalberg in GM 13:4.) What Perry has done in Chesterton on War and Peace is put together in pieces taken, with one exception, from Chesterton’s “Our Note-Book” column in The Illustrated London News from 1905-1922. While every essay can be found in Ignatius’s Collected Works volumes, this collection culls them for common themes. But, why stop at the year 1922? Perry, whose genial and engaging drawl makes Chesterton sound like “Chesterszon,” explained at the 2009 conference that he realized that he had so much material that he would have to stop and do a second volume; the manuscript he had numbered already over 400 pages. (He didn’t say it, but a volume any larger might be considered a weapon of mass destruction.) Given the promise of his subtitle, “Battling the Ideas and
“nations rich and poor, in Christian, Taoist, Confucian, Hindu, and especially Islamic countries, one broad social trend holds constant at the beginning of the twenty-first century: As more and more of the world’s population moves to crowded urban areas, and as women gain in education and economic opportunity, people are producing fewer and fewer children.” So what’s the culprit? For many Catholics, the ready answer is “the pill.” Perhaps, but what makes the birth control pill so attractive? Selfishness? Perhaps–but not entirely. Longman notes that couples often defer childbearing for generous reasons, such as a desire to provide financial security and opportunities for their children. “These goals,” he says, “may be ever more difficult to achieve while still of childbearing age, but they are not necessarily self-centered.” And so, he diagnoses the problem: “Individuals have no control over the economic and social forces that make the cost of forming a traditional family or of being a responsible parent seem increasingly beyond their reach…If these arrangements lead to a breakdown of
Movements That Led to Nazism and World War II,” one hopes that he gets around to that second volume detailing the years in which Nazism and Fascism were coming to power. Another strength of Chesterton on War and Peace is Perry’s addition of other sources in the appendix at the back. Like his edition of Cecil Chesterton’s G.K. Chesterton: A Criticism (reviewed in GM SeptemberOctober 2008), this volume contains background voices like Thomas Aquinas on just war, as well as contemporary differing voices like those of Churchill, Gandhi, Wells, Russell, and Norman Angell, to show more clearly Chesterton’s place in the debates of his time. Perry’s thorough notes to the text are an essential help to the reader lost in Chesterton’s references to thenprominent figures, books, and journals that have proven ephemeral. I consider myself fairly historically informed but had never heard of Joseph Kenworthy
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the family, falling fertility rates, and unsustainable population aging, that’s a political problem, not a moral failing.” Notwithstanding real moral failures, Longman’s words echo Fr. Vincent McNabb in his 1925 classic, The Church and the Land. McNabb observed that parents who earn wages from urban capitalists “are found to look upon family limitation not so much as a necessity for themselves as an act of charity and even of justice towards their children.” McNabb concludes that industrial capitalism is an occasion of sin, and that “we must work to change the conditions which make it heroic virtue to avoid the sin.” Despite their differences in time and circumstance, McNabb and Longman identify the same culprit hindering population stability: Capitalism. “Yes, global capitalism is highly efficient,” says Longman. “It can produce just about anything far more cheaply than you and your family can for yourselves. But in the process it erodes individual incentives to invest in children–by offering competing and more lucrative uses of time and money and appropriating most of the human
capital produced by parents–even as it requires vast amounts of uncompensated parental investment to sustain both production and consumption.” Longman proposes remedies that sound a bit like a modern American application of the Distributist ideals of G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. He advocates federal policies that encourage “home based” employment and family businesses, which are most conducive to raising children and home care for the elderly. “An economy reoriented to home production and family business would no doubt have to sacrifice many of the economies of scale offered by today’s corporate giants…But against this, an economy reoriented towards small-scale family enterprise and home production offers the benefits of greater social cohesion, less stress on working parents, and many other practical advantages.” To encourage this, he recommends pro-natal policies, such as tax relief for married couples with children, low interest micro-loans, separating health insurance from employment, and giving a “stakeholder account” for every baby born. All of this, says
Longman, will reduce servility to the state and corporations. The Empty Cradle proposes a subsidiarity approach to economics in line with the consistent Catholic social teaching from Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum to Pope Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate. In particular, Longman’s work dovetails with Benedict’s call for a “human ecology.” In these days of a humanly dysfunctional economy, underwritten by a dysfunctional “servile state,” this book is a secular testimony to a key fact of Catholic social teaching: the economy is at the service of the family. Work–when it finds its proper place among all human activity– makes possible the love of a healthy and happy home. And so I leave the reader with the secular counsel of Longman’s own words: “Family enterprise may never be as efficient, in a narrow sense, as a global system of wage slavery, but it does offer the incalculable advantage of not over-consuming its supply of human capital by making material goods too cheap and children too expensive.”
or his 1915 article in The Humanist, the subject of one essay. Perry also includes cross-references to the writings of Chesterton on linked topics and to other contemporary and historical accounts of the happenings. The notes also carry on the same sort of argument with Chesterton and others that made the Cecil Chesterton edition so entertaining and thought provoking. Perry is occasionally eager to say not only what Chesterton thought about his own time, but how he would think about the seventysome years after his death. While this factor makes the book more thoughtprovoking and indeed fun–“Channeling Chesterton” would make a great breakout session at the next ACS conference–I confess I didn’t always agree with Perry’s assessments. While he seems on very safe ground in predicting Chesterton’s judgment on the European Union’s laws against capital punishment, it is not evident to me
that Chesterton’s support of the justice of the second Iraq War would be as hearty as Perry sometimes implies. But Perry always makes his case based on Chestertonian principles in the essays. There is, at times, a bit too much of the editor’s voice in the volume. Not only does Perry continue the annoying habit of highlighting what he thinks are the most important passages, but he also includes, along with his extensive notes, several page introductions not only to each section, but also smaller introductions to each essay. Introductions to the essays and the highlighting clearly could have been left out, freeing the section introductions and the notes to render the desired clarity, while allowing the book to be a bit shorter or to cover a broader time period. The section introductions themselves are generally very good, however. Perry divides the periods covered according to what he thinks are the main ideas for or against
which Chesterton was arguing. The first section (1905-1913), entitled “Battling Illusions,” highlights Chesterton’s prescience in predicting the original disaster of World War I. In his introduction, Perry cites Hannah Arendt’s use of Chesterton’s lines from The Return of Don Quixote, published in 1927 but partially planned and written before the war, to describe the state of denial in a Europe choked by kleptocracy, despotism, and militarism: “Everything is prolonging its existence by denying that it exists.” Chesterton was not heeded, of course. Norman Angell, one of the founders of modern pacifism, ended up winning the 1933 Nobel Peace Prize, despite his false predictions and his encouragement of political behavior that made the disaster greater. As Perry argues, Chesterton should have won Angell’s prize. (One notes the continued practice of rewarding warmongers with a peace prize.) Peace, Chesterton knew, is a paradox. Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity
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: t h e D e t e ct i o n C l u b : “The mystery of life is the plainest part of it.” —G.K. Chesterton
The Idea Man
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by John Peterson
ew obituaries begin this sensationally. Carl Criswell’s death notice, as carried by the Pittsburg newspapers, reported that he had been shot to death at his home in rural West Virginia by a person or persons unknown and that local authorities were investigating. The real tragedy of Carl Criswell’s life, however, happened years earlier when he lost his wife in the third month of their marriage. He did not
consider remarriage. Instead he threw himself into his business ventures with fanatical dedication, and he quickly achieved a number of notable business and financial successes. This was partly due to his partnership with Nick Carson. Criswell was the idea man and Carson, an engineer, was the practical inventor. Criswell came up with a constant flow of new ideas for their businesses, and Carson drew up the plans and the blueprints.
Their biggest and most recent successes were in the field of robotics. The firm of Criswell-Carson Ltd. produced automated equipment for commercial kitchens and manufacturing facilities, and they also provided robotic lawnmowers and robotic vacuum cleaners for the home. As it happened, Criswell dreamed up most of his ideas during his long hikes in the woods, and it was on one of these hikes that he witnessed a gangland-style murder or assassination. The police pinpointed his location through his cell phone, arrests were made, and Criswell testified at the trial. The mobsters were sent to prison for life with no possibility of parole. Their colleagues were not pleased with Criswell. When the FBI offered Criswell a place in their witness protection program, he declined. “I think I’ll buy a big home in some remote place in the country and enjoy an early retirement,” He said. “I won’t
Lock Yourself In a Room with This Book! G.K. Chesterton on Detective Fiction is the first and only complete
collection of Chesterton’s wide-ranging views on mystery stories, fictional detectives, and detective-story authors. It includes a wealth of previously uncollected material as well as reprints of his better-known essays from such popular books as Chesterton’s The Defendant and Tremendous Trifles.
Many of the essays in this volume are being reprinted for the first time since their original appearance. The list includes selections from as yet unpublished collected works, collections of his Illustrated London News columns, the almost entirely forgotten series of essays Chesterton contributed to the New York American, and his previously uncollected contributions to a host of other sources such as The New Witness and G.K.’s Weekly. “Chesterton writing about Detective Fiction is a little like a magician giving away his tricks — except he himself remains in awe of the other magicians even if he knows how they do it! But he not only explains how the effect is achieved, he explains the effect of the effect: why we love to be baffled, love to be fooled, love to be surprised. And somehow he even surprises us in the process. Lock yourself in a room with this book.” —Dale Ahlquist, President, American Chesterton Society
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The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box George A. Vanderburgh, Publisher R.R. #4, P.O. Box 50, Eugenia, Ontario, Canada N0C 1E0 ■
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Weblog: www.batteredbox.wordpress.com
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tell anyone but my best friend and partner where I am.” And he did just that. He bought a small mansion in the West Virginia countryside and left Pittsburg for good. Criswell lived there in complete safety for seven years. The next part of his story begins with a phone call. A Mr. Arthur Henson introduced himself and explained that he was a freelance writer. “I’m doing a puff piece on the Criswell-Carson Company,” he said, “and I’d like to interview Mr. Criswell.” The man who answered the phone introduced himself as Jason, a servant who ran the Criswell household. “How did you find us?” he asked. “Oh, I have a friend at Three Rivers Bank where Mr. Criswell has business. She gave me your number. I hope you don’t think we did something unethical.” “Not at all,” Jason said. “Then I can interview Mr. Criswell?” “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Henson, but Mr. Criswell is recovering from his third stroke. He could not possibly see any visitors before April, and you have to understand that even if he’s able to see you, he has had his larynx removed and can only speak through a mechanical voice box. You will, at most, have five or ten minutes with him.” “I’m in no hurry,” Henson replied, “but springtime in West Virginia is a brutal season for us hay fever suffers. Would you object if I wore a dust mask?” “No objection, but be sure and call a few days before you expect to arrive here. I may have news for you, but whether it will be bad or good news, I am not able to predict.” In any event, Henson’s visit was approved, and he found the Criswell villa without difficulty. As he motored up the long, winding driveway, he noticed a driverless tractor pulling a set of lawnmowers over the large and beautiful expanse of lawn. A small airplane was parked at one end of the lawn, and this confirmed what Henson had heard—that Nick Carson, who was a pilot, often flew down from Pittsburg to confer with his partner. The man who answered the door introduced himself as Jason, the person with whom he had spoken by telephone. Henson carried a tape recorder and
a brief case and, as promised, wore a dust mask. The two climbed the large staircase and found their way into a dimly lit room. Henson saw a large man slumped in a wheelchair at the far side of an expansive table. Though his face was expressionless, Henson recognized him as Carl Criswell. “Mr. Criswell,” Jason said, “This is Arthur Henson.” Criswell nodded his head slightly and feebly raised his right hand. “How do you do,” he said, his reply croaking from his mechanical voice box. “I’ll leave you two alone,” Jason said, “but only for ten minutes. Then I’ll be back to see you out, Mr. Henson.” “That will be fine,” Henson said. Then turning on his recorder, he focused on the figure in the wheelchair. “What was your first business venture, Mr. Criswell?” Jason left the room. When he was sure they were alone, Arthur put his tape recorder down on the floor, turned it off, reached into his briefcase and casually extracted a ninemillimeter Beretta. He fired two quick shots, the first into his victim’s chest and the second into his face. Then he wheeled about and, dropping to one knee, he waited for someone to appear who might have heard the shots. No one came. His victim’s wounds, Arthur noted with satisfaction, were bleeding profusely. He returned the weapon to his briefcase, picked up the tape recorder, and left the room. He found his way out
without encountering any servants or staff, and he was soon motoring away from the Criswell villa. A job well done, he told himself—flawlessly done. He could hardly wait to make his report. He rolled down his window and tossed the dust mask out onto the road. That Jason guy would be hard pressed to give the cops a good description of him, he thought with smug satisfaction. He laughed. Carson watched Arthur’s car disappear over a ridge. “All clear,” he announced. His friend and partner Carl Criswell stepped out from a small closet. “Man, I felt like the Wizard of Oz hiding back there and talking into the mike,” he said. “But look at this mess! What’s all that red stuff?” “It’s real blood,” Jason said—or rather Carson said, dropping his masquerade as Criswell’s servant. “Well, it’s goat’s blood.” “It’s still a mess.” “What do you want done with this contraption, I mean, after we get the blood cleaned off of it?” “Toss it into a shallow grave,” Criswell replied. “Put up a marker, and send an obituary to the Pittsburg papers. Something like, ‘Carl Criswell shot to death by a person or persons unknown’, and the usual stuff. ‘Local authorities are investigating’, and so on.” “You write it,” Carson said. “I’ll drop it off myself tonight at the PostGazette.” the Signature of GKC
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Pie, Murder, Pie, Romance, Pie, Angst, Pie, Secrets, Pie, Lies, and More Pie
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by Chris Chan
t’s axiomatic that high-quality, unique television shows with a sci-fi/fantasy bent tend to get unceremoniously cancelled. Pushing Daisies, which had a nine-episode first season (the infamous writers’ strike cropped the proceedings short), got thirteen episodes into its second season before ABC cancelled it, while space for vapid bachelors and bachelorettes who want to find “love” never appear on the chopping block. Pushing Daisies’s cancellation is irrefutable evidence that network executives often don’t know what the hell they’re doing. Pushing Daisies boasts one of the more unique premises in recent memory. Ned (Lee Pace, amiably overanxious), owner and head piemaker of a marvelous restaurant dubbed “The Pie Hole,” possesses a unique gift: he can bring the dead back to life simply by touching them. A second touch, however, leaves the reanimated creature irrevocably dead. If Ned fails to re-touch a revived entity within one minute of first contact, then some random individual dies. Ned first learned of his ability as a child, when he restored his dog Digby to life after his pet had an unfortunate run-in with a truck. He discovered the two corollaries after he brought back his deceased mother and failed to touch her again in time, thereby inadvertently killing his best friend’s father. The traumatizing side effects of his reanimated mother’s goodnight kiss, coupled with his widowed father abandoning young Ned at a dreary boarding school (reminiscent of both Dickens’s Dotheboys Hall and Rowling’s Hogwarts), left Ned depressed, lonely, and neurotic. As the series opens, Ned lives a life of quiet desperation, living with 44
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a dog he can never pet with his bare hands, using his magical gift only for making pies. In order to keep The Pie Hole solvent Ned takes rotted fruit and brings it back to full freshness with a touch, creating magically delicious pies which he can’t eat without returning the fruit to a decayed state. That all changes when private detective Emerson Cod (a brilliantly wry, dry, hilarious Chi McBride) inadvertently discovers Ned’s power, and convinces him to put it to practical use: revive murder victims, conduct brief interviews to determine their killers, and use the information to earn reward money. Ned’s whole existence changes when his childhood best friend and crush Charlotte “Chuck” Charles (an adorably winsome Anna Friel), is brutally suffocated, and Emerson is hired to catch her murderer. Ned revives her but can’t bring himself to send her back to the coffin. Ned and Chuck fall in love, but the catch is that they can never have skin-on-skin contact; otherwise Chuck will perish…again. This leads to several quirky yet sweet romantic scenes, where the pair has to kiss through cellophane wrap, dance in beekeepers’ outfits, and hold thickly gloved hands. The show is voiced over by a droll, omniscient narrator (Jim Dale), and the cast is rounded out by Chuck’s social-phobia-plagued but loving aunts: the sardonic, eye patch-wearing, martini-swilling Lily (Swoosie Kurtz), and the timidly romantic Vivian (Ellen Greene). A former synchronizedswimming team known as the Darling Mermaid Darlings, Lily and Vivian lead the lives of shut-ins, taking pleasure only in their interest in exotic birds
and unusual cheeses. Ned and Chuck believe that Lily and Vivian are too emotionally fragile to learn that their niece has been brought back to life, so they decide to keep Chuck’s existence a secret from them, though Ned and Olive befriend the aunts in order to keep Chuck informed of their conditions. Olive, in turn, knows nothing of Ned’s magical powers, so Ned, Chuck, and Emerson must go to great lengths in order to keep Olive and others in the dark. For all its magical properties and complex romantic subplots, the show’s episodes are continually driven by the gang’s attempts to solve bizarre murders. The cases are never as easy as they’d hope. In one episode, a revived corpse identifies his wife as his killer moments before Ned re-touches him, but it turns out the deceased is a polygamist with four spouses. Many episodes are filled with great characters–some favorites are a pair of olfactory experts (one likes flowers, one prefers the sewer), a twisted taffy financier, a mad muffin baker, and an officious Norwegian C.S.I. team–and figuring out which is the killer is always enormous fun. The show’s technical aspects are amazing. While many crime shows paint themselves in dark shadows and gritty grays, nearly every scene in Pushing Daisies is shot in vibrant color. Larger-than-life sets, elaborate costumes, and assorted special effects are always present; creating a fantastical world that never ceases to compel. Perhaps the most evocative aspect of the art direction is the food, which always looks lusciously mouthwatering, especially the myriads of different delicious pies that continually decorate the screen. The pies appear so delicious that I’ve been craving all sorts of pies–be they fruit, cream, or savories–ever since I started watching the show. I’ve even started to have pie-related fantasies, including one dream where I’m tucked into bed and an enormous lemon custard pie gently soars through the window towards me. I need help, I know. And you need to start watching Pushing Daisies.
: C h e s t e r t o n U n i v e r s i t y : An Introduction to the Writings of G.K. Chesterton by Dale Ahlquist
Ending with a Bang
G
The Spice of Life
.K. Chesterton says that he stopped reading novels when he began to be a reviewer of them. Yet he keeps writing about the books that he really has read, long after he has read them. His favorite novel is Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, but he says he read Pickwick only once, yet has walked into it whenever he chooses, as a man walks into a club. It is a book to be lived in and, like a house, a little untidy. For anyone who loves Chesterton, his books offer a similar invitation: to be walked into whenever one pleases, books that can be lived in, books that are a little untidy. The Spice of Life might be the best organized of any of the posthumous collections of Chesterton’s writings assembled by his secretary and literary executrix, Dorothy Collins, and yet it is a little untidy and therefore welcoming and comfortable. Here are some of his strongest essays, gathered for the first time between the covers of a book: his delicious takes on Macbeth and Lear, on Aesop, on Alice in Wonderland, on Samuel Pepys and Charlotte Bronte, and even on Aladdin. We also get an essay on humor, on how to write a detective story, on holidays, on the little known but very important Scipio, on peasants. Though the subject matter seems scattered, the essays are held together not only by the same philosophy, but by the very theme of complete thinking in a world where everything is fragmented. He defends, as usual, what others dismiss, even mere sentiment, for sentiment, he says, “stands for that frame of mind in which all men admit, with a half-humorous and half-magnanimous weakness, that they all possess the same secret, and have all made the same discovery.” He even allows that the destructive philosopher and modern madman Nietzsche was a sentimentalist.
But it is something more than sentiment that holds everything together. That role falls to religion, which is the thing the modern world keeps trying to remove from everything so that it falls apart. It is only religion that makes education meaningful. Education has to serve religion, not the other way around. A secular education is simply a collection of broken knowledge. As Chesterton writes in “The Religious Aim of Education”: The deepest of all desires for knowledge is the desire to know what the world is for and what we are for. Those who believe they can answer that question must at least be allowed to answer it as the first question and not as the last. A man who cannot answer it has a right to refuse to answer it; though perhaps he is rather too prone to comfort himself with the very dogmatic dogma that nobody else can answer it if he can’t. But no man has a right to answer it, or even to arrange for it being answered, as if it were a sort of peculiar and pedantic additional question, which only a peculiar and pedantic sort of pupil would be likely to ask.
Though the furniture is comfortable in this club we have walked into, we soon realize that we are not exactly here to relax. Chesterton reminds us, “Life is a fight and not a conversation.” It is the title essay that drives this point home. It is the transcript of one of his final radio broadcasts for the BBC. It is Chesterton’s parting shot. He refers to none other than T.S. Eliot, who in many ways would be his successor as the great man of letters in the English language, who, though he shared many of Chesterton’s ideas and certainly admired him, nonetheless represents a change in outlook toward the modern world. Eliot, says Chesterton, has not found repose. “And it is just here that I will have the effrontery to distinguish
between his generation and mine. It used to be thought impudent for a boy to criticize an old gentleman, it now requires far more sublime impudence for an older man to criticize a younger.” Eliot writes of desolation in “The Waste Land” and “The Hollow Men.” And Chesterton quotes a famous passage to describe Eliot’s “impression of many impressions”: This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.
To which Chesterton responds: Now forgive me if I say, in my oldworld fashion, that I’m damned if I ever felt like that. I recognize the great realities Mr. Eliot has revealed; but I do not admit that this is the deepest reality. I am ready to admit that our generation made too much of romance and comfort, but even when I was uncomfortable I was more comfortable than that…I knew the world was perishable and would end, but I did not think it would end with a whimper, but if anything with a trump of doom. It is doubtless a grotesque spectacle that the great-grandfathers should still be dancing with indecent gaiety, when the young are so grave and sad; but in this matter of the spice of life, I will defend the spiritual appetite of my own age. I will even be so indecently frivolous as to break into song, and say to the young pessimists: Some sneer; some snigger; some simper; In the youth where we laughed and sang, And they may end with a whimper But we will end with a bang. the Signature of GKC
Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity
45
: t h e D i s t r i b u t i s t : Economics as if People Mattered
Industry The Distributist Solution
Part I
by Richard Aleman
T
he mention of Distributism often draws skepticism by those who, while valuing its merits, believe Distributism incapable of providing satisfactory answers to our modern needs. From chewing gum to automobiles, chairs to food stuffs or toys to beer, we live in a world consumed by and dependent on mass-produced goods and large scale industry. The Distributist’s reputation for favoring small-scale production, usually “mom and pop” and mostly local, appears to conflict with computer chips, fax machines, and high-rise construction. Any expectation of the family business replacing our automotive, aerospace, or shipping industries seems dubious at best. Doubt lingers whether a Distributive State can be competent in facing the challenges left over by the failures of Socialism and Capitalism. In anticipation of any discussion about Distributist reforms such as worker-owned businesses, micro-credit, or social investing, which can (and have) successfully taken over medium and large-scale operations, we should explore why G.K. Chesterton, while never denying the presence of the factory or the value of employment in a Distributive state, believed large-scale industry took a back seat to small producers and self-ownership. As editor of G.K.’s Weekly, Chesterton courageously challenged the political and economic establishment throughout the pages of his famous newspaper. His writing was so extensive that his two most famous books articulating the Distributist thesis, the influential The Outline of Sanity and the superb What’s Wrong with the World, offer us only a fraction of his political and economic thought. In every issue of G.K.’s Weekly, the 46
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erudite Chesterton challenged political and economic theorists whose hyperopic focus on the macroeconomic state of the nation, filled with statistics of industrial output, trade, and unemployment figures, failed to address the problems most pressing to the masses or the man on the street. Today, these cold and mathematical calculations continue to provide economists with the raw data necessary to predict and analyze the “boom and bust” market. Economists project and examine because economists are always predicting and diagnosing, just like the weatherman and about as accurately. How economic factors affect quality of life for families, real people—the poor, the farmer, and the home—are left out of the equation. These economists cheer when unemployment stats decline, while the common man is left to ponder whether reductions in unemployment translate to earning a livelihood or scraping by on minimum wage. Economists advise our congressional leaders, the heads of banks, large-scale industry, and corporate goliaths about economic shifts and their impact on industry because they are under the impression that as a nation we rise and fall according to industrial production. But mass-producing industries are not the solution to get the nation going. The revitalization of cottage industry is what we need in order to get the nation going; local economies; small firms; genuine relationships based on trust, reputation, love, dedication, and hard work. Cottage industry is about those closest to us: our households and communities; the rural towns; urban dwellers; real life and real people. Mass production breeds more mass production. Mass production does not see the value in the ‘thing’ created,
but only how many quantities of that ‘thing’ produce token wealth. Chesterton recognized how the powerful concentration of the mass production system severed widespread ownership, augmented the nation’s reliance on industry for its Gross Domestic Product, challenged the power of the State due to its size, and just how successful these large firms were in securing government subsidies and rescues (what we dub “too big to fail”), so that when they collapsed we collapsed with them. Unable to compete with the bargaining and lobbying powers of the factory, local production suffered as mass producers increasingly became the sole sources of wealth for local communities, paid unjust wages and offered unjust contracts to the worker, eliminated the ownership society, and, without loyalty to King or country, packed up and moved to greener pastures, leaving small towns in ruin as has become evident today in the United States. Chesterton and the Distributists were micro-economists who understood that the smaller picture is the bigger picture. The answer to our problems is micro because life is micro. It begins with the family on a plot of land and continues down the rural road, past our neighbor’s home and straight to the market square. Solving the problem of the masses builds a system resistant to the fracturing of the national economy and the tyranny of the board of directors. It restores the stable economic foundations necessary for family life and puts man back in touch with his humanity so he may concentrate on virtuous living through compliance with the Divine law. And it is only from this norm that any larger industry can grow. For Chesterton, an economy dominated by mass-produced goods could never replace the strength of a decentralized economy because ownership diversification also means self-reliance for small towns and for the small country. Local production for local consumption is a policy enabling the flow of an extensive variety of goods and services created by and sustaining the very community that makes them.
: T h e D i s t r i b u t i s t :
“We want to decentralize production, so that each district may tend to be self-supporting; we want to have little knots of craftsmen everywhere supplying the needs of the district which feeds them,” he wrote.
Chesterton never denied factories would continue to exist in a
Distributive State. He simply asserted that any community with an economic foundation based on diverse ownership would offer men the choice of whether to work for themselves or sell their labor to capital, which means that, given this state of affairs, capitalists would be forced to pay a living wage
and treat labor as co-creators of goods instead of mere factors of production. So what does ownership diversity within medium or large-scale manufacturing look like? Is there a solution? Yes. The answer is found in worker-ownership: the Distributist cooperative.
: C h e s t e r t o n ’ s M a i l B a g : Gilbert Keith Chesterton Answers His Mail
Arguments That Don’t Work
the true fold. Even if I did not believe this, I should still deplore all virulent and vulgar denunciation of them. Signed,
Lloyd Thomas Dear Mr. Chesterton, I have heard you argue against Socialism, but why do you even bother? Surely you believe that Socialism is socially impossible! Signed,
Sidney English Dear Mr. English, I do not understand this argument, though it is common. In so far as I do attack any Socialism I do not attack it because it is socially impossible. I attack it because it is socially possible. Why should anybody attack anything that is impossible? Your friend,
G.K. Chesterton (Daily News, Nov. 2, 1907) ;
;
;
Dear Mr. Chesterton, A famous anthropologist has recently demonstrated quite conclusively that the physiological formation of the ape and the human, including their brains, are almost exactly alike. Don’t you think he proved something rather devastating to your philosophy? Signed,
Dr. K. Dear Dr. K., If he was trying to prove that man has a merely material origin like the ape, he was proving exactly the opposite. If there are two motorcars, which a minute examination proves to be exactly alike in every mechanical detail, then we shall be rather more and not less surprised if
one of them suddenly soars into the air like an aeroplane, while the other can only trundle along the road like a cart. The only way in which we can possibly explain it is to suppose that, at some time and in some way, some other more mysterious force came into play. But the more we prove that every cog and rivet in the two machines is identical, the more we are driven to the mystical explanation when their action is different. And the difference between a man and an ape does not need discussion, it does not allow of denial or even doubt. Man has stepped into a totally different world of imagination and invention; like a man turning into a god. If this startling and stupendous difference can co-exist with exactly the same material origins, the only possible deduction is that it does not come from the material origins. In other words, the only possible deduction is that by some special spiritual act, as in the ancient record, man became a living soul. Your friend,
G.K. Chesterton (Illustrated London News, Oct. 15, 1927) ;
;
;
Dear Mr. Chesterton, You criticize a lot of the new religious movements, and though I don’t belong to any of them, I have excellent friends who do belong to them, and they are in conduct, character, and spirit more essentially Christian than many of the Christians I know. I believe they are within, not without,
Dear Mr. Lloyd Thomas, This argument is one of the many subtle and refined manifestations of the element called bosh. It is bosh to declare (or, rather, lifelessly to repeat) that schools of thought must be held sacred because good people belong to them. Denunciation, I suppose, should never be vulgar, though I have low tastes myself in the matter of rhetoric, derived from long association with cabmen. Denunciation, I suppose, should never be virulent; but why the dickens should it not be violent? If truth is a good thing, I suppose error is a bad one; and if large numbers of nice people are held captive by error that is all the more reason for destroying the error and setting them free. Your friend,
G.K. Chesterton (Daily News, Mar. 26, 1910) ;
;
;
Dear Mr. Chesterton, I don’t in believe in religion—I believe in science. Signed,
Prof. A., Dear Prof. A, But nobody will accept that explanation who knows anything of philosophy. A man might as well face the world of philosophy saying he believed in botany. Your friend,
G.K. Chesterton (New York American, Oct. 8, 1935) Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity
47
: N e w s W i th V i e w s : Compiled by the Gilbert Magazine News-Gathering Staff
“When the real revolution happens, it won’t be mentioned in the newspapers.”
U.S. vs. U.K.—another fine mess LONDON—G.K. Chesterton wrote that the main difference between a tax and a fine is that the fine is “generally much lighter.” The U.S. Embassy in London might be inclined to quibble after learning it owes the city of London almost 4 million pounds in traffic fines. By dodging congestion charges and parking fees, the Embassy has joined the ranks of other diplomatic missions in arrears, such as Russia (3.2 million pounds), Japan (2.7 million), and Kazakhstan (a mere 148,000 pounds). We probably shouldn’t be surprised that, with its own budget deficit running at 11 percent of national output, the government is getting a little snarky, reminding diplomats these charges represent “usage fees.” Embassies, on the other hand, consider them taxes, from which they should be immune. It might require the World Court to judge whether the amounts allegedly owed represent heavy taxes or merely lighter fines.
The case of the paid perpetrator PORT RICHEY, Fla.—How does one leave work early without getting fired and still get paid? Michelle Perrino figured she had a novel solution: do the firing first. Using a handy file cabinet stuffed with papers, she discreetly torched it and eventually got the day off with pay. The snag was that other employees at Bayonet Point Oxygen Company started noticing some trends, for instance the number of unexplained power failures that previously occurred and how the phone system had gone dead for no apparent 48
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reason. In each instance Perrino got to leave for the day with pay. It was also noted she had been the only one in the office when these incidents took place. Further, during a meeting about the fire, Perrino commented about the fire starting in a file cabinet. Unfortunately for her, no one had been told where the fire originated. While it didn’t exactly require Father Brown to cast suspicion on Perrino, her estranged boyfriend sealed her fate by telling authorities how she bragged about flipping off the power in order to leave work early. A judge has since ensured she would have nine months off work courtesy of the Florida penal system– without pay.
TO BEE OR NOT TO BE KATOWICE, Poland—Undertaker Darius Charon was not used to his clients kicking up much of a fuss, so he was most surprised when he heard yelling and banging coming from his storage room. When the dust settled, so to speak, Charon discovered that Jozef Guzy, a bee-keeper who purportedly died of a heart attack after suffering a bee sting, was actually alive and unwilling to accept what Chesterton called the “defined condition [that] belongs entirely to the dead.” A few days in the hospital and Guzy appeared good as new. In gratitude for heeding his call for help, Guzy presented Charon with a pot of honey. There was no word on what Guzy bestowed on the doctor who pronounced him dead.
Tossing in the pad NEW YORK, N.Y.—Apple Computer’s customer service
personnel must be scratching their heads over this one. Peter Bregman, CEO of Bregman Partners, Inc. returned his new Apple iPad within days of standing in line for hours to obtain it. His reason? The device kept him so busy sending notes, updating his blog, writing articles, and checking the weather that he no longer had time to be bored. “Being bored is a precious thing,” he said, “a state of mind we should pursue. My best ideas come when I am unproductive.” Whether Bregman has ever read Chesterton, he learned the valuable lesson that the simplification of anything is always sensational. Since pitching the iPad Bregman has not only had time to be bored but also much more time to talk to his 8-year-old daughter, an experience he has found to be sensational.
Giving technology the boot LONDON—Then there are those, in contrast to our previous report, who simply can’t walk away from technology, in particular their mobile phones. These are the kinds who may go to all-day festivals in fear that their phones will go dead with no means to re-charge them. Coming to their rescue is Dave Pain, managing director of the dubiously named GotWind renewable energy company. Pain has invented thermoelectric Wellingtons (“Wellies” or gum boots to the more well-informed) that generate and store electrical energy as the wearer simply walks about. We don’t necessarily understand the science behind the wondrous Wellies other than they work on the “Seebeck effect” and use a circuit made of two different metals held at two different temperatures. While walking on metal plates doesn’t sound all that comfortable, Pain claims that after strolling in them for 12 hours, it’s possible for the boots to generate a whole hour’s worth of charge; enough, we suppose, to pacify the technically dependent for a while.
Bacon fad FRYING somewhere on the Internet—Everyone knows what lies at the end of the rainbow, right? However if you answered gold you may not be entirely correct according to Neil
: N e w s W i th V i e w s :
Caldwell, the inventor of multicolored Hennah, initially bought the blighted it exceptional, for Trueman used Rainbow Bacon. Caldwell recognized village because they felt sorry for it. 200,000 dead ants to create it. The bacon can add savor to just about any artist admitted creating the work was Citing lack of energy to run the town, meal but lamented that it didn’t add traumatic because he had to kill all the the Hennahs now are hoping to attract much to the presentation. As tradisomeone who has a vision for the poten- ants; word has it the ants weren’t all tional garnishes simply wouldn’t do, he that enthused about it either. The ants’ tial and opportunity Otira presents. came up with a process to dye bacon demise didn’t seem to bother his repHowever, with a current population of strips and thereby change the very con- 40, it would be hard to envision running resentative, Alexander Salazar, who is cept of a balanced breakfast to include currently negotiating to sell the work. even the pub at a profit. color coordination. More progressive Grateful for how news of the work types might be impressed, but from our Selling his ants’ portrait seemed to travel at light speed, Salazar Chestertonian viewpoint it represents a said, “People wanted to hear Chris’ SAN FRANCISCO—We might fashion sufficiently new to be unnatural. story about the painting, and hear his expect such a brave new artistic experiworry. When you hear someone feel ment to emanate from the Bay Area. Mixing beer with no cheer bad about killing ants for art, it wins Chris Trueman recently completed you over.” Despite the heart-rending AUCKLAND, New Zealand—So, a work he titled “Self-Portrait With story behind “Self-Portrait With Gun,” after a night of misery-induced drinkGun,” depicting his younger brother the main bidder for the work currently ing you fail to take a corner, crash dressed in cowboy garb and holding is Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum. through a wooden barrier, and flip your their father’s .22-caliber rifle. Although It’s not the Metropolitan, but maybe vehicle. You try to get out of the wreck, the title and subject seem rather it will suffice until Trueman works the only to find that you’re trapped. What mundane, it is the medium that makes bugs out of his technique. do you do? If you’re like Paul Sneddon, you have another beer and wait for the emergency crew. While we wouldn’t Clerihew Corner give Sneddon much credit for common An Imitator sense, you can’t fault him for honesty. The Professorial When police finally arrived at the scene Celebrating Famous & Clerihewist, and asked him how much alcohol he’d Infamous Names with Donald DeMarco ingested he answered, “Plenty. I’ve E.C. Bentley’s Elusive been drinking for four days straight.” Light Verse Form Bentley, Edmund Clerihew Sneddon’s statement didn’t give his Was indeed one of the very few defense attorney much to work with at Who could see in a name the subsequent trial. When it came out A riotous game. his client was still drinking at the time of his rescue, all the lawyer could think The great philosopher Plato to say was, “he had nothing else to When looking upon a potato do at that point.” With such a sterling Never thought it a part of a meal defense the barrister was fortunate But a shape that fell far from the Ideal. to get him off with a $700 fine and A collector of words named Roget a 10-month driving suspension, priNever went out to play, marily because it was Sneddon’s first But put more words in his Thesaurus offense. Chesterton would have offered The Originator Than are known to the rest of us. Sneddon much better counsel; drink President Coolidge carelessly but never drive that way. Colleagues of Louis Pasteur Objected to paying muleage Created a terrible stir When the people of Nicaragua Calling all Distributists By not coming to terms Sent him a nice jaguar. With the existence of germs. WELLINGTON, New Zealand— —Edmund Clerihew Bentley While scouting news from New Zealand, “Dear Lone Ranger,” we came across an enticing opportunity Wrote a stranger, CLERIHEW: A humorous, unmetrifor someone with $700,000 (U.S.) and “Why, may I ask, cal, biographical verse of four short a desire to ditch Hudge and Gudge lines—two closed couplets—with the Are you wearing a mask?” permanently. For that paltry amount first rhyme a play on the name of the Toulouse Lautrec an aspiring Distributist can acquire the subject. Readers are invited to submit Said, “What the heck! entire town of Otira on the west coast of clerihews for “The Clerihew Corner,” If I cannot be tall, South Island. Included in the package with the understanding that submisI can still have a ball.” is a hotel, school, rail station, town hall, sions cannot be acknowledged or returned, nor will all be published. 18 houses and, most important, a pub. The current owners, Bill and Christine Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity
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: L e tt e r t o A m e r i c a : G.K. Chesterton in the New York American
On Going Etruscan
M
By G.K. Chesterton
ad doctors (in every sense) tell us we shall suffer from repressive impulses. But sane men continue to repress impulses, including the impulse to hit the doctor on the head. We have not really tried living by liberating our instincts. D.H. Lawrence thought, and the Pagans of Etruria thought, that we should. The modern world is faced with a question. But the difficulty is not that the world cannot answer the question. It is that the world cannot ask the question. Mr. Aldous Huxley has asked it with quite incomparable clarity and fairness and force. How he would eventually answer it I do not know, and I should not presume to have the impertinence to prophesy. But he asks the question right, which is the first step to answering it right. He notes that the new psychological talk about “repressions,” and the general reaction against self-denial, have not been carried out to their logical conclusion, let alone to the practical conclusion. On the other hand, there have been writers in modern times, like D.H. Lawrence, and there have been whole cultures in ancient times, like that of Etruria, at least professing in theory that it should be carried out in practice. He asks very reasonably whether they were right or wrong, and I hope he will allow me a line or two in which to answer that they were wrong. First, I think they were wrong for the simple reason that, if the solution of human sorrow were as simple as that, human beings would have found it long ago. If a man could be instantly happy merely by doing as he likes, he would never have gone on so 50
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long doing as he dislikes. If paradise actually lay along the line of least resistance, how could we have missed it? So many pagan peoples have worshipped nature, so many communal communities have returned to nature, and all have returned to civilization. Second, I doubt it because all we know of the pagan communities shows that they did not really escape into the natural. That is why modern men like Lawrence are so fond of ancient cultures like Etruria; because they are
so ancient that we know next to nothing about them. We know a great deal about Greece. We know rather too much about Greece. Third, I note that D.H. Lawrence himself gives away the whole of his case by saying that his attainment of bodily happiness will be “in the long run more difficult” that the normal moral ideal. Why should it be difficult? If nature-worship is not natural, what in Demeter’s name is it? Difficulty means self-denial, and why should I deny myself for what I think a lower ideal, when I will not deny myself for a higher one? Fourth, though, I should never have expected either Lawrence or Huxley to accept this off-hand. I am profoundly convinced that all these calculations are falsified by the fact called the Fall of Man, which has left him at once lower and higher than the brutes, and is the only clue to all real human history—including the tragic history of the Etruscans. New York American, January 7, 1933
Th e C h e s t e r t o n A d A g e n c y - 3 ;;“Lives
with his Wife!” (“The Vista of
Divorce,” The Superstition of Divorce) ;;“From
the Man to the Superman! From the Structure to the Superstructure!” (“A Nightmare,” The Coloured Lands) ;;“This
Man Trebled His Turnover in Two Weeks!” (Illustrated London News, March 29, 1930) ;;DEATH
IS ABOLISHED!
(“Reflections on a Rotten Apple,” The Common Man) ;;“No Popery! Or Not Much Popery! Or Hardly Any Popery!” (“The
Moderate Country,” Collected Works, Volume 14)
;;“The Most Delightful Disinfectants in the World!” (“The New Christmas,” Collected
Works, Volume 14) ;;“Home
Rule for Homes!” (“The Banner
of Beacon,” Manalive) ;; “You Are in for a Rough Time If You Use Our New Kitchen Range!”
(“Vows And Volunteers,” The Outline of Sanity)
THE CHESTERTON REVIEW The Journal of the G. K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture Seton Hall University
“It is strange how seldom a literary journal is actually a good read.” —Joseph Sobran “The Special Polish Issue is indeed a magnificent edition.” — Luke Coppen, London’s Catholic Herald To order a copy of The Chesterton Review, or to learn more about it, call 973.275.2431 or email: chestertoninstitute@shu.edu Subscribe now: one year: US$38.00—Two years: US$70.00—US Subscribers International Subscriptions: www.isi.org Please visit our website: http://academic.shu.edu/chesterton
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Permit No. 47 New Hope, KY
chAnge seRvice Requested www.gilbertmagazine.com
NOW AVAILABLE ON DVD:
THE APOSTLE OF COMMON SENSE SEASON FIVE ❧❧ Thirteen great new episodes, including Chesterton’s amazing insights on: Language ❧ The Problem of Evil ❧ America ❧ Islam ❧ War ❧ Parenthood ❧ Priesthood ❧ Modernism
$39 95
❧❧ A brand new episode of “Ask Mr. Chesterton” ❧❧ See Stanford Nutting get flummoxed several times ❧❧ Scenes from Chesterton works such as “The Ball and the Cross,” “The Napoleon of Notting Hill,” “The Blue Cross” ❧❧ And a unique and delightful show on the Toy Theatre!
4117 Pebblebrook Circle, Minneapolis, MN 55437 952-831-3096 info@chesterton.org www.chesterton.org
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