Sunday, November 25

Whew. Even more changes. Joseph's exploration of his vocal range continues. A couple of days ago, he was doing this weird thing in which he'd close his mouth, blink, and snort. It was very strange. Today, his sound of choice was a loud sort of "Ha!" Michael wondered if Joseph, when he actually starts saying words, will actually shout them, since that's what he seems to do all the time at the moment.
Saints in the Making: According to this report, three canonizations of the well-known are definitely in the works: Padre Pio, Josemarie Escriva, and Juan Diego, seer of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Two of them please me, one does not, particularly. You can probably guess which one. Escriva was the founder of Opus Dei - an organization, I hasten to say, that does much good. No, it's not the Opus Dei factor - it's the fact that I've read much of Escriva which points to a less-than-saintly nature - high-handedness, arrogance, and even cruelty. Many canonizations have a political aspect to them, and with this one, it's particularly noticeable, and not very pleasant to watch.
The high standards of book publishing. A new biography of Vivienne Eliot, the wife of T.S. Eliot, has been published in England. A reviewer, in a generalized skewering of the book, points out one of many errors:

Painted Shadow is often assisted to lurid hypotheses by ignorance. One of the reasons given for thinking Eliot was gay is that he often quoted from Saint John of the Cross, whom Seymour-Jones mistakes, despite the 1,500 years between them, for Saint John "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (and of course we all know what that means).

Boy. Forget the whole St. John-was-gay thing. The fact that the author could get past the secretary at the publishing house with a book that confused St. John of the Cross with St. John the Apostle is simply astounding. Aspiring writers take hope! Or despair - I'm not sure which.