A Gentle Fuss

Maureen O'Brien of Maria Lectrix has devised a simple and excellent tune to which Chesterton's matchless epic, "Lepanto," may be sung, and sings it commendably in a downloadable mp3. It's apparently been out there for almost two years, now, judging by the date on which it seems to have been posted, so I'm sort of ashamed not to have discovered it 'til now (thanks to the ACS blog).

The recording is clear and unaccompanied, though she does bang out a useful rhythm somehow, likely on a desk or tabletop. There are a few slips, on her part (it is a ten minute song with few moments for rest, after all), but they are few and far between, serving more to highlight the scope of her general success otherwise rather than to distract therefrom.

The poem is marvelous. If you're reading this, you probably already know that. If you don't already know it, find out today. You will not likely be sorry.

I've started work on the Wordpress blog, as promised. I even have a name picked out and everything. Hurrah. It should be up and ready to go in fairly short order (later this week, possibly), but I'm still back and forth on whether or not I should import this blog's contents to that one in an attempt to keep a sort of continuity to the thing. It's likely that I'll just keep the old stuff here, for the time being, only making new pages over there for posts that have been especially popular or contentious or substantial.

One of the neater merits of Wordpress is its function as a host for standard web pages as well as blog posts. This will make relevant semantic archiving somewhat easier, quite apart from the use of category tags. You'll see why once it gets set up.

Anyway, more to report as it becomes newsworthy.

So, the summer being here and the bulk of my work being completed, some return to regular posting is in order. I'm not yet entirely sure what that will entail, but it will entail something.

I'll get back into the swing of it soon enough, but for the time being there are a number of things that should be happening in the next week or two.

1. New name, look, host, address

I was sick of the name of this blog about eight minutes after I chose it. Minor anecdotes about Thomas Hardy aren't the best mine for effective blog names, for one thing, and the one I chose in particular is especially deficient. What it lacks in manliness (and it lacks much) it makes up for with complete opacity of meaning. Not my finest hour.

So, that will be changing, along with the rest of it. I'll probably move the whole operation over to Wordpress, which has some neat features with which I've been experimenting. The most noticeable results of this will be the (probable) lack of an image header, and the complete absence of imprudently-crafted white links on a grey background. I mean, I could probably still figure out a way to make them that awkward, but I'd rather just learn my lesson and settle for black on white (or whatever).

2. Something of a new focus

I don't know exactly what this means yet, either, but I've been wanting to make a change. Any focus at all would likely be an improvement, really, because it's easier to build a readership - particularly one that wants to comment - when you cater to a specific set of topics rather than sputtering all over the place. This will probably go in one of two directions, the first being a limited set of things discussed from a variety of perspectives, and the second being a great many things discussed from only one. An example of the first approach would be the old Chesterton and Friends blog, which will post about pretty much anything, good or bad, as long as it has to do with Chesterton or his somewhat extended circle. An example of the second would be something like Mark Shea's blog, wherein that author brings his genial popery to bear on everything under the sun.

Whatever happens, I'll try to have a bit more about religion and comic books, anyway. Those are two reasons I started this blog in the first place, and both of them sort of fell by the wayside a little as things progressed. A greatly expanded library of media reviews will also be attempted.

3. The Ballad of the White Horse

One topic that is sure to come up is the epic poem named above. Chesterton's lengthy 1911 ballad concerning the victory of Alfred the Great over the Danes at Ethandune is a great favourite of mine, but more than that, as far as blogging is concerned, it is also the subject of my Masters research, and I've spent the last eight months - and will spend the next two or three, too - examining the poem's origins and reception.

I've uncovered some interesting stuff, though the degree to which it will prove interesting to the reader will vary from case to case. This will likely serve as content, occasionally, when I find it worthwhile to think something through by writing about it in a popular rather than an academic manner.

That's about it, for the moment. I don't have any real posts to make just now, so I'll leave it at this. Further bulletins as events warrant, but I'll be sure to post more later anyway. Any comments, questions or suggestions (for a new blog name, especially) would be appreciated.

Due to loads of freaking work still to be done, my planned return to regularly-scheduled blogging will continue to be put off for a little while yet. Tomorrow will see me conduct a three-hour seminar on Stephen Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, a book of unspeakable excellence, and next week demands the completion of two papers for classes that are concluding; one on Alejo Carpentier's The Kingdom of This World (precise topic not yet known), the other, happily, on the annotative function of blogs.

So, back to work.

The first teaser poster for The Dark Knight, hitting theaters in July of 2008, is now available for viewing as had previously been announced. Behold:


(Click for larger version)

That's the ticket. That's very much the ticket.

The first trailer, which is said to be more of a lengthy excerpt (like five or six minutes), is scheduled to be attached to I Am Legend, opening in just over a week. A likely description of that trailer (for those are so into this sort of thing that reading a description of a trailer for a film that won't come out for another seven months is worthwhile) can be found here.