GUESS WHICH ONE WAS ELECTED

COULD THEY, OR WOULD THEY?

I decided to show this in black and white because of all the people in this graphic there did not emerge the new pope.  Of all the discussions and guesses and yes, even bets, it would be interesting to know what the odds were that the archbishop of Buenos Aires would be the one elected.  Actually, they were not that bad.  About 30%. 

It is rather attractive to us as human beings to turn everything into a horse race.  It matters not what the purpose of the endeavor is, we are always attracted by the strong desire to forecast the outcome.  Our drive to measure the probability factor of any outcome is more than we can control.  Just plain guessing is not enough.  We have to do the math.  We do it for just about everything. 

We squeeze and pat; kick and shake; slice and dice; turn and flip; push and pull; ask and opine and do just about anything to try to arrive at a sure prediction of the ultimate result.  We all know that it is nothing but “snake-oil” science, but it is better to nurse that rationalization than to admit that it is really nothing but a gamble.  We have to admit, we enjoy the game.  The more mysterious the process, the more fun we get out of projecting the outcome.  That is why the election of the Roman Catholic Pope is so intriguing and so attractive to the prognosticators, insiders and outsiders alike.  In the case of the Vatican event, there don’t seem to be any “insiders.”  Even this time when, after the result was known, it was bandied about that the “winner” had come in second in the previous election.  How true can that be when nary a public “bet” was expressed in his favor before the voting began?  Doesn’t that make you just a little bit skeptical about how much anyone really knew?  If they did know, especially the newspaper people, would they not have floated the prediction?  Would they not have placed their bets with the Irish gambling houses? 

Furthermore, I get this strange question ratling around inside my head:  after it is all over do they still hang around with each other for about a week or more.  They’re out and about, celebrating together, patting one another on the back and calling the winner “Holy Father.”  “Holy Smoke!” is what I say.  Aren’t the losers just a little bit disappointed?  What about the guy who came in second?  Maybe he doesn’t feel quite so bad because after all, the winner did get at least 67% of the vote.  That’s quite a margin.  And it only took five rounds to get it done.  Who knows, maybe it was “rigged.”  I am sure that it wasn’t rigged, but that it was a foregone conclusion before the fifth round.  They knew what they were doing.  That’s perhaps why they can hang around together after.  They decided what to do and how to do it and it became a very solid corporate decision.

When they got together for prayer the next day one reporter quoted the new pope as saying to his electors, “I pray that God will forgive you for what you have done.”

With a sense of humor like that, we might have a sign that we are off to a good start.

AH, YES, BIG CITY LIFE

There was an interesting episode in my life a couple weeks ago.  It happened in San Diego, California   Not the largest city in the country, but larger than South Hadley, Massachusetts, where I grew up, or Holyoke, where I went to school and where my grandparents lived.  It is certainly bigger than Enfield, New Hampshire and even bigger than Enfield, Connecticut.  To put a finer point on it, it is even bigger than Springfield, Massachusetts which I think must be a city of about 1,000,000 by now.  I say all of this because big cities have some very interesting moments along the course of any given year.   I know because I have been around some of them along the course of my life.  Rome, Italy was the one that I was the closest to for four years.  Boston, Massachusetts is familiar to me; Los Angeles is a place that I know fairly well; I started by disliking San Francisco and a long association (six years) with that city didn't change my initial impression.  Paris, France I do not like because of the people, but the place, I like.  I much prefer Lyon and Grenoble in France and that might be because they are more than somewhat smaller than Paris.  The big difference though is the people.  I won't mention Manila, Tokyo and Hong Kong.  I was in Taiwan for three days once when I was younger and I have some very nice memories of of it.  One story of what happened to me there is heart warming and humorous all at the same time.  I'll have to remember it so that you can enjoy it too.
Of them all, as well as some that I have not named, San Diego, California is my total favorite.  
So, a little while back I was in San Diego and I followed my habit of picking up both alternative press newspapers.  I like them both. One is small and artsy (San Diego CITY BEAT) and the other (The  San Diego READER) is a lot more prosperous and runs about 150 pages on a weekly basis.  It is edgier, as you can see by the cover indicating a piece of investigative reporting.  I read them both every time I am in San Diego.  I always start with the City Beat because it is about a fifteen minute project.  Then I move on to the Reader and that can take as much a almost a week because of the crossword puzzle and other interesting nooks and crannies.  It also features one of the oldest and best investigative columnists I have ever read.  He has to be at least 90 years old by now, and he keeps on writing edgy, well researched, in your face columns.  So I try not to miss any of his writing.  
Back to my "big city" story.  
Turns out that a historical building in downtown San Diego had just been bought by a group that plans to remodel and refurbish it to suit its needs.  Turns out that it was a parachute factory early in its history.  When it became known that it had been sold and that it was going to be torn inside out, a cooperative art group of young and starving artists was able to get permission to have a one day graffiti art exhibit inside the building.  I thought that the idea was brilliant.  I thought that the buyers are marvelous to give people a chance to express themselves in such a challenging venue.  In fact, it was not just the artists who were expressing themselves.  We visitors were too.  We didn't just put our $5.00 on the table.  We walked around, met one another, told ourselves our level of appreciation and by our very present, made a statement about the meaning of the event.  I made the tour three times in the hour that I was there.  I made the dumb mistake of forgetting my camera at home.  I took pictures with my telephone but they did not succeed very well.  The introductory picture at the top of the page shows you what kind of art we saw that night.  There was not a single wall left untouched...even those what were not plastered.  They turned everything into an artifact.  It was great.
Three cheers for a series of initiatives that didn't let ceremony, rules and/or regulations stand in the way but facilitated a life event for the good of the community.  I can only hope that someday you can have a similar experience.

ONE LUNG, ONE HEART

I once had a semi-relative who had one lung.  It was in the days when tuberculosis was still a threat in the United States.  I say he was a semi-relative because he was one of those people whom you always called uncle or aunt simply because of the simple fact that they were adult friends of your parents.  It was being a "hapa" except that we didn't know that term back then.   Now we have a new Pope who has one lung and he is still going strong.  Just like our Irish "Uncle Dave."  Uncle Dave was a rarity.  He was married to a lady who was from a very staunch Franco-American family with Franco-American mores and values.  Yep, he beat ol' Jack to the punch.  

Dave was a great guy.  He married a sweet lady Irene and they had son Dennis.  Yeah, the Irish spelling won that round.

So now the world has been introduced to a real world phenomenon in Vatican City.  This new Papa really breaks the mold.  He is a real, honest to goodness "Hapa."  I'm not centuries old, believe me, but I would dare wager that there has never been a "Hapa" pope.  This is a real piece of creative Italian problem solving, compromising, Machiavellian Gerrymandering.  Are those enough metaphors for you in one sentence?  It is also quite a piece of hair-splitting expertise by those wily Jesuits.  How to get one of your guys in the position to which you owe vowed obedience?   From the area where "rice Christians" were invented!  So, all around we keep the Italians happy because they get one of their guys in the driver's seat.  They get some revenge by laughing at the rest of the world trying to pronounce his surname.  Of all the easy ones that we know, Conti, Pace, Montini, Scola, Capone, Cuomo, Arcaro or even Fratangelo, we get a "hapa" by name of Bergoglio.  I bet that even in Argentina he had some fun with that one.  The television networks are going to have to conduct Italian as a Second language courses to teach their personnel how to pronounce that.  Actually, it's a good thing that he chose Francis as his AKA.  It was always a little difficult for me to get accustomed to hearing people refer to Pope Benedict XVI as Pope Ratzinger.  Now the Italians can get their revenge by having a name in the office that only they can pronounce correctly.  I have to admit that I got a smile hearing him speak Italian with an Argentinian accent.  I am constantly told that I speak Spanish with an Italian accent.   What a world we live in!

So, the Italians get one of their own back on the throne, kinda, and the South Americans can go nuts thumbing their noses at the North American Gringos who are still standing in line wondering when it is going to happen to them.  There's not a thing that Ellis Island can do about that.  

If any of  you are harboring desires to go to Rio de Janeiro for the Youth day shindig, Good Luck!  Half the population of the planet will be there.  I can see airplane fares from North American going to 10,000 simoleons, round trip...on a gaudy Yellow and Green Brazilian airlines Boeing Z3330SP Bergoglio.

Let's pray that God will give him some time to get something done.

THE ORIGINAL MUSICAL INSTRUMENT

http://blog.moski.me/2012/05/human-voice.html
http://365newthoughtsperyear.blogspot.com/2012/12/aida-carmen-and-la-traviata-who-are-they.html

First, I give credit to "Moski Doski" whom I found during my search for an attractive, catchy picture for this thought of mine.  Here's his introduction to the thought that he had on this subject:

In spite of all our communication technology, no invention is as effective as the sound of the human voice. When we hear a human voice, we instinctively want to listen, in the hopes of understanding it. Even when the speaker is searching for the right words to say. Even when all we hear is yelling, or crying, or singing. That's because the human voice resonates differently from anything else in the world. 

That's why we can hear a singer's voice over the sound of a full orchestra. We will always hear the singer, no matter what else surrounds it.

I decided to get back to the process of writing because after a lay-off caused by a ton of other things, like earning $ being one, I can now sit on my Gold Bullion and turn to doing something that I like.  I have a line of notes to get back to, but this comes first because it has a strong dose of nostalgia tied to it.  I think I may have mentioned the core thought sometime before, but I'm going to chance it because this is a new twist.

Without getting into the grimy details of the story, let me just say that there came to my gray matter that there is a person in the world who refuses to sing "a capella" in the church choir. Must have instrumental music.  No music, no voice!  Oh boy!  That lit my fire.  I remembered the rather heated but very respectful and very humorous exchange between EFR Dion and my dear, dear, one-handed grandfather, Joseph.  My grandfather lit the fuse under EFR by asking me the challenge question: "What is the first musical instrument in the world?"  I tried everything that I could think of, and all he would repeat was "NO."  Then he simply said, "Ask your father."

I didn't know what I was in for, and I didn't have the slightest clue that there might be a skirmish in the still.  So, I asked my father.  He named a long string of instruments, some of which I had mentioned, but I somehow did not feel as though he had hit on it, and I said so.  So, of course, he said, "Ask your grandfather."  I did not sleep very well that night.  I was shivering all though the first half of the day because I knew that I was going to walk from school to Grandpa's house for lunch.  The only good thing about that day was that he had to work late that day and so he had now gone to work in the morning.  So, we did not walk together to get to lunch.

As a matter of distraction  let me say that all of this happened before there was a telephone at Grandpa's house.

I get there. I hug him. He hugs me back.  I get my feet back on the floor and when he's sure that I'm in balance he fires the dread volley: "Well, what did he say?"  

"Uh, Hummm, well, I don't know.  He named some stuff that I don't know about, but I still don't think he's right."

"He doesn't know?"

"Maybe he knows, but I don't think that anything he said last night is what it is.  So, I don't know."

"HA!  He doesn't know."

"Well, maybe..."

"Nope.  No 'Maybe.'  He doesn't know.  Whatever he said he was just guessing."

Now I have told you all that I am not afraid of my Grandfather.  But at this moment I am one uncomfortable 9 year old boy.  I sneak a peek at JMT Joyal, my beloved Grandmother, but she's staying safely protected by the cast iron stove.  This is man talk and she is not having any part of it.  

I'm going to try to save the day.  I offer a weak question,

"What do you want me to tell him?"

"Tell him that it's the human voice."

"The human voice?"  That was a reflex that I didn't think I had in me.

"Of course.  God made it so that people could sing to Him just like the angels do.  He should know that!"

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure.  Father Ginet knows that too."

OOOooohhhh!  Now I know that my father can't win this one.  The feared/beloved/respected pastor knows.  All of a sudden I am now trembling not from Granpa fear but from the fear of having to tell EFR Dion that Joseph Thibault has one up on him.  Why oh why doesn't my grandfather have a telephone?

Dear reader, I will not stretch this out any more.  But this was a discussion that lasted a couple of weeks.  EFR Dion LOST, big time.  I am convinced that he deserved to lose.  I can say that now that he is comfortably in the Bosom of Abraham.

It brings me back to the "a Capella  refusal.  How can any singer, especially one in a church choir like the one to which I'm referring, with any real grasp of the rich truth that the human voice is the pre-eminent musical instrument on earth refuse to sing a Capella?   We have the one instrument that comes from God.  

Hearing about this the other day also made me remember the time that I was driving towards the San Francisco Bay Area of California and on the radio there was by happenstance a classical music radio station.  One of the presentations was a recording of an opera singer who was "playing" an instrumental composition with her voice.  No words, just the notes off the music sheet.  I had never heard anything like it before then and haven't had a similar experience since.  It was exhilaratingly beautiful.

In the traditional ways of the Catholic Church, the Lenten Season was a time when musical instruments were not to be played as accompaniments to the human voice.  That must have been "instrumental" in the development of Plain Chant since it is easier to sing a Capella and, in fact, sounds better that way.  

So, that is my stated conviction on that question.  I'm sticking to it and I am sure that it will be the reason why a big bunch of you will have absolutely no inclination to cry at my funeral.