Pope Sylvester and the Magic Pebble

Today is the sixth day of Christmas--halfway finished. I'm realizing this year that 10 presents or so, for each child, is quite a bit, even if many were inexpensive. We're going to have to retool this a bit--work out our celebration with fear and trembling (not just trembling at the amount of money spent).

Today's feast is brought to you by Pope Sylvester I. I didn't realize there was a Sylvester II, much less the first one. Supposedly he's the inspiration for "Father Time" (S 1st, that is). Anyway, whenever I hear the name Sylvester, beyond the association with the cartoon cat with a saliva problem, I think of William Steig's endearing book, the only one of his I ever read as a child, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble.

The story has nothing to do with popes or even Christmas. All I can think of is poor Sylvester transformed into a rock, causing his parent's unimaginable heartache, and Sylvester's loneliness through a year(?) sitting in a meadow, conscious, unable to do anything but be.

If you've never read the story I think you, even as an adult, should. In fact, why don't you do that sometime this week before Christmas ends next Sunday. Read it to your children if you have some. Let me know what you think.

Comments

Worth Quoting

There are but three social arrangements which can replace Capitalism: Slavery, Socialism, and Property. --Hilaire Belloc The Servile State

Good reads of 2009

I haven't made a list like this in a while, and I believe I discussed most of these on the blog as I finished them, but I thought I'd make a handy short-hand list for you and me. These are only in the order I read them and do not indicate any preference. The Open Door * Frederica Mathewes-Green The Children of Hurin * J.R.R. Tolkien The Omnivore's Dilemma * Michael Pollan Agrarianism and the Good Society: Land, Culture, Conflict, and Hope * Eric T. Freyfogle Wonderful Fool * Shusaku Endo Up the Rouge: Paddling Detroit's Hidden River * Joel Thurtell and Patricia Beck Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction: Christianity and the Battle for the Soul of a Nation * Rodney Clapp (I started the following in December, but I haven't finished them--so far they are excellent: Love and Hate in Jamestown * David A. Price and The Picture of Dorian Gray * Oscar Wilde) Try one of these--let me know.

Independent Women?

During breakfast today I was reading an excerpt from a play in The New York Times Magazine (I know, I was a day behind and read Saturday's edition yesterday) entitled Rust . The play, written by a professor at Grand Valley State University, here in Michigan, is a nonfiction drama about the closing of a GM plant in Wyoming, MI. The play itself sounds interesting and I enjoyed the excerpt, but what caught my eye was something a character said. The character is "Academic" and plays a historian and guide to the playwright, also a character. He is explaining the rise of the automobile factories and the effect of the car on American culture. He says, "Women became independent, they go from producers of food and clothing to consumers of food and clothing." This was meant as an earnest, praiseworthy point. I would counter with "How far we've fallen." To say that a woman (or a man) is independent because she has moved from producer to cons

I Am Not Hamlet

Search This Blog