Of names, etc.

Karin’s colleague: “What’ll you name your baby?”

Karin: “It’s a secret.”

“Another biblical name?”

“Yes.”

“Thomas?”

“No.”

“A name from the Gospels?”

“No, from the Old Testament.”

“Noah?”

“No.”

“Ishmael?”

“No.”

“LOL Cain and Abel ha ha ha ha ha ha …” (leaves).

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Our son was born this afternoon. His name is Abel Barnaby.

Likely nicknames: Abe, Abey, Abey Baby, Abey Barney. His pre-natal name, “Pip,” might stick for a while. His cousin, Ada, is fond of that name.

Anyway, there’s no reversing the decision. The paperwork has been submitted.

Samuel was adamant: His little brother was to be called Abel; he was to be born in December, not in late November as his parents hoped. Oh, how glad Sammy was on Dec. 1 when I told him “Pip” definitely wouldn’t be born in November!

Daniel’s feelings are unknown. He’s a cheerful little boy, though, so I am hopeful.

The two big brothers are at home with their grandparents. Abel is with Karin & me in the hospital. The three brothers will meet tomorrow or the next day.

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“Abel” is spelled the same in English and Spanish. It’s a simple and recognizable name, if not a common one.

The namesake came to grief, but he is honored in the Old and New Testaments.

As for “Barnaby” … well, there’s the biblical Barnabas, another fine person; there’s D.C.I. Tom Barnaby of Midsomer Murders; and there’s Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge, which opens with this sentence:

In the year 1775, there stood upon the borders of Epping Forest, at a distance of about twelve miles from London – measuring from the Standard in Cornhill, or rather from the spot on or near to which the Standard used to be in days of yore – a house of public entertainment called the Maypole; which fact was demonstrated to all such travellers as could neither read nor write (and at that time a vast number both of travellers and stay-at-homes were in this condition) by the emblem reared on the roadside over against the house, which, if not of those goodly proportions that Maypoles were wont to present in olden times, was a fair young ash, thirty feet in height, and straight as any arrow that ever English yeoman drew.

Of the titular character, I know nothing; but the sentence is worthy of commemoration.

It’s late and I’m exhausted. Details and pics will follow. Just know that Karin is well; Abel is well; I love him; and he sleeps peacefully and preciously, wrapped up like a burrito.

1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 81: Midsomer murders: The killings at Badger’s Drift

[D.S. Troy:] “Why would they want to kill her? Unless it was adultery. I suppose it could have been ass bandits.”

[D.C.I. Barnaby:] “What?”

“In the wood.”

“You mean homosexuals, Troy?”

“Well, that’s what I said.”

“You are as politically correct as a Nuremberg rally.”

∙∙∙

[Mrs. Barnaby:] “Was that Sergeant Troy just now?”

[D.C.I. Barnaby:] “Yes.”

“I’d like to meet him one day.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

Poor Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby (John Nettles) must fight on three fronts: professional, domestic, and, of course, criminal. Bucolic Midsomer County is “the deadliest county in England.” People aren’t just murdered there: they’re speared with pitchforks, beheaded with guillotines and swords, poisoned with mushrooms, locked in freezers, tied down and then bludgeoned with wine bottles launched from catapults. Motives include: incest, ancestral loyalty, class hatred, religious mania, orchid covetousness, and every flavor of vengefulness. One outwardly mild killer, bored with England, murders while hallucinating that he lives in the Old West.

The first episode, “The Killings at Badger’s Drift” (1997), is based on Caroline Graham’s novel. A kindly old spinster, searching the woods for orchids, stumbles upon a person or persons in flagrante delicto. Horrified, she flees … is pursued … is dispatched. Barnaby and young Troy (Daniel Casey) are called to the scene. Troy is eager to conclude that the death was accidental. But a neighbor suspects foul play, and a nosey parker blackmails the killer. Bodies soon pile up.

Barnaby studies a connection with a previous death, the (allegedly) accidental shooting of the first wife of a rich landowner. This odious man is now engaged to his much younger ward (Emily Mortimer), whose casual untruthfulness piques Barnaby’s interest. Her brother, an artist (Jonathan Firth, Colin’s brother), is quarrelsome and perhaps slightly unhinged. But he’s less alarming, and certainly less revolting, than the smarmy undertaker who drives a too-expensive car and lives too harmoniously with his mother. Familial relations in the County are, as a rule, either discordant or perverse.

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It’s with some relief, then, that we also view Tom Barnaby’s utterly bland home life. His daughter, the winsome Cully (Laura Howard), is an aspiring theatre actress who bounces from gig to gig (and, in other episodes, from boyfriend to boyfriend). Tom’s wife, Joyce (Jane Wymark), engages in cultural pursuits of virtually every form. Tom is the casualty of Cully’s and Joyce’s hobbies. In this episode, he complains of the daintiness of Joyce’s cooking: she serves him quail instead of chicken.

Unsurprisingly, then, he relishes eating out of the house – in the pub or police canteen – or would relish it, were he free of that obnoxious greenhorn, D.S. Troy.

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Barnaby – English for Barnabas – means something like Son of Encouragement. Grumpy as Tom can be, the name is apt. Barnaby treats suspects with respect, and he gives Troy his due. In time, Troy will earn Barnaby’s trust – and a promotion to Detective Inspector, away from Midsomer County.

Other young sergeants will come and go. (How many of them will fall for Cully?) Tom and Joyce will age into curmudgeonliness. After thirteen seasons, Tom will retire; John, his cousin, will replace him as Detective Chief Inspector. John’s family will replace Cully and Joyce. The parade of sergeants will continue. (Medical examiners, too.)

The body count will rise.

The show has now aired for twenty-four seasons and in twenty-seven different years, lampooning/​celebrating every English trope under the sun. Boys’ schools? Check. Pagan ritual? Check. C. of E. bellringing and grave-tending? Check. River punting? Racehorse breeding? Pub-keeping? Landscape painting? Check.

There’s the occasional sequence in Wales or on the Continent, but the scenery is overwhelmingly Southern English. Picture-postcard settings are preferred. (In the show’s first scene, the doomed spinster happily pedals by a sign commemorating Badger’s Drift’s “best kept village” status.)

Off-camera, cast and crew would rise early and ride trains to far-flung locations. Fed-up regulars would leave the show to escape the grind.

Meanwhile, the nation’s best actors would take turns as guests. Anna Massey, Toby Jones, Joss Ackland, Olivia Colman, agèd Bond girls, members of the sprawling Fox family: all lent their talents to this show, this national institution.

Midsomer Murders is a showcase for cottages and pubs and manors, for lawns and fields and forests, for customs respectable and insane; but also for actors trained in old-fashioned, theatrical, British craft.

An aborted journey; we finish Midsomer murders; body-text fonts, pt. 7: Janson Text

My parents set out yesterday for a tour of Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, one or both Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and I forget where else. How I envied them! They got as far as Illinois, and then my mother tested positive for COVID.

So, now, they’re back.

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This month’s typeface is Janson Text.

(A crooked but stimulating observation.)

Some say this typeface is the best of the Jansons. I wish it had a longer-tailed Q, as Monotype Janson has.

Also, everything depends on what you count as a Janson. Is Ehrhardt a Janson? Now, there’s a question.

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It took five years, but Karin & I finished viewing all of Midsomer Murders. Twenty-two seasons; 132 episodes of 90–100 minutes.

My overall assessment:

Grainier picture → better episode.

More French horn → better episode.

More scenes with Joyce Barnaby and Cully Barnaby → better episode.

Teleplay by Anthony Horowitz → better episode.

In other words: the earlier, the better (as a rule).

As it happens, we concluded the project with an early episode: S2E3, “Dead Man’s Eleven,” about the cricket. When we first tried it – four years ago? – I couldn’t stay awake, due to my sleep apnea.

I don’t know if more episodes will be released.

Whatever will we do when we run out of Midsomer Murders?, I used to lament.

Karin suggested: Watch them again.

I think we shall.

A NEW new revised standard version

Samuel is on my lap, reading Curious George. My bible is in another room. I reach for my portable electronic device and open a tab to access the Bible Gateway.

Halfway through today’s Numbers passage, it dawns on me: this is not the NRSV.

Where, oh where, is the NRSV? I scroll up and down the menu. It’s gone. In its place is the New Revised Standard Updated Edition (NRSVue).

Apparently, this change took place on May 1.

Here is the announcement, from the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, posted in the Bible Gateway.

And here is a report from the Religious News Service, which highlights the new version’s “consideration for ‘modern sensibilities’” (the term “enslaved woman” is preferred to “slave woman,” etc.).

All right. As Miss Brodie says, for those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like. These changes may even be good. But I am in the middle of reading through the NRSV, and it is annoying not to have it in the Bible Gateway.

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I am making too much of this. The Bible Gateway still maintains these editions:

• New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised (NRSVA) (note the “s” in “anglicised” 😇);
• New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition (NRSVACE);
• New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (NRSVCE).

So, if I want to, I can just read from one of them, if I am not reading from a paper bible. I can read from one of the “anglicised” editions if I want to pretend I’m a character in Midsomer Murders.

(When reading the Bible, as when doing other things, it is tempting to pretend.)

Of course, in Midsomer Murders, charcters always use the Authorized Edition.

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Thinking about it more, I am not sure the “modern sensibilities” are defensible – at least, not in certain cases. The Religious News Service tells us that in the new edition, various updates

reflect a decision to avoid identifying people based on their disabilities.

A verse in Matthew that previously referred to “demoniacs, epileptics and paralytics,” now reads “people possessed by demons or having epilepsy or afflicted with paralysis.”

That demon possession is a medical disability, in the way that epilepsy and paralysis are medical disabilities – that it is not, in fact, a mark of spiritual identity – is too hefty an assumption for a translator to make.

Of course, the NRSVue doesn’t say that demon possession is a “disability.” Its language is neutral about that. (I haven’t tried to find out if the new phrasing is any more, or any less, faithful to the Greek.)

Again, what troubles me is the bluntness of the apparent motive for this change. The change itself – in this passage – may be all right.

Pepe is of the immortals

In one day, Samuel has gone from slithering on his belly to crawling. He used to crawl just one or two feet at a time. Now it’s his preferred mode of locomotion.

He still slithers when his arms are weary.

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Full episodes of Midsomer Murders have long been streamable gratis, with advertisements, through IMDb.

Now, FilmRise has posted quite a few episodes to YouTube. The videos appear to be ad-free.

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Watching the UEFA Nations League, I was a little surprised to see Pepe trot out onto the field for Portugal. “He is so, so old,” I told Karin.

(He’s only a couple of years younger than I am. He’s older than David.)

“Maybe he’s like Grimes,” said Karin.

It took me a moment to understand whom she meant. At first, I was thinking of Grimes the musician. Then I realized that Karin was referring to Captain Grimes of Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall.

GRIMES WAS OF THE IMMORTALS

The back porch; the back lawn; 1990s NBA

We’ve cleaned up the spacious, shaded, screened-in back porch, and I’ve been trying to spend time on it each day, out of doors but not really out of doors. Samuel is very interested in what he sees outside. Jasper and Ziva also like to explore out on the porch; I must supervise them, however, because Karin keeps a dahlia there, which is poisonous to cats.

On Saturday, we all gathered on the porch with Mary & Martin and Stephen & Edoarda. Each family stayed some ten feet from the others.

Then, on Sunday, I had to mow in the rain.

(It really is a soggy lawn. I understand why on Midsomer Murders the English are always wearing Wellingtons. Everyone says our tree looks like a willow, and then remarks that willows don’t usually grow away from water. I think there’s plenty of water.)

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The outstanding documentary series of the quarantining period isn’t Tiger King; it’s The Last Dance, about the 1990s Chicago Bulls. I haven’t seen a single episode of The Last Dance – we don’t have cable – and yet I know it’s good because every day my Facebook feed is crowded with articles riffing on this or that point it raises. I’ve been inspired to rewatch quite a few old basketball games on YouTube. (Samuel likes them, too.) These are the three conclusions I’ve drawn:

(1) The Chicago Bulls were awesome (pick any year).

(2) The 1994–1995 Houston Rockets were awesome, though they didn’t win many games in the regular season. Hakeem Olajuwon was just tremendous: powerful and very smooth (and a crafty ball stealer).

(3) The 1997–1998 Indiana Pacers were as good as I remembered them (i.e., very good). Would they have beaten the Jazz in the final playoff round? I don’t know.

These impressions are borne out by two fine articles by Sam Quinn: one about the Rockets, and one about the Pacers.

100 greatest Britons

My little boy turned six months old. See him with his mother:

Ziva is in the background, at one o’clock.

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Do you watch so much British TV that, occasionally, you need to be reminded that you aren’t British?

You may be helped by this BBC poll from 2002 that identifies the “100 Greatest Britons.”

Consider: who was Isambard Kingdom Brunel?

Not only had I not heard of him, the alleged second-greatest Briton (ahead of the likes of Darwin, Newton, Shakespeare, and Elizabeth I); I’d be surprised to encounter five non-Britons who could tell me who he was.

(Reading about him, it’s obvious that he was a tremendous figure. It’s just that, on this side of the Atlantic, the Industrial Revolution looms less large in the imagination.)

I understand the high rating of Diana, Princess of Wales, even if I don’t agree with it. I even understand the inclusion of J.K. Rowling to the detriment of Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, and other genre fiction writers. People get fixated upon recent figures.

It’s surprising, though, to see a 17th-century terrorist such as Guy Fawkes rated so well (30th). Not that I object. I think I understand his appeal. But it wouldn’t have occurred to me to make it a criterion for “greatness”; no, not even though I love to watch Midsomer Murders, which is close in spirit to how Guy Fawkes Night is celebrated. (And since Fawkes is included, why not Jack the Ripper?)

The list has no philosophers unless Darwin and Newton are counted as such. Hobbes? Hume? Absent. Locke? Adam Smith? They must have been reserved for the U.S. list.

Blake, not Turner, is the only painter.

No Yeats; no Joyce. Instead: Bono. Pop singers abound.

Actors abound: Richard Burton the actor makes the cut above Richard Burton the explorer. (Explorers abound, too.)

Parental leave

These weeks of staying at home with Karin and Samuel have been among the happiest of my life. I’ve been able to watch plenty of TV – quality TV, like Midsomer Murders. And on my birthday, we viewed Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan, which delighted Karin.

We’ve also been eating handsomely. Our church created a “meal train” for us. The congregants have been taking turns bringing dinner.

Samuel has been eating better, too. His tongue tether was clipped by a doctor of the ear, nose, and throat. Now it’s easier for Samuel to latch on to the breast.

(On a wall in the doctor’s office was a satellite photo of San Francisco, California. “That’s how San Francisco looks?” asked Karin. That night, I showed her Dirty Harry.)

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We visited the public library in Mishawaka so that Karin’s former colleagues could admire our son. Browsing the stacks, I found a book that, many weeks ago, I’d asked South Bend’s librarians to procure via InterLibrary Loan (they never did). I was miffed to learn that the book hadn’t been far away – the two libraries are just minutes from one another. Perhaps the blood between them is poor.

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Having narrowly lost to Italy, Ecuador is out of the World Cup. It was interesting to watch the sixteen-year-olds: so talented, so boneheaded.

Earlier today, Karin & I viewed the first half of Mary Poppins. We turned Samuel toward the TV. It’d be nice if he would remember Mary Poppins as his first movie.

I hadn’t seen Mary Poppins for many years. It was startling how young, how fresh-faced, Julie Andrews looked. Karin did some research and learned that Julie Andrews was twenty-nine when the movie was released. I’m nine years older than Mary Poppins.

I’d always been impressed by her sternness. Now, she looks not long out of university.

(Give Bert a chance, Mary Poppins. Give Bert a chance.)

Closing credits (2017)

Zero degrees, Fahrenheit. “Feels like −11°,” says the Weather Channel. Plenty snowy, too.

No heat in the church building, so tomorrow’s service is canceled. I’m glad Karin gets two full days off (the 31st and the 1st).

And so ends 2017. This is my hundredth entry of the year.

For providing material to discuss, I wish to thank:

Karin.

The kitties, Jasper and Ziva.

All the soccer players.

The weather.

Kazuo Ishiguro.

Bertrand Russell.

Russell (the dog).

My other family members.

My tutees.

The LimeBikes of South Bend.

The fire department of South Bend, for turning us out of our first marital dwelling. (That building has been demolished. There’s a vacant lot where once was so much love.)

The church camp.

President Lenín Moreno.

President Donald Trumpie.

ProQuest, for storing many dissertations.

The State of Wisconsin.

Brianna and other in-laws.

The Bee Gees, for singing “Fanny.”

The Isle of Man.

Wilkie Collins.

Flashman.

The Irish. I didn’t blog about them, but they figured prominently in what I read and watched on TV. A nod, also, to the Scottish (it goes without saying that I was obsessed with the English and the Australians). I wonder if 2018 will be the year of the Russians.

I hardly saw any new movies. The most I did was to catch up on the offerings of the last decade. Two standouts were It Follows (2014) and Man on Wire (2008). Tonight I saw Nerve (2016), which was a cut above most of what gets released nowadays. (It strikes me that all three of these movies supply a good dose of existential dread.) I did watch a lot of TV. I spent many happy hours immersed in Broadchurch, Midsomer Murders, and Shetland – British crime shows – and in Rake, which is about lawyers and politicians in New South Wales. (I was transfixed, if not happy, watching The Fall, another British crime show.) Of these, I urge everyone to try out Rake; as one reviewer puts it, beneath its farcicality it’s about how to be good. Man on Wire I also unreservedly recommend. It’s about how sometimes a person’s calling has nothing to do with being good, but with doing one beautiful and useless thing.

Good night!

Thanksgiving

It’s my Thanksgiving break, so I stayed at home. Karin went to her job. I read all morning. I missed the armed robbery that occurred at IUSB. In the afternoon, I performed some chores and wrote in my dissertation. Ziva and Jasper were glad to have me with them.

In the evening, I watched Grêmio defeat Lanús, 1–0, in the first game of the Copa Libertadores’s final round. It wasn’t a beautiful game. I turned it off after the first half and watched Midsomer Murders with Karin. In that show, there was one especially nice camera shot. It was from the point of view of a murderous shovel.

For tomorrow’s holiday dinner, we’re planning to eat Greek food, not Chinese. Then we’ll go to Karin’s grandpa’s house to play Phase 10 for several hours.

I’m grateful, this Thanksgiving, for my wife and kitties.