R.I.P. “Lucy Pevensie”

… according to some. Lewis biographer Alan Jacobs isn’t convinced but happily pays tribute. Lewis devotees will recall the nice girl who lived at the Kilns during the Second World War. It’s good to hear how she turned out.

Her IMDb page.

Here she acts with Jean Simmons.

Some lives are blessed. Lucy’s (in the Chronicles) was even more favored. She reigned in Narnia; sailed to that world’s edge; and then, in her prime, was whisked away to Aslan’s country and the new Narnia.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Speaking of how “Narnians” turn out:

A new Blu-ray collection of the BBC’s Narnia has been released some forty years after the series was first broadcast. Included is a documentary, Return to Narnia, featuring the original cast.

I learned this from the tabloids. (It popped up in various feeds.) The sensational bit is that Narnia was filmed next-door to pedophile Jimmy Savile’s studio. No Narnia actors were harmed.

The afore-linked piece tells that Downton Abbey’s Lesley Nicol was in this series. For completeness’s sake, here are a few other familiar names:

Tom Baker

Warwick Davis

Camilla Power

(Familiar, that is, if you’re a British-telly glutton.)

So far, a different Narnia adaptation has been released every twenty years or so since Lewis’s death.

May each “Narnian,” in time, be brought to Aslan.

Closing credits

What happened in 2023? It’s a blur. I get through a day at a time. I barely look ahead or behind.

Mostly, I chase after children who live only in the moment. They are rather wicked. (As I compose this, one of them is removing his diaper and peeing on the floor.) My wife kindly looks after them a few hours every third evening so I can record my thoughts on this blog; a week later, I’ll’ve forgotten what I’ve written.

I steal moments to do a little reading. A book or two later, I’ll’ve forgotten what I’ve read.

Someone at a party asked which books I liked best this year. I said Shakespeare, Harry Potter, and Narnia; I had trouble remembering anything not in a series. I had to check my list of “completed” books after I got home.

My life is turning into a series of disconnected events. I’m becoming the hero of Borges’s “Funes, the Memorious,” only without the memories.

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Before I forget, I wish to complain that the previously serviceable app Grammarly has quietly gotten much too big for its britches. Yesterday, I was typing in a document, and Grammarly sneakily auto-corrected “resistible” to “irresistible,” which is THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT I MEANT. This illustrates a larger point, that 2023 was the year when a lot of ordinary people started noticing (or reading online) that AI had “jumped the shark.”

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“You need to go to therapy, Sweetie,” says Karin. “This is the bleakest entry ever. ‘I remember nothing, and the robots are coming.’”

She is too young to understand.

Now that I think about it, it would be amusing to pay a stranger to listen to me read my blog entries out loud.

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Allegedly I groan a lot, even when I’m sitting still.

Do I groan, or purr? Jasper snuggles next to me as I type this, and our noises sound alike.

Jasper is middle-aged now; Ziva is almost middle-aged. They’ve both mellowed out. They hardly fight each other anymore.

I look forward to my sons’ attainment of this happiness.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Every year, I read the book of Zechariah; and afterward, I am sorry to say, I forget about it until the next year.

It ends like this.

[14:16 ff. (NIV):] Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, and to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles. If any of the peoples of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, they will have no rain. If the Egyptian people do not go up and take part, they will have no rain. The LORD will bring on them the plague he inflicts on the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles. This will be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles.

On that day HOLY TO THE LORD will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, and the cooking pots in the LORD’s house will be like the sacred bowls in front of the altar. Every pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the LORD Almighty, and all who come to sacrifice will take some of the pots and cook in them. And on that day there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the LORD Almighty.

So when you worry about war in Israel, or anywhere, think about that.

Muerte cruzada

“That was the secret of secrets,” said Queen Jadis. “It had long been known to the great kings of our race that there was a word which, if spoken with the proper ceremonies, would destroy all living things except the one who spoke it. But the ancient kings were weak and soft-hearted and bound themselves and all who should come after them with great oaths never even to seek after the knowledge of that word. But I learned it in a secret place and paid a terrible price to learn it. I did not use it until she forced me to it. I fought and fought to overcome her by every other means. I poured out the blood of my armies like water – ”

“Beast!” muttered Polly.

“The last great battle,” said the Queen, “raged for three days here in Charn itself. For three days I looked down upon it from this very spot. I did not use my power till the last of my soldiers had fallen, and the accursed woman, my sister, at the head of her rebels was half way up those great stairs that lead up from the city to the terrace. Then I waited till we were so close that we could see one another’s faces. She flashed her horrible, wicked eyes upon me and said, ‘Victory.’ ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘Victory, but not yours.’ Then I spoke the Deplorable Word. A moment later I was the only living thing beneath the sun.”

(From The Magician’s Nephew.)

In Ecuador, the political situation isn’t as dire as this. But it’s close.

On the verge of impeachment, the president, Guillermo Lasso, has spoken the Deplorable Word. Or, rather, he has invoked its watered-down, constitutional equivalent, the muerte cruzada (“mutual death”).

The legislature is hereby dissolved (although this won’t go unchallenged). Lasso’s tenure is now slated to end in six months. Meanwhile, general elections will be held. The victorious legislators and executive will serve out the remainder of the original, pre-dissolution term of office, which will continue until 2025.

Lasso, in theory, could win his election and be “resurrected” as president. Until then, it will be his prerogative to govern by decree, unchecked by the legislature (but not by the courts).

The BBC explains.

My dad made the point that muerte cruzada amounts to a check on legislators, discouraging them from overthrowing the president – spuriously or otherwise – as the Ecuadorian Asamblea Nacional has been wont to do.

In this case, it was the legislators’ foolish attempt to oust Lasso that provoked Lasso to oust them from the government.

A longer-term consequence is that from now on, every likely presidential impeachment can be expected to result in a dissolution of the legislature. Immanent impeachment virtually guarantees a comprehensive reset.

That might not be such a bad thing.

More worrying is the period of governance by presidential decree. I hope that things will turn out all right this time. But it’s not the sort of privilege I’d be glad for just any president to exercise.

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Karin had planned to take a few days off, for enjoyment. Then, she tweaked her lower back, was unable to walk, and ended up taking Tuesday and Wednesday off, for recovery.

The children were mercifully docile those days.