Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming

I just got back from a Christmas concert at a Catholic seminary in a nearby county. It’s a traditional Catholic organization that uses the Latin mass, which means that it is basically dissident.

The concert was very uplifting, a mixture of ancient, traditional, and modern Christmas music. In addition to carols, they did Gregorian chant, “Ev’ry Valley” from The Messiah, a Bach chorale, something by Vivaldi, some jazzy stuff, and “Lo how a rose e’er blooming” in German.

The brothers at the seminary seem to be quite young — fresh-faced youngsters just out of high school, mostly.

The audience must have been largely Catholic, lots of parents with three or four children under six. I assume they drove in from fairly far away, since the seminary is in a remote rural location.

It was very heartening to witness such an event. The old ways aren’t dead. They’ve just gone underground in our corrupt, hedonistic, and satanic culture.

Too White to Reggae

Melanin-deficient artists are most definitely not permitted to adopt the customs of the Sons of Ham. Shame on those uppity honkies!

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from Junge Freiheit. The translator’s comments are in square brackets:

“Cultural Appropriation”

White people play reggae: Concert canceled

Bern

The concert by the group “Lauwarm” in the Bernese brasserie “Lorraine” was canceled because the band played Reggae. Its members have white skin, but some wear dreadlocks and African clothing. If whites play this music and adorn themselves with these hairstyles, it is considered “cultural appropriation” in the left-wing scene and is strictly frowned upon.

During the appearance in the left-alternative scene, several visitors expressed “discomfort with the situation”; the brasserie justified the termination on Facebook. The organizers regretted that the performance “evoked bad feelings in people.” They apologized for the alleged “takeover of one culture by members of another culture.” Rasta pigtails and Reggae music are basically reserved for Jamaicans. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung reported on the incident.

Similar incidents in Germany

The band, which also belongs to the left scene, no longer understands the world: “We felt insulted because nobody from the audience approached us when we played that evening,” said the musician Dominik Plumettaz to the NZZ. He defended himself against the accusation of racism: his band’s performances are neither about provocation nor about cultural appropriation. “We get inspiration from other cultures and other genres of music, develop them further and make our music that way.”

That may be over now. After the cancellation of the concert, which made headlines, it may be difficult for “Lauwarm” to find venues. And the brasserie also said that the band had been invited to the performance only because of their own “lack of awareness”. The audience “should have been better protected”. On August 18, they want to offer an informational evening on the subject of cultural appropriation.

Similar cases have also occurred in Germany. Most recently, “Fridays for Future” cancelled the performance invitation for the musician Ronja Maltzahn because she wore rasta braids as a white. However, she was given another chance: “If you decide to cut off your dreadlocks by Friday, we would of course welcome you to the demo and let you play.”

Afterword from the translator:

Continue reading

And the Glory of the Lord Shall Be Revealed

Merry Christmas, everyone!

The photo above was taken here at Schloss Bodissey, but not today. That was Christmas of 2009, possibly our most recent white Christmas. Today it’s very mild, almost like spring.

For your listening enjoyment, here is an excerpt from The Messiah by George Frideric Handel. Sir Colin Davis is conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, and Mark Padmore is the soloist, if I’m not mistaken.

The libretto is based on Isaiah 40:

4   Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:
5   And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
 

The future Baron is here. He is the designated cook, now that his mother is gone, and will be preparing a nice London broil for our Christmas dinner.

Posting for the rest of the day will be light, possibly just the news feed.

I’m thankful that I live here in the Outer Boondocks, far from the full Coronamadness that people in most large cities have to endure this Yuletide.

For example, the governor of New York has just signed a new law that will make the forgery of a “vaccination” card punishable by up to a year in prison. Which I suppose will eventually lead to scenarios like this one:

But let’s not think about that right now — we’ll just enjoy the celebration of the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ.

And it’s OK if your Christmas is white.

Taking the Fifth

Last Friday’s Farmville Herald included a notice that the Richmond Symphony Orchestra would be performing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony on November 12 at Longwood University. Farmville is not all that far from me, so I was tentatively planning to attend, even if they did make me wear a mask.

Until I read the second paragraph, that is: “As part of Longwood’s arrangement with the RSO, proof of COVID-19 vaccination and a photo ID will be required at the door.” Also: “All attendees must wear a face covering.” Just to make sure they’re really, REALLY safe.

Well, I guess the only fifth I’ll be seeing that Friday will be one of Jameson’s.

This is the first occasion on which my activities will have been restricted by my unvaxed status, but I’m certain it won’t be my last. I’ll post about future ones as they come up, at least until they become so routine as not to be worth mentioning. Writing about such an extreme affront helps me experience my outrage fully and hardens my resolve not to roll up my sleeve and allow that needle in my arm.

I comfort myself with the thought I most likely wouldn’t have enjoyed the performance, anyway: based on the photo of the orchestra, at least 98% of the musicians are white, which would surely trigger me.

Laughing Into 2021

Dymphna and I made somewhat of a tradition of posting “Laughing into 1939” on New Year’s Eve, most recently four years ago. It’s a song from Al Stewart’s 1995 album Between the Wars, and is always worth listening to as we ring out the old and ring in the new.

I’ve been laughing into 1939 for almost fifteen years now. Will it ever actually arrive? Or will we somehow manage to skip it, and go straight to 1946? Or, better yet, 1968…

The New Year’s celebrations in the Year of the Corona will be somewhat restrained. The ball is going to drop on schedule in Times Square, but the only people there to see it will be select municipal employees who have been granted the privilege to be present, socially distanced and wearing their masks.

All around the globe New Year’s Eve parties have been banned. In major cities the CoPo will be enforcing the lockdown. Be careful when you raise that glass of organic sustainably grown fair-trade champagne!

Happy New Year, everybody. The Boogaloo awaits us!

The lyrics to the song are below:

Continue reading

Have Yourself a Very SAFE Christmas

Merry Socially Distanced Christmas!

All citizens are strongly advised to keep themselves safe by following approved COVID-19 preventive practices as recommended by the CDC:

  • Greet your guests at a distance using a hand salute. Avoid all personal contact.
  • Sit at least six feet apart from each other when opening presents around the tree.
  • Sanitize each gift and its packaging, and wear gloves and a face mask when opening it.
  • No candy or other treats should be passed back and forth — each stocking item should be individually packaged in a sterilized, sealed container, to be consumed only by the intended recipient.
  • Wear your masks between sips of eggnog.
  • Christmas carols may be played using Spotify, but should not be sung, hummed, or whistled by participants.

You may enjoy recordings of some of your favorite traditional seasonal music:

  • I’ll be Locked Down For Christmas
  • I Saw Mommy Fist-Bumping Santa Claus
  • While Shepherds Washed Their Hands by Night
  • Deck the Halls With Plexiglas Barriers
  • Police Drones We Have Heard on High
  • Fauci the Snowman

…and many others.

Or, if you want to listen to some real Christmas music…

Continue reading

Life is a Corona Cabaret, Old Chum

I don’t know about everyone else, but I need something to distract myself from the Election Madness that has currently seized the USA.

The following video is just the ticket. It features a cabaret song about the Wuhan Coronavirus by a German artist. Oz-Rita, who translated the video for subtitles, includes this introduction:

This video was recorded some two months ago, well before the less conformist among us woke up, so the guy really has guts. It subtly and musically attacks the (World/German) governments. It is a song, so the translation does not do it justice.

It was posted by Politically Incorrect, and this is how they introduced it:

Posted by PI Politik Spezial — Voice of Reason

Will Ludger K. (the artist) be allowed to perform after this video? It is doubtful.

Info about his performances at: www.ludger-k.de

I do not know if he has been allowed to perform since then.

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

Continue reading

Biden My Time

And now for something completely different…

Biden My Time

by JLH
(with apologies to George and Ira Gershwin)

I’m just Biden my ti-ime,
That’s the kinda guy I-I’m.
My mind’s not there,
But look at my hair!
Bein’ cute just ain’t no crime.

I go swimming ba-are.
When female security’s the-ere.
It isn’t flashing
Because I’m splashing.
They pretend I’m not there.

I am utterly fai-air,
Whenever females are the-ere.
Seventeen or seven,
It’s utterly heaven
To bury my schnoz in your hair.

Now I’m really on tra-ack
To get the Oval Office ba-ack.
Fall in with me.
If you don’t, you see,
That means you just ain’t black.

I go with the ti-ide.
That’s my favorite ri-ide.
I go with the flow.
I never say No.
My strength is flexible pride.

Continue reading

A Looter’s Life for Me

Below is JLH’s latest topical pastiche in verse form.

A Looter’s Life for Me

by JLH
With apologies to Pinocchio and other blockheads

Hi diddle-dee-dee,
A looter’s life for me.
A full face mask and a baseball bat;
I’ll show those $%&!*#s where I’m at.

Hi diddle-dee-dee,
Anonymous funding for me.
Bashing elders is lots of fun;
If they don’t fall down, away I run.
Breaking windows done with care
So none of the glass gets in my hair.
It’s so much better than going to war.
It’s not some principle we’re fighting for,
But just the fun of being rash,
And maybe looting some extra cash.

Hi diddle-dee-dome,
The basement is my home.
When I get the call to go destroy,
It is a moment of utter joy.
I leave the game of killing orcs,
And join my fellow mayhem dorks.
We maim and destroy and sometimes kill—
Slaughtering folks is such a thrill.
We’re avenging angels for some rich guy
Who hates everything that he can’t buy.

Hey diddle dee dum,
That’s where progress comes from.

The Treaty of Trianon, One Hundred Years Later


Suleiman

The Treaty of Trianon, which dismembered the state of Hungary after the Great War, came into force exactly one hundred years ago today. Hungary and the Western Allies signed the instrument at the Grand Trianon Palace in Versailles; hence its name.

Hungary ended up losing two-thirds of its territory under the terms of the treaty, which stranded more than 40% of its population outside the borders of Hungary without anyone having to move.

Our Hungarian correspondent CrossWare has translated the following essay about the Treaty of Trianon, which relates Trianon to the earlier Muslim invasion, from the conservative portal PestiSracok.hu:

Suleiman was also present at the Trianon execution attempt

by László Kovács Vésey
May 25, 2020

Like when a man is beaten down with bat, so was the Trianon peace dictatorship: he falls to his knees, the world spins around him, and he doesn’t even understand what happened to him. To date, we have not recovered from it, either as a country or as a people. Those who demand that we at last leave this Trianon problem behind us and deal instead with the future do not take note of reality, because the past cannot be left behind unfinished. Trianon itself is a good example of this, as it has not fallen into our head without antecedents. Even a hundred years ago, the unprocessed past, our own omissions, and the fruits of the trickery of our enemies ripened together.

In today’s eyes it is almost inconceivable that Hungary came to the end of the Middle Ages as a sparingly stable and unified country, one of the leading powers in Europe. Even if the nobles and lords intervened at times in the king’s affairs and were able to stir up internal strife, no one could question the existence of a unified royal power. The kingdom had serious reserves of power, and was rich in precious metals, ores, and salt, not to mention food. Hungary had one and a half times as many inhabitants as England or Poland, two and a half times as many as the Czech Republic, and we had a decisive influence on the life of Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. There was no mention of a united Germany and Italy at that time; France was working on the creation of a centralized kingdom, just as a similar process took place in Spain after the success of the Reconquista. Besides ourselves, the latter two states were real military powers in that era.

It may even be considered a vagary of fate that in the immediate vicinity of this Hungary, which was a great power in all respects, the Ottoman Empire, which surpassed the strength of all European countries, had arisen. To this day there is no consensus among historians as to whether we would have been able to defend ourselves, but if we had, it would have required unparalleled self-discipline and conscious unity for two centuries from the king, nobles, and serfs. We lost the inevitable clash, but the Turks did not have enough strength to swallow our entire country. Thus, we did not sink into the Balkans (Transylvania, Partium and the South, after Trianon), but in terms of population, nothing worse could have happened to us. For two centuries our country became a battleground, with marches of the ever-increasing Ottoman, Habsburg, and Transylvanian armies regularly passing through our territory, requisitioning the peasantry that remained after taxation and double taxation. And if only they had just taken the taxes!

We Have Suffered a Disastrous Destruction

The Ottoman looting of the rural populations was accompanied by a significant extinction of the population and the destruction of the settlement structure. The whole countryside was depopulated, and many villages disappeared forever. If we look at the map of present-day Hungary, we can see that there are still only rare settlements in the Great Plain. During the uncertain period of occupation, instead of defenseless villages, people concentrated in a few swollen market towns and settled on large-scale animal husbandry, which was more sustainable in terms of possible escape, rather than farming. For this reason, there are settlements with a larger population and sparsely populated areas in the Great Plain, and the instances of single standalone farms are also rooted in this fact. But the Hungarian population remained at least partially here.


Hungary’s settlement density — the footprint of the Ottoman Turks is still visible today (source: terport.hu)

Muslim conquerors killed a large number of people and drove the enslaved Hungarians in endless columns to Istanbul and then sold them to various corners of the empire. During the Turkish conquest of 1521-1568, the Fifteen Years’ War of 1591-1606, the Austro-Turkish War of 1663-1664, and the expulsion of the Turks between 1683 and 1699, we suffered immeasurable horrors, probably the most brutal genocide in Europe in the last thousand years. At that time the Hungarians of Szerémség disappeared from the Hungarian majority of Temesköz, but by the end of the Turkish expulsion, the Hungarian population of Baranya, Tolna, Somogy counties and Partium had largely disappeared. These flat areas were the main terrain of the movements, so their populations became extinct, which in the vast majority of cases meant the Hungarian population.

Our Numbers Were Dwindling, While Everybody Else Was Thriving

Continue reading

The Tomb is Empty

Happy Easter, everyone!

This is the first time I’ve missed an Easter Sunday service in more than thirty years. It’s disorienting and somewhat depressing — what am I doing here, typing on the keyboard, when I should be down there at church singing Easter hymns…?

Dymphna and I usually included some music in our Easter posts, so I’ll continue that tradition. This one is a change of pace: a bluegrass song entitled “My Father Owns”. The link was sent to me by the man who wrote it:

He is risen!

A Host of Kind Faces

This post was a “sticky” feature for a week, and was first published last Monday. Scroll down for items posted since that time.

Winter Fundraiser 2020, Day Seven

Sunday’s Update: Snaps From the Family Album

This morning’s update will be brief, and will include just two final photos of kind faces from my memory. The first one is the above snapshot of Dymphna from 1987. I’ll tell you more about that in a minute, after I get the formalities out of the way.

Tip jarWe’re down to the wire here in the Winter Fundraiser of 2020: this is the final day. If you haven’t put a jingle into the tip cup (or this link), now is the time to do it.

Just think: this is a way to avoid all those noisome and obnoxious ads that you see on most sites. This blog relies entirely on modest donations by individual readers. I have no commercial sponsors. I’m not supported by any foundations or think tanks. The only sponsors are the people who read this site.

So if you appreciate what you find here, please drop a groat in the cup. A reminder: I send 10% of what I fundraise here to Vlad Tepes, whose video work is absolutely crucial to what I do. If you think he deserves more, please visit his site and click his own donate button.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

The photo of Dymphna at the top of this update is one of my all-time favorites. It captures her essence: that is exactly Dymphna, my beloved wife, with whom I spent forty fortunate years.

The picture was taken at my annual art show in the fall of 1987. The venue was a restaurant on the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville. I’ve racked my brains trying to figure out who Dymphna was talking to when I took the snap, but I can’t do it. However, I can identify all three paintings on the wall in the background, despite the blurriness. Funny about that.

The final set of kind faces for this fundraiser is a detail from a larger group photo that was taken in the mid-1980s when the future Baron was just a few months old. As far as I know, the fB and I are the only two people in the photo who are still alive, but just in case I’ve cropped the rest of them out:

That’s Dymphna at the top, and her mother seated in front of her. Boy, I sure had more hair in those days. And none of it was white yet.

These last two snaps from the Bodissey family album wrap up the 2020 Winter Fundraiser. I realize that I’ve been wallowing in nostalgia this past week, but then, wallowing is an emotional necessity for me in these our wintry days.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Saturday’s donors hailed from:

Stateside: Connecticut, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Mexico, West Virginia, and Washington

Far Abroad: Lithuania and the UK

Canada: Ontario

Australia: Western Australia

This concludes the 2020 Winter Fundraiser for Gates of Vienna. I’ll post a wrap-up with all the locations sometime in the next few days.

A hearty Bodisseyan “thank you” to all those people on four continents who chipped in. It looks like I’ll be set for another quarter.

Saturday’s Update: Miscellaneous Faces From History, Not All of Them Kind

I’ll switch gears this morning and post a series of faces from history, chosen by whim from my image library. The one above shows Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (a.k.a. Joseph Stalin), Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Sir Winston Churchill at the Tehran Conference in late 1943. Sir Winston’s face might be characterized as “kind”, but FDR’s and Uncle Joe’s not so much.

I have more faces to post, but first a word about what I’ve been doing during this week that is rapidly drawing to a close.

For one week every quarter I beg for money from readers to help keep Gates of Vienna going. The tradition began while Dymphna was alive, and continues in her absence. We depended, and I still depend, on the kindness of strangers. Actually, not all of you are strangers, come to think of it…

So if you haven’t done so already, please click that funky tip cup on the sidebar (or use this link) and drop in a ha’penny or two to help keep this enterprise afloat.

What’s amazing to me is the large number of modest donations that have come in. They’re generally quite small, but there are so MANY of them — they really add up. I’m humbled by your generosity, and pleased to see so many first-time donors.

Continue reading

Nothing Swedish Here…

The ripples continue to spread from the Scandinavia-negating video commercial by SAS. The graphic below is one example (hat tip LN), as is the brief satirical essay below it by Thomas Bertonneau.

Nothing Swedish here…

by Thomas F. Bertonneau

There is nothing characteristically Swedish about generic person Fred Åkerström’s vintage televised performance of the entirely forgettable Fredmann’s Epistle No. 48“Solen glimmar blank och trind” [“The Sun is Shining Smooth and Round”] — by the generic poet-musician Carl Michael Bellman (1740-1795), who only accidentally wrote in Swedish. Notice Åkerström’s two accompanists — the Bantu flutist and the Samoyed violoncellist. It is well known that Bellman’s poetry is based on the oral traditions of the ancient Peruvians, which were culturally appropriated by the Vikings during their imperialistic voyages in the eleventh century. Of course, there was nothing characteristically Scandinavian about the Vikings either. Their “dragon ships” were plagiarized from the hull-form of the Polynesian Kon-Tiki rafts.

Below are the first three stanzas in English. The full verses may be found here.

The sun is shining bright and round
The water is like a mirror
After a while a wind starts blowing
into slacking sails
The pennant is unfolded and with an oar
Olle is standing on a hay-boat
Kerstin comes out from the cabin
locks the door

The steel is shining, the pipe is light
Olle scratches his ear
The rudder is turned, the boat turns around
The old man is busy
Beneath strong eyebrows
he grins against the sun in the sky
Kerstin, the sweetheart of the old man
will tend to the sails now

The sails are flapping, the boat is moving forward
Jerker grabs his lyre
The lyre hums, the waves hit against the boat
With force and frenzy
The boat creaks, fragile, thin
The wind is seen in the top of the boat
The rooster crows so harsh and hoarse
The clock just struck four

For previous essays by Thomas F. Bertonneau, see the Thomas Bertonneau Archives.