Whoopity-Doo, Tarantula Town!
Discovery: Celery cures my headaches. Or at least lessens them. So that's good to know.
Did you ever consider the Medicis? I mean, duh, of course you have. The whole idea of rampantly pro-family Italian bankers pleases me to no end. Here is an entire family of people (who all had the gout) who were so obsessed with getting their clan ahead in life that they were basically facing damnation at the hands of the church way back in the 14th century. Is it any wonder that the church then claimed that the plague was the punishment for usury? And why these same usurers then just doled out some of their ill-gotten usury to the anti-usurists at the Church for plenary indulgences and blammo! Get out of purgatory free. It was a pretty sweet they had going. I mean, unless you were poor (it always sucks to be poor).
It's always been an attitude, the idea of Family First, that has unnerved me since I read Dante's Inferno and there were about a dozen crispy critters lying around being sodomized with flaming sulfur, and the only thing they could think about was like HEY DANTE HOW'S UNCLE TONY DOING? DID HE STOP SMOKING LIKE HE SAID HE WAS GOING TO? OW OW OW OW? TELL MARGIE THAT HER NEW HAIRCUT LOOKS NICE! You'd think that people in Hell might be a little more concerned about being in Hell, but I guess they're pretty relaxed about the whole damnation thing. This metaphor is infinitely applicable to life in modern America, BTW - the country may be going on a non-guided tour to Hell in a handbasket, but at least the family is defended, and the gays can't marry.
I mean, you have to have your priorities.
Short post today, for tomorrow I embark upon a voyage. A voyage to find an apartment. In a place. Maybe across the hall from my sister - we'll see.
Did you ever consider the Medicis? I mean, duh, of course you have. The whole idea of rampantly pro-family Italian bankers pleases me to no end. Here is an entire family of people (who all had the gout) who were so obsessed with getting their clan ahead in life that they were basically facing damnation at the hands of the church way back in the 14th century. Is it any wonder that the church then claimed that the plague was the punishment for usury? And why these same usurers then just doled out some of their ill-gotten usury to the anti-usurists at the Church for plenary indulgences and blammo! Get out of purgatory free. It was a pretty sweet they had going. I mean, unless you were poor (it always sucks to be poor).
It's always been an attitude, the idea of Family First, that has unnerved me since I read Dante's Inferno and there were about a dozen crispy critters lying around being sodomized with flaming sulfur, and the only thing they could think about was like HEY DANTE HOW'S UNCLE TONY DOING? DID HE STOP SMOKING LIKE HE SAID HE WAS GOING TO? OW OW OW OW? TELL MARGIE THAT HER NEW HAIRCUT LOOKS NICE! You'd think that people in Hell might be a little more concerned about being in Hell, but I guess they're pretty relaxed about the whole damnation thing. This metaphor is infinitely applicable to life in modern America, BTW - the country may be going on a non-guided tour to Hell in a handbasket, but at least the family is defended, and the gays can't marry.
I mean, you have to have your priorities.
Short post today, for tomorrow I embark upon a voyage. A voyage to find an apartment. In a place. Maybe across the hall from my sister - we'll see.
Labels: Double-Usury Tee Eff, Folk Remedies, The Medici Family
posted by Thomas Carlyle | 8:21 PM
2 Comments:
As I understand it, the idea that the dead are quite concerned about the affairs of the living is important to the Comedy as a whole, as it is the only interesting things that happens in Paradiso. Which makes sense: why would one read a book entirely without struggle or conflict? A review I've read (but cannot find. Sorry.) suggested that this, not heaven being more boring than hell, is why most of us only ever read Inferno: Inferno lets us judge, but Paradiso judges us.
I don't know about you, but I totally judged the Paradisio.
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