the House of Bragança

I have on a time, a couple of decades ago, read a history of Portugal (which morphs into a history of Brazil) in Spanish, and been enchanted, generally, with the legendary musicality and far-sighted liberality of Portuguese kings.  Yesterday I surfed the Net gathering infos on those fascinating emperors of Brazil, Pedro I and Pedro II--the former of whom is, I believe, the first man in modern history known to have taken a bath a day (a fact much--even too much--appreciated by his empress, Leopoldina von Habsburg, who expired in her twenty-third year, in, or shortly after, her seventh accouchement).

Today I mentally walked through the development of the town and district of Bragança in northwestern Portugal, from medieval times (and the marriage of an abbot to an Armenian princess who happened to be passing through on pilgrimage to San Juan Compostela), up to the accession of John IV, Duke of Braganza, in 1640--of whom Wikipedia vouchsafes:

John was a patron of the arts and music, and a considerably sophisticated writer on music; in addition to this, he was a composer.  Among his writings is a defense of Palestrina, and a Defense of Modern Music.

A Fucking (very welcome) Miracle!

As recently as a week ago, it appeared that our Neighbour to the North would be forever in thrall to the malevolent reactionary Bush-clone Stephen Harper.  But suddenly, in the way that real parliamentary democracies do change overnight, by real, popular elections, Harper was gone, and Justin Trudeau, eldest son of the late, sorely missed Pierre Trudeau--Liberal, gay rights activist, marijuana liberationist, and utter Hunk--was in as Prime Minister, and a New, Better Day had dawned.  Canadians, though happy with the choice they've made, seem a little non-plussed with the tidal wave of drooling approbation from the rest of the world of their new Prime Minister, who is universally dubbed PMILF (Prime Minister I'd Love to Fuck).  My own thought is that this is a Genie that is not going to go back in the bottle.

Au Cinéma/Télévision

Thanks to Hulu and Netflx, variously, the past couple of nights I've been watching the first two episodes of Supernatural's eleventh season, and all of last year's Great British Bake Off (the first and so far the only reality television show that I have ever watched): Both in their several ways perfectly delicious.

Honestly, I'm not making these things up

Headline of the New York Times this morning:



"Obama Announces Halt of Troop Withdrawal in Afghanistan"

¡Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

I think the rhetorical figure is called Litotes, where two words with opposite meanings are used--such as "halt" and "troop-withdrawal" (troop-withdrawal, il faut l'avouer, already counts as one, detestably euphemistic word)--to mean something quite the opposite of both; usually, in normally well-bred people, with humorous intent.  But in the humorless language of politicians and generals, the pompous solemnity of the phrase "halt troop withdrawal," with the plain meaning of "persist in (violent) military occupation," while ridiculously and fatuously absurd, is not meant to be funny: Its purpose is fraudulently to deceive (the American people and the world at large), to conceal nefarious motive and purpose, and, villainously, to exculpate (their own atrociously guilty selves). Haven't you noticed?--There are War Crimes being committed (by the U.S. and NATO) all the time, everywhere, but most especially in Afghanistan.

Well, Rosie, I'm back...

For a truly cockroach experience try the utterly purchaseless ascent of the utterly inaccessible mountain of faceless glass that is AT & T, or, as it calls itself in these parts HawaiianTel.com--No, don't.  Lo importante es that I have a new, better, Internet provider and phone service (Time Warner Oceanic), which is costing me $50 a month, instead of $155, and which gives me 50 megabytes downloading speed, instead of an exiguous and much begrudged 15.  Jezuz fucking christ.