Woooooooot—it’s Halloween! At long last!
Halloween is particularly fun when it’s on a Friday. My little town “observed” trick-or-treating last night, but I’m going with Dr. Fiancée and my niece and nephews tonight (we’re not dressing up, but the kids are). I’m looking forward to some family time.
How are you celebrating tonight, readers?
With that, here is 31 October 2019’s “Happy Halloween!“:
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Ah, yes, Christmas. Time to gather round the yule log with a glass of thick eggnog and sing some Christmas carols. It’s a time of cozy good cheer—and presents!
Every family has their own Christmas traditions, some of which date back generations to their grandparents or great-grandparents. Others are new traditions. That’s a bit of a paradox—a “new tradition”—but all traditions started as some newfangled innovation at some point.
I’ve not lived very long—just nearly thirty-nine years now—but I have been around long enough to see the gradual (and sometimes sudden) morphing of Christmas traditions to accommodate new realities. When I was a child, Christmas Day followed a predictable pattern:
It made for a very fun Christmas—and not just because of the presents! My paternal grandparents had five children, each of whom had two or three kids (with the exception of one uncle, who remained a bachelor until later in life). Some of those kids—my cousins—went on to have lots more (one of my cousins has given birth to at least ten children; we’ve lost count at this point). But before all those great-grandchildren were born, we still had a lot of cousins running around at my paternal grandparents’ relatively small house. It was fun.
Inevitably, we’ve grown up and started families of our own (or, like yours portly, I’ve remained a bachelor, my only “child” being an overweight purebred dog; I’ve really embraced modernity in that regard). I’m extremely blessed to have my maternal grandparents still, but both of my paternal grandparents have passed (Papa in 2005, Mama in 2012). Those changes have meant changes in Christmas traditions. My plethora of cousins and their God-given fecundity have necessarily meant that the focus has shifted to their families. My aunts and uncles are now grandparents, and they have their own Christmases.
So, what of Portly’s immediate family? What of our yuletide celebrations?
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As a natural conservative, not merely a political one, I have always felt an affinity for the British monarchy, and never bought into the excessively utilitarian (and inherently radical) arguments that favor the abolition of the monarchy. After weeks of listening to videos from The People Profiles about the monarchy, I am even more convinced in the necessity of the British monarchy as a cultural and political force.
To be clear, I do not advocate for monarchy of any form in the United States. The reader might ask, “if it’s so beneficial to our British cousins, with whom we share quite a bit of history and culture, why isn’t it good for us?” The answer is simple: we’ve never had one! Monarchy is something almost completely foreign to Americans, at least since 1776. Our Founding was explicitly anti-monarchical, even if there were Americans willing to submit to a kingship under George Washington.
The British—and, more specifically, the English—however, have possessed a monarchy for over 1000 years, with the exception of that Cromwellian unpleasantness from 1648-1660, ending with the restoration of the Stuarts with Charles II. That is a great deal of tradition, custom, and ceremony to toss out merely to save a few bucks on maintaining the Royal Family.
As I’m working on Péchés d’âge moyen, my collection of short piano miniatures, I’d be remiss if I didn’t recognize the influence of Telegram user Goth Kilts. She has been a huge source of encouragement as I begin dabbling in composing again, and a friendly sounding board for some of my musical ideas.
Kilts is herself quite a prolific commentator through her excellent Telegram page, The Sandwhich Press (and, yes, it’s spelled with the extra “h,” although the URL for her page spells “sandwich” the normal way). It boasts over 500 subscribers, all of them richly deserved.
As such, I wanted to dedicate today’s edition of Supporting Friends Friday to The Sandwhich Press, and the insightful, humorous, and Goth-inflected TradCath [she’s actually Coptic Christian—oops!] commentary of Goth Kilts.
Okay, okay—it’s not Christmas. But, hey, close enough, right?
There will be an actual Christmas post tomorrow morning, though it’s going to be very short. But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to turn “Flashback Friday” into “Flashback Friday^2,” angering mathematicians and calendar enthusiasts everywhere.
The original post in this “series,” “Christmas and its Symbols,” contains some excellent Christmas wisdom. So often we hear Christmas denounced as a secretly “pagan” holiday because we hang wreaths, put up trees, and dangle mistletoe. But as one meme I’ve seen recently put it (to paraphrase), “Yes, I love to display the trophies of my vanquished foes.”
Christianity sure did kick—and continues to kick—some butt. We could probably do with some more warrior-monks running around with maces and clubs.
For this weekend and beyond, though, Jesus—as He always does—will do.
With that, here is “Flashback Friday: Christmas and its Symbols“:
Well, it’s not exactly Christmas Eve—more like Christmas Eve Eve, which probably has some liturgical significance that my Southern-fried Protestantism doesn’t know or appreciate—but given the way Christmas is falling this year, as well as my own laziness, I thought it’d be worth looking back at this classic Christmas Eve post, with my timeless “Christmas and Its Symbols” post for Flashback Friday tomorrow.
That scheduling also lets me do my beloved “^2” addendum with the titles, adding another layer of Talmudic-esque commentary onto my past scribblings: the ultimate in authorial self-indulgence.
Of course, the season isn’t about my half-baked musings about Christmas, Christmas Eve, or the rest. It’s about the Birth of Our Savior, Jesus Christ. As I wrote last year, Christmas Eve seems to perfectly capture the spirit of mystery of that night, “a night full of magic, mysticism, and wonder.” Christmas Day is a flurry of activity: opening presents, yelling at parents to wake up, cleaning up piles of wrapping paper. Christmas Eve, especially Christmas Eve night, has always seemed more mystical, more reflective—the true celebration of Christ’s Birth.
It was also the night my Aunt Cheryl—the best one-eyed piano player in Aiken County—used to throw her big, bodacious Christmas Eve bash, featuring her incredible lasagna. So maybe that’s why it fills my heart with a warm, fuzzy feeling (these days, it’d be a welcome dose of heartburn—totally worth it for a thick section of her lasagna).
This year, I think I’ll be spending Christmas Eve with my niece and nephews, waking up at their house Christmas morning for the second year in a row. That’s always a fun way to spend the season. Here’s hoping there’s some Christmas Eve Chinese food thrown into the mix. God Bless General Tso—he was a bloodthirsty dictator, but his chicken is delectable.
With that, here is “TBT: Christmas Eve“:
It’s easy to get discouraged in the face of all the insanity and absurdity of the wokesters, who aren’t just unwashed Antifa thugs picking fights in the streets. Woke-ism, Cultural Marxism, CRT, progressivism, etc.—whatever name we give it, the ideology dominates our institutions, our ruling class, and our popular culture.
In the face of such totality, it’s little wonder that conservatives and traditionalists grow pessimistic about the future. Despair is seductive, and misery loves company.
As Christians, however, despair is profoundly sinful. When we give into despair—into hopelessness—we are denying God’s Sovereignty, His Power and His Plan to guide us through the present storm.
During my pastor’s sermon this past Sunday, he mentioned in passing the passages from 1 Kings 19 in which Elijah curls up under a broom tree and prays for death. Despite defeating the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel in the previous chapter, Elijah despairs, for he knows that Jezebel has put a price on his head—and he feels utterly alone.
The theme of this Spring Break Week is short stories, but more deeply it’s that of culture generally. Indeed, The Portly Politico has dedicated itself increasingly towards cultural, filmic, musical, and literary matters far more over the past few months than ever before, for a reason: creating culture is far more powerful and interesting than largely meaningless squabbles over minute points of policy. That’s not to say that politics aren’t important—at the local level it’s very important—but there’s not much we can do in a practical sense to sway the indifferent national government at this point.
Culture, on the other hand, is something we can proactively create and promulgate. A major push on the traditional Right as of late has been to do just that: create a compelling (counter?)culture to the prevailing popular culture of nihilism and materialism. Rachel Fulton Brown’s Centrism Games: A Modern Dunciad, the product of her excellent Telegram chatroom Dragon Common Room, is one exquisite effort at creating (and reviving) a rich literary culture on the Right. The collaborative nature of the work—RFB is the editor, with sections of the epic poem composed by different members of the chat—further highlights the proactive act of creation among like-minded individuals, each mixing their unique voices into a scathingly satirical blend.
My own book, The One-Minute Mysteries of Inspector Gerard: The Ultimate Flatfoot, is my own meager contribution to this new culture—a work so honestly reflective of my teenaged self, I didn’t even fix some of my collegiate typos! It’s a bit postmodern and absurdist, but it at least gives a glimpse into the gradual transformation of one young creator (in this case, me!).
My music, too, is a humble contribution to cultural creation. I’ve always thought of The Four Unicorns of the Apocalypse, in particular, as an eschatological statement of sorts. At the very least, it attempts, musically, to reflect a civilization‘s fall into decadence and nihilism, before the cycle repeats.
But I digress. For this week’s edition of TBT, I thought I’d do something I’ve never done before: bring a post from my SubscribeStar page out from behind the paywall.
The occasion for writing this post—“The Creation of Culture“—was the release of my friend Jeremy Miles‘s collection of poetry, A Year of Thursday Nights. Jeremy is no Right-wing traditionalist, but his collection is the result of a year of attending open mic nights and performing his (very entertaining) poems. In essence, he created culture out of a vibrant community of artists and musicians, both chronicling and enhancing the performances that took place at a local coffee shop’s open mic night over the course of 2019.
But I’ve gone long enough in this rambling preamble (a “preramble?”). Here is 25 January 2020’s “The Creation of Culture” (on SubscribeStar):
Just to prove that I don’t just watch cheesy horror movies (and that Hulu actually has more to offer than such films), this Monday I’m reviewing something a bit different: the 1985 neo-noir Amish thriller Witness, starring Harrison Ford as Detective John Book, a clean cop hiding from his dirty colleagues in Pennsylvania’s Amish Country.
The movie is unique in that it contrasts the grittiness of the city with the tranquility and traditions of Amish country life. There seemed to be a vague cultural fascination with the Amish that lasted from the 1980s up to around the turn of the century (take, for example, 1996’s Kingpin or Weird Al’s hit “Amish Paradise” from the same year). The Amish are, indeed, interesting, but I’m not sure what accounts for this brief, generational curiosity in the rural pacifists.
At the tail end of 2020—and into the New Year—I visited the small town of Lucedale, Mississippi, to meet my girlfriend’s family. I flew in last Wednesday and we drove back Saturday.
I’ve driven through Mississippi before, and was in Jackson a couple of years ago for a friend’s wedding. This time I was much further south, as Lucedale—located in George County—is very close to the Gulf Coast, and about fifty minutes from Mobile, Alabama. It reminded me a great deal of my dear South Carolina—pine trees and deciduous forests; ample farmland; small, rural communities flung across open land between larger municipalities. In many ways, it felt like my home, just with small regional variations.
For example, my girlfriend’s family eats black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day, like any good Southerner does (for them, the black-eyed peas represent good luck; for us, they represent pennies and wealth), but instead of collard greens (also for wealth—they’re the dollars), they ate coleslaw. I suspect that’s because none of her family liked collard greens, but the difference goes further: my girlfriend’s father had never heard of Hoppin’ John. For my Yankee readers, Hoppin’ John is a mixture usually consisting of black-eyed peas, tomatoes, and okra, and served over white rice. It’s good.
Other than a world without Hoppin’ John, Mississippi also had some local chains I’d never heard of before. My girlfriend’s mother kept raving about Dirt Cheap, which I think is like a Lowe’s-meets-Ollie’s that sells mostly “dirt cheap” home improvement supplies. There’s also a regional chain called Foosackly’s, which is essentially a smaller-scale Zaxby’s with clever advertising and a hilariously bizarre name. My girlfriend quickly became annoyed with my fascination with this obscure chicken joint.
One highlight of the trip was building a fire with my girlfriend’s dad. He is a man of few words, clad in suspenders, and incredibly resourceful—he maintains much of their land himself, and has built several sheds and garages. He also has added to their home, which has been in the family at least two generations, and will stay there (his mantra: “never sell land”).
The Portly Politico 