random thoughts?

[Islandflyer]

Hey guys!
I'll leave Paris tomorrow to spend a few days in Bordeaux. I have things to check for the thesis registration and defense and I'll take time to see my friends.

I have one month to finish the writing (two chapters!) and the deadline for the final registration is May 28th, so these days are like a sprint!

I can't wait for the exciting Sarah news of next week. What do you think it'll be? Sarah will sing at the Junos tomorrow, so I suppose it's something related to that. Maybe we'll get to hear the first official single, probably Beautiful Girl. Many artists put out their first single a month before the release of the album, so that would make sense.

I see Ellen had a mention of that song last week on the home page, so that must be it.

Have a good trip and best of luck in the home stretch, Karine.

[Karine]

I'm having a big "OMG I can't do it" moment!
According to my thesis calendar, I must:
- finish writing the chapter 6 for April 12th-13th
- start writing the chapter 7 on the 14th and finish it for April 26th-27th
How am I going to do this?
At least, I'm writing about something I find interesting (since yesterday, it's all about the cult of relics and the worship of the Holy Blood in the Middle Ages, the eucharistic traditions, etc.)
.... so far from "In Your Shoes"

[Islandflyer]

I'm having a big "OMG I can't do it" moment!
According to my thesis calendar, I must:
- finish writing the chapter 6 for April 12th-13th
- start writing the chapter 7 on the 14th and finish it for April 26th-27th
How am I going to do this?
At least, I'm writing about something I find interesting (since yesterday, it's all about the cult of relics and the worship of the Holy Blood in the Middle Ages, the eucharistic traditions, etc.)
.... so far from "In Your Shoes"

Persistence in the face of adversity is the answer, I guess, Karine. You can do it! Don't be distracted, either!

The cult of relics is the sort of stuff that I'm fascinated with. Maybe I should read this part of your thesis (Oh, it's in French, that's right!). I love that sort of thing, and fantasy and science fiction that involves it. The Holy Blood is the belief that the Grail was the descendants of Jesus, carrying the line of Christ? Is that right? And that Mary and Jesus were married?

Cult of Relics sounds like a great song name for a Gothic-style Sarah song. What do you think? Wonder if she is still interested in that sort of thing

[Karine]

Hi Ed,
Ahah, no, the Holy Blood is just Jesus Christ's blood. No descendant, no wedding, just red blood. According to the Bible, during the crucifixion, a centurion pierced Jesus with his lance and made him bleed. That's where it comes from (at least for the Grail story).

About the Holy Blood: in the Middle Ages, some places in Europe claimed to have relics of the Holy Blood (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_of_C ... _the_world).

What I want to show in this section of my thesis is that in medieval novels, the Grail has all the characteristics of a relic of the Christ, except that unlike any other relic, it's the knights (so the lays) who are connected to it. In the medieval society, only people from the clergy were officially in charge of relics and the novels reverse that completely.
So I have to explain what are the characteristics of relics and compare them with what is written in novels.
For example, relics can heal: same thing for the Grail (wounded knights miraculously heal when the Grail appears)

In the Middle Ages, there was a real "market" of relics (some where for sales, some were stolen, some were just invented) and they travelled in all Europe: it's the exact same thing with the Grail, that was brought to Britain by boat (according to the novels of course)!

I explained it to you in a few lines, but I have to write pages about that!

[Karine]

Ed, if you are interested by the cult of relics, I suggest you to check Professor Holger A. Klein's professional page. He's a specialist of medieval art and archaeology at Columbia University. You'll find some articles on this subject (in PDF): http://www.columbia.edu/cu/arthistory/f ... Klein.html

You can begin with "Sacred Things and Holy Bodies", which has nice pictures of pieces of art. For example, there's the Sainte Chapelle, in Paris, from the "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry". I wanted to visit the chapel with my sister in 2009, but it was closed. We'll probably try again if she comes back this summer. It was built for Louis IX collection of relics (he claimed he had parts of the "Crown of Thorns" and the "Holy Cross"). However, the relics are not there anymore.

There's also a book by Patrick Geary... in English of course He's a medievalist (a historian) and I'm using another paper from him for my thesis.
Some sections of the book are on Google books, so you can look at it easily: "Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages"
http://books.google.fr/books?id=vXriQod ... &q&f=false
(I don't know if this will work, maybe you'll be able to swith from the French version of Google to the American one. If not, just search for the title on Google and you'll find it).

Ok, I'll stop now because this topic will become my 2nd thesis By the way, I just want to say that I'm not a religious person, it's connected to my field of study, but it's not my personal beliefs. So if someone read this and want to talk about Jesus with me, I'm not interested

[Islandflyer]

Ed, if you are interested by the cult of relics, I suggest you to check Professor Holger A. Klein's professional page. He's a specialist of medieval art and archaeology at Columbia University. You'll find some articles on this subject (in PDF): http://www.columbia.edu/cu/arthistory/f ... Klein.html

You can begin with "Sacred Things and Holy Bodies", which has nice pictures of pieces of art. For example, there's the Sainte Chapelle, in Paris, from the "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry". I wanted to visit the chapel with my sister in 2009, but it was closed. We'll probably try again if she comes back this summer. It was built for Louis IX collection of relics (he claimed he had parts of the "Crown of Thorns" and the "Holy Cross"). However, the relics are not there anymore.

There's also a book by Patrick Geary... in English of course He's a medievalist (a historian) and I'm using another paper from him for my thesis.
Some sections of the book are on Google books, so you can look at it easily: "Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages"
http://books.google.fr/books?id=vXriQod ... &q&f=false
(I don't know if this will work, maybe you'll be able to swith from the French version of Google to the American one. If not, just search for the title on Google and you'll find it).

Ok, I'll stop now because this topic will become my 2nd thesis By the way, I just want to say that I'm not a religious person, it's connected to my field of study, but it's not my personal beliefs. So if someone read this and want to talk about Jesus with me, I'm not interested

Thanks, Karine. I'll check those out. I'm fascinated by the whole aspect of how the Grail influenced European history, and the involvement of the Knights Templar and the whole controversy over whether or not they had it, still have it, or what. I guess I was tuned in to this by The DaVinci Code like so many others.

Anyway, it's a fascinating subject, and whether one is religious or not the impact on the last 2,000 years is undeniable. I'm just a history buff and don't get into the spiritual aspects of it, either. The outrage of the Church over certain details of Dan Brown's story made it clear to me that, as they say "where there's smoke, there's fire".

[Karine]

Thanks, Karine. I'll check those out. I'm fascinated by the whole aspect of how the Grail influenced European history, and the involvement of the Knights Templar and the whole controversy over whether or not they had it, still have it, or what. I guess I was tuned in to this by The DaVinci Code like so many others.

Anyway, it's a fascinating subject, and whether one is religious or not the impact on the last 2,000 years is undeniable. I'm just a history buff and don't get into the spiritual aspects of it, either. The outrage of the Church over certain details of Dan Brown's story made it clear to me that, as they say "where there's smoke, there's fire".

Ahah, yes, you got caught in the Da Vinci Code story
During the Middle Ages, the church didn't care about the Grail story: it remains only in novels so it had absolutely no impact on real life (I can give your my French references about that if you want ).

[Islandflyer]

Thanks, Karine. I'll check those out. I'm fascinated by the whole aspect of how the Grail influenced European history, and the involvement of the Knights Templar and the whole controversy over whether or not they had it, still have it, or what. I guess I was tuned in to this by The DaVinci Code like so many others.

Anyway, it's a fascinating subject, and whether one is religious or not the impact on the last 2,000 years is undeniable. I'm just a history buff and don't get into the spiritual aspects of it, either. The outrage of the Church over certain details of Dan Brown's story made it clear to me that, as they say "where there's smoke, there's fire".

Ahah, yes, you got caught in the Da Vinci Code story
During the Middle Ages, the church didn't care about the Grail story: it remains only in novels so it had absolutely no impact on real life (I can give your my French references about that if you want ).

So why do they care so much now? They certainly cared about Galileo questioning the basic Earth-centered premise that was the Accepted Wisdom. I guess they didn't realize they were helping sell his books by making a big deal about it.

After all, "all publicity is good", as they say in the advertising world. (most of the time, anyway)

[Karine]

So why do they care so much now? They certainly cared about Galileo questioning the basic Earth-centered premise that was the Accepted Wisdom. I guess they didn't realize they were helping sell his books by making a big deal about it.

After all, "all publicity is good", as they say in the advertising world. (most of the time, anyway)

Good publicity, yes! They're trying to do the same with the new Noah movie. "Oh... did you see that? The pope didn't want to talk with Russell Crowe!"

Here's how I see all this: if I wanted to know more about the "true" historical figure of Jesus, then I would read history and archaeology books about him and the world he lived in, written by specialists in these fields of study. If I wanted to know more about the "true" christian figure of Jesus, I would look at books by theologians. The Da Vinci Code is neither of them, so I would'nt rely on it to discover any truth. In my mind, it's fiction so I treat this book like any other work of fiction. Dan Brown isn't a liar, he's a novelist.

It's normal that the church, who's the only true guardian of the faith, says what Christians should or shouldn't believe in. There's also a difference between what is historically true and what is true according to the church. This is what happened with Galileo: his theory was in conflict with the official dogmas (transsubstantiation for example), but even pope Urban VIII was interested by it.

Edit: I didn't really reply to your 1st question (why now?). When the book and movie were released, lots of people/readers were wondering if it was telling the true story of J-C. That's why the church reacted: to say that it wasn't. Historians reacted too. I remember that a professor of history at the Université de Montréal, the late Pietro Boglioni, was on TV to talk about it. He explained quite clearly that it's not because the Da Vinci Code story might look plausible that it's true. Moreover, there was a warning in the italian edition of the novel, to remind readers that it was a fiction. The english and french editions played on the ambiguity of the book. I think it's better to trust Pr. Bart Ehrman than Dan Brown for these kind of questions, ahah!

Edit #2: while doing research on Google about relics... I found this! It was in March news!
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/m ... rail-claim
Maybe it's time for me to stop my thesis, now they have found it... again!

[Karine]

This is so, so sad
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/1 ... 69325.html

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Nobel laureate whose novels and short stories exposed tens of millions of readers to Latin America's passion, superstition, violence and inequality, died at home in Mexico City around midday, according to people close to his family. He was 87.

I'm intimately attached to "One Hundred Years of Solitude" (long story).
I read it for the first time when I was a teenager and I can't remember how many times I read it. It's a beautiful novel, that requires patience and efforts but that is worth it.

The first line was enough to catch my attention: "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

Does anyone here feels connected to a book, a painting, a movie, etc.?