Richard Carroll

You’re the Mandarin Now, Dog

Posted on 2 August 2021 by Richard Carroll

Back in February, my mother-in-law came to visit my wife and I at our new home, and over dinner she told me that she was counting on me to teach our daughter Chinese. My wife insisted that she was joking, and I am sure that she’s right, but I wouldn’t let that stop me – I decided that I was going to learn Chinese.

Now, my interest in China and the Chinese language has, until relatively recently, been limited to the Confucian canon and the historical context needed to understand it. Naturally, though, I became curious about how Confucianism has been practiced in the real world, leading me to begin reading more history. The language, though, hadn’t ever piqued my interest beyond my general interest in any language. So, I began my study thinking I’d simply dabble in it for a few weeks, then set it aside and go back to my attempts at Latin. Instead, the opposite happened – Latin is on indefinite hold because studying Chinese has been the most fun I’ve ever had learning a language, by far.

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Snap Back to Reality

Posted on 17 April 2021 by Richard Carroll

A couple years ago I did something rather dangerous and reviewed a novel written by an e-friend, Neovictorian’s Sanity. Fortunately, the novel was in fact enjoyable and genuinely interesting. Shortly after publishing Sanity, Neovictorian announced that he was working on a sequel, Reality, and I was, for the first time since high school, looking forward to a new novel by a living author. Amazing! Being swamped by schoolwork and wedding planning kept me from starting and finishing the book until recently, well after its January 2020 release date, but so it goes.

Was it worth the wait? Mostly, yes. The short version of this review is that if you enjoyed Sanity (and yes, you need to read that first), then you’ll also enjoy Reality. If you didn’t, you won’t.

Like Sanity, Reality starts off with a bang:

Sometimes it helps if you don’t have too much imagination.

I’m starting to put pressure on the seatbelt buckle, to snap it into its slot, looking down to find the right angle when in my peripheral vision the reflection off the car hood changes, the orb of the sun cut into by a shadow that shouldn’t be coming from that direction and I let go the buckle and begin to drop right, across the seat and there’s a burst of light and sound over my head and a shower of glass across my back and legs but I ignore it and get down, down, flatten the right side of my face into the leather bench seat.

It still has that new car smell.

I reach with my left hand and pull the passenger door handle toward me, give the door a shove and launch out behind it, pulling on the edge of the seat with my right hand and using knees and chest muscles and everything and anything to get some velocity out the door. There’s another big sound, different because the windshield is already shattered and a gentle rain of safety glass pebbles falls on the back of my head but I don’t care. I make it mostly out, elbows on the asphalt and the rebounding door hits my legs but I just keep pulling and twisting toward the front of the car to get a visual, my legs finally clear and hit the ground. Between the front tires I see a pair of black boots and dark pants 12 or 15 yards away and I squirm to get some clearance for my right hip, get a good grip on the butt of the .45 and another shot comes, the deep throaty boom of a 12-gauge. I smoothly draw, I’ve practiced from this position and every position get a two-hand grip a flash sight picture on the left boot and send one, the sound is enormous in the confined space under the car, a wave of dust and heat bounces off the pavement rushing away from me and when it dissipates a second later I see the legs of the shooter collapsing, a dark figure tumbling toward me and the shotgun clatters and bounces, sliding along the asphalt and the figure’s chest hits the ground right into my sight picture and I send the second one smoothly, pressing the trigger so gently I can feel the perfect location of it, just ahead of the first knuckle.…

Consecration to St. Joseph

Posted on 31 January 2021 by Richard Carroll

Many Catholics are well familiar with consecration to Mary, especially St. Louis de Montfort’s thirty-three day programme of preparation for consecration. It’s a popular devotion with centuries of history behind it. Much more recent, though, is the concept of consecration to St. Joseph. I only became aware of it when my wife bought me a copy of Fr. Donald Calloway’s book Consecration to St. Joseph: The Wonders of Our Spiritual Father, published just in 2019, for my birthday last year.

Now, to be clear, this is intended to be a complementary devotion to the consecration to Mary. Fr. Calloway assumes that if you are reading his book you are already familiar with and have likely already done the Marian consecration. In the introduction, he points out that God intends all families to have a mother and a father. Mary is our spiritual mother, and her spouse thus becomes our spiritual father in a similar way. Just as Christ entrusted Himself to Mary and Joseph’s care as a child, we may also entrust ourselves to their paternal care in our spiritual lives. Fr. Calloway states in the book that no saint can have loved Christ as much as His earthly parents, and both are eager to help us on our way to knowing and loving Our Lord.

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2020: O My Dove, in the Clefts of the Rock

Posted on 28 December 202028 December 2020 by Richard Carroll

Uh… I wrote five posts this year. I’m not even going to compare it to previous years. What in tarnation? What was I doing this year?

Well, let’s talk about Everything is Oll Korrect! first; not like that will take very long anyway. Then we’ll talk about personal matters, i.e., why there were so few posts this year.

I got an early start to the year, with the first post going up in March, “What Books Have Most Influenced Me?” This is largely a reflection on what it means to say a book has influenced someone.

That was followed shortly by “Notes on Praying the Divine Office,” a straightforward introduction and collection of tips on how to approach the Divine Office/Liturgy of the Hours, which unfortunately can be intimidating to those new to them.

For a little while I was on a roll, as just a couple weeks later I published a review of Mah Jongg: The Art of the Game. If nothing else, it was the most beautiful post of the year.

In June I finally watched and reviewed The Return of the King. Reviewing animation was long Everything’s bread-and-butter, and I still enjoy writing these posts. Y’know, when I write anything at all.

We then have a long gap to October, where I did my first-ever review of an album, Alan Parsons Project’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination.

Though none of these posts are all-time greats, I enjoyed writing them all and think they’re all pretty good. I also managed to fit in a lot of variety for so few posts, true to this blog’s name. The Mah Jongg review was the most fun to write and my personal favourite, while the Divine Office post was the most successful.

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