“At some point in his studies the student of military history begins to perceive great events as climaxes to a series of ironies.” — W.J. Wood
What’s cooking? I’m smack dab in the middle of a 4 1/2-day break and the coffee drip is working overtime. I’ve been back in the US for more than a year and mostly repatriated (mostly). This was a fairly grueling travel year workwise so my lethargy on these down days is a bit depressing.
I bought an odd “book” from the Bermuda Book Store whilst I was on Somers Isles called Bermuda Picture Album. It was pricey, hand cranked, and assembled in a plastic binder. It’s mostly postcards, photographs, and advertisements before 1915 from private collections. One of the collections is from the Zuill family and they are as close to Bermuda royalty as you can get. It was compiled by Frank Kusk, and it looks like, very sadly, he passed away in 2020. He seemed like an interesting chap.
Do you have any passion projects you want to complete before your earthly pilgrimage is over?
Related
Weekend 565.0 – Limestone Roof (Karl Struss)
(1) The Royal Book – instructions for looking like you should be on the throne (The History Jar)
(2) Dire Straits – Ride Across The River (YouTube)
Oh nothing gonna stop them as the day follows the night
Right become a wrong, the left become the right
And they sing as they march with their flags unfurled
Today in the mountains, tomorrow the world
(3) Cemetary Junction Trailer (YouTube)
Category Archives: Weekend
Weekend 586.0 (1.6 x 10-35 m)
(1) The Westminster Cathedral Newsletter (Fr Michael Donaghy)
“There is, in many of us, the inclination to put on a show. We can easily wear a mask to hide our deficiencies and give a show of our cleverness and virtue. One may also be a pushy person, always trying to steal the limelight, in any group or organisation. Christ hated hypocrisy in all its forms. He loved openness of character, sincerity and humility. That is why Jesus instructed that we must each become like little children, to be able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Earthly rank, status, achievements, celebrity, power and wealth, count for nothing in Heaven; only the love, compassion, service, forgiveness and mercy we have shown. We are all equal there and equally loved by God. Christ warns us that those who are proud, arrogant and haughty over others, will be humbled.”
(2) A Black Hole’s Core Could be a Strange “Planck Star” (Interesting Engineering)
Weekend 585.1 (The Song of the Bells)
(1) Excerpt from Southampton Sketches by Elise M. Sandell
CRESCENDO — From steeple to steeple, gable to gable, from pinnacle to battlement and high over the Bargate they were flung in great sweeps and curves of sound, the echoes of the bells. Through English Street, French Street, Bugle Street, through the narrow ways of Vyse Lane, Porters’ Lane, over Friars’ Run and Winkle Street, into every nook and cranny of the town they resounded and reverberated, for Southampton, from early medieval times, has been the home of many bells.
Joyous, clamant, exultant, inspiring, their voices brought messages of comfort, admonition, and hope, while summoning to praise and prayer.
(2) The Limestone Roof Library/Catalog is available on Libib.
Weekend 585.0 (Sunken Departure Lounge)
(1) Flight of fancy: The TWA Hotel (YouTube)
(2) Solari boards: The disappearing sound of airports (BBC)
(3) Limestone Roof Photo Archives: TWA Hotel (Updated)
(4) TWA Hotel playlist on Spotify:
Weekend 584.0
(1) Signing off after 25 years (The Royal Gazette)
Weekend 583.1
“He often sees when colours match or blend and may have a highly developed taste for art, music and food.”
Weekend 583.0
This is a sad postscript about Bermuda.
(1) A quarter-century of economic drama (The Royal Gazette)
The Front Street retail flagships disappeared over time, along with the traditional horse and carriage and welcoming tourist activity.
As the Bermuda recession dragged on, with the usual inflationary cost-of-living increases, I invited the late Larry Burchall, of Nanci the Spider fame and a brilliant journalist who understood the Bermuda economy better than anyone, to lunch. We both were concerned about the recession and its long-term impact on the community. I asked him what his thoughts were for the future.
His answer: “Bermudians will survive this latest setback, they will get by, but the recovery will not return to the lifestyle they have been accustomed to.”
Weekend 582.0
(1) We are all slaves to sin but freed by love of God (The Royal Gazette)
(2) The Month of the Holy Rosary (The Westminster Cathedral Newsletter)

Weekend 581.0 (…beautiful but woefully unkempt)
(1) The End of the Beer Option? Thoughts on the Closure of Spencer Trappist Brewery (Building Catholic Culture)
(2) The One, True, Imaginative Vision (The Imaginative Conservative)
“When disordered, it can also become a source of tremendous disorder: It is the raw nerve that Socrates set on fire, when he sought to teach Athenians to live an “examined life,” a choice to question even one’s own presumptions in favor of the truth; it is the painful climbing out of the Cave and learning to look at things by the light of Reality, not one given by the Puppet Masters of the age one inhabits.”
(3) A couple of UK Films on TUBI for your consideration:
(a) Albatross (um, Felicity Jones)
(b) Fever Pitch (NOT the version with the insufferable Jimmy Fallon)
(c) Tamara Drewe
(d) Ginger and Rosa
(e) The Bromley Boys
(f) Cemetery Junction (um, Felicity Jones) [added on 11/26/2023]
Also Strongly Recommended by Our Proprietor:

Weekend 580.0
(1) Work and Monasticism (Imaginative Conservative)
“We find in St. Benedict’s Rule something of a tension between toil and rest. This tension is actually fundamental to the whole monastic life, and to the whole Christian life. Benedict speaks often in terms of urgency, even haste; certainly energy, purpose, determination in pursuing our heavenly goal. To his way of thinking, we don’t have much time in this life, and we need to make full use of the little we have been given. Yet, on the other hand, we need to be at rest in God’s presence. We need to have space and time to listen to his still, small voice. We need to be perfectly clear that we prefer nothing whatever to Christ. As later medieval writers would express it, the monastic life could even be defined as sanctum otium—a “holy leisure”; the life symbolised by Mary rather than her sister Martha (cf. Luke 10:41); an environment which provides for that freedom from the pressing business of this world, and from distraction, and from a divided heart, which St. Paul recommends for the unmarried (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:35, 34).”