Category Archives: Culture & Arts

The image above of the very well-known painting by Rembrandt van Rijn, Belshazzar’s Feast, completed circa 1635, is probably the most striking depiction of the “writing on the wall” described in the biblical story in chapter 5 of the book of Daniel, with particular reference to verses 8 and 25 to 28. The story hasContinue reading “Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel, Rembrandt, and Belshazzar’s Feast”

Some of you will be familiar with Capella Romana, an astonishingly good vocal chamber ensemble, about which you may read more here. One of my fellow seminarians here at school, John Boyer, who is a fine friend and chanter, is a member of Capella Romana, which was a pleasant surprise when I first learned it.Continue reading “Capella Romana: Ancient Light”

From “Saints at a Cultural Crossroads” by Holland Carter (NY Times, 19 November 2009): We see it in the very last painting in the show, a 1603 oil study for a “Coronation of the Virgin” commissioned by the Hospital of Charity in the town of Illescas. The composition has an iconlike symmetry. The figures, inContinue reading “A Comment on Icons”

The “match made for heaven” is a set of the Daily Commemoration Cards from Holy Transfiguration Monastery in a Sassafras Wood Recipe Box from Smith’s Fine Woods Products. Mrs Smith tells me that Mr Smith bought the sassafras (as fun a word to type as it is to say!) wood in 1970, and he madeContinue reading “A match made for heaven”

Back in 1984, when I was just out of high school, and two years before I came up to Berkeley to learn Hebrew, I bought Steve Reich’s then-new Tehillim in vinyl, and just today received the CD. The ECM recording, performed by Steve Reich and Musicians, conducted George Manahan, is superior to the Cantaloupe MusicContinue reading “Steve Reich: Tehillim”

Well, I was all set to get to reading, and then I went to turn on the CD player (one of those 300 CD players) and realized what a mess the CDs were all in, and that I’d planned on straightening that up this weekend. And it’s now the weekend. So I spent a coupleContinue reading “Kevin’s listening list”

This recording of Handel’s Chandos Anthems, the complete set, is a delight. The players are The Sixteen Choir and Orchestra, conducted by Harry Christophers. The delight is partly found in the historically accurate stripped down choir and orchestra, reflecting the original historical setting at Cannons, the ancestral home of the Duke of Chandos for whomContinue reading “Recommended listening”

Today, a lestovka arrived in the mail! “What is a lestovka?,” many people will be thinking. It is essentially a loop of braided leather that is used for counting prayers, similar to the more well-known Eastern Orthodox prayer rope (Greek komvoschini, or Russian vervitsa), and more distantly similar to the Roman Catholic rosary. The lestovkaContinue reading “Lestovka”

I have only just become aware that The Delaware Art Musem has placed online a site which very nearly renders me speechless (or typingless, to be sure): The Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft Collection of Pre-Raphaelite Art. The collection houses the largest collection of Pre-Raphaelite art outside of England, but art in its widest sense,Continue reading “Pre-Raphaelite Art”

. . . I’ll actually manage to see all of Ben Hur.