Folks have a great many ways of dealing with grief and loss.
For example, folks at the hospital took a photo of our youngest daughter. She died shortly before birth. That photo’s on an ‘in loving memory of’ memorial card — I think that’s what it’s called — that’s tucked into the corner of our wedding picture.
Anyway: that card, the wedding picture, and photos of our four surviving children, hang on a wall near my desk. I like having a few visual reminders around.
Some folks apparently prefer more active, make that interactive, reminders. Like what I saw in my news feed this morning:
“When Ana Schultz, a 25-year-old from Rock Falls, Illinois, misses her husband Kyle, who passed away in February 2023, she asks him for cooking advice….
“…Or rather, his likeness in the form of an AI avatar does.
“‘He was the chef in the family, so I customized My AI to look like him and gave it Kyle’s name,’ said Schultz, who lives with their two young children. ‘Now when I need help with meal ideas, I just ask him. It’s a silly little thing I use to help me feel like he’s still with me in the kitchen.’…
“…The concept isn’t entirely new. People have wanted to reconnect with deceased loved ones for centuries, whether they’ve visited mediums and spiritualists or leaned on services that preserve their memory. But what’s new now is that AI can make those loved ones say or do things they never said or did in life, raising both ethical concerns and questions around whether this helps or hinders the grieving process….”
Particularly since Ana recognizes her AI avatar as “a silly little thing”, I don’t see her idea as a bad one. I wouldn’t take that option, but that’s because I’m me: and that’s several other topics.
The CNN piece discusses, very briefly, ethical issues, the psychology of grief, and what my culture calls privacy concerns.
I’ve got another topic lined up for this week, so I won’t be talking about why Saul’s Endor gambit was a really bad idea. (1 Samuel 28:3–19)
Given human nature — which isn’t all bad, and that’s another topic — and how we sometimes respond to grief; I figure it’s only a matter of time before someone monetizes chatbot mediums.
Then maybe I’ll talk about table tapping, tambourines, and making sense anyway.
Biennale Arte 2024: Venice. (April 20 – November 24, 2024)
Pope Francis visited the Vatican’s exhibits at an international art show last Sunday.
So this week I’ll talk about the Venice Biennale, why “With My Eyes” doesn’t horrify me, share a few quotes, and show pictures from “Con i miei occhi”.
Venice Biennale Arte 2024: Propriety, Changes, and Context
“Stranieri Ovunque”, “Foreigners Everywhere”: Biennale Arte 2024.
After skimming the English translation of what Pope Francis had said, I checked into the Venice Biennale.
Turns out that it’s a cultural exhibition Venice has hosted yearly since 1895. Or since 1880, if you count the Venice Biennale of Architecture. Almost yearly. World Wars I and II caused gaps, and so did the COVID-19 pandemic.
The art, music, and other creative displays have been getting increasingly international: and deliberately inclusive, although I didn’t find that word in the Venice Biennale English-language introductions.
Biennale Arte 2024
Introduction by Pietrangelo Buttafuoco President of La Biennale di Venezia “…This edition of the Biennale Arte features both a contemporary and a historical nucleus, with a large presence of Italian artists from the 20th-century diaspora, … For the first time, an indigenous Amazonian art collective — MAHKU (Movimento dos Artistas Huni Kuin) — also takes centre stage, with a large-scale work on the facade of the Central Pavilion. Seven hundred square metres of hallucinatory visions inspired by sacred ayahuasca-based rituals, experiences mirrored by those – no less sacred – that the Old Continent has experimented through, for example, Ernst Jünger’s Annäherungen…”
Introduction by Adriano Pedrosa Curator of the 60th International Art Exhibition “…Nucleo Storico” (“Historical Core”) … “The Italian stranieri, the Portuguese estrangeiro, the French étranger, … the strange that is also familiar, within, deep down side. According to the American Heritage and the Oxford Dictionaries, the first meaning of the word queer is strange, and thus the Exhibition unfolds and focuses on the production of other related subjects: the queer artist, who has moved within different sexualities and genders, often being persecuted or outlawed; the outsider artist, who is located at the margins of the art world, much like the self-taught artist, the folk artist and the artista popular; as well as the indigenous artist, frequently treated as a foreigner in his or her own land….” [emphasis from Adriano Pedrosa’s text]
There’s ample opportunity for pearl-clutching here: like Adriano Pedrosa’s “queer artist” instead of LGBT of LGBTI+. Or, since “queer” may no longer be verboten, not inclusively using LGBTQ+ or LGBTIQA+.
It’s so hard to keep up with what’s proper and what’s not, which is one reason I often stick with established and bookish terminology. When discussing hot-button topics, that is.
Then there’s Pietrangelo Buttafuoco’s reference to ayahuasca.
I gather that it’s “a South American psychoactive brew”, or “a plant-based psychedelic”.
As far as I can tell, ayahuasca is a sort of South American moonshine, except that instead of being a depressant, ayahuasca acts as a stimulant.
It may be hallucinogenic, too; increasing activity in the visual cortex while triggering access to memories.1
Plentiful Protest Possibilities
I’ve wondered how coffee would get classified, if it hadn’t become thoroughly embedded in my culture by the time gems like “Reefer Madness” and “The Devil’s Weed” hit the silver screen.
And that’s another topic.
Or maybe not so much.
I’d expected howls of anguish over Pope Francis visiting the Venice Biennale, and artwork at the Holy See’s Pavillion: which is inside the Giudecca Women’s Prison. But so far I’ve seen nothing in my news feed’s op-eds, or on social media.
Maybe that’s because I don’t actively seek commentary from assorted lunatic fringes.
Or maybe it’s because my country’s election-year uproar is already at around 10 on the Beaufort scale.
Now, besides campus chaos, wars and rumors of wars, and the usual run of natural disasters, it looks like the DEA finally got around to learning what marijuana actually does.
“… The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration will move to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, The Associated Press has learned, a historic shift to generations of American drug policy that could have wide ripple effects across the country….
“…Once OMB signs off, the DEA will take public comment on the plan to move marijuana from its current classification as a Schedule I drug, alongside heroin and LSD. It moves pot to Schedule III, alongside ketamine and some anabolic steroids, following a recommendation from the federal Health and Human Services Department. After the public comment period and a review by an administrative judge, the agency would eventually publish the final rule….”
“Outsider, queer and Indigenous artists are getting an overdue platform at the 60th Venice Biennale contemporary art exhibition that opened Saturday, curated for the first time by a Latin American.
“Brazilian curator Adriano Pedrosa’s main show, which accompanies 88 national pavilions for the seven-month run, is strong on figurative painting, with fewer installations than recent editions. A preponderance of artists are from the Global South, long overlooked by the mainstream art world circuits. Many are dead. Frida Kahlo, for example, is making her first appearance at the Venice Biennale. Her 1949 painting ‘Diego and I’ hangs alongside one by her husband and fellow artist, Diego Rivera….”
One of the problems, arguably, with labels like “commie” or “racist” is that what’s an insult or threat in one generation may become another generation’s cherished title.
Take “Yankee”, for example. It started as an ethnic slur — the story’s not simple, but this’ll do for today — directed at one set of New Englanders. Then Englishmen who weren’t colonists used it as an insulting label for all New Englanders.
Later, as colonists in New England got fed up with the status quo, “Yankee” became the proud name of those Americans. A few centuries later — it’s complicated.
The point I was groping for is that one generation’s insult can become another generation’s badge of excellence.
That seems to be happening with the word “queer”.
A century or so back, the word simply meant “strange” or “peculiar”. It still does, in some contexts, although I wouldn’t risk using it.
By the late 1800s, it got used as an insult to LGBT — that acronym is apparently still an acceptable label — folks, and by now it’s got a status similar to “Yankee”.
Another point, before moving along.
“Outsiders” in the context of that AP article are probably folks who do outsider art. Outsider art is not, oddly enough, landscape art or art intended for display outside. It’s art made by folks who aren’t trained as artists, or part of the “art world”.
Just to keep things confusing, outsider art can include art movements that are, arguably, part of the art world.
You want simple? Read a spy thriller, or listen to political speeches.
Just one more item: seeing the artist as an “outsider” may be a fairly recent development in Western civilization.3 Recent by my standards, that is.
Groucho Marx, Samuel Clemens, and “The Whole Law and the Prophets”
From my Google News feed. (April 29, 2024)
Thinking about respectability reminded me of a Mark Twain quote — which I learned is a Groucho Marx quote:
“I sent the club a wire stating, ‘PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER’.” (Groucho Marx, Telegram to the Friar’s Club of Beverly Hills to which he belonged, as recounted in Groucho and Me (1959) via Wikiquote)
There’s at least one other version of that Groucho Marx quote. Remembering it as a Mark Twain wisecrack wasn’t entirely unreasonable. Samuel Clemens made a similar quip, back in 1867.
Finally, before getting to the Holy See’s art show at the Venice Biennale, something Samuel Clemens said about love of country: and rules that are simple, but incredibly hard to follow.
“I would throw out the old maxim, ‘My country, right or wrong,’ etc., and instead I would say, ‘My country when she is right.’ Because patriotism is supporting your country all the time, but your government only when it deserves it.” (Address to the Male Teachers Association of the City of New York (March 16, 1901), Mark Twain, as reported in The New York Times, via Wikiquote)
I’ll talk about “patriotism” and love of country a little later; along with how experiences of my youth colored my views.
I should — along with civil authorities — contribute to “…the good of society in a spirit of truth, justice, solidarity, and freedom….” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2239)
That’s not easy, but it ties in with what Jesus said about “the whole law and the prophets”.
“‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.'” (Matthew 22:36–40)
“Strangers” and “Foreigners”, an Etymological Aside
NBC News / The Associated Press: Pope and the Biennale’s must-see prison show. (April 28, 2024)
“Francis traveled to the lagoon city to visit the Holy See’s pavilion at the Biennale contemporary art show and meet with the people who created it. But because the Vatican decided to mount its exhibit in Venice’s women’s prison, and invited inmates to collaborate with the artists, the whole project assumed a far more complex meaning, touching on Francis’ belief in the power of art to uplift and unite, and of the need to give hope and solidarity to society’s most marginalized….”
La Biennale di Venezia’s website is in Italian, with translations in English and other languages available. At least I assume it’s “languages”.
The only alternative I found was English, which is just as well: since that’s the only language I’m even close to being fluent in.
Anyway, La Biennale di Venezia translates Italian “Stranieri Ovunque” into English as “Foreigners Everywhere”.
I’m not why NBC News (and a few other outlets) translated it as “Strangers Everywhere”. Google Translate changes (Italian) “Stranieri Ovunque” into (English) “Strangers Everywhere”.
I’m inclined to think that the folks running La Biennale di Venezia are more accurate, with their “Foreigners Everywhere” rendering.
Interestingly, when I told Google Translate that “Stranieri Ovunque” was a German phrase, I got “Stranger Things” as the English translation.
That makes sense, since English (probably) got “stranger” from Old French “estrangier”. Latin used an adjective, “extraneus”, as a noun meaning “stranger”.
(Old) French “estrangier” became “estrange” in my language; “estrangier” came from Vulgar Latin extraneare, “to treat as a stranger”. And that came from Latin extraneus, “foreign, from without”.4
Basically, I figure that “stranger” is a good-enough translation of “stranieri”. But that the folks with La Biennale di Venezia did a better job, translating it as “foreigner”.
That’s partly because what I read on their website makes more sense if I apply my language’s connotations for “foreigner”.
Pop Art, Patriotism, and Perceptions
Sister Mary Corita / Corita Kent’s: “E eye love”, from the circus alphabet series. (1968)
“…Works by the late Sister Corita Kent will be on display in the facility’s cafeteria, whose Pop Art articulation of social and religious messages echoes the modern mission of the pavilion. Also notable among the pieces offered are a short film by husband-and-wife duo Perego and Saldana as well as choreography by Bintou Dembélé. The film, shot inside the Giudecca Women’s Prison, features performances by inmates as actresses. Dancer and artist Dembélé’s choreography will feature inmates as dancers, performing their own stories from their points of view. These works challenge perceptions of people convicted of crimes, allowing the women to reframe their existence on their own terms….” [emphasis mine]
There’s a lot going on here, but I’ll focus on Caitlin Finley’s lack of outrage at inmates of a women’s prison performing as actresses and dancers — and Sister Mary Corita / Corita Kent’s Camus quote.
I’ll take the Whitewall article’s apparently neutral or positive view of inmates as actresses as indirect evidence that WiP exploitation films aren’t front and center as occasions for (self?) righteous indignation.
I don’t mind living in an era where Boston Brahmins lack the clout they once enjoyed.
I’d prefer living in a world where women — in prison or otherwise — and men were both regarded as people, persons, individuals who share humanity’s transcendent dignity. (Catechism, 1929)
But that’s still a work in progress.
Now, about that Camus quote.
I’m not sure why finding reference to it, apart from Corita Kent’s 1960s art, was so hard.5 And why the only place I found the Camus quote discussed with its context was in a conservative publication.
“Camus Writes To A German Friend“ “The French existentialist takes the measure of a friend who became a Nazi” Rod Dreher, The American Conservative (October 17, 2017)
“The French existentialist Albert Camus wrote a series of letters to a German friend during World War II. The friend had become a Nazi. Here are a couple of excerpts that remind me of our time and place:
You said to me: ‘The greatness of my country is beyond price. Anything is good that contributes to its greatness. And in a world where everything has lost its meaning, those who, like us young Germans, are lucky enough to find meaning in the destiny of our nation must sacrifice everything else.’ I loved you then, but at that point we diverged. ‘No’, I told you, ‘I cannot believe that everything must be subordinated to a single end. There are means that cannot be excused. And I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice. I don’t want just any greatness for it, particularly a greatness born of blood and falsehood. I want to keep it alive by keeping justice alive.’ You retorted: ‘Well, you just don’t love your country.’ …”
I strongly suspect that this is another example of how — just as not all liberals are irresponsible fanatics bent on destroying the very fabric of society — not all conservatives are hidebound reactionaries, incapable of comprehending today’s global realities.
Me? I’m a Catholic. I don’t fit into either political pigeonhole.
Loving America Anyway
This is where I’ll touch on “patriotism” and love of country.
My teens and the 1960s overlap almost exactly.
This is not the America I grew up in. For the most part, I think this is a good thing.
There was a great deal going on in the 1960s besides a growing disgust with a non-war that lacked both perceptible goals and effective promotion. That mess helped shape my views of “patriotism” and what “America” is.
To this day, I think of the “Vietnam War” as the Indochina involvement. It was neither a war nor limited to Vietnam. Not officially a war, that is. My country’s leaders came up with a number of euphemisms, and that’s yet another topic.
By the time it was over, I’d settled for a cerebral appreciation that having governing bodies should be better than anarchy. And a firm conviction that America was a very great deal more than the Yahoos who thought they were running the place.6
One more thing: why finding the Camus quote in a conservative publication surprised me. A little.
Ranting radio preachers of my youth, plus the contrast between appeals to reason and variations on the “my country right or wrong” theme, left an impression that “conservative” and blind obedience to authority were linked.
That was the 1970s. I’ve accumulated more experiences since then. Which is yet again another topic.
Living in Isaiah’s World
Repeating what I said earlier: contributing to “…the good of society in a spirit of truth, justice, solidarity, and freedom…” is a good idea. (Catechism, 2239)
Loving my country is a good idea. Within reason. But letting love of country become worship of country is a bad idea. A very bad idea. (Catechism, 2112-2114, 2199, 2239)
And since I’m a Catholic, I must act as if good intentions are not an excuse for “intrinsically disordered” behavior. The end does not justify the means. (Catechism, 1753, 1887)
Living in a world where the folks in charge are uniformly reasonable and virtuous would be nice. But that’s not the world I grew up in. It’s not today’s world. And folks with authority behaving badly is nothing new.
“Your princes are rebels and comrades of thieves; Each one of them loves a bribe and looks for gifts. The fatherless they do not defend, the widow’s plea does not reach them.” (Isaiah 1:23)
A Glimpse Behind Cattelan’s Feet at the Venice Art Biennale
Feet!!! — Julie Baumgardner’s photo: Maurizio Cattelan’s mural for the Venice Biennale Vatican Pavilion.
Considering what ‘everybody knows’ about the Catholic Church, this is a quite balanced and objective article.
“Inside the Vatican’s Uncanny Venice Biennale Pavilion“ “Con i miei occhi (With my eyes), staged in a women’s prison, preaches visibility but operates on secrecy.” Julie Baumgardner, Hyperallergenic (April 29, 2024)
“…The Papacy is an organization that operates on secrecy. God, after all, isn’t exactly a visible figure. Faith requires a leap, a trust in the invisible. And yet visibility is at the heart of the Holy See Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, whose exhibition title, Con i miei occhi (With my eyes), is borrowed from Book of Job 42:5: ‘Mine eyes have seen thee.’ But this isn’t exactly a pavilion about ‘being seen’ in the sense of the English colloquialism denoting empathy and embrace, despite the Church’s attempts.
“No, in fact, the literal infrastructure of the pavilion is hidden. In a prison. The Giudecca Women’s Detention Home is a 13th-century monastery converted into a prison for unwed mothers, sex workers, and mentally ill people in 1859. Curators Chiara Parisi and Bruno Racine selected nine artists to create site-specific works that engage and employ the imprisoned women. Visitors to Parisi and Racine’s exhibition cannot enter (nor exit) freely. It’s a pavilion quite literally hidden behind bars….
I’m sharing these excerpts from the Hyperallergenic article partly because that site’s article is where I found the best collection of images from the Vatican’s/Holy See’s Venice Biennale Arte Pavilion.
And, given my culture’s folklore about an oppressive and un-American Catholic Church: the article is a model of objectivity.
“…It’s here that the group meets the guides: Marceby and Giulia, who both participated in the art-making. Visitors are not allowed to ask the imprisoned women personal questions — where they come from, why they’re there, how long their sentence is….”
“…There’s been critique floating around about the exploitive capacity of the pavilion. But it’s complicated by the voices of the participants. ‘I’m not an artist, but this was an opportunity to be one,’ Marceby said repeatedly during the tour. ‘I get to meet people every day, I get to write poetry, I get to connect to the outside world.’ Can a project like this be an opportunity for empowerment, as suggested by Corita Kent’s adages, and a space for hope, as in Fattal’s or Fontaine’s projects, as much as one that unfairly takes advantage of those who provide labor without receiving the benefit?…” (“Inside the Vatican’s Uncanny Venice Biennale Pavilion“, Julie Baumgardner, Hyperallergenic (April 29, 2024))
I don’t know what Julie Baumgardner would have written, if the folks running “With my eyes” had been violating the inmates’ privacy by allowing personal questions.
But like I said: her article had by far the best collection of pictures of any I found. Quite a few featured that ‘feet‘ mural by Maurizio Cattelan,7 and little else.
This next section is my selection from the Hyperallergenic article’s collection, with a few of my reactions.
“Con i miei occhi” / “With my Eyes”
Installation view: Sister Mary Corita Kent’s work at the Vatican Pavilion, Biennale Arte 2024 Venice.Claire Fontaine’s work at the Vatican Pavilion: “siamo con voi nella notte”, “we are with you in the night”.
I gather that “siamo con voi nella notte” started as graffiti in Florence: part of a 1970s Italian prison reform movement. What can I say? I don’t know the cultural and historical context: but can reasonably assume that it makes sense in this setting.
Art by Sonia Gomes at the Holy See Pavilion, seen from below.
I could tell that this display involved fabric, but wouldn’t have worked out its meaning without program notes:
“…Works by Afro-Brazilian sculptor Sonia Gomes from her series Sinfonia (2021–present), consisting of 34 woven works of fabric, stones, and buttons hanging from the ceiling in the prison’s Baroque Chapel, is a gesture to ‘look up and be free,’ as the artist told the inmates. It hangs between a fresco reading ‘Remissa sunt eius peccata multa’ — ‘Her sins, though many, are forgiven.’ There are still 80 women held at the prison as of press time….” (“Inside the Vatican’s Uncanny Venice Biennale Pavilion“, Julie Baumgardner, Hyperallergenic (April 29, 2024))
I’m not sure what to make of that “still 80 women held at the prison” remark. Or, for that matter, how many readers of Hyperallergenic understand what the Church says about forgiveness and “the duty of reparation”.
Oversimplifying — a lot — forgiveness is important. So is doing what’s possible to correct the effects of bad behavior. (Catechism, 1485-1492, 2487, 2838-2845, for a very brief overview)
How all that intersects with the Italian penal system: is far more than I know.
Same room, view from a balcony. Art by Sonia Gomes at the Holy See Pavilion.More work by Claire Fontaine at the Holy See Pavilion, Biennale Arte 2024 Venice.
Sometimes conceptual artist Claire Fontaine is referred to as “she”, but she’s actually a “they”, or maybe “them”. Either way, I think of Claire Fontaine as a studio who/that started in Paris and is now in Palermo.8
“A City of Refuge”, “The World Needs Artists”, and Pope Francis
Pope Francis and an artist at the the Venice Art Biennale. (April 28, 2024)
Pope Francis made three speeches last Sunday: two of them connected with the Vatican’s contribution to the Venice Art Biennale.
Transcripts of both, in Italian, were online by Sunday afternoon. My afternoon, that is, here in central Minnesota. English translations were online the next morning:
I’ve read, but not studied, both. Discussing either would take more time than I had left this week, after searching for a usable collection of pictures from the exhibition.
One takeaway, for me, was the pope’s “city of refuge” metaphor:
I like the “city of refuge” metaphor, although if feels a trifle forced. I suspect some of the pope’s explanation didn’t translate well into my language:
“…The city of refuge is a biblical institution, already mentioned in the Deuteronomic code (cf. Dt 4:41), intended to prevent the shedding of innocent blood and to temper the blind desire for revenge, to guarantee the protection of human rights and to seek forms of reconciliation. It would be important if the various artistic practices could establish themselves everywhere as a sort of network of cities of refuge, cooperating to rid the world of the senseless and by now empty oppositions that seek to gain ground in racism, in xenophobia, in inequality, in ecological imbalance and aporophobia, that terrible neologism that means ‘fear of the poor’….” “Visit to Venice: Meeting with artists — Church of La Maddalena, Prison Chapel on the Island of Giudecca“, Pope Francis (April 28, 2024) [emphasis in the pope’s text]
In any case, Vatican News talked about the pope’s meeting with artists:
“Pope in Venice: ‘Art is a city of refuge for humanity’“ Lisa Zengarini, Vatican News (April 28, 2024) “Addressing artists in the Giudecca’s women’s prison facility in Venice, Pope Francis invites everyone to imagine a world where no human being is considered a stranger.”
“‘The world needs artists.’ This was the message Pope Francis imparted on Sunday morning as he met with a group of artists the Holy See is exhibiting at its pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale.
“Addressing the group in the Church of La Maddalena in the Giudecca’s women’s prison facility, the Pope praised artists as true visionaries who can see beyond the boundaries of our world….”
There were three “cities of refuge”:
“Then Moses set apart three cities in the region east of the Jordan, to which a homicide might flee who killed a neighbor unintentionally, where there had been no hatred previously, so that the killer might flee to one of these cities and live: Bezer in the wilderness, in the region of the plateau, for the Reubenites; Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.” (Deuteronomy 4:41–43)
There’s more about how they were supposed to work in Deuteronomy 19:1–13. I could say that I’m shocked and horrified at the appalling lack of conformity to principles established in the United States Constitution: but I won’t.
Old traditions say that Moses wrote Deuteronomy.
More likely, the words of Devarim, דְּבָרִים, were scribed about two and a half millennia back: long after Moses lived and died.9 I think they very probably reflect what Moses said.
Moses, George Washington, and Me
But then, I’m one of those folks who think that Moses is as real as George Washington: even though the cherry tree incident is almost certainly a whopper.
In my darker moments, I’m surprised that serious thinkers of the 19th and 20th centuries didn’t decide that ancient Egypt and the pharaohs were make-believe.10
I suppose those whacking great piles of rock we call pyramids are hard to imagine away. And that’s still another topic.
Personal Perspective, Catholic Concerns
I’ll be summarizing a half-millennium and more of history, plus what I think explains why Pope Francis seems so interested in immigrants and other outsiders. In a few hundred words.
Hang on to your hats, here I go.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in Argentina: the son of an Italian immigrant and an Italian Argentine whose ancestors were from northern Italy. Not far from Jorge’s father’s home, actually: by American standards.
The territory we call Argentina has been part of the Inca and Spanish empires. It didn’t have the Thirteen Colonies’ experience — several more topics — but it’s one of the places Italians moved to, either to get a better life, or get away from trouble at home.
Jorge’s father left Italy when Mussolini and company were active. That was an interesting part of Italy’s story.
Growing up in an immigrant family, in a country that has been going through Latin America’s post-imperial adjustments: I can see why Pope Francis thinks immigrants and folks who aren’t on the world’s A-list matter.
And that strikes me as being consistent with what the Church says about social justice. (Catechism, 1928-1942, 2241)
As for his apparent interest in art: that may run in the family. His niece, Cristina Bergoglio, is an artist who’s now living in Spain.11
Pearl-clutching (a page with two notices: “This is an essay on the civility policy. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia’s policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.” and “This page in a nutshell: Pearl-clutching is a type of civil POV pushing where an editor feigns an overreaction with a typically bad-faith invocation of WP:CIVIL.”)
Creativity and mental health (flagged: “This article needs more reliable medical references for verification or relies too heavily on primary sources….”)
Boston Brahmin (“This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources….”)
Righteous indignation (flagged “This section’s factual accuracy is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help to ensure that disputed statements are reliably sourced.” — perhaps understandably)
Hyperallergic (“…an online arts magazine, based in Brooklyn, New York….”)
Maria Monk (her book, “Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, or, The Hidden Secrets of a Nun’s Life in a Convent Exposed” (1836), enjoyed lasting popularity)
The asteroid 469219 Kamoʻoalewa isn’t exactly Earth’s second moon. But it’s been circling our world for centuries: and near Earth’s orbit for much longer.
Now scientists say they’ve traced the asteroid back to Giordano Bruno crater on the Moon.
I’ll be taking a look at what I could find of their research, Earth’s moons, and asteroids whose orbits keep them near Earth. Then I’ll talk about one of the more colorful personalities of the Renaissance.
Asteroid Kamoʻoalewa, Giordano Bruno Crater: Origins & Orbits
Giordano Bruno Crater on the Moon; 22-kilometres, 14 miles across. 35.9°N 102.8°E.
469219 Kamoʻoalewa is a small asteroid that’s circling, but not orbiting, Earth. If it came from Earth’s moon, which seems likely, it’s probably debris from the Giordano Bruno impact event.
Before getting into Kamoʻoalewa’s origins, a quick (for me) look at Earth’s neighborhood.
Earth has only one moon. Make that only one large moon that isn’t artificial, and that’s been orbiting our planet for a very long time.
Like so much else, it’s complicated.
Earth’s moon — it’s actually more like ‘the other part of the Earth-Moon double planet’ — And that’s another topic. Anyway, the Moon has been orbiting Earth, or sharing Earth’s orbit, good grief: point is, it’s been around Earth for billions of years.
Folks have claimed that they found a second moon for Earth at least since 1846.
But until very recently, other astronomers couldn’t find Petit’s, Waltemath’s, or other second natural satellites. That changed, maybe in the early 21st century.1
I haven’t verified when the first ‘second moon’ claim was backed up by other researchers finding the same thing.
Dust, Asteroids, Astrodynamics, Temporary Moons, and Lagrange points
There’s a mess of small Solar System objects with orbits near Earth’s, but they’re not usually orbiting our world.
On the other hand, sometimes they become temporary moons.
2006 RH120, for example, orbited Earth from July 2006 to July 2007. 2020 CD3 was a moon from somewhere around roughly 2016 or 2017 to May 7, 2020.
Earth’s Moon isn’t going anywhere, not soon at any rate, since it’s well inside Earth’s (astrodynamic) sphere of influence. That’s an oblate-spheroid-shaped volume of space where Earth outvotes other gravitational influences.
Oh, boy. Geek-speak and anthropomorphism. An oblate spheroid is a squashed sphere, sort of like a loaf of pumpernickel.
The two main mathematical models for an astrodynamic sphere of influence are called the Hill sphere and Laplace sphere.
Earth’s gravity isn’t the only thing affecting stuff inside these spheres.
There’s radiation pressure from the sun, for one thing; and the gravitational influence of everything else for another.
Like I said, complicated. Very complicated.
Long before 2006 RH120 and 2020 CD3 were spotted, Kazimierz Kordylewski said that he’d detected two roughly banana-shaped dust clouds, centered on the Moon’s L4 and L5 Lagrange points.
The L4 and L5 Lagrange points are the spots in a planet or moon’s orbit sixty degrees ahead and behind the object where gravity of the two larger bodies balance out.
Kordylewski died in 1981.
Then, in October of 2018, the Royal Astronomical Society confirmed that the Kordylewski clouds are real.2
One reason I like living in our current “now” is that international cooperation, among scientists at any rate, isn’t as grudging — or difficult — as it’s occasionally been.
I think that video does a better job than I could, of explaining how 469219 Kamoʻoalewa is circling Earth, but not orbiting our planet.
About the video’s title, “Asteroid 2016 HO3…”, 469219 Kamoʻoalewa had the provisional designation 2016 HO3 when NASA posted that video: June 23, 2016.
I talked about astronomical names and designations back in 2021. There’s a link near the end of this post.
Anyway, 469219 Kamoʻoalewa is a quasi-satellite of Earth. It’s circling our planet at the moment, but it’s outside Earth’s astrodynamic sphere of influence.
469219 Kamoʻoalewa stays close to Earth because it’s in a co-orbital configuration: a 1:1 orbital resonance with Earth. Its year is the same length as Earth’s.
Objects with a particular sort of orbital resonance that keeps them close to a planet, but that stay outside the planet’s sphere of influence, are called quasi-satellites.3
Don’t bother trying to remember that stuff: there won’t, happily, be a test on this.
In This Week’s News: 469219 Kamoʻoalewa and a Lunar Crater
Giordano Bruno crater, with 100 meter topographic contours. NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University. (2012)
“You may never be able to go home again, as the old proverb asserts, but for a chunk of rock sharing Earth’s orbit around the Sun, you might at long last know where it is.
“The provenance of asteroid Kamo’oalewa, discovered in 2016, is something of a mystery, but astronomers believe it may be a chunk of the Moon. A new analysis has even identified the crater from which it may have been gouged.
“Using numerical simulations, a team led by astronomer Yifei Jiao of Tsinghua University in China has determined the properties of the crater most likely have to produced the asteroid, and found a real one that matches those properties: the Giordano Bruno crater on the far side of the Moon.
“‘We have explored the processes for impact-induced lunar fragments migrating into Earth co-orbital space and presented support for Kamo’oalewa’s possible origin from the formation of the Giordano Bruno crater a few million years ago,’ the researchers write in their paper.
“‘This would directly link a specific asteroid in space to its source crater on the Moon and suggests the existence of more small asteroids composed of lunar material yet to be discovered in near-Earth space.’…”
That’s what got me started on this week’s post.
This year’s study of 469219 Kamoʻoalewa wasn’t the first that discussed why the asteroid probably started as a piece of the Moon’s crust. I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last.
The way 469219 Kamoʻoalewa reflects light very strongly suggests that it spins around once every 28 minutes, give or take a bit.
Assuming that 469219 Kamoʻoalewa is an S-type asteroid, again based on how it reflects light, it’s very roughly 40 to 100 meters across: 130 to 330 feet.
That’s not huge, but since 469219 Kamoʻoalewa is spinning so (comparatively) fast, it’s almost certainly a solid piece of rock: not a rubble pile.
Yifei Jiao’s team probably built on research published in 2021 that looked at orbital mechanics and the odds of Lunar impacts in various places sending rocks into resonant orbits.
I also found discussions of a possible connection between 12th century monks and Giordano Bruno crater on the Moon. Possible, but not probable.4
I’d prefer getting a look at the 2024 Kamoʻoalewa research paper, but ran into the same problem as I did last week. I was either looking in the wrong place, or lack the proper credentials: maybe there are other explanations, too.
So my guess, that the 2024 paper builds on 2021 research by Castro-Cisneros, Malhotra, and Rosengren — will remain just that: a guess.
Horseshoe Orbits and Naming Kamoʻoalewa
Although I didn’t find the latest Kamoʻoalewa paper — actually, I did find it. I know where it is, but I don’t have access to it. And I’m wandering off-topic.
Anyway, 2024 Kamoʻoalewa is a quasi-satellite of Earth, circling our planet, but in its own orbit around the Sun. That’s a temporary situation.
Using math that I’ve read about but can’t actually do, scientists have worked out 2024 Kamoʻoalewa’s orbit: from the year 1600 to 2500.
Details vary, depending on which models they’re using.
But there’s pretty good agreement that 2024 Kamoʻoalewa was in a horseshoe orbit around the sun until about a century back, and will transition back into a horseshoe orbit a few centuries from now.
Horseshoe orbits are another sort of co-orbital configuration. Except that instead of being in a 1:1 orbital resonance with a planet that keeps the object circling the planet, an object in a horseshoe orbit circles the planet’s orbit.
Instead of circling a fixed point on the planet’s orbit, the object drifts back and forth along the orbit. The shape reminds me of patterns a Spirograph® makes, only in three dimensions. Four, if you include time.
Let’s see, what else?
2024 Kamoʻoalewa was spotted by the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy’s Pan-STARRS asteroid survey telescope. Pan-STARRS gets funding from NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office.
The name Kamoʻoalewa sounds Hawaiian because it is: ka ‘the’, moʻo ‘fragment’, a ‘of’, lewa ‘to oscillate’. Folks at the A Hua He Inoa, ʻImiloa Astronomy Center of Hawaiʻi came up with the name, and it’s been official since April 6, 2019.5
(Almost) finally: that possible-but-not-probable connection between 12th century monks and the Giordano Bruno crater.
Gervase of Canterbury and a Monkish Mystery
Left: crater Giordano Bruno on a map of the Lunar farside. Right, Giordano Bruno crater.
Gervase of Canterbury is one of the monks who buried St. Thomas of Canterbury, after Thomas didn’t live down to his king’s expectations.
Gervase of Canterbury is also known as an English chronicler.
In 1976, a geologist said that this excerpt from Gervase of Canterbury’s writings recorded an observation of the Giordano Bruno crater impact event:
“…[On the evening of June 18, 1178] after sunset when the moon had first become visible a marvelous phenomenon was witnessed by some five or more men…Now there was a bright new moon…its horns were tilted toward the east; and suddenly the upper horn split in two. From the midpoint of the division a flaming torch sprang up, spewing out, over a considerable distance, fire, hot coals, and sparks. Meanwhile the body of the moon which was below writhed, as it were, in anxiety…the moon throbbed like a wounded snake. Afterwards it resumed its proper state. This phenomenon was repeated a dozen times or more, the flame assuming various twisting shapes at random…Then after these transformations the moon from horn to horn…took on a blackish appearance. The present writer was given this report by men who saw it with their own eyes, and are prepared to stake their honour on an oath that they have made no addition or falsification in the above narrative….” (Gervase of Canterbury (ca. 1200) via Melanie Melton, Planetary Society)
The last I checked, there’s no proof that the five monks actually saw a lunar impact; and pretty good reasons for thinking that they didn’t.
For one thing, the Giordano Bruno crater is probably between one and 10 million years old, maybe older. For another, the odds that an impact as big as the one that made that crater happened in the last thousand years is — minimal.
Besides, an impact like that would have thrown something like 10,000,000 tons of rock into the Lunar sky.
Some of that would have escaped the Moon’s gravity and fallen toward Earth. Nobody, anywhere, wrote about an epic meteor shower around that time.
Maybe the monks just happened to be in the right spot to see a meteor flame out in the English sky, between them and the Moon.
Monks, a meteor, and the Moon being lined up like that is a low-probability event. But so is a Lunar impact happening just then. Given that the Canterbury light show was probably local, odds are that the monks did not witness a Lunar impact.
I was mildly surprised to see no learned composition, asserting that the monks couldn’t have seen a Lunar impact: because both Gervase and the witnesses were monks. And that monks are religious people who, of course, hate science.
The closest I found to that attitude was what I think was a lighthearted reference to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.6
“…Gervase’s report must either be an impact event with a wrong date or a nonimpact event. In either case, the connection between the Canterbury event and the Canterbury Swarm must be a Canterbury Tale.” (“Lunar Event of 1178A.D. — a Canterbury tale?“, B. E. Schaefer, P. M. Bagnall; Journal of the British Astronomical Association (October 1990))
Giordano Bruno Died For Your Sins??
Ettore Ferrari’s bronze relief, illustrating the trial of Giordano Bruno by the Roman Inquisition.
“The fools of the world have been those who have established religions, ceremonies, laws, faith, rule of life….” (“Cabal of the Cheval Pegasus”, Giordano Bruno (1585) via Wikiquote)
“All things are in the Universe, and the universe is in all things: we in it, and it in us; in this way everything concurs in a perfect unity.” “The Universe is one, infinite, immobile. … It is not generated, because there is no other being it could desire or hope for, since it comprises all being. It does not grow corrupt. because there is nothing else into which it could change, given that it is itself all things. It cannot diminish or grow, since it is infinite.” (“Cause, Principle, and Unity”, Giordano Bruno (1584) via Wikiquote) [emphasis mine]
Giordano Bruno was a philosopher, poet, cosmological theorist, and (Western) esotericist. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says he was “one of the most adventurous thinkers of the Renaissance”.
The self-described best and brightest of the 19th and early 20th centuries said Giordano Bruno was a martyr for science: because he was tried by the Roman Inquisition, and burned at the stake in the Campo de’ Fiori.
It’s true that some of his opinions turned out to be (mostly) right. And that his opinions got him in trouble with the powers that be.
He also had self-esteem above and beyond the call of reason.
By the time I was getting interested in science, Giordano Bruno was still recognized as a Glorious Martyr for the Cause.
But by then, the best and brightest were focusing more on Galileo Galilei as the Champion of Truth and Science.
Galileo, heroically standing firm against the Forces of Oppression, whose weapons were Superstition and Ignorance. It made a compelling story.
I’m not sure why focus shifted to Galileo. Maybe it was because he had actually done significant scientific research.
Giordano Bruno was more of a philosopher. He’d started out as a Dominican friar, then (probably) became a Calvinist. Both the Lutherans and the Calvinist Council excommunicated Bruno. Eventually he told the Roman Inquisition that they were wrong and he was right.
In 1600, Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori.
These days, that’d be like someone being electrocuted in Washington D.C.’s National Mall. Or maybe New York City’s Times Square.
Although some folks still regard Giordano Bruno as a martyr for science, I gather that most historians have gotten around to checking their records.
His ideas about cosmology weren’t conventional. But it was Bruno’s imaginative and fervent rebranding of nifty old ideas that got him in trouble.
The Bruno spin metempsychosis and panpsychism, for example, was new. The ideas themselves had been around at least since the Axial age.7
Attitudes and Assumptions: Giordano Bruno and Nicholas of Cusa
NGC 4848 and other galaxies.
Giordano Bruno got some things right. Stars are other suns, and planets orbit a great many of them.
Over the last few decades, we’ve made observations which strongly suggest that this universe is infinite. Or that it isn’t. There’s a debate in progress, regarding that point.
The physical universe we’re in may be the only one. Or maybe we live in one of an unknown number of ‘universes’. That’s another debate in progress.
A century before Giordano Bruno left a trail of repackaged beliefs — and scorch marks in the Campo de’ Fiori — Nicholas of Cusa had said that Earth isn’t the center of the universe, and that there might be other worlds — — —
But Nicholas of Cusa was a Catholic cardinal. And everybody knows what they’re like.
I don’t know what went wrong in the centuries between Saints Hidegard of Bingen, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas — and Europe’s 16th-century meltdown.
The 11th through 13th centuries were no picnic, either: I’ve talked about that before.
Looking back at the Giordano Bruno and Galileo SNAFUs with 20-20 hindsight, I see some wisdom in Galileo’s permanent time out. I can even see why his books were banned, and why Giordano Bruno was executed.
That doesn’t mean I think either was a good idea. Censorship and the traditional right of folks in charge to kill their subjects are topics for another time.
That’s partly, I suspect, because I’m an American who grew up in the 1960s.
I wasn’t on the same page as The Establishment then. Now that the folks in charge have different quirks and slogans: I’m still not on the same page.
I’d be even less enthusiastic about the powers that be, if my homeland hadn’t somehow held on to the curious notion that folks shouldn’t be punished for expressing unsanctioned opinions.
And that’s yet another topic or two, for another time.
I’m also aware that, although the folks in charge may be highly proficient in hanging on to their fancy titles and big offices, they don’t necessarily have a clue about anything else.
Like Dante being accused of heresy: based on lines 103 through 108 of “The Divine Comedy”, Inferno.
Seems that Dante Alighieri’s imagery, illustrating the union of body and soul — looked like a heretical denial of the Resurrection. To some of his poetically-challenged contemporaries, at any rate.
“…The Suicides willed the death of the flesh, but they cannot be rid of it: their eternity is an eternity of that death. (The absurd charge of heretically denying the resurrection of the body was brought against Dante on the strength of these lines, but only by those to whom the language of poetic imagery is a sealed book.)” (Dorothy L. Sayers’ footnote to “The Divine Comedy,” Inferno, Canto XIII, line 107; “The Divine Comedy 1 Hell,” Dante Alighieri, Translation by Dorothy L. Sayers (1949); Penguin Classics reprint) [emphasis mine]
Finally, although I’m glad that my access frustrations are mainly limited to paywalls and unnecessarily rigid members-only information services — I do look for “nihil obstat” (“nothing hinders”) in publications that deal with matters of faith and morals.
If I find something that doesn’t seem to make sense in an approved document: odds are that I’m missing something. And that’s — you guessed it — yet again another topic.
As for whether God’s universe fits this, that, or the other cosmological model?
I figure part of our job is learning how God’s creation works: accepting what we’ve learned, and to keep learning.
“Our God is in heaven and does whatever he wills.” (Psalms 115:3)
How we got to a point where Sirius is also called Aschere, Canicula, Al Shira, Mrgavyadha and Lubdhaka, α Canis Majoris (α CMa), 9 Canis Majoris (9 CMa), HD 48915, HR 2491, BD-16°1591, GJ 244, ADS 5423, and HIP 32349
“Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) was one of the most adventurous thinkers of the Renaissance. Supremely confident in his intellectual abilities, he ridiculed Aristotelianism, especially its contemporary adherents. Copernicus’s heliocentric theory provided a starting point for his exposition of what he called a ‘new philosophy’. … The universe was infinite, animate and populated by numberless solar systems. It was also eternal. As such, it exhibited all possibilities at any given moment, and all parts of it assumed all possibilities over time, thereby constituting a cognizable manifestation of a timeless and absolute principle, God. In keeping with these ideas, Bruno proposed versions of metempsychosis, polygenism, panpsychism and, renouncing Christian emphases on human imperfection, advocated a morality that exhorted individuals to perfect their intellectual powers.” (Giordano Bruno, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) [emphasis mine]
“After some inventive sleuthing, the mission team can — for the first time in five months — check the health and status of the most distant human-made object in existence.
For the first time since November, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems. The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again. The probe and its twin, Voyager 2, are the only spacecraft to ever fly in interstellar space (the space between stars).
“Voyager 1 stopped sending readable science and engineering data back to Earth on Nov. 14, 2023,…”
As I’m writing this, Voyager 1 has been outward bound for 46 years, seven months, 18 days and about two hours. And now it’s back online, and sending back useful data. Not bad, for something launched in the mid-1960s.
Something new each Saturday.
Life, the universe and my circumstances permitting. I'm focusing on 'family stories' at the moment. ("A Change of Pace: Family Stories" (11/23/2024))
Blog - David Torkington
Spiritual theologian, author and speaker, specializing in prayer, Christian spirituality and mystical theology [the kind that makes sense-BHG]
I was born in 1951. I'm a husband, father and grandfather. One of the kids graduated from college in December, 2008, and is helping her husband run businesses and raise my granddaughter; another is a cartoonist and artist; #3 daughter is a writer; my son is developing a digital game with #3 and #1 daughters. I'm also a writer and artist.
Folks have a great many ways of dealing with grief and loss.
