Timely update about changes to MadBeppo that have been accumulating over the past three years: a redesigned home page, many new authors and texts, more fascinating language files, and glorious original illustrations added to selected pages!
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Le prophète est celui qui s’oppose à ce que le moyen devienne fin, à ce que la forme extérieure soit cherchée et servie pour elle-même.
The prophet is a person opposed to the means becoming an end, to the exterior form’s being sought for and served for its own sake. –Yves Congar, Vraie et fausse réforme dans l’Eglise (p201)
Test Your Omniscience!
Sample final exam questions, of a truly apocalyptic quality, proposed for an unnamed secondary institution, but that was a leading preparatory school in the area where the Professor used to live and work and have his being.
What were you thinking when you squeezed the life out of him? Did you think you were G O D, BRANDON?!
A quoi songeais-tu pendant que tu lui retirais la vie? Te prenais-tu pour D I E U, BRANDON?!
–Rupert (Jimmy Stewart) to Brandon (John Dall) in Rope (1948)
Mark’s Adventures Underground Part 2
The concluding, actually underground part of this two-part series.
Mark’s Adventures Underground Part 1
The tale of Mark’s journeys continues. His descent to the underground and what he found there.
Go ahead and look! I hope you LIKE what you see!!!
Eh bien! vas-y, regarde, puisque tu y tiens. J’espère que la vue te plaira!
– Brandon (John Dall) to Rupert (Jimmy Stewart) in Rope (1948)
French Subtitles Come to Scientific Method
The animated internet series Scientific Method will soon have closed captioning in English, and selected episodes, such as the very first one (“Ignorance Isn’t Bliss”) will have subtitles in French!
A Request Addressed to Experts in the Thought of René Girard
The Professor admits to his decades-long fascination with René Girard (the thinker, not the footballer) and asks for help interpreting two episodes from the Christian scriptures.
And Jesus took himself down by the Sea of Galilee, and there he did name his third apos-tle, and summon him forth on land. – The narrator (Orson Welles) in Nicholas Ray’s King of Kings (1961)
Mark in the Bee-Hive State Part 5: Happy Returns
‘Mark’, with the help of friends, triumphantly concludes his journey of spiritual exploration.
New and Upcoming Changes at MadBeppo
Friends, I know you will be as excited as I am when you learn that MadBeppo.com is going through some major changes. These include some main menu reorganization, the revised Authors & Texts page, plus something completely new on the horizon.
Rome! l’unique objet de mon ressentiment!
Rome, only object of my anger! – Camille, in Pierre de Corneille’s Horace (1640)
Mark in the Bee-Hive State Part 4: The Salty Terror of Saltair
In Part 4, ‘Mark’, losing for a moment his spiritual bearings, is plunged into a phantasmagoric horror associated with a terrifying Utahan resort of yesteryear.
Mark in the Bee-Hive State Part 3: Definitely in the Desert
The third part of the account of ‘Mark”s journeys in the state of Utah. He starts off on a sound footing, only to misstep subsequently.
Laugh, and the world laughs with you; / Weep, and you weep alone; / For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, / But has trouble enough of its own. – Ella Wheeler Wilcox, “Solitude”
‘Mark’ in the Bee-Hive State Part 2: Approaching the Land of Stone and Sand
In Part 2, ‘Mark’ is heading off to the desert but first gets some unexpected spiritual treats.
Mark in the Bee-Hive State Part 1: Mysteries of Salt Lake City
Are spiritual quests a thing of the past? Not a bit of it. Here are memorialized certain high-points of a journey recently made by a friend of mine — I will call him ‘Mark’ — to the land of Brigham Young.
So let it be written — So let it be done!
Qu’on l’écrive ainsi — et qu’on le fasse pareillement! – Rameses (Yul Brynner) in The Ten Commandments (1959)
Doctors on the French Stage
On April 21st, 2016, students in my French course Travaux pratiques de la scène put on a show highlighting the important place of medicos in French theater.