Log24

“The Christkindl, the Christmas Fairy, is a cherished highlight during the Holiday Tree Lighting. The Christmas Fairy proclaims the opening of Christkindlmarket Chicago.”

Also from the official Chicago Christkindl website:

In its English version, the Nuremberg website calls the alleged “Christmas Fairy” an angel:

“The Nuremberg Christmas Angel with her white and golden dress, long blond curls and her golden crown, has been the symbol for the Christmas Market for many decades. During Advent time, the Christmas Angel is the most important representative of the city and of the traditional Christmas Market.

Every year, on the Friday before the first Advent Sunday, the Nuremberg Christmas Angel opens the Nuremberg Christmas Market by reciting a solemn prologue.”

The German version of the Nuremberg site calls the Christmas Angel the Christkind (Christ Child).  This confusion of the Christ Child with a supernatural bringer of gifts– hence, later, an angel, and, in Chicago, a fairy– is said to have originated with Martin Luther.

From a Radio Deutsche Welle website–

Nuremberg, City of Angels—

The making of a myth

 

The Christkind was originally introduced in the 16th century by religious reformer Martin Luther.  Until then, it was always Saint Nicholas who brought gifts on Dec. 6.  But as Protestants can’t have saints, Luther needed a new Christmas tradition for his followers. “Luther wanted to move the gift-giving away from the Catholic holiday on Dec. 6,” said Nuremberg tourism manager Michael Weber. “So he reinvented the tradition for Protestants by moving it to Christmas Eve and making the Christkind— really, the baby Jesus– the person who brought the gifts.”

 

It was under the rule of the National Socialists that the image of today’s Christkind was ultimately anchored in the collective German mind.  They built on Nuremberg’s tradition of producing tinsel angels, and in 1933, had a young girl in an angel costume open the city’s Christmas Market for the first time.  After the second World War, Nuremberg’s tinsel angels became simply the Nuremberg Christkind, and the figures were sold nation-wide. 

Here is the banner for the Nuremberg site:

  The banner reads:
“Nuremberg Christkindlesmarkt–
Where the Christ Child
is at home“

Maybe.

“What on earth is
   a ‘concrete universal’?”

— Said to be an annotation
(undated)
by Robert M. Pirsig of
A History of Philosophy,
by Frederick Copleston,
Society of Jesus.

For an answer, see
“The Structure of the
‘Concrete Universal’
in Literature,”
by W. K. Wimsatt, Jr.,
PMLA, Vol. 62, No. 1
(March, 1947), pp. 262-280.

This is reprinted in Wimsatt’s
The Verbal Icon:
Studies in the
Meaning of Poetry.

The final chapter of
The Verbal Icon
is titled
“Poetry and Christian Thinking.”
For more on Wimsatt
and this topic, see
“Reclaiming the Bible
as Literature,”
by Louis A. Markos.

Related material from March 2004:
Anschaulichkeit (3/16) and
Readings for St. Patrick’s Day.

“For every kind of vampire,
there is a kind of cross.”
— Thomas Pynchon,
Gravity’s Rainbow

“Who knows where madness lies?”
— Rhetorical question
in “Man of La Mancha”
(See previous entry.)

Using madness to
seek out madness, let us
  consult today’s numbers…

Pennsylvania Lottery
Nov. 22, 2006:

Mid-day 487
Evening 814

The number 487 leads us to
page 487 in the
May 1977 PMLA,
“The Form of Carnival
in Under the Volcano“:

“The printing presses’ flywheel
marks the whirl of time*
    that will split La Despedida….”

Flywheel

From Dana Grove,
A Rhetorical Analysis of
Under the Volcano,
page 92:

“Beyond Belief”:

This was the name of a
Nov. 5-7 conference on
the religion of Scientism
described in today’s
New York Times.

Beyond Despair:

 
Doonesbury 11/21/06

For some, art serves as
an alternative to both
traditional religion and
the religion of Scientism.

See, for instance, the Log24
entries on All Hallows’ Eve
in both 2005 and 2006.

Copyright © 2006 Steven H. Cullinane

See Ursprache (6/02)
and Decrease.

Casino Royale
and
Time in the Rock

 
In today’s cognitive blend,
the role of Casino Royale
is played by the
Pennsylvania Lottery,
which points to 7/26,
Venus at St. Anne’s
(title of the closing chapter
of That Hideous Strength).

The role of
Time in the Rock
is played by a
Log24 entry of 3/29,
Diamond Theory in 1937.

“There is such a thing
as a tesseract.“

Left:   An ad from a page     
             on the new Bond film    
   Right:  From PBS last night,      
   “Prime Suspect 7“

On this date:

“In 1929, Grace Kelly–
the future movie star
and Princess of Monaco–
was born in Philadelphia.”

Today’s mid-day lottery
in the State of Grace:

361

Happy birthday.

No se puede vivir
sin amar.

An interpretation:

762 feet is the height
of Honolulu’s
Diamond Head.

2/06 is the date of
a Log24 entry quoting
Indiana Jones:

“Legend says that when the
stones are brought together
 the diamonds inside of them
will glow.”

Mahalo.

1 Peter 2, on the
“living stone.”
— NIV Bible

See also Wednesday’s
Grave Matters.

ED BRADLEY:
“… Only a few fishermen
help the boat people ashore.
We joined in….”

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Game Boy     Click on picture for details. “Nine is a very powerful Nordic number.” — Katherine Neville http://www.dict.cc/?s=Einsatz:   to put one’s back into something bei etwas Einsatz zeigen to up the ante den Einsatz erhöhen to debrief den Einsatz nachher besprechen to be on duty im Einsatz sein mil.to be in action im Einsatz sein to play for high stakes mit hohem Einsatz spielen

* “Wolf” — See the etymological notes
in The Shining of May 29.

For clues to interpreting
today’s Keystone State
mid-day lottery number,
023, see
The Prime Cut Gospel.

For clues to interpreting
today’s Keystone State
evening lottery number,
666, see
the “Apocalypse Now”
quotations on
All Saints’ Day, 2006.

West Coast Story:
A musical adaptation of
Romeo and Juliet

and

(Official inaugural ball
theme of Richard M. Nixon)