vilakins | Nights out

I just got back from Russian class and I'm still warming up (it's freezing out there, and wet too--as usual). This has been my third night out in a row and it's been hard to find the time to do daily art let alone write anything. Today I squeezed it in between getting home and dinner, but last night I only started at 10:30pm. :-( I'm so looking forward to some warm nights in, but I did enjoy what I did this week.

The art lecture on Monday night, on depictions of women in art in the last 2000 years, was fascinating and often very funny. Due to a pope's mistake (fallible after all!), the western Christian tradition rolled Mary of Magdala, Mary of Bethany--the one with a sister called Martha--and at least two other women described as sinners, all into one Mary. You see, apparently Mary and Salome were wildly popular names back then, like Taylor and Jack now. The eastern orthodox churches didn't mix them up though, and recently the pope (this one or the last one?) admitted the mistake and reinstated the maligned Mary of Bethany as Not Being A Scarlet Woman.

The term 'scarlet woman' BTW comes from the tradition of showing sainted women in red; even Mary the mother of Jesus wears little red shoes peeping out from under her blue robe. :-) Then, just because the multiple-Mary the penitent sinner wore red, it came to be seen as symbolic of Fallen Women.

One of the strangest images was of Martha the Dragon Stayer. No, that's not a typo. French legend has it that the sisters from Bethany, Mary and Martha, went to France where Mary became a contemplative hermit in a cave, and Martha tamed or 'stayed' a dragon that was terrorising a village by speaking kindly to it and telling it what a basically good dragon it was. It became her devoted pet, and she then turned it over to the villagers--who promptly killed it. :-(

Last night I went to a celebrity chef cooking demo. The chef was Sophie Grey the 'destitute gourmet' who teaches both cooking and how to shop smart and cheap. She only buys ingredients and makes everything, including bread, crackers, pasta etc; last night she did a quick pizza base. I was interested that she used a very fast-acting powdered yeast I hadn't heard of before; I'll have to see if I can adapt my sunflower bread recipe for it. She also did minestrone soup which I didn't try because it had bacon in it, curry paste from scratch for a yummy chicken curry, and profiteroles! YUM! With a chocolate ganache! YUM! I love profiteroles, and her idea of putting some liqueur-soaked fruit in them? Genius.

As for my Russian classes, I'm enjoying those apart from the cold, unheated prefab classroom it's in. It's just a pity that my friend who suggested going in the first place has given up because of her inability to learn the alphabet. I may sign on for the intermediate course.

I just found out that I may be going to Bulgaria next year with Greg for a month to see his relatives there. Bulgarian uses the Cyrillic script so this may actually come in useful.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

the many marys sounds very interesting :0) Shame your Russian lessons are held somewhere where they are attempting to recreate the traditional weather for you

Except that in Russia, they heat their buildings. My Russian friends said they've never been so cold before they came here.

Yeah, Australia and NZ seem to build their houses for summer, not winter.

Hmm, true. I remember visiting Prague in February, it was -18° and I wasn't cold once as the buildings we so well constructed

I actually found buildings in Germany too hot when I lived there!

Mary, Mariamne (the name of two of Herod's wives), Mariam and Miriam are all basically the same name - presumably Moses' sister Miriam was the original reason for its popularity. I think there was a rather odd Muslim legend (not supported by the Koran) that Mary actually was Miriam, miraculously preserved for centuries to become the mother of Jesus.

This icon is apt, as I think it depicts the suitors of Mary waiting for her father to choose her husband.

I was told the name was so popular because of Herod's wives, and yes, Mary is the Anglicised version of Miriam.

A friend of mine who was called Mary changed it to Miriam because she liked it better. At least it's better known than Thirzah which was my mother's name (English version Teresa, I think). It was always being mispronounced as Thurza instead of Tear-tza, and she was plagued at school with Thursday Crayfish (a play on both her names).

Lovely icon!

I hadn't heard of Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany being combined, only Mary Magdalene and the woman with long hair and a jar of precious ointment.

After all you have Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Mary the wife of Clopas and the other Mary all at the crucifixion.

Is the other Mary Mary of Bethany, sister to Martha (the annoyed one who did the housework)? They said on Monday that that Mary washed Jesus' feet and dried them with her hair, but because two other unnamed women anointed his feet, they got amalgamated, and branded as penitent sinners.

There was a New Yorker cartoon of a photograph of a kindergarten class, with the caption (L to R: Scott, Jennifer, Jennifer, Scott, Scott, Jennifer...)
so now I'm imagining a religious painting (L to R: Miriam, Mary, Joshua, Joshua, Mary, Miriam...)

But all it says about Mary-with-the-jar-of-ointment is that she was "a woman who was a sinner" and Jesus said that her sins should be forgiven "because she had greatly loved"; it's a study in itself why the unnamed sins should be interpreted as sexual. I mean, maybe she stole ten talents in gold to take care of her sick children.

John Singer Sargent did a painting titled 'Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose'. It was of two children lighting Japanese lanterns in a flower garden, so it's not clear if the title refers to the garden or the children or both.

why the unnamed sins should be interpreted as sexual

Because where the church is concerned it's always sexual.

In one of Dorothy Sayers' essays (written during WWII) she said that she never saw anyone being refused Communion as an "open and notorious evil liver" for war profiteering.

After going away and reading other bits of the gospels, St John specifically says that Mary of Bethany is the one with the hair and the ointment.

I think there were at least three, some with ointment, and one only washing and drying, and not all were penitent sinners. I didn't take notes, sorry. Now I'm getting confused.

Ha! The Scotts would all be Jacks now.

Scene from Mary's school days" "All right, class, divide into two teams. Marys on the left and Salomes on the right."

it's a study in itself why the unnamed sins should be interpreted as sexual

Exactly That was indeed mentioned in the lecture. Sigh.

About minestrone: I find that dark greens like collards or turnip greens (especially if browned really well in olive oil) give the soup a "smoky" taste that is a little like the taste imparted by bacon.

Good tip, thanks. I always like to put dark greens in my soups, but I never thought of browing them.

I like the idea of a dragon Stayer!
Typical though she goes to all the effort of taming it only to have those who feared it kill it - metaphor anyone?

The legend states that she was understandably very upset.

I'm not surprised she was probably fond of it having tamed it!

Martha the Dragon Stayer...I like that! And she only needed to speak to it nicely and tell it what a good dragon it was.

Then the villagers kill it? Bad villagers!

I know. Such a sad story for the dragon.

Nights out

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