Today is the Optional Memorial of Our Lady of Good Counsel and the Optional Memorial of Saint Cletus, Pope and Martyr (died c. 92). We note that today is National Arbor Day, and the second day of the first weekend of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
The feast of Our Lady of Good Counsel dates from the mid-fifteenth century, after a small painting (some eighteen inches square) now found in the thirteenth century Augustinian church at Genazzano, near Rome. Legend holds that the painting was in a church in Albania, but was miraculously transported to Italy. The Augustinian Order contributed to the spread of this devotion internationally. Such was the holy image’s reputation that Pope Urban VIII made a “glittering” pilgrimage there in 1630, invoking the protection of the Queen of Heaven, In 1753 Pope Benedict XIV established the Pious Union of Our Lady of Good Counsel. Leo XIII, who was himself a member of the pious union, was deeply attached to this devotion, and on April 22nd, 1903 the Pope included the invocation “Mater boni consilii” in the Litany of Loreto. In 1939 Venerable Pope Pius XII placed his pontificate under the maternal care of Our Lady of Good Counsel and composed a prayer to her. Our Lady of Good Counsel is the Patroness of the Missionary Sisters of Saint Peter Claver, the National Council of Catholic Women, and of the Catholic Women’s League of Canada. Saint Cletus, Pope and Martyr (died c. 92). also known as Anacletus, served as the Third Bishop of Rome (the Pope) from 79 until 92. Cletus was a Roman, who during his tenure as Pope, is known to have ordained a number of priests and is traditionally credited with setting up about twenty-five parishes in Rome. Although the precise dates of his pontificate are uncertain, tradition records that he died as a martyr, and was buried next to his predecessor, Saint Linus, near the grave of St. Peter’s, in what is now Vatican City. Cletus is one of the Saints mentioned in the Roman Canon of the Mass. Today is the national celebration of Arbor Day, this being the last Friday in April. On the first Arbor Day, organized by J. Sterling Morton in Nebraska City, Nebraska on April 10th, 1872, an estimated one million trees were planted. Birdsey Northrop of Connecticut was responsible for globalizing it when he visited Japan in 1883 and delivered his Arbor Day and Village Improvement message. In that same year the American Forestry Association made Northrop the Chairman of the committee to campaign for Arbor Day nationwide. In 1997 David J. Wright of the Ecology Crossroads Cooperative Foundation in Kentucky noticed that a Nebraska non profit organization called the National Arbor Day Foundation had taken the name of the holiday and commercialized it for their own use as a trademark for their publication Arbor Day. He countered their efforts and defended the holiday name in a federal district court in the United States to insure it was judged as property of the public domain. The case was settled in October 1999 in Wright’s favor, and today anyone can use the term “Arbor Day” and anyone can hold their own Arbor Day celebration. (Unless one chooses to print it out, this Daily Update was produced without using any trees.) Today is the second day of the first weekend of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. The official food policy of the Festival is “no carnival food.” Indeed, there are more than seventy food booths, all with unique food items, including, but not limited to, Mango Freeze, crawfish beignets, cochon de lait sandwiches, alligator sausage po boys, boiled crawfish, softshell crab po boys, crawfish Monica, and many other dishes. Today’s lineup includes The Killers, Jon Batiste, The Revivalists, Kem, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
Last night I continued reading The Cat Who Went Up the Creek by Lilian Jackson Braun (Ebook).
Richard fed the cats and left for Baton Rouge to visit with Stephen. I woke up at 9:00 am, and posted to Facebook that today was Arbor Day. (It is also the Second Day of the First Weekend of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, but I did not post that today.) I did my Book Devotional Reading, then ate my breakfast toast and read the Acadiana Advocate out on the porch. I then did my Internet Devotional Reading. I opted not to leaf blow, as the porch did not need it (plus, it is windy today). I also opted not to water per se, as the plants did not need it. I put some sunflower seeds in a bare patch of the butterfly garden, then I showered the front plants, the butterfly garden, and the porch plants. I then refilled the hummingbird feeders. I started reading A Real Right to Vote: How a Constitutional Amendment Can Safeguard American Democracy by Richard L. Hasen (Ebook). I left the house at 2:00 pm, and at Walmart, saw my girl Jazmine at SmartStyle (the first time I have seen her since she came back to work from maternity leave), and got groceries, household items, and an electric can opener. I arrived home at 3:00 pm. Richard came home, and Amazon delivered three pairs of walking pants from Liz Ellen, which fit great. We watched Jeopardy! and news, I sent a text to Liz Ellen thanking her, and I continued reading A Real Right to Vote: How a Constitutional Amendment Can Safeguard American Democracy by Richard L. Hasen (Ebook). We left the house at 5:30 pm; at Walmart Richard tried to get his prescription, but did not want to wait another twenty minutes for it. We went to D.C.’s, where I had five pounds of boiled crawfish with corn and potatoes (as usual, the crawfish at D.C.’s is too salty). When we got home we watched Nova 5102 “Easter Island Origins” (2024). Our #6 LSU Lady Tigers lost the first game of a three-game three-day Home SEC College Softball series with the #15 Arkansas Razorbacks by the score of 1 to 2, and our LSU Tigers (26-16, 5-13) are playing the first game of a three-game three-day Home SEC College Baseball series with the Auburn Tigers (20-20, 2-16).
Tomorrow we have no Saints to honor, so we will instead note that tomorrow is the Municipal General Election in Louisiana (with nothing on my ballot), and that tomorrow is the third day of the first weekend of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Our New Orleans Pelicans will be playing a Home NBA game with the Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday, April 27th, with the series at 2 and 0 in favor of the Thunder. I will be going to the 4:00 pm Saturday Anticipation Mass for the Fifth Sunday of Easter (Cantate Sunday) (Alleluia!). Our #6 LSU Lady Tigers (35-12, 11-11) will be playing the second game of a three-game three-day Home SEC College Softball series with the #15 Arkansas Razorbacks (33-12, 12-17), and our LSU Tigers will be playing the second game of a three-game three-day Home SEC College Baseball series with the Auburn Tigers.
Our Parting Quote on this Friday evening comes to us from Jonathan Demme, American filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer (died 2017). Born as Robert Jonathan Demme in 1944 in Baldwin, Long Island, New York, he grew up in nearby Rockville Center and attended high school in Miami, Florida, after the family moved there. After graduating from high school he went to the University of Florida wishing to become a veterinarian, but flunked chemistry. He discovered that the campus newspaper had no film critic, so he volunteered for the position so that he could see movies for free. He also became a critic for a shopping guide in Coral Gables, for which he wrote a glowing notice for Zulu (1964), a film whose executive producer was Joseph E. Levine, the founder of Embassy Pictures, the film’s American distributor. Levine was on vacation in Miami Beach and staying at the Fontainebleau Hotel, and became acquainted with the hotel’s publicist, who was Demme’s father. Impressed by the young man, Levine offered him a job, and Demme worked in the Embassy publicity department in New York before moving to London in 1969. He broke into feature film working for exploitation film producer Roger Corman from 1971 to 1976, co-writing and producing Angels Hard as They Come (1971), a motorcycle movie very loosely based on Rashomon, and The Hot Box (1972). He then moved on to directing, with three films (Caged Heat (1973), Crazy Mama (1974), and Fighting Mad (1974)) for Corman’s studio New World Pictures. After Fighting Mad, Demme directed the comedy film Citizens Band (later retitled Handle with Care) for Paramount Pictures in 1977. The film was well received by critics, but received little promotion, and performed poorly at the box office. Demme’s next film, 1980’s Melvin and Howard, did not get a wide release, but received a groundswell of critical acclaim, and led to the signing of Demme to direct the Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell star vehicle Swing Shift. Intended as a prestige picture for Warner Bros. as well as a major commercial vehicle for Demme, it instead became a troubled production due to the conflicting visions of Demme and star Hawn. Demme ended up renouncing the finished product, and when the film was released in May 1984, it was generally panned by critics and neglected by moviegoers. Meanwhile, in 1981 he directed a series of commercials for the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way. The spots, titled “Eggs”, “Music”, and “Sports”, were produced by Norman Lear and featured Muhammad Ali, Carol Burnett, and Goldie Hawn celebrating Freedom of Expression. After Swing Shift, Demme stepped back from Hollywood to make the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense (1984); the eclectic screwball action-romantic comedy Something Wild (1985); a 1985 video for Artists United Against Apartheid, which featured various international musicians including Afrika Bambaataa, Rubén Blades, Jimmy Cliff, Herbie Hancock, Little Steven, Run-D.M.C., and Bruce Springsteen, and called for a boycott of the South African luxury resort Sun City during Apartheid; a film-version of the stage production Swimming to Cambodia (1987), by monologist Spalding Gray; and the New York Mafia-by-way-of Downtown comedy Married to the Mob (1988). Throughout 1986 through 2004, Demme was known for his dramatic close-ups in films; according to Demme, this was done to put the viewer into the character’s shoes. Demme formed his production company, Clinica Estetico, with producers Edward Saxon and Peter Saraf in 1987. They were based out of New York City for fifteen years. His 1988 documentary Haiti Dreams of Democracy captured Haiti’s era of democratic rebuilding after dictatorship. He also produced a compilation of Haitian music called Konbit: Burning Rhythms of Haiti that was released in 1989. In 1991 Demme won the Academy Award for The Silence of the Lambs, one of only three films (besides It Happened One Night in 1934 and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1975) to win all the major categories (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress). Inspired by his friend Juan Suárez Botas’ illness with AIDS and fueled by his own moral convictions, Demme then used his influence to make Philadelphia (1993), one of the first major films to address the AIDS crisis and which garnered star Tom Hanks his first Best Actor Oscar. He also co-directed (with his nephew Ted Demme) the music video for Bruce Springsteen’s Best Song Oscar-winning “Streets of Philadelphia” from the film’s soundtrack. Subsequently, his films included an adaptation of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, and remakes of two popular films: The Truth About Charlie (2002), based on Charade (1963, that starred Mark Wahlberg in the Cary Grant role; and The Manchurian Candidate (2004), based on Richard Condon’s 1959 novel of the same name and a re-imagining of the previous 1962 film, with Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep. In 2007 Demme’s film Man from Plains, a documentary about former United States President Jimmy Carter’s book tour in promotion of his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, premiered at the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals. In 2008 the art-house hit Rachel Getting Married was released, which many critics compared to Demme’s films of the late 1970s and 1980s. It received numerous awards and nominations, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress by lead Anne Hathaway. His 2008 documentary The Agronomist profiled Haitian journalist and human rights activist Jean Dominique. In 2010 Demme made his first foray into theater, directing Family Week, a play by Beth Henley. The play was produced by MCC Theater and co-starred Rosemarie DeWitt and Sarah Jones. Demme spent six years on the 2011 documentary I’m Carolyn Parker, which highlighted rebuilding efforts in New Orleans Lower Ninth Ward after Hurricane Katrina. At one time, Demme was signed on to direct, produce, and write an adaptation of Stephen King’s 2011 sci-fi novel 11/22/63, but later left due to disagreements with King on what should be included in the script. Demme was a member of the steering committee of the Friends of the Apollo Theater in Oberlin, Ohio, along with Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman. In 2013 he returned to Oberlin, as part of an alumni reunion during the class of 2013 graduation ceremony, and received the award for Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts. In 2016 he returned to the concert documentary format with Justin Timberlake + the Tennessee Kids, which he described as a “performance film but also a portrait of an artist at a certain moment in the arc of his career”. Demme directed music videos for artists such as Suburban Lawns, New Order, KRS-One’s H.E.A.L. project and Bruce Springsteen. Director Brady Corbet dedicated his 2018 film, Vox Lux, to Demme’s memory (died 2017): ”Your antagonist has to be every bit as formidable as your hero, or you diminish the character you’re supposed to care about. For people starting out writing scripts, they’re in that ‘hiss-the-villain’ mode, and you always want to say “Wait, wait, wait. They’re human too. Give them some problems and you’ll end up with a better story”.
From The Recamier 