~old

~imes

Правда

This was taken outside Ari’s dacha near Odessa at a time when we were all much more innocent.  Although only a bit of my own dapper collar is on show (thanks wrk), comrades Raymond, Drong, and Treellama–the old guard–are here.  Things took a grim turn shortly after that fall; let’s try to find ourselves, starting back-

Ray was always a believer–an Old Believer, to be precise…until one morning whilst sifting through Solovyov’s garbage, organizing breakfast, he found a bundle of Jesuit polemics.  Behoving a tonsured Reader, he read them and was changed.  Ray went to seek out new papal pals over the mountains.  I remember the last liturgy we attended together, an all-night-vigil at Nevsky Cathedral–his kiss of peace was dry, distant, distinctly Latin: sunt lacrimae rerum.

sign of the times

Drong got turned onto Traditionalism in a big way when he heard Mr. Plyae namecheck René Guénon at one of his storied garden parties. His search for the imam of his own being led him far afield–casting runes with Lovinescu at the latter’s hoary manor in the Carpathians, cracking skulls in a hushed-up stint with the Italian Ordine Nuovo, down-and-out and pole dancing (sacred poles, mind you) in Bloomington, Indiana with the remnant of Schuon’s ill-fated Maryamiyyah–Drong was lost to us; lost in a little toybox of perennialism, peyote, and ねこかわいい.

I miss you, Drong. I think of you every time the kettle boils.

Deaf to the warnings of his father-confessor, Mr. Smith set off in 1962 for a tour of the diaspora in the the American Midwest.  He never arrived.  Ken Olsen’s thugs were prowling the docks; our beloved brooder found himself press-ganged and marched to Maynard for a life of toil in the deepest warrens under The Mill.  His eyesight withered in the gloom, but his hair–or something like it–grew back, no doubt due to inhaling the eldritch vapours of the JUICE eddying in the VAXen herds’ feeding troughs.  Treellama’s part in events darkly hinted at elsewhere remains unclear to me.

’tis small wonder 090909 was a rather lowkey affair.

1月15日　「Tour Diary」

Deciding to take a vacation?  Now where can you go?  Ireland?  A bit too cold this time of the year.  Paris?

No.

A week at the cricket in Johannesburg.  England touring.  Readers will be spared the tedium of my memoirs; I confine myself here to the salient points:

Morning session.  Arrived at Wanderers for second day of fourth Test.  Conditions smashing.  Thermoplyae not in attendance, contrary to dream as recorded in {d0×9B5:TERMISFORBIDDEN}.

Lunch.  Can now confirm the thermophantasm’s assessment: J.P. Duminy is, in fact, not hot.

Afternoon session.  Inclement weather; remainder of day’s play called off twenty minutes prior to tea break.  Praise THE LORD for having mercy on the boys.  Returned to rooms at embassy; telegram waiting with tea.  Monsignor Pasco may raise an eyebrow at the allusion, but what sprang to mind was the interclerical salutation of the Greek schismatics.

Hotmodal is in our midst.

He is and ever shall be.

I confess I’m rather bemused by the great man’s invitation. I fear I’ve as much interest in administration as I do in wikis [?women].

Be seeing you.

Now that MARARTHON has officially taken its own life, there are a few things I’d like to get off my chest. I mean, they’ve bothered me for something like a year. That’s a long time if you think about it. (Also, I have the gift of Bourbon, so truth is coming more naturally to me at the moment.)

(Try to read between the lines a little bit more)

[16:27] < @Wrkncacnter> the water column was better than i was expecting
[16:28] < @Wrkncacnter> better as in much more stupid
[16:28] < @treellama> yeah it really was
[16:28] < @treellama> so, now what, thermo
[16:28] < @thermoplyae> now i die happy
[16:28] < @treellama> ok
[16:28] < @thermoplyae> we’ve all seen what we came for
[16:28] < @thermoplyae> and that was it, 4GET is feasible now

Here it is.

With any luck, you’ll never hear from me again.

RE: Through the Lookingmaintenancecloset.

CLIQUE c. June 2004 (Irons in yellow, Gonzague to his right)

K’ter l’oracne’ktr ESB’crkn rhl l’oac’rkthahrl tr’lac.
L’on t’hrl’ory, l’on l’oa’rhl’ktr tr’tract l’on t’rac r’ar r’arhl’rac.

(Try to read between the lines a little bit more)

     END