An Entry With No Movies Whatsoever But Rather Some Stuff about Hildegard and my Arm Wound

J. Hopper has been completely tearing it/ass up in here, during my amazingly lengthy absence, and I for one salute her and all that she stands for.

It is true that I very quite nearly cut off my own arm in a freak dishwashing accident involving an Ikea bowl (unfortunately thrifted thus un-litigatable, as I understand it (“I’d love to sue someone but…don’t I need a reason?”)). However, whatever doesn’t kill us or actually cut our arm off makes us stronger, so I did learn a few lessons from this traumatic event in my life:

1. Try to calm down and not wash dishes so furiously
2. If you do slice open your arm to the bone, wrap a towel around it before running down the street barefoot to the nearby ER with blood literally pouring down your entire body, frightening many innocent pedestrians and ruining a wide variety of floor-covering materials as well as various paint-jobs on walls and such
3. Always have your phone on you no matter what, so that if you do slice open your arm to the bone you can snap a couple of hilarious pics and text them to all your friends while waiting for the ER doctor to put twenty stitches in your arm

I have attached said photos below in case you have not seen them, as I have no idea how many, if any, of you read my other blog. beware of barfing as I am told they are “upsetting.” It’s not every day a lady gets to look upon her own yellow fatty tissue.

Then while still a-splint (though not a-stitch–those things come out so soon!! (although the two layers of stitches underneath the skin (holding first muscle and then fat together) apparently dissolve on their own (this is some next-level year 3000 bullshit here, thank god for medical science))) I did indeed move across our great nation in a much-too-large Budget moving truck, my snoopy by my side, my other (human) snoopy driving the entire 30 hours and refusing to let me drive. “No, it’s okay,” he’d say, smiling a false rictus of a smile in my direction, “I LIKE TO DRIVE!” translation: “I do not wish to die today by letting you operate this vehicle.” It’s been a bad month for yours truly–upon arriving in Portland I immediately lost my wallet in which was all my August cash, my Bibliiothèque Nationale reader’s card which I had to submit to a grueling all-in-French interview to receive, all my credit cards and drivers licenses and what-not, etc. Then I stepped on a walnut on a weird pressure point and my left foot was numb for a day.

This is all to say: I have not been watching movies. I have watched some television episodes, for example all of “Louie,” perhaps the greatest show on earth, or at least the most honest. Also watched Season 7 of Curb, which was great. Fell asleep watching something I can’t remember. Watched some Mighty Boosh. And that’s it. I haven’t been to a movie or watched a movie in some time.

Today I am going to see either Cave of Forgotten Dreams or The Trip, and we will see what that’s like. I apologize in advance for reviewing a film that has been out for literally months. I assume both films will be awesome. I’m leaning toward The Trip just because I need a laugh today and I have a secret crush on Steve Coogan.

I also wish I had watched the Hildegard movie J. Hop reviewed yesterday, because Hildegard is my hero and sort of one of the reasons I became a musicologist, although you wouldn’t know that from looking at my scholarly history, short though it is, and though I did once present at a conference held by Princeton’s Medieval Studies group, it was not on Hildegard but rather on Star Wars (gross oversimplification for comedic purposes: I also talked about The Shining, Rachmaninoff, and Gérard de Nerval’s pet lobster, Thibeaux, who he used to walk on a blue silk ribbon around the gardens of the Palais Royale (contact me if you would like me to present at your conference on any of these topics, except Rachmaninoff)).

Hildegard of Bingen was so awesome. I really wish there was a go-to text to recommend that would tell you of her life. You could just read her wikipedia page but it would not do her the justice she deserves. I will tell you now, though it could not have less to do with movies. Guess what? Get your own blog if you don’t fucking like it.

In the tenth century, long before the dawn of cinema, rich families used to fob off unwanted extra daughters on the local monastery in lieu of tithing, so they could save money and appear pious at the same time. Hildegard was given to the monastery at Disibodenberg, I think? I forget all the medieval pre-German town names. But anyway there was only one other woman there, a nun named Jutta, so they spent a lot of time in a small stone room that was presumably freezing-ass cold, talking about the Old Testament and, one hopes, secretly making fun of various of the monks who had ownership of them (hilarious sidenote: once, when teaching a classroom of undergrads about the life of medieval monks and nuns, a student raised their hand and in a very upset voice asked “DIDN’T THEY GET DAYS OFF????” And a Marxist was born! (j/k)). Jutta was renowned far and wide as a wise lady, and she passed on a lot of knowledge to young Hildegard, which was more than would have happened if H had just been married off to some dude her father wanted something from, so who’s to say who got the short end of the stick, really, when push comes to shove. The other factor in all this is that Hildegard had been plagued her whole life by unbelievably trippy visions from God, so probably it’s best she became a nun because otherwise she probably would have been a witch, or at least a great trial to her lord husband.

(I really don’t like when people point out that some historical thing like Hildegard’s visions was “probably migraines” or “probably schizophrenia” or whatever. I think it is better to take these things as they were seen at the time, otherwise it’s harder to have any historical understanding at all, I mean, it’s already nearly impossible, so why make it harder? Dude had visions from God that stressed her out and made her a world-renowned wise woman: shit is real to her, and what do we know, anyway? In another 100 years “migraines” will be called something else and they’ll think we’re the stupid ones. Anyway maybe migraines ARE visions from God(s). Have you read Julian Jaynes’ shit about the bicameral mind and how the ancient Greeks weren’t conscious? Holy crap)

After awhile, her visions became upsetting to her because she didn’t know what God wanted from her. Finally God told her “WRITE THIS SHIT DOWN, MY FRIEND.” So she was liberated! She rose from her sick bed, called her little scribe to her side, and dictated to him everything God had shown her in her visions. The results are many tomes of writing on scripture, astrology, botany, and medicine, as well as some truly psychedelic illuminations that have luckily been preserved from the wrath of time and the elements and are now viewable in a google image search.

That last dude’s got the antichrist between his legs!!! WATCH OUT DUDE!

Before all this, while still oppressed by her visions, Hildegard was like “to hell with all that” (Caitlin Flanagan reference, god rot her) and took a bunch of nuns across the river and founded an abbey, because she didn’t like how the monks were doing things. And then kings and popes would come from all around to ask her advice on stuff. And she’d, like, write letters to the bishop chastising him for misinterpreting some psalm or whatever (do you interpret the psalms? Not exactly “up” on my critical exegesis, which is a shame as I have to teach the bible to undergrads in like 8 days, our little secret). She was truly great. When she died they buried her, then later she was sainted (halfway? I don’t think she was officially sainted, she’s one of those informal saints) and they dug up her bones and carved her name on each individual bone and then reburied her in fancier ground, and then a couple hundred years after THAT they dug her up again, and carved her name again into whatever surviving bones there were, and then GILDED the carved names, and then put her bones in a fancy velvet sack, and then I think the sack got lost. How much would you pay for that sack? I’d pay, I don’t know, EVERYTHING ON THE EARTH IN MY POSSESSION

Anyway, so that’s why I haven’t been watching any movies.

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