#bookmarking
https://www.ejiltalk.org/is-israels-use-of-force-against-iran-justified-by-self-defence/
https://lieber.westpoint.edu/select-ihl--arising-israel-iran-conflict/
https://www.justsecurity.org/114641/israel-iran-un-charter-jus-ad-bellum/
https://lieber.westpoint.edu/israels-operation-rising-lion-right-of-self-defense/
https://legal.un.org/repertory/art2/english/rep_supp10_vol1_art2_4.pdf
https://legal.un.org/repertory/art2/english/rep_supp9_vol1_art2_4.pdf
Kefir ($1.85) and a biography of Christian Wolff on the rooftop cafe of the grocery, before buying the week's potatoes, rice, etc. Having a notion of what Kant had to work with at the beginning is proving very useful in understanding the directions things took. Not annotating -- the annotation pace has slowed so much that I'm going to just read a few to get back up to speed.
The thing that I shall miss the most about being circumstanced out of the theatre festival in Transylvania this year is the Noh troupe. Extraordinarily worthwhile.
The attraction to Japanese ritual and contemplative forms might be historically and culturally inflected. In the late 19th c. many Slavic immigrants had just come over to the Midwest, and Japan had prevailed in a stunning triumph over Russe. So there was a fascination among the eastern elites (e.g., Teddy Roosevelt) with Japanese culture, and this perhaps became a cultural force, perhaps displacing or preempting the Eastern forms that had reached the US by going west, instead of east. Just a notion, but the outlines of the facts seem to correspond. Far and few are the ikonostases and Holy Doors in the Midwest. In fairness, even the Roman church was explicitly equated with the Hindu pantheon in the correspondence of the Framers. A protestant nation at founding, but a permissive one (hence Baltimore).
But for whatever reason, the eastern forms do stand in my mind for the necessary focus and mediation that keeps a traveller on his path in summer heat and winter cold.
I'm beginning to realize that the most dangerous misreading of the present American politics might be that the obvious difficulties are somehow an exception existing only at the top. The nature of the shining city on the hill is that its characteristic nature is evident to every passerby. And whether from admiration or from scapegoating, the present difficulties in leadership seem to point to some characteristic sins.
Minor Verdi (Attila) at the city's national theatre. ($5, deep balcony) Excellent programming choice, apparently the full symphony orchestra in the pit, capable soli, large chorus. The sort of country-house stand-and-deliver Verdi that you might have heard at the beginning of the last century in a regional Italian house in a city of decent size, which is to say, a far more worthwhile evening than you'd probably have at one of the international houses with everything over-designed and planned. The essence of Verdi. Much like Shakespeare, it is the psycho-physical condition of the singers, demonstrating the revolutionary practice of freedom. Some clear local meanings in the staging, to be developed at too much length in a proper reflection TK.
Modalisms and modernity. Perhaps not unconnected, the point of the latter being that there are deeper currents of being made accessible by simply going along with what seems to be important at the time. As opposed to living within the already-understood. Being cool, not all doctrinal, which is to say living within experience, and not experience as divided and structured by words.
And yet, acting according to the spontaneous prompting of the mind and what seems good to the others--there are some obvious dangers to this. There are many things that can make us think things.
The local church is war-weary. Perhaps the same war-weariness is also in the Orthodox and Muslim places of prayer. At the Sanctus at the English Mass, the entire congregation stared silently, and it seemed, sullenly, at the violinist intoning the melody. Eventually a few voices murmured something corresponding to the text.
I'm not a fan of the English Masses in this part of the world generally. Functionally, it's useful as a sort of lingua franca Mass, but a traveller shouldn't expect a Mass in their own language; a (novus ordo/modern) Latin rite would do just as well for diplomats, travellers, and foreign workers. Perhaps the reason why the Masses were Latin in the first place. If you know the liturgy well enough, and have the readings, the only longeurs are in the homily, and studying the decorations of the church can easily substitute for listening to the meditations.
The point is the spiritual exercise, the focusing of the mind, the meditation, and the meaningful act. And it seems no one's doing any of these things anymore. In American suburbia, they're worshipping their lawns, in the cities, they're playing to the televisions, and abroad, most seem just to be looking to participate in a social event. Omnis homo mendax. But one honors the obligation. Harrumph, etc.